Legal Geek is compiling a ‘hack-book’ of lawyers and legaltechies who code. If you code, or are learning to code, we would love to include you in our ‘hack-book’. Drop us a line via [email protected] [yes it is .co].

Colin Levy is an experienced in-house corporate counsel at publishing house Pearson. He is learning to code in R and Python.

How do you hope learning to code will help your career?

“I think that learning to code will help me to A) understand the basic concepts underlying legal technology and B) understand the language underlying legal technology. By gaining these two types of understandings, I will be better positioned to talk about and write about legal technology. Moreover, I will be better positioned to understand why certain technology may function well for one purpose, but not for another. As an advocate for legal technology and legal innovation, I think that it is crucial for me to truly understand the underpinnings of that which I seek to advocate. I also seek to someday help build my own legal applications, so learning to code is a crucial first step towards that goal.”

What kick-started your interest in coding?

“I have always enjoyed technology as well as the law. I also had a brief taste of programming years ago. I figured that I could bring these interests together by getting to truly know that which underlies legal technology, which is the programming language itself.”

What could hold you back from learning to code?

“Time. I have a busy work schedule and it is sometimes challenging to make time each day and each week to continue my coding journey.”

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