Boost Legal Innovation is an inaugural international competition organised by global law firm Baker McKenzie, in conjunction with ekipa as accelerator, to drive purpose- and content-driven legal tech. The global digital generation was invited to come up with digital and sustainable innovation in cooperation with established companies and organizations.

Brian Tang, the founding executive director of Law, Innovation, Technology & Entrepreneurship Lab (LITE Lab) at University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law, introduced some of the Boost Legal Innovation use cases into LITE Lab’s legal design thinking exercises this semester, and then invited his students and their friends to participate in the international competition.

From amongst Tang’s three undergraduate and postgraduate LITE Lab@HKU interdisciplinary and experiential courses, three teams made submissions to participate, from which two were invited to be interviewed and were ultimately selected to be finalists to attend a virtual global bootcamp and then pitch in the finals on December 9.

Team HKU-CIGW comprises of an interdisciplinary team of 4 undergraduate HKU students: Chik Siu Hay Cordelia (BSc, Year 3), Isabella Maria Wilhelmina Kroon (BSc, Year 3), Wong Ho Shing Gordon (BBA (Law) & LLB, Year 5) and Lam Hin Wang Walter (BBA (Acc&Fin), Year 3).

Team Carpe Diem comprises a team of 9 postgraduate law HKU students who have divided themselves to focus on four areas: user demand analysis (Shuai Zijian (LLM); Dai Shilan (LLM (Chinese Law)); legal (Ding Zhuo (LLM (Chinese Law); Yuan Yuzhou (LLM)); user interface design (Guo Zhixin (MCL); Luo Xinyue (MCL)); and business model (Qiu Jing (LLM (Chinese Law); Xi Siqi (MCL); Li Yashi (LLM (Compliance and Regulation).

Both teams are addressing the Navigator for Children in Crisis use case to create access to justice lawtech to assist vulnerable street children and their advocates better understand match their legal needs and entitlements. And because they will actually be competing against each other in the finals, LITE Lab@HKU students will in any case be the global winners in this Lawtech4Good category!

“It’s a privilege to be part of LITE Lab as a non-law student”, said Bachelor of Science student Cordelia Chik, who is a student of two LITE courses on tech startup law and lawtech & regtech sandbox this semester. “It has given me the opportunity to learn about legaltech, this competition and other opportunities to be participated in legal design thinking. This is an environment that fosters innovation, friendly competition and growth on all levels. Being able to learn and work within LITE Lab is an invigorating experience in itself, and knowing that our work can help and support the community makes it all the more exciting.”

“LITE Lab has presented with us a precious opportunity to apply what we have learned for better good,” said LLM student Ding Zhuo, “This platform allows nine of us to find like-minded graduate students from different backgrounds but the same can-do spirit. With a dedicated professor like Brian, LITE Lab is a true incubator for innovation and entrepreneurship that we are excited to be part of.”

Team HKU-CIGW (from left): Isabella Maria Wilhelmina Kroon, Chik Siu Hay Cordelia, LITE Lab Director Brian Tang, Wong Ho Shing Gordon and Lam Hin Wang Walter

Team Carpe Diem (from left top): Shuai Zijian, Luo Xinyue, Xu Siqi, Yuan Yuzhou and Mr Brian Tang
(From left bottom): Dai Shilan Dai, Guo Zhixin, Qiu Jing, Li Yashi and Ding Zhuo