The fifth iteration of Legal Tech Day in Stockholm, organised by LegalWorks, was impressive. Not only was there a great speaker line-up, but the panels were dynamite and very well moderated. There were lots of international tech providers and the break-out sessions were well-attended. And it was a pleasure to see that the Swedes have solved the gender imbalance common at conferences in the industry. A key takeaway: less than half of Sweden’s general counsels have started to automate their work, representing a great opportunity for legal tech providers.
Tech BBQ 2019
Nordic Legal Tech draws a crowd
The pelting rain didn’t hold us back at this year’s Tech BBQ. Nor did it stop the many legal tech enthusiasts who came to our two standing room-only panel debates at the Dive-In stage at Øksnehallen.
The first panel was an insightful discussion on ‘What Startups Can Teach Law Firms – and the Consultancy Industry’ with digital consulting house, Nine, law firm Synch, a serial fintech entrepreneur and panel moderator, Nordic Legal Tech CEO, Nicholas Hawtin.
And startups have plenty to teach, it seems! It was clear from this debate that if law firms and traditional consultancies are to avoid their “Kodak moment”, they need to create value for their customers. Just like startups, they should start working with value propositions and building products their customers actually demand. This means building agile teams with entrepreneurial mindsets.
The second panel was a lively discussion with a customer-centric design expert, a research fellow from Stanford University, a professor of law at the University of Copenhagen, an entrepreneur and panel chair, Nicholas Hawtin, on the vexed question: ‘Can Technology Build Trust?’
What we took from the discussion was that we need to collectively engage with and agree upon how we can strike a balance between technology, innovation and the regulation needed to hold tech companies accountable.
We expect we’ll continue to discuss these massive topics at future tech events!
Welcome PREACT Insights Solutions
Legal tech provider, PREACT, joins Nordic Legal Tech
We are happy to welcome our newest member, our second legal tech provider, PREACT.
“After years of working with data solutions in the legal industry, PREACT have developed a solution to make insight simple and specifically customized for legal companies and their exact reporting and analytical needs. Therefore we are proud and excited to join Nordic Legal Tech. It is of great importance for us as a tech company to be close to and a part of the LegalTech community, so that we continuously can improve and develop smarter solutions to fit the analytical needs of the modern law company.” Lars Schultz, CEO
We look forward to working with you.
Speaking Out at Techfestival 2019
Techfestival was a hit!
Techfestival is a phenomenon. And we were there.
We held an event to gauge the views on whether technology can build trust. The topic obviously interests many, as the gig was one of the first to sell out and had to be moved to a larger venue.
Dr. Alexandra Andhov, Sarah Barslund Lauridsen and our CEO, Nicholas Hawtin, each gave brief presentations to introduce the subject, the format, and give a couple of perspectives on trust. Then the audience took over for 90 minutes of often intense debate. A fifteen-minute wrap up caught the main takeaways, while a big pile of post-its documented the work of the individual groups. We’ll be posting those on social media. (They make for good pictures.)
Co-founder Dr Alexandra Andhov took time out at September’s Techfestival to chat with Charlie Tango. She touched on the issues of the day: whether we can trust companies, private or public, with our data and how do we regulate technology.
Dr Andhov also talked about the role of education in this discussion; how we need to train law students to deal with the digitalised world so they are able to communicate with tech providers with sufficient understanding of technology.
Check out the discussion here.
Director Nicholas Hawtin also stopped by Charlie Tango’s Techfestival studio to have a conversation. In this chat, he suggests that the Nordics are well placed to set the standard on how technology can provide solutions to the practice of law and legal compliance. Two factors unique to the Nordics – being the most digitalised place on earth and enjoying high levels of trust – make for great opportunities to deliver legal tech services. Let’s take advantage of it!
We also got to talk to idea management platform, Ideanote, at Techfestival about the importance of making mistakes and innovation. If you’re in innovation, get ready to be wrong. Failure, when thoroughly examined, is a fantastic way to learn.
It was a bumper event!
Consensus 2019 and Blockchain Future
By Alexandra Andhov, New York, US
It is the fifth year that Consensus brings together developers, investors, executives, regulators and educators to discuss the current stage of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the United States and across the world. The blockchain technology summit offers not only interesting discussions, but also hands-on workshops and the possibility to directly interact with developers. Aside of an array of start-ups and financial institutions, you will also find established businesses such as IBM or Deloitte at Consensus. The amount of attendees can be overwhelming, but the organizers have done very well with an app that provides every participant with agenda, list of speakers and attendees, so they can individualize and narrow down their focus and interest.
Over the past months, I have been working on a research project that addresses technology and trust in the capital markets. Despite initially being slightly skeptical about blockchain and all the noise around cryptocurrencies, I have devoted a lot of time to try to understand this phenomenon and see its implications not only for capital markets, but also for companies and their corporate governance. During my Fulbright Fellowship at Cornell Law School this year, I had the possibility to discuss my project with numerous scholars at Cornell, but also across the United States, with scholars from Stanford, Wharton or Columbia, and many businesspeople and start-ups (more about my research in a future article). After substantial energy spent over tech and legal articles on blockchain, its character and limitations, I started to understand the possibilities that the blockchain is bringing. These are not necessarily connected to fully agent-free utopian markets, but rather a new way of corporate and market infrastructure. Blockchain is not only the technology behind the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but rather a construction that can be applied across diverse institutions and industries.
Consensus, organized by Coindesk, is a fully business oriented conference, which in my eyes emphasizes the main raison d’être of blockchain – collaboration and openness. Titans of Wall Street and the Fortune 500 discuss with start-ups their projects and share their successes and failures. In some workshops you can see directly what is behind the front-end and people openly discuss their codes and structure. Regulators acknowledge their inexperience with some recent technologies and invite developers for further analysis. Despite the business-mode that is emphasized by the venue itself (Hilton in Midtown New York), it is obvious that all of the projects are “in-progress” and everyone is still learning and no one has yet figured out the best way around. This is extremely important to understand and to embrace also in our Nordic environment.
Listening to many discussions and workshops, I have heard three main topics over the last three days that I would like to share with you here:
- Blockchain continues to be an experiment as we are still in the technology cycle. However, the new development is that many new industries are interested in exploring blockchain as a technology and establish new consortia;
- The most discussed form of blockchain has been hyperledger fabric;
- The most discussed issue among the developers seems to be governance, which in my understanding continues to show the need for human capital and value systems.
Over the upcoming weeks, I will elaborate more on these issues and share with you my thoughts.
Attending Consensus is truly an interesting experience and I would recommend it to those who are engaged and interested in technology, irrespective whether you are a blockchain supporter or skeptic. There are many opportunities to ask questions, even impertinent ones.
Lastly, the topic of blockchain consortia is extremely important for us in Nordics, and we will devote more time and focus to it during our conference on Law, Technology and Trust in September 2019.
Bio
Alexandra is an Assistant Professor of Corporate Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. In her research, she focuses on various issues of corporate law, corporate governance, CSR, FinTech, Legal Tech and Human Rights. She has worked with start-ups in the FinTech and Legal Tech industries for a number of years. She has established the Legal Tech Lab at the Faculty of Law, which collaborates with the Nordic Legal Tech Hub.
Oslo, You’re Awesome!
We had heard great things about the Oslo Legal Tech Meetup, but until we saw last Wednesday’s packed event on top of Wikborg Rein‘s Oslo offices, we hadn’t realized how well things are going. It’s impressive.
The crowd was a healthy mix of legal professionals, tech people, startup folk, and much more. There were four presentations: one legal tech provider each from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, plus one Nordic organization – us, Nordic Legal Tech! Shoutout to Lexolve for organizing the event, and Green Counsel, Justify, and Digital AML for great talks.
The audience was really engaged. There were lots of good questions and lots of opinions, and when the formal portion of the event ended, people stayed to keep talking. And talk they did. Wikborg Rein were super hosts – and very patient. The last guests didn’t leave until after nine pm…
Read more about the event in Advokatbladet.
Nicholas Hawtin viser frem Nordic Legal Tech Hub til en av Advokatforeningens fagkonsulenter, Silje Ljåstad. Picture by Thea N. Dahl, Advokatbladet
Hello Norway!
Norway’s Simonsen Vogt Wiig joins as Nordic Legal Tech’s first Norwegian Founding Member
We are very pleased to announce that Simonsen Vogt Wiig has joined Nordic Legal Tech as our first Norwegian Founding Member. Simonsen’s Chief Digital Officer, Peter van Dam, was quick to support our vision of connecting the industry. He has already contributed with a lot of good on how to build cooperation across the region and how to create value for all stakeholders.
We look forward to working together – and to growing our membership across the Nordics!
Welcome Synch!
Synch signs as Nordic Legal Tech’s first Nordic corporate member
We are very pleased to announce that Synch has joined Nordic Legal Tech as corporate member – it’s great having a member who is present across the Nordic countries to grow and nurture our ecosystem.
Synch is a Nordic law firm with innovation and technology at its heart. “Our collaboration with Nordic Legal Tech Hub is an obvious match. We have a strong focus on legal tech. With our offices in Nordic offices and we offer established relations with strong stakeholders within legal tech”, says Michael Brandt.
We look forward to working together with Synch!
Read the press release here and an article by AdvokatWatch here.
Do lawyers need to learn to code?
Published by LegalTechWeekly
There is a new class of lawyer in town – one that is just as comfortable with code as appearing in court. They are being called the “techno-legals” by some, “lawyer-coders” or “lawyer-developers” by others. Whatever the title, their dual set of skills are becoming increasingly valuable in a digital driven world. Some in the legal profession even believe that the new literacy of coding is now a requirement of lawyers.
Certainly, this is the view of Australian firm, Gilbert + Tobin, who embarked on a new initiative in 2016 to teach its lawyers to code. While an advanced ability to code may not be necessary for lawyers, said Petra Stirling, former head of Legal Capability and Transformation at the firm, at least a proper understanding of the basics is essential.
This week in Legal Tech Weekly we explore this new imperative in the legal profession with a Swedish lawyer-developer and a Danish lawyer with a good understanding of coding. While there is no doubt that coding has become an essential component of some lawyer’s toolkit the big question remains: do all lawyers need to learn to code?
Read the full article here.
New Nordic Legal Tech Hub
We’re happy to be featured in LegalTechWeekly, who give an introduction to Nordic Legal Tech and key founding partners.
This initiative has been well received in the legal industry and the hub has already formed an important partnership with the Danish law firm Bech-Bruun. “It is a great addon in our approach to get more structure on our work with legal tech. The hub can map out and engage with the market in an unbiased way and thereby have the ability to create a bigger platform for the market in general. We would like to collaborate more closely with the legal tech startups, and we believe that our collaboration with Nordic Legal Tech Hub can help us getting closer to the market and introduce us to startups and peers when we need sparring and to discuss new ideas,” explains Head of Legal Tech Innovation in Bech-Bruun, Torsten Torpe.
Read the full article here.