The Allens Neota UTS Law Tech Challenge for Social Justice

Dr Pip Ryan Lecturer, UTS Faculty of Law: So the students that we had in the program this year were incredible. They were getting on with their studies but meanwhile actually made friends, formed teams, collaborated and solved their client’s problems.

Sarah Coningham, Student UTS Faculty of Law: So my favourite part about the challenge has been collaborating not only with my team but also with our client, especially because it's been about social justice. I think when you get a lot of minds in a room you can really make change.

Dickson Luo, Student UTS Faculty of Law: It makes me feel like I was really contributing to a just cause and to let's say a brighter future for legal technology.

Art Honeysett, Student UTS Faculty of Law: I really enjoyed meeting with my team each week and we had a really diverse team with a transdisciplinary background.

Jessie Nguyen, Student UTS Faculty of Law: This challenge has taught me to approach problem-solving in a really holistic manner, it's enabled me to consider multiple perspectives before coming up with a solution.

Sarah Coningham, Student UTS Faculty of Law: I like most about the challenge the fact that we got to make a real service for a real client and that really taught me a lot about project management and design which is something you don't get to touch on as much in the law school.

Dickson Luo, Student UTS Faculty of Law: So client liaison is paramount in this challenge, your client should be with you every step of the way during your development process and should plan your client engagement ahead to avoid any delay in your development process as well.

Sarah Coningham, Student UTS Faculty of Law: One of the biggest things I'd recommend for future law students taking part and the challenge is to get to know their client and really, get to know the client’s problem. If you don't understand a client's problem you really can't solve anything.

Jessie Nguyen, Student UTS Faculty of Law: If you're thinking of taking part in this challenge I would say go for it, although there is a lot of hard work, it is a lot of fun.

Art Honeysett, Student UTS Faculty of Law: I feel like going through this challenge has really set me apart from other students.

We at Neota Logic are proud advocates of pro bono work, this is something that we as a company are really proud of so we feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to partner alongside institutions such as UTS and Allens and work alongside students and lawyers to create applications that at the end of the program can go live and help to close the access to justice gap.

The students are amazing I was reflecting that I cannot imagine myself at their age and stage at Law School having done anything like what they've done. The technical skills that they've learned through this process are incredible, but also the way that they've approached solving a complex problem is really really impressive.

I think it's incredibly impressive that they've been able to create relapse within six months and gone through the whole process with the client of working out what the need is, designing the app, understanding the technology and creating something that clients can actually use, and they're the sorts of skills that actually lawyers are going to need in the future.

Justice Connect already invests pretty heavily and legal technology and we're pretty leading in our sector but the reason that we do that is through experiences like this and being able to see the real-world impact that it can have for an organization doing more and better work, and also the impact it has for our clients in providing these really incredible solutions to problems that they face. In our own firm at Allens we're building apps in a very similar sort of way. Technology, people, lawyers are working together to solve these problems having these sorts of skills will really help students to succeed in their future.

I would say to students who are really thinking about it getting involved in this program, I think it's a pretty rare opportunity that's presented to you to work on something that is going to be a real life thing that goes out into the world and has potential fit impact on real-life clients, I think that's pretty unique. This challenges taught me to think outside of the box of my role as a lawyer and to use technology innovation and collaboration to solve all the problems within the world.

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