NEW YORK: A community of technologists and legal professionals are competing in what appears to be the first hackathon that will challenge contestants to build technology that solves common problems in transactional legal practice. The hackathon, named “Code the Deal,” is hosted by New York Legal Hackers and Nixon Peabody, and sponsored by HP, Shake, DiligenceEngine, and Clio.

Code the Deal is offering $4,000 in prizes to inspire technologists and entrepreneurs to think about large and small business transactions – which, in legal practice, are often mired in paperwork and formalities – as an entry point for new ventures. Speakers and judges for the event include Abe Geiger and Vinay Jain from Shake; Sarah Feingold, General Counsel at Etsy; Nehal Madhani, Founder of Plainlegal; Jonathan Askin, Professor at Brooklyn Law School; and Remko de Knikker, Software Evangelist for HP Autonomy.

The event is the product of a longstanding discussion between Legal Hackers founder Phil Weiss and Nixon Peabody associate Aaron Yowell, who saw an opportunity for innovation in the transactional market. Yowell sees potential in adding fairly simple technology to transactional legal practice. “The applications open up once we start looking at our legal text as data objects,” explains Yowell. And as it turns out, the legal aspect of consummating a deal is usually a whole lot of text and, in turn, data.

The organizers hold a common belief that there’s room for improvement in transactional practice. “The legal profession has really been resistant to change when it comes to the most basic transactional practice,” says Weiss. “There’s a huge untapped market, for instance, when it comes to providing legal counsel for individual and small business transactions. Large firms couldn’t possibly serve that demographic profitably, so it is ignored.” By leveraging this data, the organizers say, larger and smaller legal-service providers could become leaner, more efficient, and, in turn, better serve a more tech-focused, rapidly developing economy.

Code the Deal will take place September 19–21, 2014 at Dev Bootcamp. Information regarding sign-up, judging, rules, and schedule can be found at http://codethedeal.com. Space will be provided for teams to work the entire weekend, beginning with an opening reception (drinks and refreshments served), and closing with demos, judging, and winner announcements. Guest speakers will be presenting throughout the working weekend, so attendees will not necessarily need to be coding to gain something from the hackathon.

A winner demo and networking reception will be held at Nixon Peabody’s offices on Tuesday, September 23, 2014, for industry professionals and investors. All events are open to the public with prior registration.