Law and the Future
The digital transformation has revolutionized the world over the last few decades, and the legal system has not been exempt from this wave of change. The student organization Legal Tech Community (LTC) exists to explore just these developments. It aims to examine what happens in the crossover area between law and technology and to shape the future of law. All students at the University of Mannheim are welcome to take part in LTC activities. The sole prerequisite for getting involved is an interest in technology and innovation.
Credit: Janne Alisa Bopp
How can the legal system be digitalized? Will citizens soon be able to avail themselves of online legal advice services? How can law firms and other enterprises benefit from AI technologies? The student organization Legal Tech Community (LTC) organizes lectures, panel discussions, courses, and discussion forums for its members to provide opportunities for getting to grips with a wide range of legal tech topics. The organization’s current board members, Justus Wecker and André Güth, want every member of LTC to have opportunities to pursue their own specific interests and acquire new skills. Their website reflects this with its statement that the network enables everyone to co-shape developments in line with their preferences and their capacity to become involved.
The LTC team plans three to four events every semester. Güth points to a particular highlight: a Python course that is currently being developed to deal with uses for the programming language in realistic legal scenarios. “I have to say that I am pretty familiar with the topic now because of the course and because I became a member of LTC and am now also a board member in my second year,” Güth comments. He advises his peers that nobody should be deterred by complexity: “It all comes together with time, and that’s what we’re here for. No prior knowledge is needed.” Money laundering will be among the topics explored during the current semester. LTC intends to provide courses and lectures that will familiarize members with the issue. Güth lifts the lid on how compliance rules and automated AI programs can alert enterprises to money laundering risks and simplify the process of tracking down money laundering. LTC finds IT-based solutions to legal problems to stay abreast of the digital transformation. In recent semesters, the areas in its sights have included cryptocurrencies, e-sports, cyberattacks and robo-advisers.
Credit: André Güth
The Legal Tech Community at the University of Mannheim was founded in 2020 and currently has 35 members. Most of the present members are students of law or business informatics. But Justus Wecker hopes that more students from other schools will get involved in the community in the future as the advance of sophisticated technology continues apace. “Working in an interdisciplinary fashion is what makes the whole thing so fascinating,” he says—before going on to remark that the value of input from the social sciences and the humanities is priceless in the face of AI and its social and cultural influences on law and society.
The University of Mannheim is not the only university in Germany to have an organization dedicated to legal tech that is run by and for students. The total number of students in Germany who are committed to making legal tech more visible and cultivating awareness of its variety may be as high as 10,000. Wecker, Güth and many of their new co-advocates for this field would like to see a chair at the University of Mannheim dedicated to the research field of legal tech. This is how they make their case: “The topic has relevance for many different areas of law that are taught at the university. As the digital transformation continues and the requirements of the world of work change, it would be good to have slightly more opportunities to actively acquire skills in this area.”
Text: Benedikt Kastner/