OVER the last few years, we have seen an influx of apps flooding the market, but very few apps that are solely aimed for lawyers.
EasyLaw provides a land search service, calculation service for legal fees and real property gains tax, in addition to providing digitised access to statutes and articles of law through their website and app.
According to founder June Low, the inspiration behind her company was other technology companies like Uber.
“I’m from an ecommerce background, at that time we had a few friends chitchatting and the topic of what industry could drastically change by technology introduction.”
“It so happened that we had a friend who was a lawyer, that came up with the topic. It all happened in a Mamak session, a few friends came out to talk about this topic and that’s where the idea came from.”
The app was primarily born out of the need to bridge gaps between the legal sphere and technology in South-East Asia.
“Due to the nature of lawyers in Malaysia, the lawyers are not taught of using technology in their core-curriculum when they are studying .”
For lawyers in Malaysia, most of them consider physical paperwork to be normal and therefore hesitate to turn to digital solutions that could be both cost and time effective.
“We were thinking what kind of solution could we provide to the lawyer to make sure to help them in their work, to work faster and make their work more productive,” says Low.
Even though digitisation is becoming a trend in legal spheres, with Low’s own company only starting in 2017 they are slightly curbed by the Courts and regulatory bodies in Malaysia.
This is due to an Act titled the Legal Profession (Practice and Etiquette) Rules 1978, which prohibits lawyers from participating in “touting”. Simply put, lawyers are not allowed to directly advertise to clients and that there cannot be a third-party that can act as an advocate and or solicitor to bring clients to lawyers.
Low had the same answer when asked if she wanted to help ordinary citizens access the legal system in a better way.
“If the bar council allows.”
Perhaps in the future Malaysia may see more applications designed to help citizens access justice if the existing laws are revamped to accommodate modern solutions that could benefit many.
By Christie Abraham January 10, 2020
