The LawtechUK advisory board is recruiting, and a firm of your size has until five o'clock on Monday 5 October to put someone forward. The Ministry of Justice published the call on 18 September, ahead of the programme's third delivery phase, which runs from November 2026 to March 2029. Two kinds of seat are open. Board members give independent expertise, strategic advice and challenge on how the programme is delivered, sitting alongside officials and the organisations holding the grant. Ambassadors carry the work into their own networks, support events and mentor the people coming through, with no governance role attached. Both seats are voluntary and unpaid.
Who the Ministry says it wants
The eligibility wording is wider than most Whitehall calls. Applications are welcome from legal services, lawtech and technology companies, academia, business and investment, access to justice organisations and the judiciary. Board candidates are asked to show expertise in one of a short list, and SME legal services sits on that list beside lawtech entrepreneurship, legal services innovation, academic research and access to justice. A solicitor running a six-partner practice answers that description as squarely as a founder with a funding round behind them.
What an empty seat costs you
Nobody running a small firm has time going spare, and an unpaid appointment that lasts to March 2029 is a real commitment. Set against that, the people who turn up are the people whose problems become the sector's problems. Pilots get shaped around the matter volumes of large firms. Standards get written for procurement teams a ten-person practice does not employ. Money follows products built for buyers with in-house technology staff. None of that comes from ill will. It comes from who was in the room, and that is the part you can change before October.
What to do before 5 October
Decide which seat matches the time you have. The ambassador route asks for a two-page CV, a statement of 250 words on what you would contribute, and a declaration of interests. The board route asks for the same CV, a suitability statement of 750 words written against the published criteria, and the same declaration. A conflict does not rule you out by itself, because the Ministry assesses each one on its own facts and selects by open competition against the criteria and the balance of skills it needs. If you have run an AI project inside a practice and learned something no policy paper would have told you, that experience is what the 750 words are for.
The notice setting out both roles, the criteria, the address for applications and the deadline is open to any reader on gov.uk.
If you want a second view on whether the seat is worth your time, or on what belongs in the 750 words, start with a conversation.
