The Global Legal Hackathon brings together the legal industry with tech and innovation. This year Manchester was a host location for the event that took place in February for the first time thanks to Santiago Rojas from the Full-time MBA class of 2020.
Global Legal Hackathon is a non-profit organisation and its purpose is for law and tech professionals to come together and develop solutions to improve the legal industry worldwide. The event is held in 46 cities across 24 countries with 6000 participants. Since arriving in Manchester Santiago noticed a gap in the market for legal tech, especially in a city enriched with law firms and schools. This therefore became something of an interest to him outside of his study on the MBA.
With The University of Manchester already involved in a law and technology initiative, it was an obvious place for Santiago to approach for help to put the wheels in motion and make this event happen. Together Santiago and The University of Manchester want to help enhance Manchester’s involvement in legal tech in becoming active supporters across the globe and making Manchester a hub for legal technology.
From deciding to take part to the day of the event Santiago had just four weeks to pull it all together. Even alongside the demands of the Full-time MBA he managed to make it happen and it was a great success. Santiago said that studying the Full-time MBA helped give him the leverage to make everything happen and courage to take advantage of these opportunities.
In Manchester the event saw 6 teams made up of 30 people. Santiago arranged for mentors to be on hand during the day from both the tech and legal worlds. They would offer support to the teams and sensor checked ideas to keep them on the right track in creating an idea that could work in improving the business of law. The winning team which consisted of three of Santiago’s Full-time MBA classmates and students from the Computer Science and Law Schools, created “Claimbot” which is a platform where you can submit a claim online and using machine learning will give you the probability of success, also gives access to forms to file your claim and connects you with a lawyer. “Claimbot” will now go up against the winners from the other 46 Global Hackathon locations competing for a spot in the final that will take place in New York.
Off the back of a networking event Santiago attended at the start of the Full-time MBA in September, he started arranging legal tech meet ups with different speakers from the industry. Santiago will be organising meet ups every other month and is looking forward to arranging an even bigger and better Global Legal Hackathon in Manchester next year.
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