When four Deakin law students stepped into a buzzing innovation hub in the UK earlier this year, they were taking on more than a competition. For the next three days, they were to immerse themselves in taming the real-world complexities of law as business.
Law Without Walls (LWOW), a global legal design sprint, brings together students, lawyers and business leaders to co-create solutions to some of the profession’s most pressing challenges. But the program’s true value lies beyond the competition itself.
Dr Antje Kreutzmann-Gallasch, who mentored the Deakin team, highlights that LWOW gives students the rare chance to explore the business side of being a lawyer, something often missing from law school: ‘It bridges the gap between university and the real demands of the legal and business world.’
Each student team is assigned a broad legal challenge, from AI adoption to real estate reform and must work together to refine the problem, identify stakeholders, and propose a practical solution. Students are matched to teams based on their skills and interests but often find themselves working in areas far outside their comfort zones, and that’s by design.
Antje points out that ‘the program builds cultural intelligence, too. Lawyers may work in one jurisdiction, but they increasingly operate in global teams. LWOW gives students a head start on that reality.’
For Brooke (5th year), Jai (3rd year), Jonah (2nd year) and Lauren (5th year), the experience was transformative.
‘I was nervous at first,’ Jai recalled, describing the moment he entered a room filled with C-suite legal professionals. ‘It felt like being a small fish in a very big pond.’ But those nerves didn’t last. Over 72 intense hours, teams collaborated across time zones and disciplines, blending legal thinking with design, business and tech.
Tackling the outdated American property recording system, Brooke drew on her digital conveyancing experience to help develop ProperTEA, a blockchain-backed platform simplifying legal records for new homebuyers. The breakthrough, Brooke explained, came when the team shifted focus: ‘The pivot from focusing on fraud to everyday pain points was what made it click.’ Her team’s solution won both the judges’ prize and the audience vote.
Lauren’s team took on the legal profession’s resistance to AI. They proposed a multifaceted solution that focused not only on the technology itself, but also on building confidence, motivation, and safeguards to support adoption. ‘We had to really consider what inspires people to try something new.’
Jonah’s team developed a professional development model to improve the connection between young lawyers and clients in an AI-driven world—through mentoring, soft skills training, and an immersive retreat. ‘It made me stop thinking like a student and start thinking like a strategist.’
What united the four was a sense of transformation—not just in their ideas, but in themselves.
For Jai, it meant confronting imposter syndrome and realising he had a voice worth hearing. ‘It’s not fake it till you make it. It’s fake it till you become it.’ That mindset wasn’t about pretending, but about leaning into discomfort, trusting your abilities, and growing into the kind of person who belongs in the room.
And that shift stuck. Each student walked away with sharper skills, broader perspectives and a clearer sense of what’s possible in law. ‘Law school teaches you how to think,’ Lauren reflected. ‘LWOW taught us how to build.’