As lawyers, we are often told that we just cannot be good at technical stuff, and I believe it is time someone says it: it can be really easy to learn to code for lawyers.
The two systems have some serious and surprising overlaps.
Ever since I started learning to code, I have been using my programming skills in legal context and vice versa.
Here are three reasons why your legal logical reasoning skills are really useful when learning programming.
1. Law is Code and Code is Law
When you first open your heart to computer science, one of the fundamental things you will learn are conditional statements.
If something, then something.
- If you click “Add to Cart”, then item will be added to your cart.
- If tablecloth is yellow, then it will not be placed in the washing machine with your fav white shirt (oh I wish I had this three weeks ago).
- If you click “like” below, then I will like you.
See where I am heading? Law is nothing but a bunch of conditional statements tied together.
- If this clause is applicable, then the party will be held liable and have to pay a fine.
- If you want to build a house of these specs, then you will need building permit.
- If your speed > 50km/h in a municipality, then you will get fined.
Not only this will make learning to code a breeze. Algorithmic thinking then can seriously elevate the way you break through those annoying walls of texts produced by a regulator or your favourite counterparty.
2. The learning patterns are very similar
Law is a craft. Many people don’t like to hear it, but it is a fact.
And as with any other craft, you learn by doing.
Even if you are lucky and someone relinquishes a billable to sit down with you and explain what are you supposed to do, you will always end up with a basic set of resources. These are surprisingly similar in their nature to how programmers learn, see for yourself.
| How lawyers learn | How programmers learn |
|---|---|
| Googles / searches knowledge database for good wording | Googles |
| Looks up precedents (case law and previously produced contracts) | Goes to GitHub (collaborative database of other people’s code) (admittedly less secretive) |
| Asks a colleague | Goes to StackOverflow (Q&A forum for programmers) |
| Watches other lawyers | Goes to YouTube or Twitch |
While this is super reductionist and probably result in shots fired – you get the point. At the end of the day, knowing the law is good, knowing how to find and reference it is infinitely better.
3. Lawyers love semicolons
When writing code in many programming languages, you have to end the line with a semicolon, otherwise your code goes down in flames.
This is why every programmer dreads when his code is stuck due to that odd missing semicolon; this is a non-issue for a lawyer, as we love putting semicolons whenever; we; can.
Seriously, if faced with the choice, we would just ditch the full stop and just opt for a never ending sentence, stretching across dozens of pages.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is basically code.
Final Provisions
Be it in the logic or our proclivity for syntactical torture, law and code are surprisingly a match made in heaven.
Learning to code can give you some serious edge, help you automate boring stuff, and so much more!
Are you trying to learn to code as a lawyer in 2022?
-Attorney@Code
