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What's it all about?

Innovation runs through everything we do at Linklaters – our legal advice, the way we deliver our services to clients and the way we run our business.

For us, teamwork and looking at problems from new perspectives are part of who we are and something we all do every day.

We are now inviting innovative, creative and ambitious students to join our Team Linklaters, working together with our lawyers to generate creative and innovative ideas for the leading law firm of tomorrow.

The Challenge

What should tomorrow’s leading law firm do to:

  • develop strong personal relationships and engage with clients in innovative ways
  • foster curious, creative and empathic lawyers, with an entrepreneurial mindset
  • embrace new ideas, technology and tools and encourage their teams to try new things and not be afraid to fail.

The Linkathon journey

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2 November

Applications open

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1 December

Last day to apply

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15 December

Welcome call & access to self-study resources

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7 February

Team kick-offs – the fun begins!

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4 March

Deadline for submissions

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10 March

Linkathon Innovation Awards Ceremony

How will it work?

1

The content

Each team will be formed by five students and three Linklaters lawyers from the same country. The number of local teams will vary by country.

 

It’s an opportunity for team members to work together to generate innovative ideas while forming a network of students and lawyers across Europe. Each participant will receive support and coaching throughout the Linkathon as well as unique opportunities to take part in exclusive training sessions.

 

While each team will decide how to structure their work, we anticipate that each participant will spend 15 hours on the Linkathon.

2

How to join?

The Linkathon is open to all current law students in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and Sweden. The selected students will be contacted via email. As all regional webinars as well as the submissions will be in English, excellent English skills are desired to get the maximum value out of the experience.

3

Design Thinking

With its roots in industrial design, design thinking involves idea generation, prototyping and empathy for your end-user. Legal design's defining characteristic is its radical human-centred approach, putting the user at the heart of the design process.

 

As part of the Linkathon experience, you’ll be invited to a fast-paced design thinking workshop. This is an opportunity to apply design thinking principles on a ‘real-life’ problem; giving you experience and skills that you can then put directly to use when developing your team’s Linkathon solution.

4

LegalTech

During the Linkathon, you will have access to Linklaters’ LegalTech Curriculum, which we’ve developed in collaboration with Swansea University to ensure our current and future lawyers are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to enhance their professional development in the tech-space.


 

The curriculum is made up of six bitesize modules covering topics such as AI and the Law, to blockchain and data for lawyers.

5

New roles in law

The ever-increasing importance of innovation and legal tech means that we’re seeing a number of new roles in law in addition to the traditional lawyer career path. As part of the Linkathon, you’ll get to hear from a panel of Linklaters lawyers discussing opportunities and challenges in these new roles and sharing their best tips for how to prepare for the legal career of tomorrow.

 

You will also hear from our experts on how we’re adding value to our client relationships by supporting clients beyond legal advice, as well as hear from our clients on what they want from their law firm of tomorrow.

6

Selecting the winning idea

All ideas will be reviewed by our judges; a panel of lawyers passionate about innovation and senior marketing, HR and innovation professionals. Each team will also get to share and pitch their idea to their fellow Linkathon participants and vote for the winning idea alongside our expert panel during a virtual event. Each member of the winning team will be awarded a €60 gift voucher.

Nuno

At Linklaters, we strive for continuous improvement and progress, encouraging new ideas, discussing different approaches and designing tailor-made solutions for each new problem. This was the spirit when I joined the firm back in 2002 as it is today: creativity and innovation are a priority.

In my role as Regional Managing Partner, I see Linkathon as a brilliant opportunity to take a step forward and re-think our approach to legal work, the way we operate and deliver services to our clients, inspired by the younger generations and bringing different views from our several countries and cultures in our region.”

Nuno Ferreira Lousa

Regional Managing Partner, WEELEG

Hear from our Linkathon 2021 alumni

Last year we held our first ever Linkathon. Check out this video to hear some of our innovation experts and Linkathon participants share their reflections and take-aways.

“I will take this experience with me for the rest of my career since it did not only make me grow as a person, but also as the lawyer I want to become.”

Elin Englund, Sweden

“The Linkathon project shows how much Linklaters is aware of the importance to be innovative and to take advantage of the use of new technologies. I am very happy and proud to have become part of this community, full of people who really care about the innovation and who are trying to find out the best ways to use new tools.”

Elena Mandarà, Italy

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