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Asia, a region known for some of the world's most innovative technology companies and tech-savvy populations, has been surprisingly slow to adopt legal technology. But several Asian legal markets — Singapore, India, Japan and even Mongolia — started to make headway in 2019.

Last June, Singapore, the legaltech hub of Asia, launched the region's first major legaltech-focused startup accelerator. Called Global Legal Innovation and Digital Entrepreneurship (GLIDE), the accelerator is the latest effort by the Future Law Innovation Programme (FLIP), a pilot program created in 2018 by the Singapore Academy of Law, a government body, to promote legaltech.  

GLIDE selected seven startups from around the world for its inaugural cohort: LegalFAB and LexKnights in Singapore, BriefBox and Checkbox in Sydney, Remedium in Perth, Anduin in San Francisco and Legal Navigator in Dubai. That group graduated from the program with a Demo Day on Jan. 16, when startups demonstrated their companies to prospective investors.

The startup accelerator is the most significant initiative so far by FLIP, which is in its final year. The Singapore Academy of Law declined to comment on FLIP's plans for 2020, saying only that it is currently reviewing plans for FLIP.

But FLIP played a big part in putting the small city-state of Singapore on the legaltech map. The program was mentioned as a milestone in Singapore's legaltech scene in a November report by the Law Society of England & Wales, which named the city-state one of the 10 emerging legaltech markets in the world; the only other Asian cities listed among the 10 were Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.

In India, there was also a landmark development in the country's legaltech scene. In February 2019, India's largest firm, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, launched Prarambh, the first legaltech startup incubator in the country. In October, the six-month incubator program selected three local startups as its first cohort: JRTC Intern, Leegality and LegalMind.

Prarambh is the latest legaltech effort by Cyril Amarchand, which had broken ground in the area before. It was the first firm in India to adopt artificial intelligence technology in its day-to-day practice, signing up with Canadian machine-learning software provider Kira Systems in 2017 to process contracts and other legal documents more quickly and accurately. "We have been the first to adopt a number of new technologies in the legal space, such as artificial intelligence-based machine learning, and we are now the first to support and incubate technology startups," managing partner Cyril Shroff said in a statement.

Japan also saw one of its major firms make a move into legaltech. Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, one of the four largest Japanese firms, formed an alliance with MNTSQ Ltd., a legaltech startup and an affiliate of Tokyo-listed machine-learning technology company PKSHA Technology Inc. In addition, Nagashima Ohno will invest about $7 million in MNTSQ over the next several years.

"We believe it is important to actively utilize technologies such as natural language processing in the field of legal services in Japan, which is entering a period of change," said Fumihide Sugimoto, managing partner of Nagashima Ohno. "We strongly hope that this alliance will lead to the development of higher-quality legaltech." 

And in Mongolia, one of the country's leading domestic firms pushed the developing nation into legaltech. In November, MDS KhanLex launched iGeree, a legaltech platform that automates contracts and has a chatbot feature powered by artificial intelligence. The platform is the first significant legaltech initiative by a major firm in Mongolia.

IGeree is for small- and medium-sized companies in Mongolia, where there is a dearth of lawyers. "Once the accessibility of legal services is in the palm of the consumers, then they really get the true access to justice," said MDS KhanLex managing partner Maizorig Janchivdorj. "That will bring advantage to the protection of their interests."

MDS KhanLex has more plans for legaltech. It is preparing to establish a dedicated research institute with local startup CodeLex and is in collaboration with several companies in data engineering and AI. CodeLex was founded in 2018 by Janchivdorj and claims to be the first legaltech company in Mongolia.

The research institute will help solve an urgent issue in Mongolia: the lack of tech experts. "That is the No. 1 issue," said Janchivdorj. "It's difficult to find good engineers [in Mongolia]. Unless you get involved and try to change that, nothing will change."