Holland & Knight has taken the lead role in establishing a Miami chapter of Legal Hackers, a global movement of lawyers, designers, entrepreneurs, policy advocates, researchers, students, teachers and technologists who explore and develop creative solutions to issues at the intersection of law and technology.

Volunteer-run

The group will be led by Holland & Knight associate Samir Patel, David James Knight of CodeCounsel LLC and Gabriel Shapiro of ZeroLaw. Legal Hackers is a volunteer-run, chapter-based community that is free to join and open to all. Legal Hackers have built tools to help disaster victims, to improve web accessibility for people with disabilities and to advance access to justice for low-income individuals. The group also organizes workshops to teach lawyers the basics of coding, data science, and design thinking, and gives entrepreneurs a platform to share their innovations.  Samir Patel is a real estate associate at Holland & Knight specializing in the conjunction of technological innovation and the evolving legal industry. David James Knight is a programmer and former litigator with more than 20 years' combined experience in law and technology. Gabriel Shapiro is a corporate attorney and coder specializing in avant garde initiatives at the crossroads of law and technology. He is currently the chief executive officer of ZeroLaw, which is developing the first Ethereum security protocol designed to facilitate the use of certificated securities in complex corporate transactions.

A fightin' agenda

The new chapter will have its first meetup on August 14 at Holland & Knight's Miami office, and will include an introduction to Legal Hackers, followed by 20-minute presentations on the following topics: Practice like a Programmer: Data-Driven Document Design; Black-Belt Blockchain Drafting Jiu-Jitsu; and, Document Automation and the Death of the Associate.