Cutting tedious legal research with intelligent search engine

SMU School of Law alumnus and co-founder of Intellex (a legal tech start-up) Chang Zi Qian was featured in a Straits Times article. Launched in January, Intelllex, meaning "intelligent law", is a website that helps lawyers search faster, keep notes and organise their research better. It has already attracted more than 1,000 users - about half of whom are lawyers and the rest law students. The service is currently free, but a subscription fee is likely to be introduced next year. Mr Chang noted that the base of legal information is growing exponentially as more cases are reported and at a faster rate. To deal with the increasing demands of clients, the founders of Intelllex are trying to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve the problem of knowledge management. Mr Chang added that sometimes, partners ask for "fact-specific research" or "quick-turnaround for answers", which can be tough to obtain with existing legal platforms. His website uses a search algorithm that understands legal case relationships so that it offers more relevant cases, commentaries and statutes across countries. It focuses on jurisdictions which adopt common law like Singapore, and is able to pick out the legal context of a word or phrase instead of the plain English meaning. It can also save results for future reference and organise cases according to each lawyer's needs.

The Straits Times, pB2 

The Straits Times Online