The Legal Technologist Story

The Legal Technologist has published 9 main issues and one careers supplement since May 2018, drawing on articles from contributors around the world and providing perspectives on the latest issues affecting law and technology. Marc May is the founder/editor of the magazine and explains the journey from light bulb moment to the bi-monthly publication it is now.

It was back in early 2018 while working as an AutomationSpecialist at RPC that I first had a light bulb moment about pulling togetherarticles around legal tech into a newsletter. I reflected on my time during mydegree and Legal Practice Course and concluded that there was next to noinformation about how technology was impacting legal practice.

I understood that technology was changing and modernising theprofession but there didn’t seem to be any information on what effect it was goingto have on either of the two university courses. I felt that there was littleconversation about how the lawyers of the future would actually practice law –how would they draft documents or interact with their clients using technology?

There was nothing focused on those at the junior end, whichin my mind was the very people that should understand the importance ofinnovation and how technology could assist them during their legal careers. Ithought these people brought up from an early age on a diet of technology wouldbe the champions of change within the legal profession.

In March 2018, I published my first ‘newsletter’ whichturned out in the end to be more of a magazine. I was lucky in that I was ableto interview Peter Wright from the Law Society, as well as acquiring articlesfrom Coralie McKeivor on social media, Harper James (a law firm) and aninterview article from Becky Baker (who has been Junior Editor of the magazinefor over a year now). The rest of the articles were written by me.

I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen from there. Ipublished it and hoped for the best! I was happy that at the time it was wellreceived. If it wasn’t, I didn’t really know whether I would have been able towrite enough material to fill a second issue!

Luckily the magazine went from strength to strength fromthen on. As more issues were published the greater the following and engagement,and in turn the greater number of people were keen to volunteer articlecontributions. Before long, Becky had joined the magazine as Junior Editor andEaindra Cho had joined as Marketing Manager. Without their contribution themagazine wouldn’t be where it is today.

In September 2019 Stephenie Ong had joined as InternationalRelations Manager, looking at partnerships for the magazine at home and abroad,as well as becoming a regular contributor.

By November 2019, the magazine (and its website) is visitedby thousands of people from all over the world. Our social media channels havethousands of followers with more following each day. The magazine itself is nowexactly how I imagined it to be, a melting pot of different opinions fromaround the world on how technology is impacting the law.

I suppose I am writing this so that our readership gets afeel for how the magazine came about and are able to form more of a personalconnection to it. In the coming months we will also add video content from eachof us involved with the magazine.

I’m lucky to have a team that are passionate about legaltech and about educating the next generation of lawyers. We all volunteer our time to produce each magazine and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we feel it has a bright future ahead. Please do provide your feedback as it makes it really worthwhile for us to hear from happy readers.

Marc May