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Why is Nordic Legal Tech Day important to you?
Even if legal tech has been on the agenda for many years, it is still partly unexplored and has not reached its full potential. This means in my mind that all different parts of the legal industry should and could help out to sparkle new ideas, show success stories (to steal with pride!) and to connect between different actors. Exactly that is what I hope that Nordic Legal Tech Day can give us all! Also: I am really looking forward to the start-up part of the day, so much enthusiasm lies within that hour!

According to Norstedts Juridik’s industry report, The Future of the Legal Profession,  60 % of lawyers in Scandinavia believe that technology will drive the development within the legal industry. What is your view on this?
I agree! But we also need to remember the difficulties organizations can face when implementing new technology. For example, it can be very difficult for employees to understand how to use new technology and the benefits of it at first. Often there is a learning curve that needs to be accounted for. User experience should always be in focus when it comes to developing new technology – a new technology is only as good as the user perceives it to be.

What is on your wish-list for Legal Tech innovation?
What if we took some big leaps within legal tech? We are as a whole either standing still or focusing on minor workflow changes or efficiency problems. What disruption ideas are around the corner?

You are also participating in one of the panels during the day, innovative organizations. What is a good example of innovation in your view?
Organizations that have a high degree of collaboration and a structure that accommodates for that. The company culture should encourage motivated, result-driven and proactive innovators (you still need those local heros!) to run with all of the contributors though-out the organization and across organizations. In a collaborative spirit! And finally – customer involvement. What driving forces are prominent at the customer’s end – and how will that effect the surrounding parts of the ecosystem?

Looking forward to see you at the event! /NLTD crew

Describe your business idea in one sentence – What problem do you solve? 
We decrease the barriers for commercial renters by replacing an expensive deposit with a low-cost insurance.

Starting a business is not always a smooth road ahead – Do you have a fun/challenging/odd memory from developing your business that you would like to share?
We’ve made a few pivots along the way. Long story short, the initial plan was to launch a solution for the residential market in Berlin. Instead, the actual go-to market was commercial real estate in Stockholm.

If you can predict the future of legal tech – what do you think is the next big trend?
More accessible legal services, like Lawyer-in-your-pocket and on-site consultations, enabled by technology.

What do you look forward to at Nordic Legal Tech Day?
We love to talk about insurance law and look forward to an event where that’s not odd.

–  We are delighted you are joining the event. Good luck and see you in October!

NLTD crew

Erik’s work can be broken down into three categories.

First, Erik is a Professor of Business and Financial Law and the Director of the International Business Law program at Tilburg University in The Netherlands. He teaches business organizations and governance, law and technology, and business innovation and finance at Tilburg Law School, TIAS School for Business and Society, and at other universities around the world. His research, including chapters of his academic books, can be downloaded from the Social Science Research Network. Erik has appeared at numerous conferences as a featured or keynote speaker.

Second, Erik works at the intersection of the academic and corporate worlds. He is a Senior Legal Counsel at Signify (formerly known as Philips Lighting). He works on corporate matters, mergers & acquisitions, and legal design, tech, and communication.

Third, Erik can be described as a content creator. He has a blog at erikpmvermeulen.medium.com, where he shares insights in how emerging technologies are creating new opportunities across all areas of the economy and society. In our fast-changing world, Erik revisits long-held assumptions and theories, and seeks to develop new models more appropriate to the next normal.

Erik’s thought-provoking and innovative views on business, technology, education, and the law have attracted international attention. He regularly serves as an expert advisor to international organizations and national and local governments around the world.

Tell us how it all started?
The idea for Henchman was born out of a real-life frustration. During the acquisition of their previous company, our founders noticed that legal professionals lose a lot of valuable time to repetitive and tedious work. What bothered them most was the time that was wasted on looking up clauses that the lawyers knew existed somewhere in the company’s database. Clauses that had carefully been drafted before and that should increase the law firm’s efficiency, resulted in a loss of time. Time that should be used by lawyers to create value for their clients by sharing experience and knowledge.That is why Henchman enables legal professionals to draft and negotiate complex and bespoke contracts faster. Our enablement software automatically retrieves and suggests previously written clauses from the company’s contract repository within Microsoft Word.

How has the response been to your product?
The response to our solution has been overwhelmingly positive. Legal teams are blown away by the ease of implementation and use. We often ask our customers for feedback. The key question we then ask them is: ‘How disappointed would you be if you couldn’t use Henchman anymore?’. The majority of users would never want to go back to the old way of drafting.

What challenges have you had along the road?
Although the idea for Henchman is rather simple, the technical side is very complex. For Henchman to be relevant, the tool has to be able to connect to all different types of databases from where it must be able to process millions of clauses. Together with legal advisors, customers who gave on-point feedback and a great engineering team, we have built an unmatched product that does precisely what it promises.

This is Henchman’s first time attending Nordic Legal Tech Day. What are your hopes?We want to meet and connect with forward-thinking legal teams and law firms. We hope to get to know the Nordic market better and understand its challenges.

Where do you see yourselves in five years?
By 2026 we want Henchman to enable 10,000 lawyers to draft and negotiate faster.

We are delighted to have you as a Tech Sponsor. See you in October!