We are explorers.
We are doers.
We are Legal Hackers.
The Legal Hackers are a global movement of lawyers, policymakers, designers, technologists, and academics who explore and develop creative solutions to some of the most pressing issues at the intersection of law and technology. Through local meetups, hackathons, and workshops, Legal Hackers spot issues and opportunities where technology can improve and inform the practice of law and where law, legal practice, and policy can adapt to rapidly changing technology.
Sign up for updates
Where we started
The Legal Hackers movement began in 2012 in Brooklyn, NY. It was there, in the wake of the SOPA/PIPA copyright debate, that several students in the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy (BLIP) Clinic and their professor, Jonathan Askin, sought to answer a nagging question: how can lawyers leverage the tools and collaborative, open ethos of the technology community to anticipate and solve law and policy problems? To answer this question, the students hosted the first ever “legal hackathon,” held at Brooklyn Law School in April 2012. Based on the success of the hackathon, the students and their friends formed a meetup called “NY Legal Hackers” to build a community in NYC focused on hacking the law.
Where we are
Since then, the movement has grown quickly, from a second chapter in Washington, D.C. started by original New York Legal Hackers members, to new chapters spreading across the United States and then the world, to international summits that bring global chapter organizers together to discuss law, technology, and community building. Today, Legal Hackers chapters exist in over 130 cities on six continents, with new chapters launching all the time. Take a look at our Chapters page to see if there’s a group near you (and if there isn’t, start one!).
What we do
Legal Hackers promote “legal hacking”—i.e., the process of developing creative solutions to issues at the intersection of law and technology—and are inspired by the ethos of the original MIT hackers of the 1950s and 1960s. The output of legal hacking could be a tech-based solution (e.g., legal tech, reg tech, or civic tech), an improvement in legal services delivery, or a new way of addressing a public policy issue such as data protection, intellectual property, or the sharing economy. As Professor Askin put it back in 2012: “The goal [of legal hacking] is to morph and evolve the law on one hand to better serve technologists, enterprises and society, but also harness technology so that lawyers can better service their clients.”
President
Maitland Rames
Events Chair
Nick Castro
Vice-President
Elizabeth Gemdjian
Alumni Chair
Sehee Kim
OUR TEAM
Secretary
Catherine Fraser
Treasurer
Anish Vaidya