A group of technology savvy innovators recently came together as part of the Global Legal Hackathon (GLH) in Riverwoods, Illinois the last weekend in February to create a new legal technology application called ICAIR (Contract Alert Intelligent Result) designed to further protect companies and help them manage their legal, financial, and reputational risks. In the process, the eight-member WeCAIR team became one of the event’s first round winners, earning the right to proceed to the semifinals in March, and potentially on to the finals scheduled in New York City in May.
In Riverwoods, 26 participants were spread over four teams, and including staff, volunteers, and judges. There were 48 attendees during the course of the weekend. Aside from the first-place finisher, a number of other interesting legal problems were tackled by the other three teams. These included:
- An application called Required Event Disclosure which would assist corporate counsel to determine whether a particular event, such as a data breach or an oil spill, required disclosure to shareholders under securities law by utilizing artificial intelligence and data enrichment techniques;
- The Cover Your Case application which allows a busy litigation attorney to find available counsel to cover routine court calls and proceedings in short order; and
- A tool named Legal Hub which facilitated matching clients to attorneys with specialized expertise in a given practice area.
What is the GLH? Simply, the GLH provides a platform for legal innovators to come together to build and launch technology-based solutions aimed at a solving a particular problem connected with the practice of law or access to legal services. Many GLH participants focused their efforts on some of the most significant challenges as identified by Wolters Kluwer customers from around the world. The top five issues included the following:
- Tracking legal changes affecting the industry and the impact on the firm and customers;
- Providing relevant legal information connecting external and internal knowledge;
- Better understanding the impact of regulatory changes/events, particularly across multiple jurisdictions;
- Enabling small legal practices to compete with bigger players; and
- Crafting a winning litigation strategy.
In evaluating the projects, the panel peppered the GLH participants with penetrating questions and focused on following three criteria:
- User validation. Does the developed solution have a good understanding of the users and their needs?
- Design and implementation. How good is the solutions design? How well is it executed
- Business Model. How feasible is the business model?
Judges probed team members with respect how an “event” is defined under the system, how to train the system, customization, and how to price and market the application. The team leader noted that the system was based on a fully automated approach, but it could also accommodate specific human intervention.
Why legal hackathons matter and are needed. There aren’t many opportunities for people who work in law firms, corporate legal departments, and other institutions to connect and work on innovation together according to Dean Sonderegger, Vice President & General Manager, Legal Markets and Innovation at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. He believes that the hackathon platform provides a space for various legal industry players to express their needs and collaborate on solutions. Specifically, Sonderegger has articulated some key reasons why legal hackathon events are of crucial importance to the industry including:
- Connectivity among participants: A hackathon provides a forum for networking and collaboration that is rare to encounter in our industry. Connections made at industry events or conferences certainly have their value, but participating in an iterative process with industry peers presents a different kind of opportunity to connect with people whom you may not otherwise encounter.
- Exposure for great ideas: Hackathons have the potential to shine the light on people with great ideas. This presents a very different format from many other legal market events, where start-ups may not have as much of a presence as other companies. Events of this kind allow truly innovative thinking to take center stage.
- Identification of common issues: It’s normal for professionals in certain functions to have similar sets of challenges—and chances are there’s someone halfway across the world with the same challenges as you, and perhaps that person has an idea about how to solve them. Collaborative events give professionals the chance to connect and dive into solving for specific use cases that impact their work and their clients.
- Getting away from the day-to-day grind. When you’re focused on operating your business, it’s not easy to innovate within your own environment. According to legal technology leader David Fisher, “Hackathons can create a unique laboratory for professionals to invent, build, and innovate around common challenges that practitioners encounter every day.” Fisher is the founder and CEO of Integra Ledger and one of the founders of the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium, a legal industry group focused on standards and governance for the use of blockchain technology in the industry.