Events · 1 August 2026
LawFest returns to Auckland in February 2027
Two days at Shed 10 on 25 and 26 February 2027, including a startup hub for the people building the tools the profession is arguing about.
The Profession Press · Editorial
LawFest runs on 25 and 26 February 2027 at Shed 10, Auckland, with a startup hub among the program features. It is the closest thing the Australasian region has to a dedicated legal technology gathering that is neither a vendor showcase nor a bar association CPD day.
The timing is useful. Australian practitioners spent 2026 absorbing a Federal Court practice note on generative AI, indemnity costs orders for fabricated citations in Murray v Victoria, and an unprecedented position on AI misuse in family litigation in Mertz & Mertz (No 3). The profession has developed strong views about what AI must not be used for and comparatively little shared understanding of what it should.
What a startup hub is actually good for
It is where you meet the people building the tool before the tool is sold to your firm by someone who has never practised. Early-stage legal technology founders are unusually willing to explain what their product cannot do, largely because they have not yet been trained out of it by a marketing department.
For practitioners with an idea of their own — and most litigators have at least one workflow they have privately rebuilt in a spreadsheet — a startup hub is also the cheapest available reality check on whether the idea is a product or a preference.
Details
When: Thursday 25 and Friday 26 February 2027
Where: Shed 10, Auckland, New Zealand
Features: Startup hub, exhibition, conference program
Registration: Via the LawFest site
Trans-Tasman travel remains among the cheaper ways for an Australian practitioner to attend an international conference, which matters more this year than most.
Who should go: practice managers, innovation leads, and the practitioner in every firm who has become the unofficial technology decision-maker without the title or the budget. That last person usually attends nothing, evaluates everything, and would benefit most from two days among people solving the same problem. Firms should identify who that is and send them.