Slaughter and May today announces a second cohort of the firm’s legal tech programme - Collaborate
Launching in 2019, Slaughter and May Collaborate aims to help shape the development of new legal tech and identify and harness future efficiencies in the delivery of legal services. The programme sets out to find the best legal tech companies in the market, helping them to test and develop their products alongside Slaughter and May lawyers, clients, and legal tech and innovation specialists.
Slaughter and May will select six-eight legal tech businesses to form the 2020 cohort, with each being assigned two dedicated Slaughter and May mentors; a member of the firm’s Knowledge and Innovation Team and a practising lawyer from a relevant legal group. Selected companies will have access to the firm’s lawyers and information security team, a sandbox environment including dummy data, and the firm’s collaboration spaces and meeting rooms. A new addition for the 2020 programme sees successful applicants receiving advice from venture capitalist funds and other legal tech entrepreneurs on securing funding and other practical tips for both start-ups and scale-ups.
Collaborate is different from other legal tech incubator programmes as it engages key Slaughter and May clients, who input in the selection of cohort members and also benefit from early access to some of the most innovative technologies at the forefront of the UK legal sector. The 2020 Client panel includes members of the in-house legal teams at clients such as Aviva, Bupa, Diageo, GlaxoSmithKline, Santander and Vodafone.
Collaborate will be led by Slaughter and May partners Jane Edwarde and Chris McGaffin, supported by the firm’s central Knowledge and Innovation team; Jane Stewart (Head of Knowledge and Innovation), Emma Walton-Moore (Knowledge and Innovation Manager) and Billie Moore (Knowledge and Innovation Executive), all of whom have played a key role in the creation of the programme.
A new addition for the 2020 programme is a specifically curated Advisory panel, bringing in-depth industry and international insight to the programme. The panel includes innovation and legal tech experts from Slaughter and May’s European relationship firms De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek (Tjeerd van Ginkel, Head of Innovation) and Hengeler Mueller (Pierre G. Zickert, Manager, Legal Tech). Also joining the panel is US firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (James Desjardines, Associate Director of Practice Technology).
The Advisory panel also features input and advice from investment platforms Crowdcube (Jonathan Keeling, Head of Partnerships) and The Legal Tech Fund (Zach Posner, Managing Partner) as well as Slaughter and May’s Director of Knowledge and Innovation (Alex Woods) and Chief Information Officer (Chris Browne).
Jane Edwarde, partner at Slaughter and May, said: “Legal technology is now a crucial part of the way in which we work. The ability to embrace new, disruptive technologies enables us to continue to deliver the highest level of service to our clients. By helping to shape upcoming innovations in legal tech, we are able to provide our lawyers, and our clients, with progressive tools that will make a genuine difference to their way of working.”
Chris McGaffin, partner at Slaughter and May, added: “Over the past years, we have gained a huge amount of expertise working with legal tech companies such as Luminance and those in our 2019 Collaborate cohort. Slaughter and May is in an ideal position to provide legal tech developers and entrepreneurs with a supportive, stimulating partner. Alongside our clients and relationship firms, we are pleased to be able help young companies shape and develop their offering into the technology of the future.”