LawNext

Cornell Winston, president of the American Association of Law Libraries, brings a unique perspective to law librarianship, having spent 45 years in libraries across diverse settings — from a hospital library where he started as a student worker; to the former Whittier Law School; to prominent law firms Munger, Tolles & Olson and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; and, for the last 24 years, as law librarian in the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles. Winston joined host Bob Ambrogi to record this interview just weeks before AALL's annual meeting in Portland, Ore., July 19-22, with the theme "Be Bold." It's a fitting theme for a profession that's undergone dramatic transformation, evolving from traditional book-focused roles to becoming essential gatekeepers and evaluators of legal technology and information. In their conversation, Winston discusses the evolving challenges facing law librarians — from safeguarding disappearing government information to testing AI-driven legal research tools. They explore why he considers it critical for law librarians to have "a seat at the table" in their organizations, the opportunities for newcomers to the profession, and why Winston believes the profession’s future remains bright despite predictions of its demise. Winston also shares insights on AI adoption, the importance of law librarians as strategic partners rather than just support staff, and how the profession continues to prove that while Google may find you a million answers, a librarian will find you the best one.    Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Monica Zent is a true pioneer in legal innovation and entrepreneurship. She is the founder of ZentLaw, an award-winning alternative legal services provider that broke the traditional law firm mold when she founded it in 2002. ZentLaw has since grown into a nationwide legal services provider, serving global brands and major corporations with a unique subscription-based model and flexible talent approach.  But Monica's entrepreneurial journey extends well beyond ZentLaw. She's a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies, including early internet startups in the 1990s. She's a patented inventor, legal tech founder, angel investor, and advisor to numerous startups. In fact, Monica describes herself as having a "career portfolio" – she's an entrepreneur who has carved her own path through the legal industry and beyond. Her latest venture is the Law Innovation Agency, a collective that brings together a think tank component, consulting services, and investment connections to help organizations navigate the rapidly changing landscape of legal technology and AI.  Throughout her career, Zent has been a strong advocate for innovation, efficiency, and diversity in the legal profession. Her articles on legal innovation, women in technology, entrepreneurship, and leadership have appeared in publications like Inc. Magazine, Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Huffington Post, and she has won numerous awards, including Corporate Counsel’s Women, Influence & Power in the Law Award in the Innovative Leadership category On today’s show, Monica joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss her entrepreneurial journey and her vision for the future of legal services and legal innovation.    Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

On May 5, 2025, PERSUIT, a technology company that specializes in helping corporate legal departments select and manage outside counsel, announced that it had acquired Apperio, a spend-management platform for corporate legal, in a move designed to create an end-to-end workflow solution spanning everything from matter intake to invoice payment.   “This acquisition accelerates our ability to connect every point in the outside counsel workflow with intelligence,” Jim Delkousis, cofounder and CEO of PERSUIT, said at the time. “We’re not just managing spend — we’re turning it into performance.”   This week on LawNext, Delkousis joins host Bob Ambrogi to share his vision for PERSUIT and why he believes the Apperio acquisition brings “superpowers” that will help propel the company further forward in realizing that vision. The episode was recorded on the day PERSUIT announced the acquisition.  Before founding PERSUIT nearly nine years ago, Delkousis had an accomplished career as a litigation attorney, serving as a partner at King & Wood Mallesons in Australia and later helping establish DLA Piper's Middle East practice in Dubai. In the conversation, he will discuss how his experience on the law firm side informed his mission to shift the legal industry from time-based to value-based fee arrangements. He will also talk about the strategic vision behind the Apperio acquisition and how generative AI is accelerating the evolution of legal service delivery.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

"Everybody understands the world is volatile, but they don't necessarily understand why it's volatile or how to deal with it," says Sean West, cofounder of Hence Technologies and author of the new book, Unruly: Fighting Back When Politics, AI, and Law Upend the Rules of Business. "Unruly is a play on words. ... The world is kind of ‘unruling.’ The rules and norms that were developed during globalization are falling away." On this week’s LawNext, West joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss how the collision of geopolitics, technology, and legal shifts is creating unprecedented challenges for businesses of all sizes – and their legal advisors. Their conversation explores how businesses can turn volatility into opportunity, the importance of strategic legal counsel in this environment, and why companies of all sizes need access to geopolitical intelligence. They also discuss Hence’s recent launch of Hence Global, an AI-powered platform designed to help businesses and their legal counsel manage geopolitical uncertainties by providing customized, real-time risk analysis and insights tailored to specific business roles and needs. West explains how the platform delivers personalized, role-specific intelligence that enables legal teams to better serve their clients and organizations in an increasingly uncertain world. Before cofounding Hence in 2020, West was global deputy CEO of Eurasia Group, a global affairs advisory firm, where he advised CEOs, general counsel and investors on geopolitical and legal risk. He is also a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

LawDroid Founder Tom Martin on Building, Teaching and Advising About AI for Legal If you follow legal tech at all, you would be justified in suspecting that Tom Martin has figured out how to use artificial intelligence to clone himself.  While running LawDroid, his legal tech company, the Vancouver-based Martin also still manages a law practice in California, oversees an annual legal tech awards program, teaches a law school course on generative AI, runs an annual AI conference, hosts a podcast, and recently launched a legal tech consultancy. In January 2023, less than two months after ChatGPT first launched, Martin’s company was one of the first to launch a gen AI assistant specifically for lawyers, called LawDroid Copilot. He has since also launched LawDroid Builder, a no-code platform for creating custom AI agents.  Beyond his work at LawDroid, Martin is an adjunct professor at Suffolk Law School, teaching "Generative AI and the Delivery of Legal Services," and is a co-founder of the American Legal Technology Awards, which will be holding its sixth annual ceremony this October in Boston. In today's conversation, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi speaks with Martin about his journey from practicing lawyer to legal tech founder, his perspective on how gen AI is transforming the legal profession, and his insights on implementing AI in law firms and legal aid organizations.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

In the gold rush of generative AI, it seems that every legal tech vendor wants to be a one-stop shop for legal technology. But after 15 years of developing legal tech, Nik Reed, CEO of Knowable, a legal technology company devoted to helping enterprises bring order and organization to their executed agreements, believes that lawyers should be wary of the hype. Often, the most successful AI solutions are those that focus on solving specific problems exceptionally well rather than attempting to be all things to all lawyers.  On today’s LawNext, Reed joins host Bob Ambrogi for a conversation that explores what makes legal AI actually work well in practice. It is a topic he has been thinking about, in one form or another, since he was still a student at Stanford Law School, where he co-founded the legal research startup Ravel with classmate Daniel Lewis in 2012. After LexisNexis acquired Ravel in 2017, Reed moved into strategic product management there, and then joined Knowable in 2019 to lead its product research and development. He became the company’s CEO last November, just as the company launched Ask Knowable, its generative AI suite.  In a conversation that explores what makes legal AI actually work in practice, Reed emphasizes the critical importance of pristine data environments, high-quality metadata, and clearly defined use cases. “It's still hard to build really good products, especially for lawyers, and it takes a lot of hard work,” Reed says. “ And anyone that's telling you that that's not the truth is probably already a product that you shouldn't be using.” But ultimately, he believes, AI has the potential to restore balance to legal practice by handling the rote work lawyers never wanted to do, allowing them to return to what they went to law school for – critical reasoning and solving complex problems. Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.   Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. LEX Reception, Never miss a call, with expert answering service for Lawyers. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

In January, a merciless firestorm swept through the Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas of Los Angeles, becoming the most destructive wildfire in the city's history. Driven by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds and fueled by record-dry conditions, the Palisades Fire destroyed over 6,800 structures, burned nearly 24,000 acres, and dramatically altered the lives of thousands of residents. Among them were three individuals with deep ties to the legal tech community, each of whom lost their home to the fire. This week on LawNext, we speak with those three individuals:  Valerie Chan, founder of the legal PR firm Platform PR.  Rick Merrill, former founder of Gavalytics and current COO of Bridgeline Solutions. Adam Camras, co-founder of Lawgical, longtime CEO of the Legal Talk Network, and chief collaboration officer at InfoTrack. These three legal tech leaders share their harrowing experiences as the flames approached, the devastating aftermath of losing their homes, and their ongoing journey of recovery and rebuilding. Their stories offer a rare and intimate glimpse into how even those with resources and professional expertise face overwhelming challenges when confronted with natural disaster. From the initial evacuation decisions to battles with insurance companies and uncertain rebuilding timelines, this conversation reveals both the practical realities and profound emotional impact of sudden, catastrophic loss. We also want to mention a related project, California Fires Legal Resources, in which the legal tech community, spearheaded by Clio, worked together to launch a website devoted to providing legal resources related to the LA fires, both for victims of the fires and legal professionals working on behalf of those victims.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. LEX Reception, Never miss a call, with expert answering service for Lawyers. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Mark Cohen, chairman emeritus of the Digital Legal Exchange, and Dierk Schindler, co-founder of the Liquid Legal Institute, explore their strategic union aimed at revolutionizing legal transformation. They discuss the importance of a holistic approach that blends technology, processes, and a curious mindset in legal practices. The duo highlights their organizations' complementary strengths and plans for joint initiatives, stressing that collaboration will drive the future of the legal industry, breaking down barriers and fostering innovation.

Phil Saunders, the CEO of Relativity, has dedicated three decades to the tech sector and is currently steering the future of legal data. He discusses the pivotal changes facing the legal industry, notably the rise of generative AI and the transition to cloud solutions. Saunders reveals that starting in 2028, all new matters will be hosted on Relativity’s cloud platform. He also emphasizes customer engagement and the importance of collaboration in navigating these transformative forces shaping legal technology.

Recently, legal technology company SurePoint Technologies acquired the legal practice management company ZenCase in a strategic move aimed at enhancing SurePoint’s practice management offerings for mid-sized law firms. In this episode of LawNext, Eric Thurston, who recently marked his two-year anniversary as CEO of SurePoint Technologies, joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss the acquisition and share his perspective on the mid-market landscape in law.  Originally founded in 1982 as Rippe & Kingston, SurePoint has established itself as a leading provider of financial and practice management software for mid-sized law firms, currently serving nearly 1,000 customers. As Thurston explains in the interview, the acquisition of ZenCase strengthens its front-end capabilities with features tailored specifically for lawyers. The acquisition helps SurePoint "leapfrog innovation by about three years," he says, while addressing customer demands for more lawyer-friendly interfaces. The conversation also explores SurePoint's earlier acquisition of Leopard Solutions, a business intelligence platform that provides comprehensive data on attorneys and law firms across the country, enabling everything from strategic recruiting to competitor analysis. Thurston explains how they've already integrated Leopard's analytics into ZenCase, allowing lawyers to quickly access valuable industry data. Looking at the mid-market practice management landscape, Thurston acknowledges that it is currently fragmented, but he believes SurePoint is positioned to become "the Clio of the mid-market." He outlines the company's vision to help firms not just manage their practices but accelerate growth through better technology, data analytics, and business intelligence. With a philosophy that "you're either growing or dying," Thurston shares how he believes SurePoint continues to evolve while helping law firms do the same.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. LEX Reception, Never miss a call, with expert answering service for Lawyers. Legalweek, March 24-27, New York Hilton Midtown. Register today at legalweekshow.com. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner).   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.