Pracademic collaboration: Hacking into the future of legal education

Hackathons

A hackathon can be defined as an intense learning sprint where interdisciplinary teams form to solve a problem in a technologically enhanced way. The Global Legal Hackathon (GLH) took place on 23 to 25 February 2018 across six continents, in 22 countries, with 40 host cities around the world. Law students, academics, legal and IT professionals, graphic designers, project managers, UX researchers, social activists and business entrepreneurs cooperated to address current legal problems in the access to justice and commercial arenas.

Aileen Schultz, founder of the GLH, was able to digitally connect over 5000 participants across the globe using ‘Slack’, a versatile online communication platform. In effect, this hackathon offered a far-reaching and effective social learning experience, as it facilitated connections between academia, the legal industry, technology firms, governments and the community.

Personal ‘hacking’ insights

As a participant in the Melbourne chapter of the GLH, I can share some insights from my twin perspectives of law lecturer and education researcher. I used the GLH as the basis for my Masters of Education Post-Qualitative inquiry. My approach was an open way of working that requires experimentation where we throw ourselves into the process, instead of simply observing. ⁴ This is what led me to join my first hackathon team despite no prior experience or advanced technological abilities. Participants learn by trusting the ‘pracademic’ process where teams ‘begin with “problems” in the field and work collaboratively with stakeholders to generate “solutions” that meet their interests’. ⁵ Hackathons are precisely suited to post-qualitative analysis as clarity can only be found from within the chaos.

In the lead up to the GLH, I formed an interdisciplinary team by calling for ‘justice hackers’ via my LinkedIn social media account. I was joined by five other Monash University students with backgrounds in law, arts, commerce, biomedical science, engineering and mathematics. Our Hackathon team, named Pracademix, sent surveys to law firms, community centres and barristers to dive deeply into their experiences with access to justice. Using empathy-driven research and design-thinking methods, our team was determined to devise a solution to the problem that Australian Community Legal Centres were turning away 159,220 clients annually. ⁶

Over the course of the GLH weekend, the Pracademix team developed the concept of a real-time connection app where students could assist overworked lawyers in firms and community legal centres, on demand. A business plan, social media strategy and pitch was crafted for the competition, and a landing page website was launched that attracted hundreds of registrations from students, law firms and legal centres. Pracademix did not get selected to proceed to the GLH New York finals, but we received an Honourable Mention from the judges.

After the Hackathon, the Pracademix team continued to work on the app with The Generator, an entrepreneurship hub that helps Monash staff and students validate their start-up ideas. Many universities have begun to establish similar incubators where they run courses in design-thinking, agile project management and lean start-up methodology. In essence, these organisations champion a hacking culture where outsiders are often self-taught renegades who exploit systemic rules rather than follow them, and bring light to the unknowns of an industry. ⁷ Looking at problems through a transdisciplinary lens can open people’s minds to innovation and entrepreneurship – essential ingredients for modern legal practice.

Moving to digital work-integrated learning clinics

GLH and Pracademix were influential in developing an integrated law and IT inter-faculty pilot program that sought to harness interdisciplinary strengths. In Semester 1 of 2018, Monash University Juris Doctor (JD) law students from the Melbourne city campus were digitally connected with Masters of IT students at the Caulfield Campus. The IT students were enrolled in their Industry Experience Studio Project capstone unit, and a number of my criminal law JD students participated as volunteer researchers. Teams of six, comprising of four IT students and two Law students, created web-based applications to solve criminal justice problems faced by Victoria Legal Aid. Professional industry mentors provided coaching advice, and team members were able to learn from each other's diverse perspectives.

This transformative studio project approach encourages students to chart their own course. Teams looked for opportunities to help the community, collaborated on the research and design process, and then the IT students utilised their coding knowledge to solve real problems. Self-directed and social learning helped students understand the importance of actualising a concept that offered benefits to intended users. The feedback they received from industry professionals made them understand that learning is not only about theory and good grades, but rather how knowledge is acquired and applied.

‘Pracademia’

This increasingly popular ‘pracademic’ style of teaching was born out of concern that professional programs are misaligned with the needs of their natural markets. Theoretical studies are generally self-contained whereas the greatest impact academics can arguably make is when they address important agenda items and the concerns of practitioners. ⁸

Pracademic pedagogy encourages students and academics to break out of their siloed lecture theatres and engage with industry problems in various professional settings. Creative hacking and interdisciplinary collaboration thus give participants the chance to draw on their own resources to provide innovative solutions that make an impact on the profession. While individual-based examinations will likely continue in most law subjects, group problem-solving on a democratic plane is gaining traction. While we each have our own lens and experience ideas differently, exposure to a wider range of interdisciplinary viewpoints may be the key to nurturing creative and digitally capable graduates.

The window to pracademic collaboration has opened. Hierarchical structures between students, lecturers and practitioners may eventually dissolve so that learning and teaching become symbiotic. As a result, this refreshing educational trend can build our communal capability to solve increasingly complex problems likely to be encountered in the future.