Teaching our people to write code

Over the past few months, members of our Coders Collective have expressed interest in learning how to bridge the gap between writing code and building a functioning app.

In response, we have started running internal coding workshops, where we review in detail the inner workings of a legal app.

Based on Don's prior experience as a JavaScript engineer, and Shaun's prior experience building the Lexi chatbot, our first seminar focused on demonstrating and explaining a JavaScript-based chat bot.

Chat bots are an excellent way for members of the Coders Collective to interact with code. They have many interesting applications in law, including providing interactive services to determine whether:

• an employee has been validly dismissed;
• a lease is a retail lease; and
• a person is eligible for a work development order.

Recently, we launched an initiative encouraging Collective members to build chat bots to explore new ways of delivering a better client experience for their practice. Going forward, we will be exploring new initiatives such as automated legislation parsing and contracts analysis. 

Lawyer Shaun Chung and Graduate Don Nguyen