Clifford Chance hackathon empowers all trainees to produce apps

Global News

10
Dec
2019

Editor

The London office of global law firm Clifford Chance has been training all new trainees on how to produce mobile and web apps. Over 100 trainees have participated in the last 12 months.

Partners and the Graduate Team at Clifford Chance identified an opportunity to enable the practice areas to have access to technical skills by training all new trainees on Fliplet, a low-code app creation product.

The training has resulted in a mobile app being created for one of Clifford Chance 's clients. The app was created by a trainee in conjunction with the partners, the client and the Clifford Chance IT department. The result was rapid delivery of an initial version of the app, quick updates based on client feedback and accelerated opportunities for the trainee to work with a client to deliver a high priority project. 

The aim of the training is to encourage innovation at a graduate trainee level in the firm and consists of an app hackathon, followed by ongoing support from the Graduate Team and a group of technology innovators made up of partners, lawyers and staff. The training aims to inspire the next generation of lawyers entering the firm, arm them with the technical skills to deliver apps when they spot opportunities, and highlight how the legal industry is rapidly evolving with the use of legal technology.

The training takes the form of a hackathon that runs for four hours. Fliplet delivers a comprehensive programme focusing on app creation best practice, building a business case, a platform demonstration and culminates in teams of trainees producing multiple app prototypes presented by the end of that day. Attendees learn what makes a good app, how to plan an app project, how to build the app with Fliplet and how to collect feedback from stakeholders. The IT and the Graduate Teams are on hand to gather good ideas and share them with management. 

Yasmina Kone, Graduate Recruitment Specialist and organiser of the hackathon at Clifford Chance says: "The hackathons have proved an efficient way to upskill incoming trainees in an interactive and exciting format. It's an opportunity to use a tech platform, develop new skills and start thinking about how they can improve internal and client-facing processes. We've been impressed by their ideas, insight and creativity."

Ian Broom, CEO of Fliplet says: “Like the ideas presented, Fliplet has iterated with Clifford Chance to improve the delivery of the hackathon. The training is producing about 15 new app ideas each event and it’s exciting seeing trainees realise that they can rapidly produce apps that have a real impact on a firm the size of Clifford Chance early in their legal career.

With each hackathon we run the app ideas and app quality is improving resulting in more sophisticated apps that are more valuable to Clifford Chance.”