Growing up within the PlayStation™ generation, technology very quickly became a staple in my life. Getting my hands on the latest tech and figuring out what it can do is something that I love doing, and have done since a young age. I enjoy solving puzzles and this motivated me to embark upon a legal career, as I wanted to help solve other people’s puzzles. Like most, I aspired to become a solicitor. I attained both my LL.B Honours and Diploma in Professional Legal Practice at the University of Edinburgh, where instead of finding my passion for legal practice I found myself steering towards a career in legal technology – combining my interests and my education.
I am currently the Senior Legal Technologist within Ashurst Advance Digital, which sits within Ashurst’s NewLaw division “Ashurst Advance”. The legal technology field is dynamic and reactive to what is happening in the legal market and the role of those working in this field is exactly the same. Although I am dabbling in the same toolkit most days, every day is different and offers something new, whether that be a fresh test or deploying a new perspective to improve existing solutions. I work with a diverse toolset which enables me to offer a range of services to both internal and external clients such as: mature document automation capabilities, A.I. assisted due diligence; automated workflow and decision making programs as well as setting up and maintaining document and project management portals.
At the heart of my role, and what motivates me, is the drive to make a difference. One of the crucial elements of my role is to support clients in responding to their own challenges and pre-empt those that they may face in future so that together we can craft a technological solution to overcome those obstacles before they become an issue. Much like a traditional lawyer, I interact with clients across various industries, together with our legal teams, to understand their businesses and work together to identify legal problems and business inefficiencies. Collaborations like this are what enable us to build remarkable and effective solutions – which, for me, is the most exciting part of my work! Recently, we launched ESG Ready – a sophisticated digital product which delivers tailored guidance to ensure compliance with the new EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. This solution was devised by the collective minds of our lawyers and our clients to assess the issue and us, Ashurst Advance Digital, who configured an intricate yet user-friendly solution to ensure client readiness for ESG. ESG Ready was a fun project to be a part of as it once again pushed the boundaries of what we are capable of: we created a complex workflow which encompasses the elaborate logic provided by our solicitors to produce bespoke obligations which update dynamically, keeping our clients notified of any status changes or ESG developments. Projects like this make me realise the true value of working in legal technology: by leveraging my technical and legal knowledge I am crafting innovative solutions to aid people and businesses in their everyday lives. The work that I do is valuable in boosting productivity and profit for our clients, and I have fun whilst doing it.
Legal technology has become a cornerstone for legal service delivery, embraced by those who are directly benefiting from its game-changing methods to drive cost-effective and time-efficient solutions. I am fortunate to have entered the sector in its infancy and develop alongside it but there are vast opportunities for others to get involved and experience the thrill of working with legal technology. If you would like to find out more about legal technology in a law firm or the impact that it has in the legal landscape then please contact me.
Chloe Kennedy
Senior Legal Technologist
Ashurst
