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ELDA Network

ELDA Network - Educating Lawyers in the Digital Age

The ELDA (Educating Lawyers in the Digital Age) Network brings together practitioners, professional support lawyers, knowledge management professionals, law firm learning & development teams, regulators and academics who care about how lawyers learn in a rapidly changing, technology-driven profession.

Rooted in evidence from learning theory and informed by the realities of practice, ELDA exists to help the legal sector answer a simple question: how do we educate "AI-native" lawyers who can think critically, act ethically and use technology wisely?

The ELDA was founded in 2025 and is convened by Prof. Yarik Kryvoi, Senior Fellow in International Economic Law at BIICL.

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How ELDA Started

ELDA grew out of the Legal Training and Technology Workshop held at BIICL in London on 15 October 2025.

That workshop:

  • Brought together training and knowledge leads from firms such as Baker McKenzie, Clifford Chance, DLA Piper, Herbert Smith Freehills, Skadden, White & Case, Withers and others
  • Featured an opening keynote conversation between Professor Diana Laurillard (UCL Knowledge Lab) and Professor Yarik Kryvoi (BIICL) on what makes legal education distinct and how digital tools can genuinely improve learning
  • Ran under Chatham House Rule, so participants could speak candidly about what works - and what fails - in training lawyers
  • Focused on two big themes:
    - The design of training for lawyers in a hybrid and online world
    - The opportunities and risks of using AI and other technologies in legal training

  
The energy in the room was clear: firms, regulators and universities were all grappling with similar problems - often reinventing solutions in parallel. Participants repeatedly asked for a standing network to continue the conversation, share materials and collaborate between events.

ELDA is the answer to that request.

Aims

ELDA's mission is to improve the way lawyers are educated and trained in the digital age, by connecting theory, practice and technology.

More concretely, ELDA aims to:

1. Bridge theory and practice

  • Translate insights from learning science into practical formats for law firms, in-house teams, public bodies and barristers' chambers.
  • Explore what makes legal education different from other fields and which skills actually matter for successful lawyers.

2. Support ongoing competence in a changing regulatory landscape

  • Create space for dialogue between firms, regulators and professional bodies on standards of ongoing competence.
  • Share models for identifying learning needs, planning, delivering and evaluating training in line with regulatory expectations.

3. Use technology - especially AI - wisely in legal training

  • Distinguish clearly between skills that can be delegated to technology and those that cannot.
  • Develop and share practices for teaching lawyers to use AI tools critically, including how to check outputs against primary sources and real-world constraints.

4. Connect communities that rarely sit in the same room

  • Link knowledge lawyers, PSLs and KM teams with learning designers, university partners and education theorists.
  • Encourage cross-practice and cross-jurisdictional learning - disputes and transactional, private practice and government, domestic and international.

5. Create and share high-quality, reusable learning resources

  • Develop playbooks, templates, scenarios and simulations that can be adapted by member organisations.
  • Encourage co-authored publications and cross-firm collaborations under vendor-neutral, non-promotional principles.
     

Partnerships

ELDA works in collaboration with:

  • British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL)
  • UCL Knowledge Lab and other education-focused university partners
  • Law firms and in-house teams across disputes and transactional practice
  • Regulators and professional bodies interested in ongoing competence
     
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