Sheffield legal technology accelerator launches with November conference
Kollider and legal technology expert Matt Pennington are launching a Sheffield based legal technology incubator with a conference in November.
The Legal Technology North conference on the 22nd November 2018 will bring together lawyers, legal technology providers, students and tech companies to consider how access and delivery of legal services can be improved through better use of technology, and demonstrate how Sheffield can support and nurture legal technology startups.
Conference co-organiser, Matt Pennington explains: “Sheffield has a vibrant tech community and start-up costs here and across the north in general are so much lower than in the south. With two excellent universities, a range of expert tech companies, and a number of top class law firms there’s a highly skilled talent pool readily available here.”
Matt continues: “We launched Legal Technology North in May this year with a vision of making Sheffield the legal technology hub for the north of England, kicking off with our November conference. Since then things have moved at a pace, with Kollider backing our mission and providing a route for anyone with ideas for the legal technology of the future to help get their idea idea off the ground and potentially access VC funding.”
Kollider (www.kollider.co) are establishing a 80,000 square foot business incubation space in the centre of Sheffield with phase one opening in Q4 2018. Kollider was established in 2017 and aims to support all types of startup and scale-up businesses with access to expertise and finance to support early stage business growth.
Adrian Hackett, legal firm Freeths partner and co-founder of Kollider said “Given the number of legal firms headquartered in Sheffield, the city is an ideal location for legal firms to collaborate with startups to develop new technology to deliver next generation legal services. Working with Matt to establish Legal Technology North helps us establish the city as a legal technology hub with real support for new ideas.”
The conference has three key tracks:
- A full day event for lawyers where they will be asked to question how they approach tasks on a day to day basis within their own firms, and consider if introducing technology (either bought in or created in-house) could improve the services they offer.
- A free student event, where students from a range of disciplines including law, computer science and social sciences can find out more about how legal technology is changing the face of access to legal services
- A free event for tech companies, introducing them to how law firms are currently using legal technology and the growing legal technology sector. Tech firm will be asked to consider whether their existing products could be adapted for use in the legal sector, or to consider creating new products to meet the needs of the legal sector.
The last part of the day will bring together lawyers, tech companies and students for an innovation workshop run by Kollider. The informal workshop will ask groups to think about aspects of the legal process that could be improved through the use of technology, and will be followed by the Legal Technology North afterparty.
Following the conference, activity will be ongoing to:
- Keep those interested in legal technology up to date via regular events and newsletters showcasing ideas, startups and established legal technology.
- Provide an environment for people from technology and legal sectors to work together on new ideas to enable the delivery of next generation legal services.
- Enable early stage funding for the incubation of legal technology startups.
To find out more about the conference and to book tickets visit unconventional.legal.
