#35 The Three E's of Legal Innovation: How a Knowledge Manager Became a Legal Tech Pioneer

On this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman, CEO of Lawline, interviews Nikki Shaver, co-founder of Legal Tech Hub and a recognized leader in legal innovation. With Australian and Canadian roots, Nikki brings extensive experience in knowledge management and legal technology transformation to the conversation.

Nikki shares her journey from practicing media and defamation law in Australia to becoming a director of knowledge management at a Canadian law firm, and later joining Paul Hastings in New York. In 2020, she and her husband Chris Ford founded Legal Tech Hub, a platform that addresses the gap in the market for comprehensive, agnostic information about legal technology solutions. The platform has since evolved from a directory into a substantial subscription product with deep content, market reports, and analysis.

Throughout the interview, Nikki discusses her expertise in change management within law firms, introducing her "three E's strategy" of education, engagement, and execution for driving cultural transformation. She explains how this framework helped overcome resistance to technology adoption, particularly when implementing solutions that improved efficiency but required changes in workflow.

As an adjunct professor at Cardozo Law School teaching legal technology, the business of law, and AI, Nikki emphasizes the importance of preparing law students for a rapidly changing industry. She describes how few incoming associates had any prior exposure to legal technology in their education, which motivated her to develop curriculum and teach at the law school level.

The conversation concludes with a discussion about generative AI's impact on the legal profession, with Nikki highlighting the significant productivity gains these technologies offer—sometimes as high as 75%—and how this will challenge the traditional billable hour model. She shares that clients are already pushing back on paying for junior associate time, recognizing that AI could be performing some of that work.

With five academic degrees and a published book on legal innovation, Nikki exemplifies a commitment to continuous learning, often waking up at early hours to pursue education and writing while managing her professional responsibilities.