The Festival began as an idea to scale the policy conversations the Hub was hosting in Kenya in 2019. Omidyar Network believed in the idea and gave seed money to host the inaugural edition in 2020. That year the Lawyers Hub convened policymakers, academia and legal-tech organisations from 20+ countries within the African Continent, curated rapid tech solutions under the Global Legal Hackathon and developed key policy briefs for the African Continent on Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy & Digital Identity, Tech and Migration, and Taxing the Digital Economy.

Themed Digital Policy for economic growth in 2021, the virtual edition hosted 7500 law and tech professionals attend the 5 summits of the festival on Data Protection and Digital Identity, Artificial Intelligence, Internet Governance and moderation, Crypto Regulation and Digital Currencies Summit, Digital access and Infrastructure Summit. The festival hosted masterclasses and keynotes on zoom, panel sessions on twitter spaces and a virtual concert on YouTube.

The Festival was officially opened by the ICT Minister in Kenya flagged off by the Data Commissioner Mauritius and the regional director International Telecommunications Union and representative to the African Union. The festival ended in dance, with the Africa Digital Rights concert themed on Privacy. The Festival was made possible by the support of Omidyar Network, ICANN, Mozilla, Safaricom, Amnesty International Kenya, CIPESA, APC, Internews and the International Commission of Jurists.