As part of a virtual legal tech hackathon organized by international law firm Trowers & Hamlins, over 40 law students working in eight teams designed and built digital solutions using the BRYTER platform.
Their goal? To help create innovative digital solutions for clients in a post-pandemic world, without writing a line of code.
Law firms like Trowers & Hamlins are constantly looking at new ways of delivering advice to their clients in a way that best meets their needs. Over the past 18 months, part of this has, of course, meant being delivering advice digitally and cost-effectively.
During the legal hackathon organized by the innovation team at Trowers & Hamlins LLP, the teams of students designed and built no-code solutions to streamline legal operations and help legal teams deliver tailored and efficient services to clients.
Judges and facilitators
The judging panel consisted of Trowers & Hamlins experts, Tim Nye, Partner and Head of Section and Innovation Sponsor, Richard Elson, Director of Information Service, and Janet Scoones, Director of Information and Knowledge Management.
During the warmup session, Trowers & Hamlins' Innovation team led by Anna Browne, Head of Innovation and Legal Technology, as well as the BRYTER team led by Paddy Skinner (Corporate and Legal markets) and James Quaile (Head of Sales Engineering), facilitated the hackathon by helping participants understand and identify problems before diving deep into solution building, mentoring teams during the event, and providing feedback on early prototypes.
Challenge
Given the shifting role of legal teams towards the provision of digital client solutions, the panel of judges at Trowers & Hamlins decided to challenge the teams to build digital solutions with the BRYTER no-code service automation platform, focusing on removing inefficiencies in legal operations.
The teams were asked to “create efficiencies and collaborate with clients to provide innovative solutions using no code in a post-pandemic world”, tackling issues such as automation of workflows, inbox management, exploring new billing models, and discovering more efficient ways of working.
The winning solution: Environmental Impact Assessment Checker
The winning team built an Environmental Impact Assessment Checker, looking to solve the issue of granting planning permissions in order to assess the environmental impact of development.
Charlotte Forsey (ideator), Katherine Stubbs (presenter), Osama Nesar (presenter), Shmuel Henry (presenter), and Nathan Ashman (builder) sought to solve the time-consuming and inefficient process of collating and submitting necessary documentation under the EIA Regulations 2017, and streamline the decision making on whether an environmental impact assessment needs to be carried out.
With the no-code solution they built, clients can quickly determine whether they need an EIA, thereby cutting down the screening time and effort.
Awards for outstanding contributions: Nathan Ashman, Drew Wilson and Matteo Silva
The judges awarded special accolades for outstanding contributions to Nathan Ashman, Drew Wilson and Matteo Silva.
Nathan Ashman masterminded the building process behind the creation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Checker. He illustrated strong legal and technical skills by building a sophisticated tool in a matter of hours.
Drew Wilson worked on ideating a UK Merger Control tool, which allows law firms’ clients to easily self-assess compliance with regulations, against a set of criteria and depending on client project specificities, which can otherwise be a time-consuming process.Matteo Silva was one of the ideators behind a tool called Litigation Pal that helps navigate through a backlog of court hearings. He was commended for being a team player as well as for his exceptional presentational skills. Envisaged as an internal tool for Trowers & Hamlins solicitors to use across departments, the tool provides clients with tangible data and offers an accurate and realistic timescale as to when their case is likely to be heard.
Congratulations to all teams!
Anna Browne, Head of Innovation and Legal Technology, commented:
"Trowers Innovation team were delighted to host the hackathon in conjunction with Bryter, as part of the Firms' Vacation Scheme. It was inspiring to see so much creativity and invention from students during the hackathon. At Trowers we are focused on delivering excellent client solutions through innovation and tech. The future of law is very bright with the talent coming through."
