AI Law and a Dash of Sambal

Oh, the glamorous life of a modern in-house lawyer (Singapore style). Back in the day (let's say 2023), you were the cool corporate legal beagle. Yes, I said beagle because that’s how we lawyers in Singapore are generally treated.

You helped with billion-dollar deals, slapped wrists on compliance slips, and sometimes showed off your "business partner" muscles in board meetings. Life was busy, that's for sure, but the stress had a certain rhythm. There were endless emails, the occasional fire drill (some kachang puteh, others full on fiery nasi lemak sambal), and weekends that were supposed to be yours.

Welcome to 2026, the Age of AI, where your once-reliable inbox now comes with a side of existential dread and an extra boost to your productivity that you didn't ask for.Imagine this: You log in on Monday morning with a cup of coffee in hand, hung over from playing diablo or watching knight of the seven kingdoms or whatever else floats your goat, ready to deal with the usual pile of contracts, regulatory questions, and that one procurement request that has somehow turned into a geopolitical crisis.

But hold on—your boss (oh, they call them Squad Leads now) has already "helped" by putting the whole stack of vendor agreements into a shiny new legal AI tool. Boom: drafts made, risks pointed out, and summaries made into bullet points—all in the time it took you to refresh LinkedIn and type in “head of legal positions, remote, labuan” wonder why everyone is talking about "reclaiming 14 hours a week." Isn't that great? More time to think about thriving! More bandwidth to do things you dunno how to do! More time to take on extra work!

But the emails keep coming. The amount of work on the project somehow doubled because someone said, "Hey, if AI can write a first draft in 30 seconds, why aren't we closing deals twice as fast?" All of a sudden, your day looks like this:9:00 AM: Look over 47 NDAs made by AI. They look perfect until you see the made-up clause that says "the laws of of the republic of Temasek” and that “Singlish will prevail” or true story, that the indemnity clause does not cover wanton mee behaviour. Alright maybe not true but you get the drift.

Ever heard of the long tail of the distribution? Yeah, it hits legal AI just as hard as it does Elon's self-driving dreams. Tools nail the boring 99%—standard NDAs, routine compliance checks, yawn-inducing boilerplate—in seconds. Then comes the fun 1%: rare jurisdictional quirks, evolving Singapore regs, cross-border ambiguities, and the occasional glorious hallucination about governing law in the Republic of Temasek or indemnity for wanton mee misbehaviour. Those edge cases don't just annoy you; they can end careers. So sure, AI "helps"… until it doesn't, and you're still the one explaining to the boss why the robot invented a new country. Welcome to the endless tail chase—precision isn't optional, it's the only thing keeping you employed.

So they say that most lawyers say AI helps their work and that they are afraid AI will take their job. Well I don’t think so. As long as every now and then I gotta worry about Wanton Mee and Securities and Derivatives Accounts Act (no such thing) popping up, well, I don’t have to worry. But. Any lawyer who puts his heads in the proverbial sand and does not figure out what AI is about, well, prepare to be left in the smoke, and dust, and ruin. When they are not citing the courts of Temasek they are running rings around you in the drafting.