Change the world

25/07/2024

The HiveLaw, launched on 23 July at Nelson Mandela University’s South Campus, is an innovative virtual legal office that will equip the institution’s Law Clinic staff and students with the technological tools they need for modern legal practice. 

 

From left, Badian Maasdorp, lawyer and venture capitalist, Brent Williams, Chief Executive Officer at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Chris Hathaway, Director of Cloud Essentials, Retha Beerman, Director, heading up the Knowledge Management department at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Judge Avinash Govindjee, Dr Lynn Biggs, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law, Prof Marshall Sheldon, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Technology, and Lindi Coetzee, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law. 

SA LawLabz Ltd, a tech start-up backed up by leading corporate and commercial law firm, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (CDH), and information technology experts from CloudEssentials, have partnered with the University on HiveLaw.

The Law Clinic, on the Missionvale Campus, functions as a fully-fledged Law Firm registered with the Legal Practice Council. It assists members of the public who would not ordinarily be able to afford the services of a lawyer.

HiveLaw’s state-of-the-art technology offers features such as client onboarding, document management, email filing, time recording, diary management, and student assessments.

“HiveLaw is a SharePoint-based practice management solution, custom-designed to fit university Law Clinics’ dual purpose of legal service delivery and practical legal education,” says Dr Marc Welgemoed, Head of Department Criminal and Procedural law.

“From a single SharePoint platform, users can access a combination of interconnected modules that speak to a law firm’s requirements, which include conflict of interest checks, accounting (drafting bills of cost), letters and legal document generation.”

HiveLaw addresses two major concerns: improving access to justice and advancing legal education to keep pace with a rapidly changing world.

The system can be used for student assessment. It generates statistics and reports for relevant stakeholders.

Conceived by a team which included the former Dean of Law at Mandela University, Judge Avinash Govindjee, HiveLaw offers a new way of learning and teaching for students and their legal educators.

“Traditional law clinics often struggle with systems that fail to adequately prepare students for the demands of modern legal practice,” says Brent Williams, chief executive officer of CDH.

“HiveLaw helps us realise our responsibility to bridge this accessibility gap, and at the same time enables Law Clinic employees and students to engage with the same advanced tools found in top-tier law firms like CDH.”

This is important in South Africa, where quality legal services are, for many people, unaffordable. In addition, legal representation may be below par due to lawyers not being adequately trained to use modern law technology.

“We recognise the need to deliver quality legal services to the less privileged living within impoverished areas of Nelson Mandela Bay, and other surrounding areas,” says Dr Welgemoed. In addition to training law students, the Law Clinic also plays a prominent role in community engagement.

From an educational perspective, the HiveLaw system exemplifies modern work-integrated learning because students will learn about digital systems and artificial intelligence in legal practice.

It offers the opportunity to move away from a paper-based environment to a digital environment, making the client’s entire case history available at the click of a button.

“In paper-based file contents, clients’ personal information can be easily lost or exposed to everyone in a law firm. The [HiveLaw] system improves the protection of client confidentiality, and another benefit is access to justice,” says Dr Welgemoed.

Law Clinic professional assistant Sikhulule Matshoba sees the shift online as an exciting chance to be part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“The transition to digital is a welcome step into the future for legal practitioners, as it allows for convenience at a fingertip, even remotely with technological work tools,” says Matshoba.

“Administratively, the system also expands the clinic’s file management and reporting processes. This helps to secure record keeping at the clinic, especially with the ongoing challenges of power outages.”

Dr Welgemoed adds that the implementation of this system will require legal academics to adapt their training methods to provide the best possible learning and teaching experience for students.

This will result in a unique clinical legal education that law schools should not be without.

Just as Mandela University strives to be in service to society, the shareholders and business partners behind HiveLaw share a deep passion for equitable development of legal practice, as well as fair access to justice, and quality legal education in South Africa.

People are at the heart of what LawLabz does, which is to empower, access and change:

  • Empower people with knowledge and opportunities.
  • Offer access to tools and skills that are not readily available outside of LawLabz’ offerings.
  • Change the lives of students, clients, and legal educators, in how they engage with legal services and legal education.

Hive Law is in full operation at the Law Clinic and is already benefitting the full-time staff member’s daily experiences. Student onboarding is planned for the second semester, when they also will be trained on HiveLaw.

The solution deployed at the Mandela University Law Clinic may be a prototype for a viable, scalable, and transferable model to modernise university law clinics and, in due course, smaller law firms and non-governmental organisations.

As HiveLaw expands its reach, the future of legal practice in South Africa looks brighter and more inclusive, promising significant advancements in both education and service delivery.

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