Law://WhatsNext

In this quarterly deep-dive, we reconnect with Peter Duffy, the brilliant mind behind the Legal Tech Trends newsletter, for our regular temperature check on what's actually happening in the legal technology landscape. Peter's ability to cut through the hype and identify real trends, combined with his practical experience helping organisations actually adopt AI, makes this a masterclass in separating signal from noise.Whether you're trying to understand why adoption is lagging despite the excitement, wondering about the strategic implications of billion-dollar acquisitions, or simply want to understand what Silicon Valley's sudden fascination with legal really means, this conversation hopefully delivers some insight.The episode kicks off with a sobering look at AI adoption across the legal profession, and the numbers might surprise you. Peter walks us through recent surveys from Bain and BCG that paint a picture quite different from the hype we're all hearing about at conferences/or on LinkedIn.The acquisition and partnership landscape is absolutely wild right now, and we break down the strategic implications of:Clio's $1 billion acquisition of vLexEudia's acquisition of the Irish ALSP Johnson HannaHarvey's strategic alliance with LexisNexisWe end discussing some personal topics of interest, including:Y Combinator's explicit call-out for startups to build "full stack AI companies" – using law firms as their prime example;The Builders Playbook: 2025 State of AI Report; andthe implications of the recent order in the New York Times v. OpenAI caseIf you found this episode interesting, please do like, subscribe, comment, and share! It helps the show rank and reach more people.. Best, Alex & Tom

We sit down with Sam Lewis, Senior Product & Privacy Counsel at Canva, who kicks things off by asking us the most important question of 2025: "If you had to be a piece of cutlery, what would you be?" Spoiler alert: Sam's a spoon (warm, empathetic, part of the emotional support crew), while Tom and Alex predictably went fork (practical go-getters with zero patience for fluff).Beyond the viral TikTok personality tests, Sam delivers cutting-edge insights into product counsel work at a company that's been building AI since 2017 - well before it was trendy. With Canva's community using AI tools over 18 billion times, Sam has become a thought leader on navigating the complex intersection of law, privacy, and AI-native product development.What makes this conversation essential listening:Sam reveals how legal teams at AI-first companies don't just manage risk - they can drive growth. Three Key Takeaways:1. Trust is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage: In an era where AI capabilities are rapidly commoditizing, trust becomes the differentiator. Sam reveals how Canva aims to be one of the world's most trusted platforms, this isn't just about compliance - it's about building products people love and companies trust.2. Privacy Instincts Are Non-Negotiable in AI-First Companies: Sam makes it clear: "I don't think it's possible to advise on AI without understanding privacy." AI is built on data, and privacy laws determine what's fair, legal, and ethical - making strong privacy instincts essential for knowing when to green light and when to pause in AI-native environments.3. Product Counsel Is Risk-Aware, Not Risk-Averse: Sam champions a philosophy that's become essential for AI-first companies: taking a risk-aware rather than risk-averse approach. To Sam this means asking the right questions, reducing unnecessary friction, and helping teams figure out how to move forward safely - often saying "how can we" instead of "we can't."The conversation touches on Canva's pioneering "AI everywhere" culture (where AI impact is now part of performance reviews), Sam's love for loud parenting, and her admiration for @sophworkbaby on Instagram (a fellow Aussie and ex-Googler) delivering plain unfiltered career insights.If you found this episode interesting, please do like, subscribe, comment, and share! It helps the show rank and reach more people.. Best, Alex & Tom

Ross McNairn, CEO and Founder of Wordsmith, brings a rare perspective to legal tech - lawyer turned software engineer turned CTO at companies like Skyscanner and TravelPerk. Our conversation spans Ross's transition from being a trainee solicitor navigating Scottish estate law to leading one of the world's fastest-growing legal AI companies, his philosophy on building lasting products over quick wins, and why he believes we're entering the era of "legal engineering."What We Cover:Building Philosophy: Why Ross spent a year quietly iterating rather than rushing to market with an MVP wrapper.The UK Opportunity: How Britain's legal heritage and technical talent create untapped advantages in the AI race.Legal Engineering Revolution: Ross's five-level competency framework transforming lawyers into product-minded operators.Market Evolution: Why the generalist legal AI era is ending and specialization is the future.Three Key Takeaways:1. Quality Over Speed Wins Long-Term: Ross's mantra: "I don't want to be the first tool that everybody buys. I want to be the last tool that they buy." While competitors rush wrappers to market, disciplined product development with 95% engineers and lawyers creates lasting competitive advantages through superior reliability and user experience.2. Legal Engineering is the New Frontier: The future belongs to lawyers who think like product managers. Ross describes customers building sophisticated systems with 50+ interconnected agents—a glimpse into legal practice where workflow orchestration, not individual task automation, drives value for in-house teams managing constant business demands.3. Invisible Quality Creates Unbeatable Moats: While everyone debates model capabilities, Wordsmith are developing rigorous "evals" testing frameworks defining world-class legal outputs. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

In our first "on record" informal coffee-style conversation with a fellow in-house team, we catch up with Kshitij (KD) Dua (Director of Legal Ops) and Priyam Bhargava (Senior Corporate Counsel) from HashiCorp (an IBM company). Having witnessed HashiCorp's extraordinary journey from startup through series rounds, IPO, and ultimately IBM acquisition, this dynamic duo bring unique insights and perspectives on the importance of the lawyer x legal ops dynamic/relationship; legal AI adoption and what happens when traditional SaaS metrics meet an intelligence explosion.Our conversation emerges following their super engaging "Influencing Without Authority" presentation at CLOC CGI in Las Vegas last month.What We Cover:Partnership Genesis: How their collaboration began with Priyam's proactive approach to improving a core revenue workflow.The ROI Challenge: Why traditional SaaS metrics may become meaningless as AI inference costs reshape enterprise economics.AI Integration: How curiosity trumps linear thinking, from brainstorming negotiations to governance frameworks.Career Evolution: International journeys from banking to law firms to HashiCorp's hypergrowth environmentIf you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! For more thought-provoking content at the intersection of law and technology, head to https://lawwhatsnext.substack.com/ for:Focused conversations with leading practitioners, technologists, and educatorsDeep dives into the intersection of law, technology, and organisational behaviourPractical analysis and visualisation of how AI is augmenting our potential

Jessica Block, Executive Vice President at Factor, is a former theater major turned legal tech innovator. She discusses the complexities of leading in a tech-transforming environment, comparing it to quantum mechanics. Jessica shares insights on Factor's AI-first approach to legal workflows, emphasizing collaboration and discovery. She reflects on her unique journey from theater to eDiscovery, highlighting invaluable skills acquired along the way. The conversation also dives into innovative tools for contract management and the need for adaptability and strategic thinking in the evolving legal landscape.

In this episode of Law://WhatsNext, we welcome legal ops guru, pioneer, visionary and friend, Jenn McCarron - President of CLOC, former Director of Legal Operations at Netflix and Spotify - for a conversation about her renaissance year and visions for the future of legal operations.We go light, deep, introspective and playful around:“writing your own funeral” on jobs and being honest with yourself around your strengths, ambitions and (as a by product) your limitations (we all spend a lot of time at work)The discipline, rigour, humility and vulnerability that comes with honing the craft of “writing” (Jenn and a mystery co-author might be building some provocative frameworks for reimagining how we might perceive our current roles and their potential)Using the odd job interview to sharpen your intuition and feeling for who you are and what you doBecoming more intentional with the time, energy and attention Jenn is dedicating to her creative pursuits and passions Staying sharp with a couple of high profile consulting commitments at a prominent private equity firm and social media business, the CLOC Presidency and observing the market and how its evolving from a different vantage pointJenn’s influential Legal Ops 3.0 framework, which envisions legal operations evolving beyond implementing foundational systems to becoming data-powered enterprise wide strategic partnersSome recent reading, including Jevons Paradox: A Personal Perspective by Tina He, where we reflect on the idea that technology meant to create efficiencies often paradoxically increases workload (rather than creating more space) and we consider that legal ops professionals often "sell efficiency" without controlling what happens with the time saved.The episode concludes with a preview of the upcoming CLOC Global Institute, where Jenn hints at exciting new programming developments.  We will report back our thoughts and reflections from the event in Las Vegas next week!We covered a lot but the time came and went in a blink.  Jenn always brings bright, bold and effusive energy to every touchpoint, conversation and interaction.. We hope (but secretly suspect) you’ll find something in this chat to inspire a creative thought (or two) or reframe a perspective.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

Peter drops the quote of the quarter: "Legal is sexy now when it comes to people working in technology and innovation". In our latest episode, we're mixing things up by taking Peter Duffy's wildly popular Legal Tech Trends newsletter and diving deeper into the hottest headlines from Q1 2025. Peter joins us to unpack what's actually happening behind the email blasts and LinkedIn posts we've all been scrolling through.We explore four key trends:1. Voice as the new frontier - Why typing is "super slow" compared to how fast we think and speak, and how voice interfaces are becoming the preferred way for experts to unlock their domain knowledge when working with AI.2. Law firms rolling out Harvey & Legora - The rush to deploy these AI-native tools firm-wide and the cultural challenges of making them stick in an environment Peter describes as "a collection of islands."3. The Axiom & DraftPilot case study - A rare deep dive into actual, measurable results from AI implementation across 27 legal departments (with Peter confirming these stats are "totally legit").4. The economics of "product-led" law firms - How firms like MacFarlanes and A&O Shearman are experimenting with subscription models and profit-sharing arrangements that challenge the billable hour.Alex brings the heat with his skepticism about law firms' tech initiatives, comparing them to "drug dealers giving free samples" to hook clients – while we debate whether AI might finally change that dynamic.Want to stay on top of these trends yourself? Check out Peter's newsletter where he delivers regular shots of insights and personal recommendations after "scouring the web for mentions of LegalTech and listening to legal tech podcasts at 2x speed."If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, and share!

We dive into the machine room of AI-native legal tech with Jake Jones, co-founder of Flank (formerly Legal OS) – a designer-turned-entrepreneur who's building digital colleagues to serve as the front line between corporate legal teams and the businesses they support.What makes this episode essential listening is Jake's ability to demystify complex concepts that many of us encounter but few truly understand – from RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) to context windows and vector databases."We're in the era of workarounds," Jake explains, describing how companies are building complex technical solutions that will likely become obsolete within 12-24 months as AI capabilities advance. His breakdown of how these systems actually function – chunking documents, creating embeddings, and using similarity search – provides a rare glimpse into the machinery behind today's AI applications and why this technical debt is both necessary and temporary.The conversation takes fascinating turns as Jake drops provocative insights throughout: "I think SaaS is going to die," he declares, predicting that today's point-and-click applications will seem as primitive as telegrams once model-based applications become the norm. "We will look back in 20 years and think, how did the older generations manage to get anything done?"We venture into unexpectedly philosophical territory when Jake reflects on why interactions with AI can sometimes feel spookily conscious: "What we're seeing is our own consciousness projected into it and being reflected back." These moments of introspection reveal why building in this space requires not just technical expertise but a willingness to confront existential questions about intelligence and humanity itself.This episode embodies exactly why we started Law://WhatsNext – to capture raw, unfiltered conversations with the people building our future while it's still being shaped. Jake's candid admission that he initially "metamorphosed into fear" about AI's implications before finding a more optimistic path forward mirrors the journey many of us are on.Whether you're a legal professional trying to navigate the AI revolution or simply curious about the machinery behind the magic, Jake's insights will help you separate signal from noise in a rapidly evolving landscape. And fair warning: his hot takes on everything from hiring practices ("a single marketer who understands how to use AI can do the work of five") to the future of autonomous agents might just fundamentally change how you think about technology's role in legal practice.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

We explore responsible AI governance with Hadassah Drukarch, former Director of Policy and Delivery at the Responsible AI Institute and current PhD researcher at Leiden University.Hadassah shares her journey into AI ethics and governance, driven by her interest in problem-solving and recognizing that traditional top-down legal approaches are insufficient for emerging technologies – we need bottom-up perspectives as well.The conversation centers on a critical disconnect: regulatory frameworks for AI are often too generalised and detached from practical implementation contexts. While frameworks like the EU AI Act provide baseline standards, Hadassah expresses serious doubts about their effectiveness, noting that implementing responsible AI looks dramatically different across industries like healthcare and finance.Perhaps most compelling is Hadassah's work testing healthcare robotics, which revealed significant gaps between regulatory standards and real-world performance. Her team's experiments showed that exoskeleton technology designed primarily for elderly users had been tested predominantly on male subjects and was often uncomfortable or unusable for women – demonstrating how policy development frequently lacks critical real-world testing with diverse user populations.Hadassah advocates for creating infrastructure that incorporates practical, on-the-ground testing directly into the regulatory process, replacing theoretical frameworks with evidence-based governance.The conversation concludes with reflections on the value of peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and practical conversations – like this podcast – as essential resources in this rapidly evolving field.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!For more thought-provoking content at the intersection of law and technology, head to https://lawwhatsnext.substack.com/ for:Focused conversations with leading practitioners, technologists, and educatorsDeep dives into the intersection of law, technology, and organisational behaviourPractical analysis and visualisation of how AI is augmenting our potential

In this episode of Law://WhatsNext, we sit down with Sean West, co-founder of Hence Technologies and author of the soon-to-be-released book Unruly, available for preorder ahead of its official release on 25 March 2025. Drawing on Sean’s experience as a globetrotting CEO , political advisor and legal technology founder, our conversation dissects the implications of a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape - what Sean refers to as a new “unruly” world order.Key Themes & HighlightsGeopolitical Deconvergence: Why old-world certainties are fracturing, and how that puts legal professionals on the front lines of assessing and mitigating global risk.Law as a Techno-Political Force: Sean spotlights how law and law firms are no longer mere service providers but active shapers of strategic conversations in boardrooms and beyond.AI and the ‘Legal Singularity’: Referencing seminal works like Personalized Law: Different Rules for Different People by Omri Ben-Shahar and Ariel Porat, and The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better by Abdi Aidid and Benjamin Alarie, Sean provokes us to imagine a future where legal frameworks adapt at the speed of technology—and the profound implications it holds for practitioners and society at large.A Special Offer for Our ListenersSean also shares how his team at Hence Technologies is forging new ways to track and interpret global events—so your legal function or organization can stay ahead of the curve. Want to give it a try? Head to global.hence.ai, and enter the code “lawwhatsnext” at checkout to receive a one-off promotional offer on the new product.If this conversation resonates with you, like, subscribe, comment, and share this episode! For more deep dives at the intersection of law, technology, and organizational behavior, visit https://lawwhatsnext.substack.com/ where we feature:Focused conversations with leading practitioners, technologists, and educatorsInsights on navigating geopolitical risk, AI regulation, and the future of legal practicePractical analysis of how emerging technologies can augment (not just automate) the work we do