Lawyered Tech Witch
Enspiral Dev Academy trains beginners into work-ready junior developers through 9–18 weeks of remote study and a 9 week intensive in-class bootcamp in Auckland or Wellington, New Zealand. Graduate Judy Ting-Edwards shares her story.
There are 3 main reasons why I joined Enspiral Dev Academy:
- If I can’t beat the robots, I’ll join them
I’ve worked in the legal industry for 6 years. I worked for small and medium-sized law firms where I worked closely with clients from all walks of life. However, I felt I couldn’t make any meaningful impact, despite trying different areas of law. Studies have shown that most lawyers interact with only around 20,000 clients in their lifetime — I wanted to make a bigger impact. The time is up for the legal industry. I knew that if disruption could not happen within the law, it had to come from the outside. My mission is to empower people, and if I can’t do that with law, I’m going to do so with technology.
2. Overcoming my fear of technology
My brother said I have an aura around me where every technology I touch, it breaks. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with technology. I had very low confidence in using computers but I was in awe of it at the same time. I loved legal research and being methodical. However, I didn’t have the time to do a librarian course and be a legal librarian. I find that coding is very similar to legal research. You find a built-in function (precedent) or you make one (de novo). React and Redux are similar to statutory interpretation (cross-referencing between different documents). I want to be technically good and, like all sisters, I wanted to spite my brother. By the way, there’s a job title for people who break things in tech — they’re called testers. So I’d like to think my aura is a feature, not a bug! Attention to anyone who wants to hire me (as a tester or dev), here’s my GitHub, Twitter and LinkedIn, please get in touch!
3. I (still) believe in magic
In 2014 I met a cool programmer who was a member of the Enspiral community and she told me that programming is the closest thing we have to magic. I want to do magic and I want to help people. I saved for 3 years just to study this course and I was super excited when Dev Academy started offering courses in Auckland.
Having said that, I want people to have realistic expectations about this course: this is not some magical course where you can simply walk into a programming job from a completely different industry with no experience in tech. You will still have to deal with the realities of changing careers. This course is like being taught to drive and being given a map: you have to find your own route (and migrations — tehehe programmer’s joke!) and get there on your own. Make sure you have a very supportive network who will help you through this expensive, self-imposed struggle (it’s not all fun and games — but you’ll meet new people who will become your whānau/friends for life). Be ready to live and breathe with a few strangers for 9 weeks.
I don’t know what the future holds for me but I know one thing: I’m not just a boring lawyer any more. I can do magic tricks and change the world. Not to mention a few more yoga moves too. :-)
If you’d like to learn the skills to begin your journey into technology, upgrade your career, and open the door to more creative, well-paid work, apply for Dev Academy today.
