LawNext

As Time By Ping, a company devoted to helping lawyers break free from timekeeping, announces its Series B raise of $36.5 million, cofounder and CEO Ryan Alshak joins LawNext for an exclusive interview about the financing, the company, and its mission to help lawyers break free from timekeeping and get back time in their days.  As Alshak shares in the interview, the roots of the company’s mission are very personal to him. Soon after starting the company, his mother fell ill with cancer, causing him to balance managing a startup and spending time with her. After her death in 2018, he found inspiration for the company’s mission: to give people back time in their days to be with the people who are important to their lives.  He wrote about his mother and how she inspired him in a moving 2018 essay, “Life is not waiting for the storm to pass, it’s learning how to dance in the rain.” In our LawNext interview, Alshak describes how Time By Ping’s time-automation software can free lawyers from manual timekeeping. He also discusses how this latest financing round will help the company pursue its longer-term vision, which is to rebuild the model for how lawyers work from selling time to selling outcomes, and eventually to focus their effort on creative work in ways that best leverage their most important asset.  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.  Legalweek 2022, returning in person to New York City March 8-11, 2022, Legalweek will bring together thousands of legal leaders for a week-long program featuring TED-style focus talks, workshop boot camps, and panel sessions across 21 tracks and 74 sessions. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Is there a better way to train lawyers to draft and negotiate contracts? Laura Frederick thinks so. This former Tesla and BigLaw commercial contracts attorney is the founder of How to Contract, a learning platform that trains lawyers and professionals how to draft and negotiate contracts in the real world. She is also managing attorney of her own firm, Laura Frederick Law, in Austin, Texas, where she focuses on drafting and negotiating vendor supply, services, and technology agreements. As a lawyer in the technology transactions group at law firm Morison & Foerster and then as an inhouse commercial counsel at major corporations including Tesla, Frederick saw how hard it can be for younger lawyers to learn the skills they need to effectively draft and negotiate agreements.  In August 2020, she began posting daily contracting tips on LinkedIn. Her tips were so popular that she turned them into a book, ​​Practical Tips on How to Contract: Techniques and Tactics from an Ex-BigLaw and Ex-Tesla Commercial Contracts. Out of the tips and the book emerged the idea for How to Contract, where she provides practical training on contracting. In January 2022, she held her first How to Contract conference, with nearly 400 attendees. Frederick joins host Bob Ambrogi to share her innovative approach to teaching contract skills, and she shares her thoughts on the current array of contracting technology products on the market.  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.  Legalweek 2022, returning in person to New York City March 8-11, 2022, Legalweek will bring together thousands of legal leaders for a week-long program featuring TED-style focus talks, workshop boot camps, and panel sessions across 21 tracks and 74 sessions. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. 

In this second of a two-part interview, we continue our conversation with Jeffrey Carr, a trailblazing general counsel who describes his career as decades spent on the radical fringe of reforming legal services delivery. Many of his ideas for revamping legal departments, once viewed as radical, have now become mainstream.  As general counsel at FMC Technologies in the early 2000s, Carr disrupted how legal departments hire and compensate outside counsel, creating models that today are considered standard operating procedure at many companies.  After retiring from FMC in 2014, he went on to work with Valorem Law, one of the earliest law firms to focus on making alternative fee arrangements the norm. Valorem became the progenitor of ElevateNext, the law firm affiliate of the global law company Elevate. Carr returned to a GC role in 2019 at Univar Solutions, where he sought to build the law department of the future. Now retired, he teaches, writes, and pursues his hobby of driving race cars.  Last week, in part one of the interview, Carr spoke with host Bob Ambrogi about how he landed on the “radical fringe” of reforming legal services, and he discussed some of the trailblazing initiatives he created at FMC, including the Alliance Counsel Engagement System, or ACES, a method of hiring outside counsel so unique that he was encouraged to patent it. In this second installment of the interview, Carr discusses another of the initiatives for which he is known, the Litigation Value Challenge, which came to be emulated by the Association of Corporate Counsel and many of its members. Carr and Ambrogi also dive into his recent post at Bill Henderson’s Legal Evolution blog, Four Waves of Change in #LawLand, in which he lays out his framework for making the legal system better.  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.  Legalweek 2022, returning in person to New York City March 8-11, 2022, Legalweek will bring together thousands of legal leaders for a week-long program featuring TED-style focus talks, workshop boot camps, and panel sessions across 21 tracks and 74 sessions. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

One of the most innovative general counsel ever, Jeffrey Carr describes his career as decades spent on the radical fringe of reforming legal services delivery. Yet many of his ideas for revamping legal departments, once viewed as radical, have now become mainstream.  As general counsel at FMC Technologies in the early 2000s, Carr disrupted how legal departments hire and compensate outside counsel, creating models that today are considered standard operating procedure at many companies.  After retiring from FMC in 2014, he went on to work with Valorem Law, one of the earliest law firms to focus on making alternative fee arrangements the norm. Valorem became the progenitor of ElevateNext, the law firm affiliate of the global law company Elevate. Carr returned to a GC role in 2019 at Univar Solutions, where he sought to build the law department of the future. Now retired, he teaches, writes, and pursues his hobby of driving race cars.  In this first of a two-part interview, Carr joins host Bob Ambrogi to talk about how he landed on the “radical fringe” of reforming legal services and to discuss some of the initiatives he created at FMC, including the Alliance Counsel Engagement System, or ACES, a method of hiring outside counsel so unique that he was encouraged to patent it.  They also discuss Carr’s recent post on the Legal Evolution blog, Four Waves of Change in #LawLand, in which he lays out his framework for making the legal system better.  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, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Woodpecker, legal document automation for solo and small firms.  A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.

Two years into the pandemic, what has been its impact on e-discovery and what lies ahead for the industry? The 2022 State of the Industry Report takes a deep dive into these questions, surveying lawyers, consultants, software and service providers, and others to paint a picture of where the industry is today and what trends will dominate in the year ahead.  Joining us on LawNext to discuss the report is Doug Austin, who conducted the survey and wrote the report. Austin, publisher of the blog eDiscovery Today, is an established e-discovery thought leader with over 30 years of experience providing e-discovery best practices, legal technology consulting and technical project management services to commercial and government clients. This is his second year surveying the state of the industry, with sponsorship from EDRM. Topics the report covers include remote work by e-discovery professionals, attendance at legal technology conferences, use of predictive coding, issues around data from mobile devices and collaboration apps, top e-discovery and e-discovery business trends for the year ahead, and the top challenges not being talked about.  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, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Woodpecker, legal document automation for solo and small firms.   A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.

At a time when corporations are demanding greater accountability, transparency and predictability from their legal departments, automation of manual processes is a critical strategic priority, offering the promise of greater efficiency and effectiveness. But what does it really mean for a legal department to digitally transform itself and how should it go about it?  In this special edition of LawNext, three leading corporate general counsel and an expert consultant share their stories of digital transformation and their advice for others embarking on their own transformations. Panelists featured in this episode are: Bill Deckelman, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, DXC Technology. Todd Machtmes, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Salesforce.  Nishat Ruiter, General Counsel, TED Conferences.  Stuart Fuller, Global Head of Legal Services, KPMG Law, KPMG International. This conversation was originally recorded as part of the Legal Leaders conference presented on Oct. 26, 2021, by Reuters Events. I served as moderator of the panel and Reuters graciously granted me permission to make the discussion available to listeners of LawNext.   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, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Woodpecker, legal document automation for solo and small firms.   A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.

As a litigator in Los Angeles, Nicole Clark saw that state court data could be a secret weapon for winning, but she also saw how difficult it was for her and other lawyers to access that data. That inspired Clark to found Trellis in 2018, to collect and provide access to that data so that other litigators would not have to operate blind.  Recently, Trellis raised $14.1 million in a Series A funding round that Clark plans to use to expand the company’s coverage into additional states and its customer base into additional industries. Eventually, Clark hopes to see the use of court analytics become the industry standard, commonplace among litigators and expected by clients.  On this episode of LawNext, Clark joins host Bob Ambrogi to explain why she started Trellis and how she sees its court and judge analytics as critical tools for today’s litigators. She also recounts how the company has expanded its coverage so far and describes her plans to eventually cover the courts in every U.S. state.    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, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Woodpecker, legal document automation for solo and small firms.   A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.

Bobby Balachandran, founder and CEO of governance, risk and compliance company Exterro, has just been named LegalTech CEO of the Year in the Legaltech Breakthrough Awards. In a year in which so many legal tech companies have seen significant growth, it is a notable honor. But Balachandran is hardly resting on his laurels. He is already eyeing an IPO in the year ahead.    A computer scientist by training, Balachandran founded Exterro in 2008, quickly convincing a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company to sign on as his first customer. In 2018, Exterro received a reported $100 million investment – at that point one of the largest investments ever in a legal tech company – and went on to make two major acquisitions – of data privacy company Jordan Lawrence and digital forensics company AccessData.    Balachandran joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss his leadership philosophy as a legal tech CEO, his company’s formation and growth, his views on the legal tech market, and his plans for his company in the years ahead.    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, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Woodpecker, legal document automation for solo and small firms. Legalweek New York, back in person for 2022. A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.

When COVID-19 first swept across the United States in March 2020, it forced courts across the country to shut down, bringing trials and other legal proceedings to a screeching halt. A new study by The Pew Charitable Trusts examined how courts responded in the aftermath of that shutdown, and it concluded that they did pretty well overall, rapidly embracing technology and revolutionizing their operations. But the study, How Courts Embraced Technology, Met the Pandemic Challenge, and Revolutionized Their Operations, also found that courts’ accelerated adoption of technology disproportionately benefited those with legal representation, while posing disadvantages for those without legal representation, particularly those whose access was limited by lack of technology, physical disabilities or limited English proficiency. We take a deep dive into the report with Qudsiya Naqui, a lawyer and officer on the Civil Legal System Modernization team at Pew that conducted this research and produced the report. Naqui is a podcaster herself, host of Down to the Struts, a podcast about disability and design that focuses on building more inclusive systems and structures that acknowledge the breadth of human diversity.  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, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Woodpecker, legal document automation for solo and small firms.   A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.

In July, the e-discovery company DISCO became one of just a handful of legal technology companies ever to go public, listing on the New York Stock Exchange. That made it the third legal tech company this year to go public, after no U.S. legal tech company had gone public since 2002.  On this episode of LawNext, Kiwi Camara, DISCO’s cofounder and CEO, joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss DISCO’s public offering and its implications for the company and the broader legal tech market. He also shares his thoughts on the key factors driving the explosion of interest in legal tech, and offers his predictions on where the legal market is heading.  At age 16, Camara earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and at age 19, became the youngest-ever graduate of Harvard Law School. After a clerkship with 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harris Hartz, Camara studied for a doctorate in economics at Stanford, taught corporate law at Northwestern, and was a founding partner of Camara & Sibley LLP in Houston. It was while practicing at Camara & Sibley that he saw the need for a better product to automate the work of gathering and sifting through evidence, leading to the founding of DISCO in 2013.   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, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Woodpecker, legal document automation for solo and small firms.   A reminder that we are on Patreon. Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests.