Hackathon at SKW Schwarz Rechtsanwälte demonstrates possibilities of Legal Tech

On Friday, May 10, the long-awaited Legal Tech Hackathon was held among SKW Schwarz team members.

In February, newly founded SKW Schwarz @ Tech GmbH and its General Managers Stefan C. Schicker and Dr. Stephan Morsch had already called on the law firm to submit ideas for the use of Legal Tech in various fields of application. The best suggestions then made it to the next round on May 10, during which specific solutions were developed by using the Bryter Legal Tech tool.

The all-day event began with two Bryter employees giving detailed instructions of the tool to make sure that SKW Schwarz partners, lawyers, and employees had the necessary knowledge for their subsequent programming efforts.

In the following five hours, some twenty participants were busy concentrating on the best possible implementation of their ideas, using Bryter to work on the applications. Afterwards, the results were submitted to the jury, consisting of Astrid Kohlmeier (Lawyer, Co-founder of Liquid Legal Institute, and Legal Design & Legal Tech expert), Simon Ahammer (Lawyer, Head of the Legal Department at Smashdocs, and Legal Software & Legal Tech expert), and Arne Broer (Managing Director, SKW Schwarz). Finally, the best ideas were recognized at an award ceremony.

SKW Schwarz lawyers Eva Bonacker and Insa Janßen jointly took first place. They developed a tool to simplify the formation of companies (Bonacker) and a tool to protect trade secrets (Janßen). Second place went to Stefanie Schraidt with her development of intelligent checklists for complex and special procedures in the area of assistants. The Marketing/Business Development team of Anna von Busse, Stefanie Zambon, and Verena Rahde took third place with their tool to simplify ranking applications.

After the award ceremony, the “hackers” attended a well-deserved get-together to which all SKW team members were invited.

With the overwhelmingly positive response to the Legal Tech Hackathon, the day contributed a major step to establishing Legal Tech solution approaches in the legal profession and the anchoring of a Legal Tech mindset in all attendees.