Women in legal technology
Diversity is important, right? We all know it, and it's become a prominent talking point within the legal industry. With international women's day being today, we thought it necessary to highlight some awesome women, kicking goals in the legal tech industry in particular.
Karen Finch - CEO & Co-Founder of Legally Yours
Karen is the CEO & Co-Founder of Legally Yours, a lawyer matching platform that helps connect clients with lawyers on a fixed fee basis. It's an innovative model that seeks to increase access to legal services and also bring transparency to the way we all engage with legal services. As a non-practising lawyer, Karen worked in recruitment for some time prior to starting Legally Yours. She is also a mum of four kids!
Karen has co-created a platform that helps both users of the platform while also helping lawyers who are part of the network. She was quoted in Australasian Lawyer in 2018: “For me, I likened being a lawyer as to having a vocation in helping people. I have always felt very privileged that I was able to study law and was able to use my legal knowledge to assist people, often when they were going through their most vulnerable times in their lives and really needing legal support.”
Fiona Kirkman - Co-CEO & Co-Founder of LawSwitch
Fiona is the Legal Founder of LawSwitch, a legal tech startup that automates the entire legal engagement process. Not only is Fiona a woman in legal tech, she is also the Principal at Kirkman Family Law Pty Ltd. Fiona is undoubtedly a busy lady, but regardless, does what she does because she is passionate about utilising legal technology and dispute resolution processes to craft new ways to practice law. Fiona believes that this will empower clients to obtain more amicable, efficient and cost-effective resolutions without court.
Fiona experienced burn out early in her legal career. However, she learnt to manage the stress of being a lawyer and found her passion and ran with it! Fiona is the definition of 'never give up'.
Sacha Kirk - Co-Founder & CMO of Lawcadia
The Co-Founder and CMO of a legal tech business, you might think that Sacha is a lawyer at heart. But, you'd be wrong! Sacha's background is actually in marketing. She worked in Australia and the UK with large FMCG organisations such as Colgate, Palmolive and HJ Heinz, on various innovation projects. Through her wide range of experience, Sacha found that while lawyers are great at understanding the law and providing advice, they’re not necessarily trained at project management or winning work, which, in Sacha's opinion, is the number one challenge. That's when Lawcadia was born.
Lawcadia is a platform that interfaces with in house legal teams and their law firms to manage the engagement process including pricing and then post engagement and managers scope, budget and then invoicing. Along with her co-founder Warwick, Sacha is kicking butt in the legal tech world!
Terri Mottershead - Centre for Legal Innovation
Terri has worked across the globe, in both universities and law firms in cities like San Francisco, Hong Kong and Houston. However, more recently, Terri has been working on a legal startup of her own -‘The Centre for Legal Innovation’. CLI brings together leading thinkers, practitioners and legalpreneurs from around the world to identify trends, interpret their implications, document best practice and anticipate what’s next in the legal world. Terri's wide range of experience means she has incredible knowledge regarding how technology will affect the practice of law. Basically, she's the perfect person to lead the discussion on innovation in the legal industry.