In celebration of 2020 Women’s History Month, ILTA was pleased to announce a list of Influential Women in Legal Technology. Each Tuesday in March, readers will learn more about the women who were selected.
Alice Namuli Blazevic
Partner at Katende, Ssempebwa & Company Advocates & Co-Founder of The Legal Innovation Hub
Kampala, Uganda
Alice is an award-winning lawyer, international speaker, author, innovator and mentor. She was labelled as “one to watch” in the Chambers and Partners Global Guide to the World’s Leading Lawyers, 2020 Edition, with sources recognising her strengths in TMT work, particularly in IT.
At her firm, she established the Legal Tech and Innovation department where they are helping reshape the model of business in Africa. For example, her expertise in commercial transactions helped lead the KATS Fintech team to secure the first-ever money remittance license from the Central Bank of Uganda for a Fintech using a digital platform.
Work outside of KATS includes being the Co-Founder of the Legal Innovation Hub, a co-working space for lawyers and innovators that focuses on building better legal solutions for the consumers of legal services. It helps support, foster, and develop solutions and techniques to enhance legal services and access to justice.
She also spends a lot of time mentoring the next generation of lawyers and technology enthusiasts. She mentors young lawyers at her firm and hosts Coffee with Alice, a mentorship program for young lawyers and law students. It teaches them soft skills to enable them bridge the gap between the theory learnt at school and practice with the emphasis of training them for the future of the legal profession, which is being disrupted by technology.
Other accolades include being named one of the Top 50 African Women in Cybersecurity by CyberinAfrica and one of the Top 40 under 40 most influential people in Uganda.
Let’s get to know Alice a little more...
How do you define an influential woman?
A woman whose work has an impact on current and future generations.
If you could spend one hour with someone who you feel has had a significant impact on your success (directly or indirectly), who would you spend it with, and how would you prepare for that meeting?
Elon Musk - I have learnt to always be part of the solution as opposed to complaining about any challenge. He inspires me to aim for the extraordinary and to efficiently work on multiple projects through hiring or collaborating with highly skilled teams. If I was to meet him, I would prepare three to five questions.
What advice would you like to share with other women that are either working in or aspiring to work in Legal Technology?
- • Maximize the use of technology tools available on the market to enhance the way thy do their work.
- • Study new fields of law that have emerged due to the disruption of technology in the legal profession, like cyber law, data protection & privacy, Blockchain, AI, ethics of AI, Robotics, coding for lawyers, etc.
- • Upskill — learn soft skills that are not taught in law schools
- • Be part of conversations at the intersection of law and tech both at local and global level.
- • Seek collaborations with other professionals like programmers, cybersecurity experts, innovators, etc
What is one challenge within legal technology you hope to help solve?
Equipping law students and young lawyers with skills of the 21st century through upskilling or learning new skills like cognitive flexibility, emotional intelligence, data analytics, business skills, design thinking, creativity and collaboration with other professionals like cybersecurity specialists.
How can people help you?
Collaborations — foster conversations and trainings at the intersection of law and technology.
To stay in the know of Alice’s work in legal tech, follow her on Twitter at @namuliblazevic and LinkedIn at @AliceNamuliBlazevic.
View the entire list of Influential Women in Legal Tech here.
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