Dr Stanley Lai, SC

Dr Stanley Lai, SC is a Partner at Allen & Gledhill, where he serves as Head of the Intellectual Property Practice and Co‑Head of the Cybersecurity & Data Protection Practice. He specialises in intellectual property law, data protection and cybersecurity, and commercial litigation, with a particular focus on patent infringement cases in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors, technology disputes, and regulatory investigations.

Stanley has acted in landmark cases including Figma, Inc v Motiff Pte. Ltd. on copyright and trade mark infringement; SingHealth in the Committee of Inquiry into Singapore's largest cyberattack; Quoine Pte Ltd v B2C2 Ltd, the first cryptocurrency dispute before the Singapore Court of Appeal; Warner‑Lambert Company LLC v Novartis (Singapore) Pte Ltd on pharmaceutical patent litigation; and Credit Suisse Trust Limited in Bidzina Ivanishvili v Credit Suisse AG. He maintains a strong advisory practice in IP/data management and cybersecurity, and represents clients in investigations by the Personal Data Protection Commission.

Stanley holds an LL.B. (Hons) from the University of Leicester, an LL.M. and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Cambridge, making him the first Singapore‑born lawyer to be conferred a Ph.D. in Law from Cambridge. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales (Lincoln's Inn) in 1993 and to the Singapore Bar in 1995, and was appointed Senior Counsel in January 2010.

He has published extensively on IP and information technology law, including the book The Copyright Protection of Computer Software in the United Kingdom. He is a member of the SIAC Panel of Arbitrators, the Singapore Copyright Tribunal, and the SDRP Panel. In 2026, he was appointed Chairperson of the Data Protection Appeal Panel and serves as a neutral in the Unified Patent Court's Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre. He is a Senior Mediator at the Singapore Mediation Centre and a Specialist Mediator at the Singapore International Mediation Centre. He was awarded the Public Service Medal (PBM) in 2020 and the Public Service Star (BBM) in 2024, and received the Singapore Academy of Law Merit Award in 2022. He has been recognised as a leading individual by Chambers Asia‑Pacific, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific, IAM Patent 1000, World Trademark Review 1000, and Asian Legal Business, and was named Intellectual Property Lawyer of the Year at The Legal 500 Southeast Asia Awards 2023 and "Lawyer of the Year" in Technology Law by Best Lawyers (2026).