00 · INTRODUCTIONAvailable June 2026

DarcyMcCarthy

JD | Technology Consultant Melbourne, Australia

Juris Doctor (University of Melbourne, admitted June 2026) with 5+ years' experience building technology solutions for law firms and ASX-listed clients. Fluent in both legal practice and software engineering principles, bridging the gap between partners and engineers, and applying legal judgement to AI governance, data architecture and system design.

View experience Download CV

Years in legal-tech

Workplaces across law + tech

15+

Platforms shipped

20+

Hours/week saved by automation

01Experience

Roles across law and tech.

Eight years across legal practice, in-house operations, executive advisory and legal-tech engineering.

01/07

2022→2026

Oct 2022 – Apr 2026

Legal Technology Consultant

Maddocks

Product and engineering function for legal technology at a mid-tier firm. Owned work end-to-end from partner discovery and business case through design, build, rollout, change management and production operations across all eight practice groups. Shipped firm-wide platforms, document automation, AI tools, and set the engineering and security standards behind them. Advised partners on AI strategy and governance.

Discovery & Stakeholder Engagement

Led co-design workshops and process-discovery sessions with partners, associates and IT across all eight practice groups, baselining KPIs and translating findings into functional specs, user stories and acceptance criteria.

Platform & Workflow Engineering

Designed and built a firm-wide matter-management platform consolidating billing, trust accounting, contract metadata and documents, with role-based permissions and audit logging to meet confidentiality and regulatory obligations.
Built a task-automation engine generating matter tasks from firm-wide templates, with dependency modelling and calendar/time-recording integrations to eliminate manual matter setup.
Built searchable knowledge indexes covering advices, clauses, precedents, case summaries and firm technology platforms across the eight core practice groups.
Developed an integrated search system across ASIC, Trademark and IP Australia with conditional rules and live alerts, materially reducing time lawyers spent on manual cross-register searches.
Built web-scraping services and live dashboards surfacing competitor intelligence for partner BD reviews.

Data, BI & Machine Learning

Built Power BI dashboards tracking team capacity, time reporting, allocations and solution adoption, used in monthly partner reviews with drill-through to matter-level detail.
Deployed ML pipelines for narrative classification, clause extraction and data anonymisation, integrated into the firm's document workflows with human-in-the-loop review and drift monitoring.

AI Advisory & Enablement

Authored vendor-evaluation rubrics covering security, accuracy, data residency and lock-in risk; ran structured POCs and negotiated pilot terms with vendors before firm-wide rollout.
Designed practice-area prompt libraries and retrieval pipelines for drafting, summarisation and due-diligence workflows, embedding AI output within existing matter and document tools.
Drafted firm-wide AI usage policies and client-disclosure positions with risk, IT security and General Counsel; defined confidentiality, privilege and supervision controls and stood up a use-case intake process for new tool assessments.

Architecture & Engineering Standards

Maintained architecture diagrams, data models and API definitions, and authored system specifications covering secure design, coding standards, branching strategy and dependency hygiene.

Commercial Delivery & Adoption

Prepared business cases including build/buy analyses and three-year TCO models, tracking post-deployment ROI against committed benefits and identifying material annualised savings.
Supported partner-led BD with dashboards, competitor-intelligence views, demos and thought-leadership content for client meetings and pitches.
Ran firm-wide change management including communications, super-user networks and role-tailored training, tracking adoption metrics and running feedback loops to lift uptake.
Authored project roadmaps and quarterly OKR updates for firm leadership and the partnership board, aligned to practice-group priorities and budget envelopes.

Security, Integration & Operations

Built API integrations across iManage, Elite 3E, Microsoft 365, Auth0/Azure AD and external registries, using event-driven patterns and contributing to SSO and role-based provisioning rollout.
Embedded privacy and security review into delivery; implemented least-privilege access, audit logging and key management; supported responses to client security questionnaires and ISO/SOC due diligence.
Ran platforms in production with full observability, on-call rotations, agreed SLOs and post-incident reviews feeding into runbooks and the secure-design framework.

Document Automation

Supported precedent development across all eight practice areas, building the document-automation layer with clause libraries and variant logic adapting to deal type, jurisdiction and counterparty position.
Built a composable library of reusable automation components integrated with workflow tools and webforms, materially cutting drafting time, with versioning and regression testing to prevent template drift.

2025

Nov 2025

Civil Litigation Lawyer (Placement)

Hoyle Da Silva

Civil-litigation placement at a Victorian defendant-side practice, taking matters from intake through to counsel brief. Drafted Statements of Claim, Counterclaims and Defences for the Magistrates, County Court and VCAT; served Letters of Demand; participated in discovery and interrogatories with privilege review; conducted land, PPSR, ASIC, FOI and police-report searches; prepared written advices and curated counsel briefs.

Case Intake & Investigation

Conducted structured client interviews, collated evidence from witnesses, insurers and third parties, and drafted client advice letters covering prospects, costs exposure and settlement positions.
Researched case law, legislation and Court Rules across limitation, jurisdiction, quantum and procedural issues, synthesising findings into memoranda of advice.
Prepared case summaries, chronologies and reconciled cost schedules (party-party, solicitor-client and disbursements) for partner review ahead of mediation and settlement.
Performed land, PPSR and ASIC searches and submitted FOI and police-report requests, synthesising results into due-diligence memos and tracking statutory deadlines.

Pre-Litigation & Authority Documents

Drafted tiered Letters of Demand calibrated to debtor profile, coordinated personal service via investigators, and prepared authority-to-act documents including Appearances, Overarching Obligations and Proper Basis Certifications.

Litigation & Court Process

Prepared and filed Statements of Claim, Counterclaims and Defences in the Magistrates Court, County Court and VCAT, with particulars of claim and quantum schedules.
Prepared and served Notices for Discovery and Interrogatories, negotiated scope with opposing solicitors, and coordinated privilege review and production via e-discovery platforms.
Curated counsel briefs with indexed pleadings, evidence and chronologies, and liaised with chambers on listing and conference scheduling.

2022

Jan 2022 – Oct 2022

Legal Operations Specialist

Telstra

Legal-operations role in Telstra's in-house function, focused on process improvement and platform delivery for the legal team. Designed and shipped Power Automate workflows, Power Apps interfaces and Dataverse integrations to remove manual effort across matter handling, correspondence and reporting. Built and maintained the Checkbox agreement template suite with SME-encoded clause logic and versioned releases.

Process Improvement & Automation

Ran cross-functional workshops with legal, procurement and product stakeholders to identify high-friction processes and translate outputs into prioritised improvement backlogs.
Designed Power Automate approval and routing workflows integrating SharePoint, Outlook and Teams, cutting manual correspondence and data-analysis effort by ~20 hours per week.

Platforms & Template Management

Built role-tailored Power Apps interfaces giving lawyers and business users self-service access to matter data, integrated with Dataverse.
Built and maintained automated agreement templates across Competition, IP, Trademark and Commercial law with SME-encoded clause logic, conditional sections and versioned releases.
Managed and optimised Telstra's Checkbox client-intake system, triaging user issues, coordinating vendor fixes and running post-release regression checks.

2021→2022

Jan 2021 – Jan 2022

Executive Remuneration & Governance Consultant

SW Corporate

Executive remuneration advisory to ASX200 boards and HR functions. Advised on executive employment contracts and incentive-plan rules under the ASX Listing Rules, Corporations Act and proxy-adviser guidance. Drafted remuneration reports, STI/LTI plan designs, proxy engagement packs and board-ready disclosure materials.

Business Development

Contributed to 15+ new client engagements through bespoke pitch decks tailored to each prospect's industry and remuneration history, tracking pipeline and conversion metrics.

Executive Remuneration Advisory

Advised on executive employment contracts and incentive-plan rules against ASX Listing Rules and Corporations Act requirements, drafting plain-language summaries for HR and board audiences.
Designed remuneration reports for ASX200 companies, benchmarking pay outcomes against peer disclosures and drafting CEO and KMP tables to ASIC and ACSI standards.
Developed STI/LTI frameworks modelling performance scenarios, with deferral, clawback and malus provisions calibrated to regulator and proxy-adviser positions.
Compiled rationale, peer comparisons and pay-for-performance analysis into board-ready engagement packs and Q&A briefs for institutional investor and proxy-adviser meetings.

Regulatory & Market Intelligence

Monitored ASIC, ASX, APRA and Treasury releases and provided weekly practitioner-ready impact summaries, mapping changes to client agreements and flagging required amendments.
Maintained a structured database of executive pay, vote outcomes and emerging market practice, surfacing trend analysis used in BD conversations.

2021

Legal Innovation Volunteer

Legal Tech Helper

Pro-bono legal-technology volunteering with a publicly-funded innovation team, researching the substantive law of divorce and separation in Australia and supporting the build of a trauma-informed client-intake tool for vulnerable users including those experiencing or escaping domestic and family violence.

Research & Design

Researched the substantive and procedural law of divorce and separation under the Family Law Act framework and translated findings into the intake tool's question flow, conditional branches and lawyer-facing triage summary.
Built a trauma-informed guided intake pathway for vulnerable clients including those escaping domestic violence, structuring questions so users could pause and skip safely and surfacing safety-relevant disclosures to the supervising lawyer.
Embedded plain-language prompts, support-service signposting and a quick-exit pattern for safety, and built document-automation templates to reduce intake and triage time for volunteer lawyers.

2020

Oct 2020 – Dec 2020

Property Law Clerk

Nest Legal

Residential conveyancing clerkship at a Victorian family-and-property practice, supporting end-to-end settlements across Victoria. Coordinated PEXA workspaces and acted as primary client contact on settlement day, liaising with lenders, solicitors, agents and councils.

Client Engagement & Settlement

Settled residential properties throughout Victoria, coordinating PEXA workspaces with lenders, solicitors and agents to resolve fund and title discrepancies, and acting as primary client contact on settlement day.
Generated terms of engagement and estimated fees and disbursements for clients, tailoring engagement letters to matter complexity, scope and fee structure.

Property Due Diligence

Verified title deeds, land registry documents and contracts of sale, cross-checking for discrepancies and flagging caveats, easements and restrictive covenants.
Reviewed Section 32 vendor statements for completeness and identified special-condition risks.
Prepared transfer and mortgage deeds to PEXA and Land Use Victoria requirements, coordinating stamp-duty assessments with the State Revenue Office.

2016→2019

2016 – 2019

Infantry Soldier

Australian Army

Three years' part-time service in the Army Reserve as an infantry soldier (Sandringham and Doveton depots) while completing tertiary studies. Qualified at the Army Recruit Training Centre and School of Infantry in weapons handling, navigation, field craft, communications and combat first aid; held junior leadership responsibilities on exercise.

Training & Operations

Completed Army Reserve training at the Recruit Training Centre and School of Infantry, qualifying in weapons handling, navigation, field craft, communications and combat first aid.
Operated in section-level teams conducting patrols, reconnaissance, defensive routines and live-fire exercises under time pressure and physical strain.

Leadership & Teamwork

Held junior leadership responsibilities including mission planning, orders delivery, briefing subordinates and after-action reviews.
Built cohesion in high-performing small teams through clear communication, mutual accountability and rapid resolution of friction.

02Education

Where I trained.

2025

Practical Legal Training

Leo Cussen Centre for Law

Online

Completed practical legal training requirements for admission as a lawyer in Victoria.
Gained hands-on experience in legal practice and procedure.

Admission June 2026

2019 – 2023

Juris Doctor

University of Melbourne

Carlton

Appointments: Law School Society Third Year Representative, Eagle Mentor.
Competitions: Negotiations 2021 (semi-finals) and 2022 (semi-finals), Client Interview 2020, State Party Negotiations 2021 (judge).
Electives: Advanced Torts (Defamation), New Technology Law, New Media and Communications Law (Masters), Competition Law, Legal Drafting, Law Apps, Family Law, Employment Law.
Prizes: Winner of the Herbert Smith Freehills Best App Prize and Audience Favourite.

2014 – 2017

Bachelor of Arts

University of Melbourne

Carlton

Majors: Psychology and Creative Writing.

03Skills & Expertise

The full surface area.

Three overlapping disciplines: legal practice, technology and product engineering, and the tools that connect them.

Strategy & Advisory

AI strategy & governance
Transformation consulting
Cost & ROI analysis
Vendor due diligence
Vendor & licence management
Risk management
Compliance & RegTech
Negotiation & commercial
Legal operations & pricing

Delivery & PM

Legal Project Management
Agile & Scrum delivery
Product management
Change management & adoption
Stakeholder engagement
Technical writing
Training & enablement
Vendor & SOW management

Architecture & Engineering

Solution architecture design
Cloud-native architecture
Full-stack application development
Software engineering fundamentals
API design & systems integration
Database design & modelling
Performance & scalability engineering
Microservices & event-driven architecture

DevOps & Reliability

DevOps & CI/CD pipelines
Containers & Infrastructure-as-Code
Cloud platform engineering & FinOps
Site reliability & incident management
Observability, logging & monitoring
Test automation & quality engineering
Disaster recovery & BCP

Data & BI

Data architecture & engineering
Data governance & privacy
Business intelligence & visualisation
Search & information retrieval
Knowledge management
Web scraping & data extraction
Data quality & lineage

AI & ML

Machine learning operations
Natural language processing
Prompt engineering & RAG
LLM application architecture
Vector databases & embeddings
Responsible AI & model governance

Automation

Process mapping & BPMN
Workflow automation (Power Automate, Logic Apps)
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Document & contract automation
Matter intake & conflicts workflows
E-signature & approval orchestration
Integration & connector design

Security & Privacy

Cybersecurity & threat modelling
Identity & access management
Data privacy by design
Encryption & key management
Information barriers
Incident response & breach handling
Cloud security & Zero Trust
Compliance (ISO 27001, Essential Eight)

UX & Design

Accessibility (WCAG)
User research & journey mapping
Wireframing & prototyping
Design systems & component libraries
Usability testing
Information architecture

04Portfolio

Legal-tech I've built.

Solo-built tools, production and active development. Each card lists the full feature surface and live screenshots from the running app.

MattersTasksBillingTrust accounting

Case Management

Central matter record from first enquiry through closure

Production

One matter record carries the client, engagement, team and status with a permanent change history. Work runs as tasks with owners, due dates, priorities and approvers; money runs alongside as invoices, GST tracking and a per-matter trust ledger built for the Victorian LPA. Every party is conflicts-checked at open. Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Stripe, Xero and MYOB plug in directly.

Run a matter from enquiry to closure

Open a matter to see client, engagement, team and current status at a glance
Watch the activity feed capture every change across every module without lifting a finger
Skim the permanent change history to see exactly how status got where it is
Spin up tasks automatically from a service template at matter open

Track work as tasks

Capture each step with owner, due date, priority, time estimate and approver
Switch the same tasks between kanban, list and phase-by-phase Gantt
Record time as you go and watch it roll up to the matter
Route work through an approver before it advances

Capture contacts, docs and notes

Attach contacts directly to the matter
Upload documents with version history baked in
Flag the key documents so they surface in the matter overview
Drop an internal comment in the threaded discussion without sending an email

Run the money next to the matter

Issue invoices with GST and paid, sent or overdue status visible at a glance
Maintain a per-matter trust ledger built around Victorian LPA requirements
Keep billing and trust on the same screen as the matter, not in a separate tool

Stop conflicts before they start

Watch the conflicts check cross-reference every party against every existing matter at open
Resolve any flag before the matter opens, not after

Plug into the rest of the stack

Sync mail and calendar via Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
Push invoices into Xero or MYOB
Take payments through Stripe

M365TemplatesPDF exportDatasheets

Document Automation

Word, Excel and PowerPoint templates driven by a structured questionnaire

Production

Word, Excel and PowerPoint templates with variable, loop, condition, operation and prompt tokens render finished documents driven by a structured questionnaire. Inline expressions, conditional blocks, loops and a filter pipeline handle dynamic content. CSV and Excel datasheets feed values via lookup() and rows(). One-click Microsoft or PDF render, full version history with restore, and a cross-template Global variables view for spotting duplication. OnlyOffice powers in-browser co-authoring.

Mark up any M365 file

Drop in a Word, Excel or PowerPoint template
Place variable tokens directly in the document across 15 field types
Add loop, condition, operation and prompt tokens alongside variables
Watch every variable auto-map into a structured questionnaire with sections, roles and execution

Drive content with inline logic

Use inline expressions to format values on the fly
Show or hide conditional blocks based on earlier answers
Loop over arrays to generate repeating sections
Run values through a filter pipeline for currency, dates, pluralisation and defaults

Pull data from datasheets

Upload a CSV or Excel datasheet
Reference any row via lookup() or pull every row via rows()
Watch live datasheet values flow into every generated document

Render, review, restore

Render to Microsoft Word or PDF in one click
Pull up the full version history and restore any prior render
Open the cross-template Global variables view to spot duplication across templates
Co-author live in the browser via OnlyOffice

Public forms40+ fieldsMatter seeding

Client Intake

Drag-and-drop builder for public client questionnaires

Production

A drag-and-drop builder for public client questionnaires, structured as sections, blocks and fields, with 40+ field types and structural elements like headings and page breaks. Visibility rules, conditional requirements and per-field validation gate the flow; the wizard runs linear, branching or free-form. Submissions land in an admin review queue and convert to matter in one click, seeding contact, company, deliverables and answers ready for document automation.

Build a questionnaire visually

Drag in sections, then blocks, then fields
Pick from 40+ field types: text, currency, date, signature, address, file upload, party, payment, list
Drop in headings and page breaks for structure

Control how the form behaves

Gate fields with visibility rules and conditional requirements
Validate per field before the wizard advances
Run the wizard as linear, branching or free-form
Toggle progress bar, allow-back, resume-later, anonymous-submission and CAPTCHA per form

Publish and track versions

Save a form as draft, published or archived
Cap submissions or set a close-date for finite intakes
Watch versions accumulate as the form evolves

Convert a submission to a matter

Open the admin review queue when a submission lands
Convert to matter in one click
Watch contact, company, deliverables and answers seed the new matter
Hand the seeded matter straight into document automation

Plug in the rest

Add reCAPTCHA or Turnstile for bot protection
Send transactional email via SendGrid or Postmark
Take payments via Stripe

Per-matter URLBlock builderNo login

Client Portal

Token-gated portal: one URL per matter, exactly what the firm chooses to expose

Production

A token-gated URL per matter where the client sees exactly what the firm chooses to expose. A block builder with 14 content blocks composes the page, with per-matter overrides on a firm-wide default. Blocks pull real matter data and carry visibility rules via a multi-clause AND / OR editor. The client never sees a login screen. DocuSign / Adobe Sign / Dropbox Sign, Calendly / Cal.com / Microsoft Bookings, and Stripe pay-now plug in directly.

Compose what the client sees

Add from 14 content blocks: welcome heading, matter summary, progress timeline, next actions, documents, signatures, embedded intake form, messages thread, meetings calendar, team contacts, invoices and trust, FAQ, external links, custom HTML
Layer per-matter overrides on top of a firm-wide default
Save or Reset to firm default with one click
Flip between Configure and Preview to see the portal in mobile and desktop device frames

Show the right content per matter

Pull real matter data into every block
Set visibility per block via a multi-clause AND / OR editor
Hide a whole block for one client without touching the firm-wide default

Share without a login screen

Issue a tokenised URL per matter
Revoke any URL at any time
Set an expiry on URLs that should not outlive the matter
Watch the client land straight on the portal, no login screen, no account

Wire in third parties

Send for signature via DocuSign, Adobe Sign or Dropbox Sign
Let clients book meetings via Calendly, Cal.com or Microsoft Bookings
Take pay-now payments on invoices via Stripe

No-codeTriggersRun traces

Workflow Automation

Visual node-graph engine: "when X happens, do Y" without code

Production

A visual node-graph engine that lets the firm wire up "when X happens, do Y" rules without code. Triggers cover matter events, schedule, inbound webhook, inbound email and form submission. Conditions branch via a rule tree. Actions span matter operations, document rendering, communications, data movement and human-in-the-loop approval gates. Starter templates cover new-matter onboarding, overdue invoice chasing, court-date reminders and client status nudges. Test-run with sample data; every fire records a replayable run trace.