ILSA, Innovation in Law Studies Alliance, just opened doors with 15+ members from across the globe. It gathers law and technology faculties that aim to continuously innovate and enrich their programs in line with the contemporary market.
Universities from France, Poland, Spain, Colombia, Ecuador, México, and South Africa are already part of the network.
ILSA will work with university leaders and lecturers to help them recognize opportunities in areas like legal innovation, digital transformation, legal tech, law firm management, among others. The end goal is to help prepare current students and coming generations for a paradigm shift in the legal services sector.
The Alliance plans to pursue its ambitious goals through expert webinars and events (you can already see the upcoming agenda), training by partner legal tech companies, and a common knowledge-base (currently under development), to name some.
The ILSA initiative's driving force is the Instituto de Innovación Legal, a consulting firm from Spain that specializes in advising on legal tech, innovation, and digital transformation.
“We’ve always believed that the transformation of the legal sector must start with universities,” said María Jesús González-Espejo, the managing partner of the Instituto de Innovación Legal. “Universities have been at the forefront of progress for many centuries. Generations of young scholars put trust in these institutions to align the legal sector with contemporary challenges.”
According to María, universities have to eliminate silos and collaborate with their peers to push the needle. ILSA plans to facilitate precisely that process. Additionally, ILSA aims to bring the best-of-breed legal tech applications to law and tech students. This is not something that universities would do off the bat, and ILSA wants to change that.
"Law school graduates could become pillars of digital transformation within their organizations. There is no reason not to expose them to tech quite early on," María said to our editorial team.
However, one of the challenges of transforming university curriculums is a lack of qualified personnel in those niche areas. At a later stage, ILSA plans to partake in creating a community of innovative lecturers. The rationale is to spotlight those professionals that might be able to help universities that miss certain aspects.
“We understand that innovation doesn’t come easy - it involves lots of trials and errors. This is why we also want to reward those universities that try to walk the mile,” said María. She clarified that ILSA SEAL is on the roadmap for 2022 to certify universities’ commitment to innovation.
You can see ILSA’s website to learn more about its plans and scope. We will be following with great curiosity.
Ivan Rasic holds the Transnational Trade Law and Finance LLM, a program by Universidad de Deusto (Bilbao, ES), Universiteit van Tilburg (Tilburg, NL), and Goethe Universität (Frankfurt, DE). After his work in law firms and inhouse, he started a legal tech company.
Nowadays, Ivan leads STP Informationstechnologie GmbH's Sofia RnD center with project/development management, culture, strategy, and special project initiatives.
Ivan is an Ambassador at European Legal Tech Association (ELTA). He closely follows and writes on future of law, legal tech, ALSPs, and new ways of delivering legal services.
CL News Team closely follows events that could potentially shape legal services delivery, the business of law, and influence the transformation of the legal space.
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