More than half of Legislate’s team are women and we take pride in our women disrupting the legal technology industry. In this article we speak to the women at Legislate who share their insights into what it's like to be a woman in legal tech and to myth-bust misconceptions about what have traditionally been two male-dominated professions.
The first thing the team reported was how motivating it was to have a half female team; it encouraged them to keep improving and learning. The team reported that prior to starting at Legislate they were surprised by how many women do work in technology and how many opportunities there are that are open to them.
With the team developing at Legislate over the last year, the view that women lack interest in this field, could not be further than the truth. At Legislate, the team agreed that they never felt like they had to work harder than their male counterparts to enter the industry: getting any opportunity is always a challenge but being female didn’t make this disproportionately difficult. The team also felt strongly that they were credited with the same respect and opportunities regardless of their sex.
The women also reported that whilst they didn't find any difficulty in securing a job in this field they did find some situations intimidating, particularly in male-dominated companies and environments. The team were pleased that opportunities like those at Legislate are becoming increasingly present in the industry as the gender gap narrows.
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For business founders that are trying to remove stereotypes and barriers for women in tech, the team agreed that choosing the right team was crucial. The team were quick to qualify this by saying that this didn’t necessarily mean choosing an entirely female team. What it means is to choose a group of supportive and eager individuals that believe in your product and want to develop and better the company. The team also thought that including your female employees in your hiring processes was beneficial, particularly in helping entry-level women feel more at ease when entering the industry. To ensure that you offer a complete picture of your business you should be transparent about who forms your team and the work that they do to the wider public to ensure that not only are you in practical terms breaking a stereotype but publicly endorsing and promoting the opposite.
In short, the women at Legislate did not feel disadvantaged in their industry where they are based (in both Oxford and Seville) due to their sex. If anything, having worked at a legal tech startup, the women were frustrated by the misconceptions they held about women in tech prior to immersing themselves in it. As such, the team believed it was crucial to myth-bust misconceptions about women in the industry as they were concerned about losing talent in the industry due to an outdated stereotype.
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The opinions on this page are for general information purposes only and do not constitute legal advice on which you should rely.