It may sound like a Judge Dredd sidekick character, but ‘techno-legal’ is the term given to a new breed of in-demand lawyers, who are both comfortable with code and can keep their cool in court.
It may sound like a Judge Dredd sidekick character, but ‘techno-legal’ is the term given to a new breed of in-demand lawyers, who are both comfortable with code and can keep their cool in court.
Individuals with those dual skills are hugely valuable to the likes of corporate law firm Gilbert + Tobin (which believes they coined the term). The firm is busy training up techno-legals internally, and this year nurturing future talent by backing a new course at UNSW.
“They do say that coding is the new literacy,” Petra Stirling, Gilbert + Tobin’s head of legal capability and transformation, told Computerworld .
“It’s teaching lawyers to code and to use technology to deliver their work. It’s another form of literacy that lawyers need
to have.”
Gilbert + Tobin puts the majority of its own lawyers through how to code and technology-related programmes. Though advanced ability in coding was not yet a requirement of the legal profession, a proper understanding of the basics was essential, Stirling says.
“A two-hour workshop in HTML and CSS and JavaScript does not make a full stack developer make, but it does create a window into how to design a product, create a wireframe and think about how it needs to be created,” she says.
“Lawyers need to be able to imagine, design and commission mini hacks and mini automations and products in the future. That’s where the learning to code really comes to its fore.
