The second edition of Freshfields’ Legal Hackathon, with participating corporate partners Audi, SAP, PGIM and Uber, took place between 11-12 October 2019 at the Freshfields Lab in Berlin.
Freshfields worked with BRYTER to run a two-day hackathon in which 70 students from Germany’s top universities worked in nine small teams to build self-service apps using BRYTER no-code platform.
Objective: Develop legal apps to solve real-life challenges
Students teamed up and used their collective knowledge to build legal apps that solve real-life challenges for some of Freshfields’ corporate partners, including Audi, SAP, PGIM, and Uber. Students used BRYTER no-code app builder to turn their legal expertise into legal automation for Freshfields’ clients.
This legal hackathon edition involved developing Legal Tech solutions for three main challenges:
- Solution for legal hold issues
- Automation solution to transform cloud contracts into plain English
- Automated clause builder for the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Framework: Legal Hackathon
The day kicked off at noon with a general introduction to the corporate partners and their specific needs. Participants then organized into small groups and met with their clients (from SAP, Audi, PGIM, and Uber) to understand the problem so they could define the scope of their legal apps.
During this process, participants combined diagramming methodologies with principles of design thinking, which required a strong focus on user needs and consideration of applicable legal rules. Once the scope of the solution was defined, teams drafted their self-service apps within BRYTER platform.
Participants worked together with impressive creativity and enthusiasm; and, after 24 hours, the teams presented their completed apps to the judging panel. The results exceed the expectations of both Freshfields and its partners. Awards were given in the categories of “Best Teamwork”, “Best Technical Implementation” and “Best Solution from the Customer’s Perspective”.
Why legal hackathons?
Legal hackathons are a part of Freshfields’ digitization strategy and reflect the firm’s commitment to legal innovation. Hackathons are an example of how innovation labs enable a firm to work directly with its clients and bring people, processes and new technologies together to develop new products. Legal Hackathons and the labs are channels to strengthen the firm’s expertise at the intersection of law and technology.
Freshfields chose BRYTER no-code platform because it is simple, intuitive, and allows participants to build a data breach reporting assistant or a chatbot for business without any previous training in a very short time.
Why we love student hackathons
- They allow participants to get their heads around the basics of rules-based reasoning, formalized legal content and digital transformation.
- Hackathons highlight the great potential of automation to scale legal service delivery.
- Law firms can identify exceptional students who have both traditional legal skills and a technical mindset.
- Most of all, they provide an opportunity for students to experience how easy it is to use our no-code platform to build high-value legal apps.
Book a demo today if you are interested in organizing a legal hackathon or exploring the potential of BRYTER no-code automation platform.
