Digital Law Lab Incorporated (Digital Law Lab) was established in 2022. It is an incorporated association under South Australian law and provides legal technology services primarily to not-for-profit organisations.

The aim of Digital Law Lab is to increase access to justice through the use of technology.

Mark Ferraretto, the founder of Digital Law Lab, is an academic at Flinders University. He is the creator and instructor of Law in a Digital Age, a topic that teaches students the fundamentals of coding and guides them in developing legal technology applications for not-for-profit ‘clients’.

During his teaching of Digital Age, it became apparent to Mark that, despite the fact that many of the apps written were rather simple, they were nonetheless very valuable to the clients who had commissioned them. It also became apparent that these simple apps themselves were an enabler of access to justice despite their lack of complexity. However, most not-for-profit organisations did not have the time, the funds or the skillset to engage commercial software developers to develop or support these types of software applications.

In that sense, there was an opportunity to enable the ongoing use of apps developed by Digital Age students and therefore increase access to justice by doing so. However, any such enabler must be at a cost accessible to the not-for-profit sector.

Digital Law Lab was established to meet this need. Digital Law Lab provides software application support, development and hosting services targeted to the not-for-profit sector. Digital Law Lab services are provided by volunteers, many of whom are ex-Law in a Digital Age students.

Intially, Digital Law Lab is pursuing its aim by providing ongoing support for the apps written by Law in a Digital Age students. Doing so answers the immediate need of clients who work with the Digital Age topic. This provides those clients with the support they need to realise the effort they have put into the topic by enabling them to run their software applications on an ongoing ‘business as usual’ basis.

Looking further into the future, the Lab is looking to expand to provide software support for not-for-profits more broadly. This may include developing new software, enhancing existing applications, infrastructure and business-critical support services. The aim is to provide these services at a cost affordable to not-for-profits.

Mark Ferraretto graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1989. He spent 25 years as an IT professional and consultant, working in wide variety of industries including education, banking and finance and airlines in both Australia and Hong Kong.

Mark returned to Australia with his family in 2012 after beginning his studies in law, graduating from University of Adelaide Law School in 2016. Mark was admitted to the SA Supreme Court in August 2017.

Prior to graduation, Mark was employed by an Adelaide corporate and commercial law firm where he provided advice to technology-based clients, wrote software for the firm and introduced and managed the firm’s first electronic discovery and electronic trial systems for a large litigation.

In 2019 Mark joined Flinders University as a lecturer in Law. Amongst other topics, Mark taught Law in a Digital Age, an innovative legal technology topic where law students learnt software coding skills and wrote legal software applications for not-for-profit clients. Law in a Digital Age is a core part of the Flinders Law curriculum.

In 2021 Mark returned to private practice. Mark re-joined Flinders University in 2023 as a Senior Lecturer in Law. Mark’s responsibilities include supporting Law in a Digital Age students as well as co-ordinating the Law in Action, a core topic in which law students conduct placements in the Flinders Law Clinic, the Digital Law Lab as well as other legal practices in South Australia.