2 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS – DECEMBER 2023 WWW.LEGALBUSINESSONLINE.COM Asian Legal Business is available by subscription. Please visit www.legalbusinessonline.com for details. Asian Legal Business has an audited average circulation of 11,402 as of 30 September 2016.Copyright is reserved throughout. No part of this publication can be reproduced in whole or part without the express permission of the editor. Contributions are invited, but copies of work should be kept, as Asian Legal Business can accept no responsibility for loss. MCI (P) 003/02/2023 issn 0219 – 6875 KDN PPS 1867/10/2015(025605) Thomson Reuters 18 Science Park Drive Singapore 118229 / T (65) 6775 5088 / F (65) 6333 0900 10/F, Cityplaza 3, Taikoo Shing, Hong Kong / T (852) 3762 3269 www.thomsonreuters.com Could 2024 be the year of the small firm? As 2023 comes to end, I’m once again reminded that the legal industry has never witnessed a time like this. Think back on a time not too long ago – let’s say just a decade before now – and you will remember that change happened incrementally, if it even happened at all. Those atop existing hierarchies and structures at that time had little to worry about with the tiniest of ripples forming on the sector’s placid surface. Today, the transformation is like a turbo-charged storm, the disruption coming in ever-steeper waves. Forget thinking a decade ahead; the legal industry could look vastly different in just a few years from today. The big gamechanger this year, of course, has been generative AI. ChatGPT only appeared in the last quarter of 2022. Since then, we’ve laughed at the hilarious story of the U.S. attorney who produced hallucinated case citations in court, and mulled publicly on LinkedIn about whether the robots would take over our jobs. But at the same time, serious work has been happening to harness the power of these robots. The headline news may have been global law firms investing in AI tech, but lawyers at all levels have begun using generative AI to draft documents, streamline processes, analyse contracts, and speed up research. I predict that one big outcome of this trend, at least in Asia, will be to drastically level the playing field for small and domestic firms. Talent was never the issue for them, but a lack of resources has so far been the differentiator between the haves and the have-nots. And the tide is turning. Singapore, for example, has seen the establishment of some high-quality boutiques, and in both the Lion City and Hong Kong, our Firms to Watch rankings this year attracted more entries than ever before. With clients growing increasingly price-sensitive in an inflationary climate (see our “State of the Market” cover story in this issue), there’s never been a better time for smaller firms to shine. And now they have the technology on their side. RANAJIT DAM Managing Editor, Asian Legal Business, Thomson Reuters HEAD OF LEGAL MEDIA BUSINESS, ASIA & EMERGING MARKETS Amantha Chia amantha.chia@thomsonreuters.com MANAGING EDITOR Ranajit Dam ranajit.dam@thomsonreuters.com ASIA JOURNALIST Sarah Wong sarah.wong@thomsonreuters.com ASIA WRITER Nimitt Dixit nimitt.dixit@thomsonreuters.com RANKINGS AND SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Wang Bingqing bingqing.wang@thomsonreuters.com COPY & WEB EDITOR Rowena Muniz rowena.muniz@thomsonreuters.com SENIOR DESIGNER John Agra john.agra@thomsonreuters.com TRAFFIC/CIRCULATION MANAGER Rozidah Jambari rozidah.jambari@thomsonreuters.com SALES MANAGERS Hiroshi Kaneko Japan (81) 3 4520 1192 hiroshi.kaneko@thomsonreuters.com Jonathan Yap Indonesia, Singapore (65) 6973 8914 jonathan.yap@thomsonreuters.com Krupa Dalal India, Middle East, Singapore (91) 22 6189 7087 krupa.dalal@thomsonreuters.com Romulus Tham Southeast Asia (65) 6973 8248 romulus.tham@thomsonreuters.com Steffi Yang South and West China (86) 010 5669 2041 qifan.yang@thomsonreuters.com Steven Zhao China Key Accounts (86) 10 6627 1360 s.zhao@thomsonreuters.com Yvonne Cheung China Key Accounts, Hong Kong and Korea (852) 2847 2003 yvonne.cheung@thomsonreuters.com SENIOR EVENTS MANAGER Julian Chiew julian.chiew@thomsonreuters.com SENIOR EVENTS MANAGER, AWARDS Tracy Li tracy.li@thomsonreuters.com
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