An increasing number of law firms are hiring lawyers who can code in order to help them optimize their internal processes. It is a unique profile of a person who understands the intersection between law and technology.
I am an IT & Data Protection lawyer at Sirius Legal Business Law Firm in Belgium. During my working hours, I am not only practising law, but also working on the use and development of the legal tech tools at my firm. In particularl I code our contracts in order to automate our contract drafting process.
A coding lawyer, why?
Well, it’s pretty logical. Lawyers can spend hours searching clauses in contracts they, or colleagues, drafted months before. Contracts have so many layers of nuance, that it’s just not enough to work with standard templates.
If contracts are coded, you can collect many layers of nuance and store a variety of versions of a single clause. At our law firm, lawyers can now simply fill in some questions and a contract is automatically generated. No more struggles with layout and finding clauses. It saves plenty of time and the output is of higher quality. This allows us to invest the saved time in focusing on our clients: we guide them through the contract and make time to adjust it to their story.
How did you learn it?
At our firm, we use a contract automation platform called ClauseBase, which basically became an online library of our firm’s clauses and documents. During my Master’s Degree, I was intrigued by the intersection between law and technology and decided to do an internship at the legal tech start-up ClauseBase. There, I learned to work with the software and was amazed by the many possibilities it offers. In the beginning, it was a huge mind shift. You learn to read clauses and contracts completely differently, approaching them in a rather logical, conditional way. With every paragraph or sentence, you have to think: in what situations should this be written here? I could let my creativity run wild while building contracts and creating contract libraries for law firms.
I worked at ClauseBase for about a year before starting a career as a lawyer at one of their client law firms, the firm where I work today. Sirius Legal was looking for someone who could translate their contracts in the software and thus automate the contract drafting process. And even better: they wanted me to work on other legal tech projects as well.
Are you enjoying what you do today?
Yes, very much. Innovation is key in the firm I work for, we are constantly innovating and optimising our services. Recently, we launched an entire webshop of legal products with transparent, fixed prices – one of the first of its kind in Belgium. In many law firms, it is still not the done thing to question the classical “billable hour”, even if this has become completely outdated in today’s world. Clients require transparency on pricing and expectations. With all the tools we use at our firm, we manage to embark on a journey together with the client, one that is exciting and promising, where we have more time to create a relationship.
Moreover, it gives me real satisfaction to work on an internal project for months and then finally see it go live, like our webshop. It is an insightful addition to my client-oriented work. However, it still is a challenge to find the right balance between client projects and internal process optimisation projects. In an ideal world, I would spend one afternoon per week on internal projects, but the reality is that urgent cases and deadlines often undermine this intention. What can I say – it’s an ongoing process in which I am learning every day.
What advice would you give to anyone pursuing the same route?
Today’s labour market is competitive, but there is also a high demand. Find a way to differentiate yourself and stand out from the crowd. Legal tech is a continuously growing sector. Many law firms intend to adopt certain tools or software, but don’t have the capacity to implement it. Fill that gap and explore how you can add value to a company.
In addition to this – take on every opportunity you can get, no matter how small, because you never know where it may lead you. Be open minded and dare to step outside of your comfort zone, only then, you’ll grow.
Isha Upadhyaya
Attorney-at-law
Sirius Legal
