LWOW SPRINT 2026: MID-MARCH 2026
HOSTED BY NOVA SCHOOL OF LAW + NOVA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS, Carcavelos, Portugal
LWOW SPRINT 2026
The LWOW Sprint is a 3-day in-person experiential learning “weekender” focused on innovation, collaboration, and transformation. It is hands-on upskilling for practicing and aspiring legal and business professionals who seek to enhance their cross-cultural, creative teaming, problem solving, and leadership skills while hacking alongside kindred spirits who share a passion for intrapreneurship and community exchange.
LWOW Sprint is designed to match the demanding legal marketplace today which often requires extraordinarily talented multidisciplinary teams to be pulled together quickly to work collaboratively on urgent matters. As such, the LWOW Sprint is a team-based, inclusive, multidisciplinary, intergenerational experience. Using The 3-4-5 Method™ , over the course of 3 intense, high energy days, participants hack to solve a real business-of-law-problem or social responsibility challenge (or ESG) assigned to them by a sponsoring law firm, legal department, or law company. Teams create the foundation of a practicable solution and, at the end of the Sprint, present it to a panel of expert judges. In the process, participants learn design thinking principles and new ways of communicating, leading, and approaching collaboration and culture change that can be leveraged at work. The intensive LWOW Sprint mirrors real life sprints to meet client demands. As such it requires hard work and resilience, delivers personal and professional growth and, of course, celebrates the LWOW community of change agents.
Click here for the Sprint 2026 One-Page Planner (to come)
WHO'S INVOLVED and WHY:
Legal Departments/Law Firms/Law Companies sponsor teams at LWOW Sprint in order to:
Build networks and transform relationships with clients and colleagues.
Train-the-trainers i.e., cultivate future leaders so that they can add value in new ways including leading collaboration and innovation training sessions for others in your organization or at client’s organizations.
Co-create the foundation of a solution to a business-of-law or corporate social responsibility (or ESG) challenge.
Recruit diverse, global talent.
Build brand recognition as an innovative thought leader.
Provide a one-stop, closed-ended opportunity for talent to partake in pro-bono and continuing education.
Individual Participants are a mix of legal professionals, business executives, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, technologists, regulators, judges, compliance professionals, academics, and law and business student who want to:
Join a diverse community of change agents who solve problems at the intersection of law, business, and technology.
Accrue continuing legal education and/or pro-bono hours.
Learn new methods of leading, teaming, innovating, problem solving, design thinking, collaborating, communicating, and inspiring change.
Transform relationships with colleagues and clients.
Differentiate yourself as an intrapreneur who shapes the future.
HOW IT WORKS: THE 3-4-5 Method of INNOVATION™ in 48 hours
Over the course of 3 days, teams made up of a mix of legal and business professionals, academics, and law/business school students from around the world learn and apply design thinking principles and new methods of collaboration and innovation to co-create the foundation of a viable solution to a business-of-law or corporate social responsibility (or ESG) challenge selected by the Team Sponsor.
The LWOW Sprint teaches the 3-4-5- Method of Innovation™ created by the LWOW Founder, Michele DeStefano. It is divided into 3 phases, over 48 hours in 5 Steps. Specifically, on the first morning, the Sprint starts with a short KickOff (Phase 1) to build a foundation of trust for the intense teaming and collaboration that comes next. Phase 2 is the intensive hacking, dynamic teaming, and design thinking exercises centered on problem finding, consumer storytelling, ideation, and solution development. At the conclusion (Phase 3), there is a short ConPosium in which teams pitch their solution in Ignite-style format to a panel of multidisciplinary judges who ask questions and provide feedback.
Although the level of viability will vary, all teams’ solutions will be “Projects of Worth” yielding substantive growth in problem-solving, skills, mindset training, networking and relationship building. Participants will have grown individually and learned collectively and will return to their places of work or study with a wealth of new tools for work and creative problem-solving.
As Ursula K. Le Guin points out in her book, The Left Hand of Darkness: “It is good to have an end to journey towards; it is the journey that matters, in the end.” LWOW Sprint is not intended to serve as an end but instead as a charge of energy for the journey we have already begun to stay relevant, and play an active part in the future of our profession. LWOW Sprint is a condensed, measured, and intense experience designed to have long lasting meaningful impact on participants individually and collectively.
TEAMING:
At the LWOW Sprint, everyone is put on a team. Each team is sponsored by a corporate legal department, law firm or law/legal tech company that assigns a narrow business-of-law challenge or corporate social responsibility (or ESG) challenge that the Sponsor cares about. Each team is comprised of up to 4 professionals selected by the sponsoring entity who serve as Lead Hackers alongside the following team members who are assigned to the team by LWOW: 2-4 Student Hackers; 1-2 LWOW Hacker Mentors (mix of professionals and academics). This core team is aided by 1 Innovation Coach and 1 Project Manager selected and assigned by LWOW. Additionally, all Sprint teams have access to resident experts in business planning/pitching start-ups, technical engineering, branding/marketing, and pitch deck.
Click here to learn more about roles in Sprint.
