{"id":23984,"date":"2018-05-09T16:31:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T16:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.legalgeek.co\/?p=23984"},"modified":"2018-05-09T16:31:09","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T16:31:09","slug":"andrew-bailie-legal-geek-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.legalgeek.co\/andrew-bailie-legal-geek-of-the-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Bailie: Legal Geek of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halfway through Legal Geek\u2019s interview with Andrew Bailie<\/strong> \u2013 the youngest Legal Geek of the Week so far \u2013 proceedings are halted whilst he negotiates an \u201cangry science student\u201d wanting to use the room he is occupying at Edinburgh University\u2019s library.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first and only time during the interview that Bailie\u2019s age and life stage match expectations. Bailie is just 22 and getting kicked out of places you\u2019re not meant to be is, well, to be expected.<\/p>\n

But in all other regards, he seems far from the student stereotype.<\/p>\n

Take his extra-curricular diary for starters. In his final year at Edinburgh, he has been engaged in three projects\u00a0separate <\/em>to\u00a0<\/em>his formal studies in Politics and Philosophy. He is the Director of a non-profit, student-led, consultancy called FreshSight (overseeing the delivery of 14 projects a year); has acted as a consultant at Legal Spark, a first-in-its-kind social enterprise Law Centre in Scotland; and as a volunteer consultant for Legal Geek on Law for Good.<\/p>\n

Legal Geek puts it to him that it is very impressive to have taken all this on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlternatively, you could look at me like this,\u201d Bailie responds. \u201cI\u2019m 22, unemployed, with no degree\u201d.<\/p>\n

But as Bailie explains, he\u2019s not the type to dedicate himself solely to one cause when there are so many causes that catch his eye, especially in the area of social change. And at present he sees LegalTech as presenting a multitude of ways for delivering social change.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegalTech is an amazing tool for meeting socio-economic challenges and informing sustainable business decisions. My eyes were initially opened by speaking to the team at Farewill and discovering that using technology to help write a will makes people significantly more philanthropically inclined and results in more people leaving legacy gifts for charities. That\u2019s an interesting, unexpected affect that has come about thanks to a technological intervention to a very old and fossilised interaction between experts. That\u2019s very exciting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a genuinely interested outsider. I don\u2019t have any formal legal training so when I see an interaction between technology and a person, I come at it from the perspective of the interaction not from the years and years of legal expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

FreshSight takes up most of Bailie\u2019s extra time, yet it was through Legal Spark that he first cut his teeth in the legal sector.<\/p>\n

Legal Spark was the first law centre in Scotland to start operating as a social enterprise, and promotes access to justice whilst reinvesting its profits for social good.<\/p>\n

Bailie adds: \u201cIt has a very exciting remit as it can be helping a single low income person fight a housing claim or it can be advocating for community rights groups. So there\u2019s a very large spectrum there. The founder was even prepared to take on strategic litigation against the Scottish Government, supporting large third sector causes we believed in.\u201d<\/p>\n

This background led Andrew to Legal Geek and volunteering on a Law For Good project aimed at developing income generation strategies for law centres in London.<\/p>\n

Bailie explains: \u201cLaw centres all throughout London are closing down at an alarming rate so we were looking at ways to make them more sustainable, without going against the crucial culture they have\u00a0 – they are not there to handle money or make anyone rich. They are there to make a social impact and serve the community they operate in.\u201d<\/p>\n

His experiences with Legal Spark and Legal Geek are now feeding back into his work at FreshSight. FreshSight unlocks value for clients who are seeking to make a larger social impact, deploying multi-disciplinary student talent, mostly from around Edinburgh, to act as consultants over the course of 8 weeks. In exchange for their time, students selected to work for FreshSight receive paid-for and subsidised training in consultancy management, a course which is accredited by the Consultancy Management Institute.<\/p>\n

Legal Geek Conference<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n