Dee Venello is a senior operations professional at Commvault. She has implemented contracting systems and other legal technology in multiple organizations, carefully managing diverse stakeholders with a variety of interests and workflows. She also has experience in general business operations, providing her with insight into the issues and concerns faced by teams that the legal department supports.

A big thanks to LinkSquares for sponsoring this episode and for recommending Dee as a guest of the show. We discussed with Dee why LinkSquares was selected by two of her employers as the primary contracting solution for the organization.

We also discussed a range of related issues, including:

* The importance of CLM in general

* Why change management is vital in any technology implementation

* The value of cross-functional understanding and partnerships

* How CLM liberates data, and what to do with it

* Driving continuous improvement and "planning to plan"

LINKS

LinkSquares website: https://linksquares.com

Dee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dee-venello-74090a40/

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* how to craft an organizational AI policy

* a recent tribunal decision requiring Air Canada to honor a refund policy invented by its online chatbot

* recent articles on AI's impact on law firm billing and a potential shift towards value-based pricing

* another recent article on the need to balance AI's precision with human insight in the practice of law

A big thanks to LinkSquares for sponsoring this episode! Check out their website at: https://linksquares.com/

LINKS

Air Canada decision: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/air-canada-must-honor-refund-policy-invented-by-airlines-chatbot/

AI impact on billing - article 1: https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/ai-could-transform-law-firm-billing-beyond-recognition

AI impact on billing - article 2: https://www.legaldive.com/news/ai-use-cases-legal-ops-deloitte-blickstein-group-report/702436/

Balancing AI and human strengths in legal practice: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/02/12/the-future-of-tech-enabled-law-practice-balancing-ais-precision-with-human-insight/

Alex and Elliot discuss:

* Introduction to the Legal Ops Institute, essential learnings for legal changemakers brought to you by the podcast

* Thumbs up emoji used to accept a contract

* Generative AI could reduce law firm revenue by 23.5%

* 62% of legal professionals are not using AI

* 2023 Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association (ALITA) Awards

LINKS

Legal Ops Institute: https://www.legalops.fm/institute

Thumbs up emoji: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/thumbs-up-emoji-can-represent-contract-acceptance-sask-court-finds-1.1941866

Generative AI reducing law firm revenue: https://www.geeklawblog.com/2023/08/generative-ai-could-reduce-law-firm-revenue-by-23-5.html

Legal professionals not using AI: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230727977407/en/%C2%A062-of-Legal-Professionals-Are-Not-Using-AI-%E2%80%94-And-Feel-The-Industry-Is-Not-Ready-For-The-Technology

2023 ALITA Awards: https://alita.legal/alita-awards-2023

Mike, Alex and Elliot discuss how to fund your legal operations journey along with your legal department more generally. Mike explains how to track incremental business demand, demonstrate absorption and work with the business to ensure that transformation activities are properly funded and supported. They also discuss the structure of the Legal Operations function at Gap Inc., how Mike became a board member of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium and why he went surfing after a 15 hour flight from San Francisco to Sydney.

We all know the legal industry is changing; but who are the people leading the change and how are they doing it? Elliot and Alex set the scene and provide their thoughts on the state of the legal ops market.

Links Mentioned:
CLOC State of the Industry Survey 2019: https://bit.ly/2OTKsOA

CLOC State of the Industry Survey 2017: https://bit.ly/2uNV9vj

Alex and Elliot are joined by Tom Stephenson, host of the Dear Legal Ops podcast, to discuss:

* the evolution of legal operations

* career progression for legal ops professionals

* the intersection of tech, ops and people

* the strength of the legal ops community

LINKS

Tom Stephenson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tstephenson1

Dear Legal Ops podcast: https://www.dearlegalops.com/

Jenn McCarron is the Director of Legal Operations and Technology at Netflix, a board member of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) and host of the CLOC Talk Podcast. If legal operations has rockstars, Jenn is undoubtedly one of them.

We covered lots of ground with Jenn, including:

* What legal innovation looks like at Netflix

* The vital importance of storytelling and communication

* Career paths for legal operations professionals

* Jenn's own career path from IT program management to legal operations director

* Whether or not legal design is really "a thing"

* Jenn's interest in music and its relevance to her legal operations job

LINKS

Jenn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennmccarron

In this Talking Tech episode Alex and Elliot speak with Jerry Ting, co-founder and CEO of Evisort. Evisort combines artificial intelligence, automation and deep integration to empower customers to transform their business with industry leading contract analytics and contract lifecycle management.

In addition to deep diving into Evisort's product, we discuss with Jerry the key to implementing CLM in a commercial context and how to get buy in for any complex change which affects stakeholders across the organisation.

LINKS

Evisort website: https://www.evisort.com/

Jerry Ting on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerryting

Alex and Elliot are joined by Kevin Clem, Chief Growth Officer at HBR Consulting, to discuss:

* Predictions about AI, data and the dominance of Microsoft's productivity suite

* HBR's "The Mingle" party at the recent CLOC Global Institute (with audio recorded live at the event)

A big thanks to HBR Consulting for sponsoring this episode of the podcast and for hosting The Mingle party. You can find more information about them here: https://www.hbrconsulting.com/

LINKS

Kevin Clem on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinclem

Want to know what it's like to attend the world's biggest legal operations conference? Or did you go and you're now keen to relive it? This is the episode for you!

The unofficial theme of this year's event was: artificial intelligence and its role in the legal industry. AI was discussed in almost every session and essentially every conversation over breakfast, lunch and networking drinks. And the consistent message is that AI is already having a real impact on the legal industry through a number of practical use cases and technologies.

In our interviews we covered AI from many angles, including how legal ops professionals are adopting it, how vendors are incorporating it into their products and how it will continue to affect the shape of the legal tech market.

A big thanks to Evisort for sponsoring this episode and for enabling us to bring this amazing content to you. In the episode you'll hear a number of interviews with their staff, customers and partners, all of whom gave valuable insights on topics at the heart of legal operations and technology (including artificial intelligence). Find out more about Evisort here: https://www.evisort.com/

Alex and Elliot discuss:

* The podcast heading to CGI 2023!

* A recent survey of perceptions of legal department efficiency

* Current attitudes to generative AI in legal practice

* Gartner's 2023 report on core capabilities for legal operations technology

LINKS

Legal's role in revenue generation: https://www.legaldive.com/news/legal-department-revenue-generation-contract-negotiations-onit-elr-report/647087/

Legal department responsiveness: https://www.legaldive.com/news/legal-department-reputation-onit-elr-report-bypassing-legal/645224/

Lawyers' intentions to use generative AI: https://www.lawnext.com/2023/03/few-legal-professionals-using-or-planning-to-use-generative-ai-so-far-lexisnexis-survey-finds.html

Allen & Overy's approach to generative AI: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/generative-ai-is-coming-for-the-lawyers

Gartner's core capabilities for legal operations technology: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-04-24-gartner-identifies-core-capabilities-for-legal-operations-technologies

Raymond Blyd is seriously into legal tech. His websites, Legal Complex and Legal Pioneer, showcase the legal tech market by highlighting the most innovative brands and, more importantly, the numbers.

How much capital is flowing into legal tech? How has the funding market changed in recent times? Who are the winners and losers? What does all this tell us about the current trends and likely future developments? These are all questions that Raymond has investigated and written about, by analysing the numbers and thinking carefully about what they tell us.

We covered many topics with Raymond, including:

* How he became interested in legal tech

* What is (and isn't) "legal tech"

* What is the biggest legal tech company (it's not what you think)

* What he is seeing in the legal tech numbers now that have implications for the future

* How AI and GPT have and will affect the market

* What all this means for the role of legal in the wider community

LINKS

Legal Pioneer: https://legalpioneer.org/

Legal Complex: https://www.legalcomplex.com/

Raymond on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondblijd/

Alex and Elliot discuss:

* The release of GPT-4

* GPT-4 passes the Uniform Bar Exam

* Microsoft announces Copilot for Office online

* Copying GPT for under $600, by using GPT

LINKS

Release of GPT-4: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/14/23638033/openai-gpt-4-chatgpt-multimodal-deep-learning

GPT-4 has passed the Uniform Bar Exam: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2023/03/17/how-gpt-4-mastered-the-entire-bar-exam-and-why-that-matters/

Microsoft Copilot: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/17/23644501/microsoft-copilot-ai-office-documents-microsoft-365-report

Copying GPT for under $600: https://newatlas.com/technology/stanford-alpaca-cheap-gpt/

Interest in artificial intelligence has skyrocketed in the past few months thanks to rapid advances in the GPT language model and, equally importantly, many vendors incorporating the model into their products and services. But what does this mean for the legal industry, both now and in the future?

To answer this question we invited Mary O’Carroll and Cai GoGwilt onto the podcast. Mary is currently Chief Community Officer with Ironclad, a US-based contract lifecycle management vendor, as well as the immediate past president of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium and the former Director of Legal Operations at Google. Cai is a co-founder of Ironclad, its current Chief Technology Officer and formerly a software engineer with a data analytics software provider.

Having both Mary and Cai on the show enabled a rich conversation about GPT and the legal industry, both from a technology perspective and a commercial perspective. Here is a taste of the topics we covered:

* What actually is GPT?

* What does GPT offer in the digital contracting space?

* What is it good at and what are its limitations?

* Is the current hype justified?

* What does this mean for lawyers and legal work?

* Are there any risks and, if so, how can they be managed?

* What does the future hold for GPT and the legal industry?

By the way, our conversation with Mary and Cai was recorded on 2 March 2023. We think it's important to provide a timestamp, given the rapid rate of developments in this space.

LINKS

Mary O'Carroll on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryshenocarroll

Cai GoGwilt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cai-gogwilt-77b18a22

At the start of 2024 Jenn McCarron became President of the Board of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), succeeding Mike Haven. We invited Jenn back on to the show to discuss:

* the process of becoming President

* the factors she considered in weighing up the role

* CLOC's role in the legal ops community, and how it has developed over time

* what changes we can expect in the future under Jenn's leadership

* the extent to which Jenn's background in entertainment will be relevant to her role

We also continued our tradition of beginning the year with predictions, and we invited Jenn to join us in making some of her own and assessing ours. These are some of the topics we discussed:

* legal ops as a partner to the business, not just the legal team

* continued growth in the importance of data and analytics

* focus on enterprise technology rather than legal point solutions

* future use cases for artificial intelligence

* the importance of managing AI risks

LINKS

Jenn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennmccarron

Jenn’s phone screen (discussed at 30 minutes and 40 seconds into the recording): http://tinyurl.com/5hem49yp

Alex and Elliot discuss:

* A roundup of legal tech investments in 2022 including their thoughts on the trends for 2023

* Microsoft’s potential integration of ChatGPT into Outlook and Word, and what this would mean for the legal industry

* Why Elliot is hanging out for the rumoured-to-be-upcoming 15.5 inch M2 MacBook Air

LINKS

2022 legal tech investment: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2023/01/20/legal-tech-investments-dropped-in-2022-but-the-number-of-investors-spiked/

ChatGPT for Outlook and Word: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/9/23546144/microsoft-openai-word-powerpoint-outlook-gpt-integration-rumor

It's the start of the year and time for a new round of legal tech predictions!

In this episode we discuss a bunch of predictions from Gartner, including what we do and don't agree with, and why. Here's a sneak peak of the issues covered:

* Big growth in the proportion of funding spent on legal tech

* Replacing lawyers with non-lawyers

* Ever increasing automation

* Capturing the benefits of CLM, or not

* Spending on non-specialist technology providers

Then Alex and Elliot make some predictions of their own, including:

* The rise of platforms

* More "no code" tools

* Technology rationalisation

* The continued importance of rich APIs

* The impact of ChatGPT

* Consolidation in the CLM market

* Microsoft's legal tech acquisition

LINKS

Gartner legal tech trends: https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-legal-technology-trends-changing-in-house-legal-departments

Carl Morrison is the Director of Legal Operations at MGM Resorts International, based in Las Vegas. He began his legal career as a paralegal, working primarily in litigation support and legal project management. He progressed to management roles in which he lead teams of paralegals to efficiently deliver complex discovery and document review initiatives, eventually combining his existing skills with technology, analysis and strategic advice to move fully into legal operations.

We covered many topics with Carl, including:

* How he progressed from paralegal to director of legal operations

* What specific challenges he encountered on his journey and how he handled them

* The challenges that come with being a legal operations leader in a small legal team

* As a sole legal operations resource, how he prioritises his time and effort

* The impact of an organisational merger on a legal operations function

* Observations on the legal operations market in the US compared to other parts of the world

LINKS

Carl Morrison on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlmorrison/

Carl's email: carl@dearlegalops.com

Nam Truong is the head of Digital and Innovation at Law Squared, an innovative and young law firm based in Melbourne, Australia. Nam is relatively new to the legal industry, having spent a number of years working with digital products in the financial services industry. This non-legal background, combined with the blank canvas of Law Squared's existing tech stack, enabled Nam and the firm to eschew many traditional legal tech services and instead create a flexible and robust system which leverages modern architectural principles.

We covered many topics with Nam, including:

* Why he moved from fintech to the legal industry, and what key observations he had after making the move.

* How Law Squared is different to a traditional law firm and how that affects the day-to-day employee experience.

* How Nam and the firm approached the design of their tech stack.

* Which particular applications the firm uses, how they are integrated and how it improves the handling and management of data.

* Why they chose a modular approach over a monolithic approach, and what benefits and costs it offers.

* How the tech stack is expected to grow and develop in the future.

LINKS

Nam Truong on Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/namtruong96

Law Squared: https://www.lawsquared.com/

Zach Posner is a co-founder and managing partner of The Legal Tech Fund, an investment fund which focuses exclusively on early stage legal tech start ups. He is an accomplished entrepreneur himself, having started and sold three companies in a variety of industries.

In a wide ranging and fascinating conversation, we covered many aspects of the legal tech investment world, including:

* What is unique about the legal tech market, and why he and The Legal Tech Fund focus on it

* What makes a good start up, both in general and in the legal industry specifically

* How to validate a new business idea

* Why timing is of critical importance, and what to do about it

* What "pre-seed", "seed", "series A" and other investment jargon means

* What funding cycles are and how they work

* The role of an investor in the day-to-day operations and management of a business

* What sort of exit investors look for and why the exit profile in legal tech is different to other markets

LINKS

Zach Posner on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachposner

The Legal Tech Fund: https://www.legaltech.com/

TLTF Summit: http://tltfsummit.com/

Nate's news: https://www.legaltech.com/natesnews

In this Talking Tech episode Alex and Elliot speak with Matt Patel, co-founder and COO of Malbek. Malbek provides provides contract review and management software solutions to companies across the globe.

LINKS

Malbek website: https://www.malbek.io/

Matt Patel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-patel-36680a9

Electra Japonas is the founder and CEO of The Law Boutique, a legal optimisation consultancy which aims to turn law departments into commercial enablers by supercharging their business through legal design.

Electra and TLB are on a mission to drive efficiency through standardization. Their first two contract standardization projects, OneNDA and OneDPA, have received widespread adoption and acclaim. Their next venture, Claustack, aims to build on that success by creating a platform which enables all industry participants to start and run their own standardization projects.

We sat down with Electra to discuss these initiatives in more detail, including:

* Electra's background and what led her to start her own consultancy.

* How OneNDA has performed during its first year since launch.

* Why Claustack is like a combined Github and Stackoverflow for legal.

* How Claustack and TLB will help lawyers to run their own standardization projects.

* Why standardization can and should be applied to more than just documents and contracts.

* What success will look like for Claustack and standardization in general.

LINKS

Electra Japonas on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/electra-japonas/

The Law Boutique website: https://www.tlb.law/

Claustack website: https://www.claustack.com/

OneNDA website: https://onenda.club/

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* Why are investors pouring money into legal technology?

* Is it getting easier to switch legal tech vendors?

* Google's move into e-signature and what it means for other markets

* AirSlate's recent $51.5m capital raise

* Why Alex isn't wearing his Apple Watch any more (most of the time)

Thanks to HBR Consulting for sponsoring this episode. Find out more about HBR here: https://www.hbrconsulting.com/

LINKS

Money pouring into legal tech: https://www.ft.com/content/b6f0796e-0265-40c6-ad4c-a900cd788c39

Switching legal tech vendors: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2022/06/24/legal-professionals-face-cost-time-and-trust-barriers-when-switching-tech-vendors/

Google's move into e-signature: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2022/07/12/googles-move-into-e-signature-isnt-likely-about-the-clm-market/

In this Talking Tech episode Alex and Elliot speak with Kevin Clem and Lauren Chung from HBR Consulting. HBR is one of the world's largest legal operations consulting firms, headquartered in Chicago with operations throughout the USA, Canada and the UK.

In addition to consulting on all aspects of legal operations, technology and strategy, HBR conducts an annual law department survey to analyse and understand developments in the legal industry. In the episode we draw on the survey, as well as Kevin and Lauren's extensive experience, to discuss recent trends in the industry and a number of insightful predictions for the future.

LINKS

Kevin Clem on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinclem

Lauren Chung on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenmchung

HBR Consulting: https://www.hbrconsulting.com/

Counsel Command: https://www.hbrconsulting.com/what-we-do/software-solutions/counselcommand/

Counsel Guide: https://www.hbrconsulting.com/what-we-do/software-solutions/counselguide/

Meera Klemola and Astrid Kohlmeier are legal design pioneers. They are both teachers, speakers and writers, specialising in the application of design principles to legal services delivery. Both have consulted on this topic to the world's largest law firms and in-house teams.

For this episode we sat down with Meera and Astrid to discuss their book, "The Legal Design Book", which was published in 2021. We covered many topics including:

* Why they wrote the book and why now is the right time to publish it

* What "legal design" is and how it differs from some other methodologies, such as Lean Six Sigma and Agile

* Why "legal design" is about more than visually pleasing documents

* The key philosophies and mindsets that underly legal design

* How to apply legal design in practice, including case studies

* The relationship between legal design and legal operations

LINKS

The book: https://legaldesign-book.com/

Meera's website: https://www.groundm.com/

Meera on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meera-klemola/

Astrid's website: https://astridkohlmeier.de/

Astrid on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/astridkohlmeier/

Alex and Elliot discuss:

* The recent leadership challenges at OpenAI and what, if anything, it means for the pace of AI development and adoption

* A review of podcast episodes during 2023, their favourites and why

* Musings on expectations for 2024

* Elliot's continuing work on the "AI for legal teams" training course, which will be published in early 2024 under the Legal Ops Institute brand

This is our last episode for 2023. A big thanks for listening to the show - we'll be back in late January or early February 2024.

LINKS

Legal Ops Institute: https://www.legalops.fm/institute

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* A recent survey suggesting lawyers are (possibly) moving away from MS Word

* Recent capital raisings by Evisort, SirionLabs and Dilitrust

* The M2 MacBook Air and what's to like (and not like) about it

LINKS

Lawyers moving away from MS Word: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/05/25/are-some-inhouse-lawyers-falling-out-of-love-with-word/

Evisort: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/evisort-raises-100m-in-funding-led-by-tcv-301545180.html

SirionLabs: https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/10/sirionlabs-lands-85m-to-inject-contract-management-with-automation/

Dilitrust: https://www.dilitrust.com/en/actu/dilitrust-continues-to-grow/

Alex and Elliot interview Eyal Iffergan, Managing Director, Legal Business Advisory at Hyperion Global Partners.

Hyperion provides legal operations consultancy services to legal teams across the world. In this episode, Eyal, Alex and Elliot discuss technology roadmaps and data analytics, including:

* What a technology roadmap is, why it's important in both private practice and in-house and how it relates to the team's broader strategy.

* How legal operations is helping to drive the legal industry to become a "customer driven market".

* What legal teams typically do well (and less well) when creating a technology roadmap.

* What we mean by "legal metrics" and whether or not they must be quantifiable.

* What is most challenging: collecting, analysing or utilising metrics?

* What are the most critical metrics for a legal function to focus on.

LINKS

Hyperion Global Partners: https://www.hyperiongp.com/

Hyperion Research: https://insights.hgpresearch.com/

The Global Institute is the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium's flagship conference, which is held annually in Las Vegas, USA. The event was most recently held in May 2022 and attracted around 2,500 attendees from the legal operations ecosystem globally.

In this episode we transport you to the conference via the many recordings we made at the event. We interviewed speakers, fellow attendees, legal tech vendors and others. We also recorded our thoughts and reflections on many of the sessions, immediately after we came out of them.

If you couldn't attend the conference and you'd like to know what it's like, or you did attend and you want to relive it, this is the episode for you.

Our thanks to HBR Consulting for sponsoring this episode and for making it possible. Find out more about HBR here: https://www.hbrconsulting.com/

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* The (literal) road to the 2022 CLOC Global Institute

* Legal tech capital raisings by LinkSquares, Filevine and Athennian

* ServiceNow expanding further into the legal market

This episode would not be possible without the support of HBR Consulting. If you're attending CGI2022, make sure to visit their booth. You can find more information about them here: https://www.hbrconsulting.com/

LINKS

LinkSquares: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/04/linksquares-benefits-from-the-legal-tech-boom-with-a-fresh-100m/

Filevine: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/filevine-raises-108m-series-d-for-legal-work-platform-serving-law-firms-and-corporate-counsel-teams-301525006.html

Athennian: https://legaltechnology.com/2022/03/31/athennian-raises-33-million-in-series-b-funding/

ServiceNow: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/03/23/servicenow-pushes-deeper-into-legal-with-new-expansion/

Want the best productivity tips from your peers in the legal industry? This is the episode for you!

Recently we asked our followers on LinkedIn to post their best productivity tips. This comprises the philosophies, tools and other awesome stuff that they just can't live without. And we got a great response!

In this episode Alex and Elliot go through all the tips, adding their analysis and views. They also discuss the core elements of productivity, how to approach each element and what works (and doesn't) for them.

LINKS

Original LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6914726124598046720

The 4 Ds: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryancollinseurope/2018/06/14/effective-time-management/?sh=4d5ba51d1938

In this Talking Tech episode Alex and Elliot interview Catherine Moynihan, Senior Director, Strategic Intelligence and Advisory at Hyperion Global Partners.

Hyperion provides legal operations consultancy services to legal teams across the world. In addition, their core business historically was the development of in-depth and high-quality research reports on all aspects of the legal tech market. In this episode we focus on those research reports, covering:

* What it is about the legal tech market that makes the reports valuable.

* What the reports cover, in what detail and how frequently they are updated.

* How Hyperion's customers use the reports both to understand the technology marketplace and to formulate and clarify their own requirements.

* How Hyperion's reports differ from others in the market.

* What trends Hyperion has seen in legal tech and what developments are expected in the future.

LINKS

Check out Hyperion Global Partners: https://www.hyperiongp.com/

Catherine Moynihan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinejmoynihan/

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* How Alex uses the iOS focus mode to control notifications

* A bunch of legal tech capital raisings...

* Time by Ping and Zero Systems: automated time-based billing

* Common Paper: contracts as APIs

* Ex Parte: predicting litigation outcomes

* Thirdfort: AML / KYC compliance for law firms

LINKS

Time by Ping: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/03/01/time-by-pings-ryan-alshak-on-the-36-5m-series-b-funding/

Zero Systems: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/03/01/and-now-zero-bags-12m-in-funding/

Common Paper: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/03/01/common-paper-the-contracts-as-apis-startup-bags-4-5m-seed-funding/

Ex Parte: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/03/01/moneyball-for-law-prediction-startup-ex-parte-bags-7-5m/

Thirdfort: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/03/08/thirdfort-bags-19-7m-to-help-lawyers-beat-money-laundering/

In celebration of International Women's Day 2022 we spoke with Jodie Baker about the representation of women in the legal tech industry. Jodie is one of the founders of WALTA, the Women of Australian Legal Technology Association, as well as being a lawyer and a highly successful legal tech entrepreneur.

We covered many aspects of this important topic, including:

* How the representation of women in legal tech compares to that of men

* How the rate of funding for female-led legal tech start ups significantly lags that of male-led legal tech start ups

* Why it is important to strive for equality in this space

* Some causes of the existing inequality, and what can potentially be done to address it

* Examples of exciting female-led legal tech businesses

* Where we can aim to be in the medium to long-term future

LINKS

Jodie Baker on LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/jodiebakerxakia

WALTA website: https://alta.law/women-of-australian-legal-technology-association/

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* Checkbox's recent US$4.5m capital raise

* LawNext's new legal tech directory

* Google's AI-based contract review service, Contract DocAI

* Whether or not lawyers should have an ethical obligation to be efficient (spoiler: probably not)

LINKS

Checkbox capital raise: https://www.businessnewsaustralia.com/articles/checkbox-raises-6-3-m-to-take-automated-app-builder-global.html

LawNext's legal tech directory: https://directory.lawnext.com/directory-companies/categories/contract-lifecycle-management/

Contract DocAI: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2021/11/18/google-tells-artificial-lawyer-about-its-contract-docai-strategy/

Efficiency as an ethical obligation: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/02/14/what-if-lawyers-had-an-ethical-obligation-to-be-efficient/

We’re back!

It’s a new year and that means almost every legal tech publication has its own predictions for 2022 and beyond. To save you reading them, and to add some spice, Alex and Elliot discuss the eight predictions they find to be the most interesting, compelling and, in some cases… the most wrong.

They cover:

* AI and Machine Learning

* Platformization

* Blockchain

* Spend on technology vs people

* Increased use of cloud services

* Investment in legal tech

* Security and risk

* Hybrid working

LINKS

Legal Insider predictions: https://bit.ly/3sl5uZs

Predictions for contracts and CLM: https://bit.ly/3owkDWB

Predictions for the business of law and ALSPs: https://bit.ly/3B3LKgS

Predictions for Legal Technology Innovation: https://bit.ly/34nqoiz

Predictions for Remote Work and COVID-19: https://bit.ly/3B4EK3t

Noah Waisberg is the co-founder and CEO of Zuva.ai and the former co-founder and CEO of Kira Systems. He has worked for more than a decade on artificial intelligence and its application in the legal industry, beginning his work long before anyone had heard of Transformers and GPT.

He is also the author of two books on artificial intelligence: "AI for Lawyers" which, as the title suggests, is focused on AI and its use by lawyers; and "Robbie the Robot Learns to Read", likely the first children's book aiming to teach younger readers about machine learning concepts.

Naturally, with Noah we discussed many issues related to artificial intelligence, including:

* What it was like selling AI systems to lawyers in the early 2010s

* How AI adds value in the legal industry

* The ability of AI to capture, distribute and amplify legal expertise

* Jevons paradox and how it relates to AI in the legal industry

* The role of generative AI in contract review and other legal use cases

* The extent to which generative AI levels the legal tech playing field

LINKS

Noah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahwaisberg

Noah on X: https://twitter.com/nwaisb

"AI for lawyers" book: https://tinyurl.com/mx4t5nh6

"Robbie the Robot Learns to Read" book: https://tinyurl.com/3c9pjf6r

And… that’s a wrap for 2021!

Alex and Elliot are joined by a very special guest to reflect on the year and cast their minds forward to 2022. They discuss the podcast’s incredible growth, their favourite episodes and what they’ve learned from the awesome guests who have appeared on the show this year.

They also offer their predictions on what will happen in legal ops in 2022, including the changes they expect to see in the legal tech market and likely developments in the legal services space. Finally, they discuss what we can expect from the podcast next year.

The podcast will be taking a break over the Christmas and New Year period. We’ll be back with more great legal ops content in early 2022.

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* A new legal tech directory and why there are so many in the market

* A shareholder class action against Nuix, capping off a really bad year for the company

* Legal tech capital raisings by Ontra and others

* DocuSign’s new investment fund

LINKS

New legal tech directory: https://legaloperators.com/tech-directory/

Michael Callier is an award-winning corporate lawyer, legal operations director and consultant with nearly 20 years of experience in law firms and corporate legal departments, including at Nike, Infinitas and now at Factor. 

We sat down with Michael to discuss diversity in legal practice and legal operations, including: 

* what we mean by diversity

* how the world is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) and why that puts an emphasis on diversity for legal teams

* the SCARF model and how it can help to promote collaboration and team cohesiveness

* what role legal operations and legal tech can play to improve diversity

LINKS

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcallier/

Email: michael.callier@factor.law

Blame It on the Machine: A Socio-Legal Analysis of Liability in an AI World:https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wjlta/vol14/iss1/4/ 

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* Two recent legal tech acquisitions

* Microsoft's seed investment in Definely

* What's hot (and not) in legal tech in 2021

* A new "Tinder for lawyers" app

LINKS

What's hot (and not) article: https://www.legaltechnology.com/2021/09/06/talk-whats-hot-and-not-in-2021/

Tinder for lawyers article: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2021/09/07/tinder-for-lawyers-dating-app-aims-to-help-attorneys-find-love

Colin Levy is a corporate lawyer, a legal tech evangelist and a regular commentator on all things legal tech and legal operations. His diverse experience has given him extensive exposure to the commercial contracting space, as a lawyer and also as a designer and implementer of contract management systems.

For this episode we sat down with Colin to discuss the basics of contract lifecycle management (CLM), including:

* What the phrase "contract lifecycle management" actually means

* As an in-house lawyer, how you know you need a CLM tool and how to choose the right one

* Considerations when implementing a CLM tool, including how to build a business case, which stakeholders to engage and how to improve your underlying contracting processes

* The new features which are being added to CLM tools now and in the future

* What the future holds for legal technology more generally

LINKS

Colin Levy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinslevy/

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* More news on the M1X MacBook Pros

* The recent acquisition of Kira Systems by Litera Microsystems, and Luminance's related PR campaign

* The maturing of the legal tech market

* The 2021 Gartner hype cycle for legal and compliance technologies

LINKS

Legal Evolution article: https://www.legalevolution.org/2021/08/how-the-first-half-of-2021-signals-the-maturity-of-an-ecosystem-255/

Article on the 2021 Gartner hype cycle: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2021/07/28/gartner-legal-tech-hype-cycle-2021-some-thoughts/

Mark Cohen is a genuine thought leader on the changing nature of the legal profession. He is a frequent speaker about legal transformation and a prolific writer on the topic for a range of publications, including Forbes magazine. A former trial lawyer, Big Law partner, boutique law firm founder and current legal transformation consultant, he has a wealth of experience in the space.

We sat down with Mark to discuss digital transformation and how it applies to the legal industry, including:

* The relationship between digital transformation and customer centricity

* When considering legal technology, why it’s more important to focus on the customer benefits than the technology itself

* How digital transformation will enable law departments to change from being cost centres to drivers of business value

* The importance of data to law departments and the businesses they support

* How to drive cultural change around digital transformation

* The role of legal operations in the changing nature of the legal industry

LINKS

Digital Legal Exchange: https://www.dlex.org/

Legal Mosaic: https://www.legalmosaic.com/

Alex and Elliot chat with Alex Su about his hugely popular Tik Tok and LinkedIn videos which poke fun at the legal industry, how he creates great comedic content, whether or not he has faced backlash and how he transitioned from practising law to selling legal tech.

LINKS

Alex Su on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su

Mike Haven recently became President of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC). He is also the Head of Legal Operation at Intel, a thoughtful and passionate commentator on all things legal operations and he was our first ever guest on the podcast back in 2019.

We sat down with Mike to discuss CLOC, the state of the industry and the future of work in a post-pandemic world. Here's a snapshot of what we covered:

* Why Mike became CLOC President and what he considered in deciding whether or not to take on the role.

* What he sees as the future of the organisation and how it will build on successes of the past.

* Why “matters of the heart” will be an increasing focus for the future, including in particular fostering greater diversity in legal operations and in legal practice generally.

* Results from the recent 2021 State of the Industry Report, what has changed over time and what it tells us about the development of the legal operations industry.

* How corporate legal departments are planning their post-pandemic working arrangements, and what work will be like for lawyers in the future.

LINKS

Mike's article on becoming CLOC President: https://cloc.org/my-personal-why-carrying-the-torch-fanning-the-flame-and-charting-the-course/

Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-haven-057aa1/

CLOC 2021 State of the Industry Report: https://cloc.org/2021-state-of-industry-survey/

Atlassian article on remote working: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/leadership/hybrid-work-model-premortem

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* Recent capital raisings by Lexion, Tonkean, Intapp and Legal Zoom

* A recent report rating law a high risk profession for psychological hazards

* 6 product design frameworks from the inventor of the iPod and iPhone, and what they mean for legal tech

LINKS

6 product frameworks from Tony Fadell: https://www.nfx.com/post/product-frameworks-tony-fadell/

Alex and Elliot discuss:

* A recent article looking at the effects of AI on productivity and quality of work by consultants at the Boston Consulting Group

* A study by an English law firm finding poor legal advice provided by various Large Language Models, including GPT and Bard

* A recent article discussing whether or not generative AI will be a source of competitive advantage for law firms

* Elliot's anguish, and enjoyment, producing material for the upcoming "AI for legal teams" training course, which will soon be the first course published by the Legal Ops Institute

A big thanks to our friends at LinkSquares for sponsoring this episode. For more information, check out their website: https://linksquares.com/

LINKS

Article on AI used by BCG consultants: https://www.mi-3.com.au/20-09-2023/harvard-business-school-study-bcg-finds-knowledge-workers-using-chat-gpt-outperform

Law firm research paper on AI providing legal advice: https://lpscdn.linklaters.com/-/media/files/document-store/pdf/uk/2023/october/report_linksai-english-law-benchmark_october-2023.ashx?rev=fc8c65ae-00f6-408e-9aec-4bf7846f82db&extension=pdf

Article on generative AI and law firm competitive advantage: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2023/10/30/for-law-firms-will-generative-ai-really-be-a-major-competitive-differentiator/

Legal Ops Institute sneak peak: https://www.legalops.fm/institute

Lawyers are notoriously poor at stepping back from their work to think about what they're doing and how they're doing it. Yet this reflection is vital to ensuring that the right output is being provided in the right way. Optimising the delivery of value to clients requires looking at the big picture, articulating the legal team's competitive advantage and, above all, creating and implementing a strategy.

We met with Susan Hackett, CEO of Legal Executive Leadership LLC and former General Counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel. Susan advises law departments and law firms on all aspects of the business of law, including strategy, leadership, change management and legal operations.

Susan, Alex and Elliot discussed many topics related to strategy and legal operations, including:

* Why legal operations professionals were originally referred to as "legal executives".

* What strategy actually is.

* How and when to set strategy.

* What elements comprise a law department strategy and where technology fits in.

* The role of legal operations in the strategy setting process.

* Susan's view on the future of legal operations and technology.

LINKS

Susan Hackett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanhackett/

Alex and Elliot chat about:

* The highly anticipated M1X MacBook Pro and why Elliot wants one

* Recent legal tech capital raisings by ContractBook and Tessian

* Amazon using data analysis to update the disputes clause in its Terms of Service

* The Legal Tech-to-English Dictionary and Elliot's attempt to define "User Experience" and "Change Management"

LINKS

ContractBook capital raising: https://venturebeat.com/2021/05/11/contract-automation-platform-contractbook-raises-30m-to-challenge-docusign/

Tessian capital raising: https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/25/security-startup-tessian-which-uses-ai-to-fight-social-engineering-trousers-65m/

Amazon updates its disputes clause: https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463550/amazon-lawsuit-arbitration-terms-of-service-update-alexa

The Legal Tech-to-English Dictionary: https://abovethelaw-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/abovethelaw.com/2021/05/introducing-the-legal-tech-to-english-dictionary/amp/