Digital transformation in public administration - practical examples from the ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon
Digital transformation: public administration in transition
Public administration faces major challenges and equally major opportunities. Digitalisation, automation and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly changing how administration works, how decisions are prepared and how legal requirements can be implemented. Especially in cities and municipalities, where citizen proximity and efficiency are equally important, there is a growing need for digital solutions that not only work technically, but are also legally correct and transparent.
At the same time, the question arises: How can new digital tools be developed and tested in concrete terms without launching large IT projects? And how can legal requirements be combined with technological possibilities?
This is exactly where the ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon comes in: an innovative format that brings together universities, students, technologists, lawyers and the public sector to work together on the digitalisation of legal processes. Following its successful launch in 2024/25, this event is now entering its next phase and inviting cities, municipalities and other public institutions to contribute their challenges and become part of the solution.
Digital transformation within the ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon?
The ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon is a Europe-wide innovation format that deals with the practical digitisation of law. The aim is to translate legal problems – especially those from public administration – into functioning digital prototypes. Unlike abstract research projects or classic IT projects, this involves concrete work on real challenges with direct practical relevance.
Teams from universities and institutions, most of which are interdisciplinary and made up of students from the fields of law, computer science, linguistics and other disciplines, spend several weeks developing digital solutions for real-world
tasks that have been submitted in advance by public institutions. At the end of each hackathon, a functioning prototype with a proof of concept is presented, showing how legal processes can be digitised, automated or made more user-friendly.
The solutions developed are based on open-source tools, are transparently documented, traceable, legally robust and free of so-called hallucinations, i.e. uncontrolled AI misstatements.
Review: The ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon 2024/2025 as a successful start
The first ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon was held between October 2024 and February 2025 and celebrated its conclusion at the renowned IRIS 2025 Conference in Vienna. A total of four teams took part – one each from Austria and the Netherlands, and two from Germany. The teams were made up of students from different disciplines and worked for several months on specific challenges related to legal digitisation.
Digital transformation: a wide range of topics at the 2024/2025 Hackathon
As part of the first ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon, four very different but equally practical challenges were identified and addressed by four interdisciplinary teams. The range of topics impressively demonstrated the diversity of applications for digital solutions in a legal context:
- RAG DOLL – Automated compliance chatbot for the AI Act This project addressed the question of how compliance checks for AI systems can be automated in order to efficiently implement the requirements of the European AI Act.
- PENTA LEX – Data protection in banking This project developed a rule-based chatbot to answer data protection and regulatory questions in the banking sector. The bot provided structured information on specific questions in a simple, user-friendly way – a promising approach for internal compliance tools.
- Caselaw Training Data project – Metadata from case law The aim of this project was to use AI to automatically extract structured metadata from published Austrian court decisions. This creates the basis for better searchability, systematic analysis and the reuse of legal decisions.
- GBB Project – Identifying knowledge gaps in legal AI systems The project addressed the question of how to ensure that no relevant legal information is lost in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems.
All four projects were successfully completed and presented by the hackers at the IRIS 2025 conference.
The diversity of challenges and approaches underscores the innovative power of interdisciplinary teams and the potential of digital tools for practical everyday legal work in public administration and in companies.
The final presentations took place in front of a large audience at the IRIS conference. A special highlight was the award ceremony at the Federal Ministry of Justice in Vienna, where all teams were honoured as winners. Over 250 guests attended the event.
Digital transformation outlook: The ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon 2025/2026
Following the successful initial event, the ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon 2025/2026 is now underway – and the submission phase is now open for public administrations, corporations and companies that would like to propose specific legal digitisation problems for processing. At the same time, universities and interdisciplinary teams are invited to apply to participate in the competition.
The official launch of the hackathon will take place on 2 October 2025 as part of the ReMeP Annual Conference in Vienna. There, the submitted problems will be presented publicly, participating teams will be introduced, and initial collaborations between submitters and teams will be initiated.
Schedule at a glance:
- Submission of topics and teams: from now until 15 September 2025
- Official kick-off event: 2 October 2025, REMEP Conference Vienna
- Topic allocation and team selection: until 20 October 2025
- Submission of abstracts: until 10 January 2026
- Final selection: until 31 January 2026
- Closing event: IRIS 2026 Conference, 20–21 February 2026
Participation is free of charge for all involved.
Why cities, municipalities and public institutions should participate and what opportunities this offers
The hackathon offers municipal and regional institutions in particular a unique opportunity to actively shape digitalisation. They receive concrete solutions to real problems without having to do any development work or incur any costs themselves. Working with the teams brings fresh impetus, promotes a climate of innovation and makes their own administration fit for the future.
Digital transformation: participate now and benefit from innovation
The ‘Law As Code’ Hackathon 2025/2026 is a practical opportunity to implement specific digitisation projects. By participating, you can not only obtain innovative solutions, but also actively shape the digital transformation. Submit your topic, attend the kick-off event on 2 October 2025 in Vienna and accompany the development of a digital prototype for your administration – together with committed students and subject matter experts.
