Legal Shapers Places Romania First in the World at the Global Legal Hackathon Finals Gala in New York
Legal Shapers, a team of legal and IT professionals from Romania, won first place at the World Final of the Global Legal Hackathon 2019, wowing the international jury with their proposed project: Lawrelai, a legal travel advisor.
Legal Shapers’ journey started at the Global Legal Hackathon Romania 2019, organized by the Hristescu & Partners law firm in Bucharest, where the team won first place. The Legal Shapers team impressed the jury in New York with its innovative project: Lawrelai (Law-related AI), a Facebook Messenger chat bot focused on providing legal travel advice – the first application of its kind.
Romania competed in New York alongside eleven strong teams from around the world, from countries such as China, Germany, Australia, Italy and the USA.
The team behind Lawrelai developed a global solution with a free legal response component, addressing the most common scenarios that one might face during a trip abroad. In the event of an emergency, Lawrelai provides personalized legal assistance for a fee, services powered by its legal partners in different countries.
“We are proud that our team has accomplished all that it had in mind and has won for Romania the 1st prize in the Global Legal Hackathon Final 2019, New York, the only global contest that combines legal challenges with modern IT solutions. We won the competition with confidence and our efforts have been doubled by the support we received along the way from Global Hackathon Romania organizers, Lawrelai’s users, our mentors and partners, whom we thank for their support”, the Legal Shapers team, who represented Romania in New York’s global edition, consisting of Roxana Pistolea (Clifford Chance Badea), Roxana Mihaela Catea (Senior Associate Ţuca Zbârcea and Associates), Tudor Colţan (Senior Associate Suciu Popa) and IT specialists Petruş Bălaşa and Eduard Mirică.
Mădălina Hristescu, the founding partner of Hristescu and Partners, present at the Global Legal Hackathon final edition in New York, said: “We are very glad that a Romanian team has proved the strength of this year’s edition that we have felt since the first pitch of ideas from the opening of the event. The promise we made from the first GLH edition in Romania (back in 2018) was to bring together specialists in technology, law and other fields, to find solutions to our common problems. And the victory in New York of the Romanian team, Legal Shapers, proves once again the capacity, creativity and potential of Romanian youth.”
David Fisher, the founder of Global Legal Hackthon, said: “Congratulations to the Legal Shapers team and to the whole of Romania! Lawrelai’s legal advice service application for foreign tourists was very special and captivating. Their solution is the best example of the importance that Global Legal Hackathon gives to presenting the latest and most creative technological legal solutions in the world.
Esther Dediashvili, Adv., Legal Knowledge Manager and Head of Legal Technology Implementation at FBC & Co (Israel), who served as a judge at the Global Legal Hackathon 2019 finals in New York shared her impressions of Global Legal Hackathonf Romania’s finalists: “As a judge I’ve had the opportunity to observe how evolved over the past two years, the level of maturity of finalists’ solutions this year was very impressive and team Legal Shapers stood out in this regard. From the judge’s perspective I look for solutions with the potential for the biggest impact within the legal industry, and the most believable path to that impact, and I believe that a product such as Lawrelai, which provides personalized assistance with common legal problems when travelling abroad, could be rapidly scaled on a global level and have an immediate impact. Best of luck to the team and congratulations to Romania on being globally recognized as an emerging legal tech leader.”
Global Legal Hackathon is an international competition that promotes technological innovation in the legal field at a global level. For the second consecutive year, the law firm Hristescu & Partners was invited by the global organizer Integra Ledger Blockchain for Law to host the event in Romania. Global Legal Hackathon, in its second edition in Romania, took place in 54 cities across 20 countries and brought together over 6,000 legal, IT and business stakeholders.