LLAW3272

General Course Information

1.1 Course details

Course code: LLAW3272
Course name: Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) – Lawtech and Regtech Sandbox
Programme offered under: LLB Programme
Semester: Second
Designated research course: Not applicable
Specialization: Chinese law, Commercial, corporate and financial law, International trade and economic law
Prerequisites / Co-requisites: LLAW3254 (highly recommended but not required)
Course offered to non-law students: Yes
Credit point value: 6 credits
Video links:

1.2 Course description

The provision of legal, regulatory compliance and justice services, like many other industries, is being transformed by innovation and technology. Private practitioners, legal and compliance departments and non-governmental organisations fostering access to justice (A2J) alike are on this challenging journey, with the advent of new business models and competitors (such as alternative legal service providers, lawtech firms and online dispute resolution), as well as new technologies, such as automation, artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology/ blockchain.

This experiential and interdisciplinary course seeks to prepare students to better understand and engage in the future of the legal profession and inclusive delivery of legal services by enabling them to co-design and co-create proof-of-concept (PoC) lawtech or regtech tools with real-world project partners.

Accordingly, this course welcomes law students as well as students across the university (regardless of their discipline) who are keen to be part of the transformation of the legal profession and delivery of legal regulatory compliance and justice services in Hong Kong and beyond, and perhaps be our future legal engineers!

Focus will be on the use of low/no code platforms to enable non-technical to develop proof-of-concepts within the period of a semester, where more technical students will be encouraged to develop on more advanced platforms.

Students are also introduced to the innovation and technology methodologies of organisations (startup and established), including legl design thinking, business model canvas,  agile project management, and computational thinking.

Students may elect to co-design and co-create a PoC lawtech or regtech tool with one of the following categories of under-resourced project partners (and have the opportunity to visit and work at the offices of the project partners, as may be mutually agreed):

  • A non-governmental organization (NGO) on innovative A2J tech solutions (and have the opportunity to represent HKU in international competitions such as Georgetown Law’s Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational)
  • A private sector legal organization, such as a legal and compliance department, initially on automation lawtech PoCs to solve real-world painpoints (examples of prior project partners include FedEx Express, HSBC and Goodman Asia)

Projects will be conducted in teams to give students the experience of working collaboratively, as they would in a real-world lawtech or regtech startup, legal department or law firm. The course has also invited industry mentors, such as from Clifford Chance’s Innovation & Best Delivery Team in Hong Kong: https://www.cliffordchance.com/insights/resources/blogs/innovation-insights/2021/07/new-learning-opportunities-for-the-next-generation-of-lawyers.html

The semester will end with a final student presentation including invited guests, including our project partners and ecosystem partners.

Selected final projects will have the opportunity to be hosted on the LITE Lab website to serve as a resource to more broadly benefit the Hong Kong innovation and technology ecosystem.

In the past, LITE Lab@HKU’s Lawtech & Regtech Sandbox has been recognized as

Our LITE Lab students have also been offered opportunities to complete in global and local competitions, and have won eg, :

  • Baker McKenzie Boost Legal Innovation 2022 (Frankfurt)
  • University of Hong Kong Faculty of Engineering Innovation Academy’s InnoShow 2021 and InnoSpark 2021
  • Georgetown University Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational 2020 (USA)

It is highly recommended but not required that students also enrol in LITE Lab@HKU’s foundational course LLAW3254 (First Semester), which is an interdisciplinary survey course covering the relevant substantive law.

This course is not a clinical course supervised by a licensed legal practitioner, and accordingly students cannot and do not give any legal advice.

As of 2021-22, the Faculty of Law has determined that all experiential courses (including this course) would be assessed on a pass/fail basis. Students are warned that inadequate effort in this course and their final deliverable will result in a failing grade.

To enable timely and effective matching of students and project partners, upon enrolment, students may only drop the course with the course instructor’s consent.

To learn more about LITE Lab@HKU, please see its student recently created website (which is still subject to updating) at https://litelab.law.hku.hk/.

1.3 Course teachers

Name E-mail address Office Consultation
Course convenor Brian Tang bwtang@hku.hk CCT 802 By email

Learning Outcomes

2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course

CLO 1 Demonstrate an understanding of the history, evolution and role legaltech and regtech in society and in the international context.

CLO 2 Demonstrate teamwork, collaboration and project/product management skills to develop legaltech and regtech prototypes focussed on different stakeholders in corporate, law firm, government and civil society.

CLO 3 Demonstrate mindset and skillset to at least use no-code and low-code skills to develop legaltech and regtech prototypes that benefit the different stakeholders.

CLO 4 Demonstrate presentation skills to share and give demos of their prototypes to the different stakeholders, including potentially for the purposes of international competitions.

2.2 LLB Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)

Please refer to the following link: https://course.law.hku.hk/llb-plo/

2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course

PLO A PLO B PLO C PLO D PLO E PLO F
CLO 1 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
CLO 2 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
CLO 3 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
CLO 4 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Assessment(s)

3.1 Assessment Summary

Assessment task Due date Weighting Feedback method* Course learning outcomes
Class participation TBC 10% 4, 5 1, 2, 3, 4
Learning reflections TBC 10% 2, 3, 4, 5 1, 2, 3, 4
Project service/ product delivery TBC 40% 2, 3, 4 ,5 1, 2, 3, 4
Final project deliverable TBC 40% 2, 3, 4, 5 1, 2, 3, 4
*Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher)
1 A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle
2 Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle
3 Individual review meeting upon appointment
4 Group review meeting
5 In-class verbal feedback

3.2 Assessment Detail

To be advised by course convenor(s).

3.3 Grading Criteria

Students will be assessed on a pass/fail basis.

Learning Activities

4.1 Learning Activity Plan

Seminar: 3 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks
Private study time: 9.5 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks

Remarks: the normative student study load per credit unit is 25 ± 5 hours (ie. 150 ± 30 hours for a 6-credit course), which includes all learning activities and experiences within and outside of classroom, and any assessment task and examinations and associated preparations.

4.2 Details of Learning Activities

To be advised by course convenor(s).

Learning Resources

5.1 Resources

Reading materials: Reading materials are posted on Moodle
Core reading list: TBA
Recommended reading list: TBA

5.2 Links

Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/