Matheson law firm is set to host Ireland’s first ever legal hackathon next month. Organised in partnership with Deloitte, IBM, and the Ryan Academy in Dublin City University (DCU), the event will take place on the 3rd and 4th of November.
The hackathon is being organised as part of Matheson’s Smart programme, which is ‘designed to inspire innovative thinking and the creation of new efficiencies incorporating the latest innovation themes such as Fintech, AI and Blockchain.’ The first day is called ‘Learn It, Pitch It’, and covers an introduction to Blockchain Technology, while the second day of ‘Create It, Win It’, will let teams try to use it to benefit businesses.
Rebecca Ryan, partner at Matheson, said the event ‘is all about bringing together, appreciating and rewarding new ideas. Blockchain is a completely new way of working and a technology where the rules have yet to be set.’ They are hoping to ‘uncover some really great and inspirational ideas for the future development of the financial services sector.”
The latest technological advances in FinTech are yet to have a major impact on the legal sector, but there is a general consensus they could alter the nature of the whole legal industry. David Lawson, Director of IT at Matheson, told Silicon Republic back in July that the firm was assessing how developments in technology and blockchain could change the way in which lawyers create and draft documents.
Anne-Marie Bohan, a Partner in the Asset Management and Investment Funds and FinTech Group, published a piece on FinTech in Finance Dublin’s Investment Funds 2017 Report, back in October 2016. She wrote that while FinTech is not new per se in Asset Management, newer developments could affect the underlying market infrastructures. Bohan suggested that ‘significant regulatory developments and market participant collaborations are likely to be needed before distributed ledger technology (DLT) can live up to this full potential.’
Cian Carton – Business & Law Editor
