SFE insight | 2023 Rising Star winner
Pictured, from left, Ed Balls, Rachel Coleman, Sandy Begbie
Tell us a little bit about your role?
I am a Senior Associate in the Advanced Delivery Team at Pinsent Masons. Our team uses new approaches, enabled by technology, to deliver complex legal work for our clients. Each day in my role is different – from supporting clients on their own legal innovation journeys, delivering complex projects that involve a combination of people, process and technology through to piloting new legal technology platforms for our lawyers and improving how they deliver their day-to-day work.
How did you get involved in legal tech?
I started my career as a commercial banking lawyer – in that role I worked on several large projects driven by regulatory changes for our banking clients. Those projects introduced me to how technology can transform the delivery of traditional legal services. When Pinsent Masons set up the Advanced Delivery Team in 2019, I was invited to join the team. Being a lawyer in the Advanced Delivery Team presented an interesting and new career opportunity - it’s collaborative, creative, varied and I get to work with a wide range of different professions and skillsets including lawyers, data scientists, developers and project managers. It’s challenging and rewarding to be at the coal face of driving change in the legal industry.
Tell us about the technology innovation hackathon you organised?
Organising the hackathon was a challenge that I was set by our Advanced Delivery Team Steer Co. Working with a group of colleagues from different parts of our business, we set a challenge for the Pinsent Masons community to build a solution to a problem they were facing use our “low code” technology platforms. The aim of the hackathon was to introduce as many colleagues as possible how “low code” technology platforms could help them day to day.
We had ideas submitted from right across our global network with teams working together to produce problem statements and design their solutions. Delightfully for the Scottish offices, our hackathon winner was one of our Edinburgh litigation associates, who designed and built a seriously impressive correspondence tracker that has just gone live in our business!
Tell us about the ‘Early Adopter Book Club’ and the benefits of fostering an innovation community in Scotland that encourages sharing ideas
A wonderful feature of the legal innovation and tech community is how collaborative it is. I have met so many interesting people since joining the Advanced Delivery Team from legal tech founders at the Legal Geek conference to machine learning experts and ambitious law students from around the world innovating together at Law Without Walls. It is a community that is built on discussing shared challenges and working together to develop solutions that delight our clients. The Early Adopter Book Club was my way of fostering that community in an informal way. Alongside a friend at another law firm, we created a group where mid-level professionals in innovation roles in the legal sector can share ideas and make new connections whilst discussing whatever the “hot topic” of the legal tech season may be!
Ultimately, for the legal industry to innovate and change the way it delivers legal services to our clients, we need to build a culture where legal professionals feel empowered and confident in embracing technology and new ways of working. The bigger that community is in Scotland and across the UK, the faster the legal industry will evolve and change for the benefit of our clients.
How did it feel to win the Rising Star award?
It was a privilege to win the Rising Star award this year. For me, what is most rewarding is the recognition by the Financial Services Industry of the value and benefit that a modern, innovative, and creative legal sector can deliver. Thank you to the SFE and the panel of judges for selecting me this year.