LWOW Conposium – LawWithoutWalls

Summary

As a short summary – LawWithoutWalls (LWOW) teams professionals from academy, business, entrepreneurship and law with roughly 100 students from over 30 law and business schools around the world. Throughout four months, the assembled teams identify a problem related to law and work remotely to create a solution. LWOW refines the skills of those involved, recharges the legal market with innovations across business, law and technology and revitalizes relationships with colleagues, clients and future talents across the globe.

Each of these LWOW master’s courses begin with a two-day Kickoff containing collaborative, skills-intensive working session designed to challenge the way participants think, the way they learn, and the way they communicate with each other. Students, along with business professionals, academics, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and lawyers from around the world, learn how to innovate and affect change in daily life. Following the Kickoff, the LWOW teams gather online each week to debate emerging issues at the intersection of law, technology, and innovation and develop solution projects.

At the end of this four-month experience and hard work, the LWOW concludes at the Conposium, an interactive event wherein teams display their innovations to the LWOW Community and a panel of multidisciplinary judges, including venture capitalists, who assess the substance, viability, and creativity of the projects.

Conposium 2019 in Miami

This year’s Conposium took place at the University of Miami in the Newman Alumni Center on 14—15 April. Upon arrival on Sunday morning, the international participants met at a joint light breakfast. Following, they all gathered in the conference hall waiting for the Conposium to begin. The loud music along with the dark room decoration and lounge atmosphere gave us a hunch, that a special kind of event will be taking place here.

Michele de Stefano and Erika Pagano moderated and introduced the teams throughout the event and animated them to make the best of their presentation. Each team had exactly 20 minutes to pitch their project, including a self-produced commercial as well as a realistic business plan. These presentations were followed by roughly 15 minutes of Q&A by a high-profile committee of judges who challenged the projects and pointed out possible weaknesses. In addition to this Q&A, the teams had the opportunity to receive extensive feedback after their presentation by the specially appointed jurors, as the teams project was always suited their area of expertise. If the project is viable for the future, the fine-tuning could be carried out here or even the financing could already be discussed.

After a fun night and a good night’s rest, the next teams were up to present their project on Monday. The teams competed fiercely (and enthusiastically) and we were impressed by their creativity and thorough research they conducted. On Monday night, the LWOW Conposium 2019 ended with a champagne party and the election of the most promising projects produced by the LWOW teams. We are proud to say that in the winning team in the category “audience choice” and “best idea” a student from the University of St. Gallen was involved.

Great thanks goes to the LWOW team as well as the participants of this inspiring Conposium. It was an honor to participate in this fantastic event.