In recent years, Israel has emerged as a global leader in influencing legal innovation worldwide. Adv. Esther Dediashvili, a leading female legal technology professional, stands at the forefront of Israel’s legal evolution. By introducing the Global Legal Hackathon to Israel, along with countless other initiatives, Esther is leading the way for the future of legal innovation in Israel.
Feb. 11, 2019 - Legaltech pioneer, Adv.. Esther Dediashvili, the initiator and organizer of Israel's 1st Legal Hackathon in 2018, who is also a Legal Knowledge Manager and Head of Legal Technology Implementation at Fischer Behar Chen Well Orion & Co (FBC & Co), one of the largest law firms in Israel, is bringing the Global Legal Hackathon back to Israel for the second year in a row in Tel Aviv from Feb. 21-22, in hopes of inspiring innovation in the legal world. As the first legal hackathon in Israel hosted by FBC & Co in collaboration with Tech&Law Israel as part of the Global Legal Hackathon initiative, last year’s event showed the world Israel will be a prominent leader in the evolution of the legal world. With a multitude of enhancements being introduced at GLH2019, Dediashvili says this year’s event will be bigger and better, motivating Israel to continue advancing the global legaltech industry.
By introducing the Global Legal Hackathon in Israel, Dediashvili hoped to boost the local legaltech ecosystem. Her hopes were not achieved, but rather exceeded when, “The solutions that were created as a result of Israel's 1st Legal Hackathon exceeded all of my expectations, generating some great projects with both public and private social legal benefits.” Dediashvili explained. With the success of the first legal hackathon, the traditionally slowly evolving Israeli legal industry took notice of the importance of legaltech in the future of the local legal industry, and the hackathon has marked a new chapter in its development as well as positioning Israel on the global legal innovation map. “To me this is a personal highlight of my professional accomplishments”, says Dediashvili. “There's a feeling that the wind of change has come and that's very exciting, and I envision positive prospects for the further development in this area in the future“, she adds.
Israel has been referred to as the ‘Land of Lawyers’, and rightly so, having the highest lawyer per capita rate in the world. While this has been true for years, innovation in legal technology has only recently taken the spotlight in the Israeli legal arena. The importance of legaltech is being noticed as, “a rising awareness has recently emerged in the local legal sphere as to the benefits of technology assistance in legal practice,” said Dediashvili. The legal industry is on the cusp of a major transformation, and with a profound world-wide impact, the Global Legal Hackathon has the potential influence to push the legal industry into a new tech-focused era.
Beyond brining the Global Legal Hackathon back to Israel, Dediashvili has taken a leadership role in the new Global Rise Of Women in LegalTech (GROWL) initiative, which will be fully integrated in GLH2019. The initiative aims to encourage more women to get involved in the legaltech world, which has been traditionally male-dominated. Dediashvili will be acting as a mentor to women-led teams because, “Being the only female professional in the Israeli legal scene whose role is entirely dedicated to the integration of knowledge management and technology in the Israeli legal practice, I hope to encourage more women to get involved in the legaltech community world-wide, follow their dreams and do what they feel passionate about. We need more girl power in the global legal industry!”
More info on the Israel Legal Hackathon: https://www.israellegalhackathon.co.il/
More info on Esther Dediashvili, Adv.: http://www.fbclawyers.com/logistic/esther-dediashvili-adv/
More on FBC & Co: http://www.fbclawyers.com/
About Adv. Esther Dediashvili
Adv. Esther Dediashvili is a Legal Knowledge Manager and Head of Legal Technology Implementation at Fischer Behar Chen Well Orion & Co (FBC & Co), one of Israel’s premier full service law firms, which has been at the forefront of legal innovation in Israel, and is regarded pioneer in the field of legal knowledge management and innovative legal technology in the Israeli legal arena. Prior to this, Esther practiced securities and corporate law for seven years in two leading law firms in Israel.
Esther is the organizer of Israel Legal Hackathon, and represented Israel as a judge on the final Global Judging Panel at the GLH2018 finals in New York.
As a leading female legal technology professional in Israel, Esther was selected to be Israel's ambassador for the Global Rise Of Women in LegalTech – the GROWL initiative aimed to support up-and-coming women leaders in legal innovation around the world and will serve as a GROWL mentor at GLH2019.
Esther writes and speaks regularly on the subject of law and technology in various Israeli and international publications and venues. Esther can be contacted via email at estherd@fbclawyers.com and via LinkedIn or Twitter.
About the Global Legal Hackathon 2019:
The Global Legal Hackathon is a non-profit organization that was founded to accelerate and amplify innovation in the legal industry. The annual hackathon that it organizes is a global, experiential learning laboratory for innovators and visionaries from within law firms, corporate legal departments, legal technology companies, universities, governments, and service providers. It brings together the best thinkers, doers and practitioners in law in support of a unified vision: rapid development of solutions to improve the legal industry, world-wide.
About GROWL:
As part of the 2019 Global Legal Hackathon (GLH), we are launching the Global Rise Of Women in LegalTech (“GROWL”) initiative to support up-and-coming women leaders in legal innovation around the world. GROWL will be fully integrated with this year’s hackathon, providing an enhanced track for women-led teams.
A globally-located panel of senior women leaders in the legal industry drawn from The Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, will support the hundreds of women-led teams expected to participate in GLH2019 with an unprecedented global network of mentors, tools, and resources to accelerate and amplify their efforts to evolve and improve the world’s legal industry. Participation is voluntary, and there is no cost.