LawNext

On Aug.1, Hari M. Osofsky took office as dean of Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, after four years as dean of Penn State Law School and nearly two decades of teaching law. Having herself established a reputation for driving innovation, and coming into a school that is already recognized as innovative, her mission is to lead the school’s next chapter of innovation.    But she also arrives as a profound moment of social change in our society and in the legal profession, a moment that has raised new questions about the nature of legal education and the role of law schools in helping to shape the profession. As she steps into this role, where does she start and what challenges does she face?    On this episode of LawNext, Osofsky joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss her new role and to share her thoughts on legal education, bar admission, legal innovation, and legal regulatory reform.    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.

Zach Posner cofounded The Legaltech Fund in 2020 as the first venture capital firm laser-focused on law and legal technology. But even with that industry focus, he takes a broad view when it comes to what he considers legal tech, looking for startups that have “legal in the middle,” but that may also span fintech, govtech, or consumer tech.    Posner, a three-time entrepreneur before becoming an investor and now managing director of The Legaltech Fund, joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss why he created a fund devoted to legal tech, the opportunities he sees there, and the kinds of companies in which he is interested in investing.    He also shares his advice for entrepreneurs pitching a VC firm and offers his views on the broader investment and innovation landscape in legal tech.  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.

Does the billable hour get a bum rap? Nicholas d’Adhemar, founder and CEO of the London-based spend management company Apperio, believes so. The real culprit for out-of-control legal costs is something else altogether, he believes. By identifying it, d’Adhemar says, both clients and law firms will be better positioned to manage legal costs. In this episode of LawNext, d’Adhemar joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss why he believes hourly rates, done right, are often a fairer measure of legal costs than fixed or capped fees. He also discusses his founding of the company in 2013, its development since then, and its drive, launched last year, to significantly expand its market in the United States.    Before founding Apperio, d’Adhemar worked six years as a lawyer for a large international law firm. After completing his MBA at INSEAD, he spent three years working as an investment manager in a private equity firm. Those experiences, he says, taught him that the fewer the surprises in billing, the happier the client and the law firm — the lesson that inspired him to found Apperio. 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.

Sixteen months after UpCounsel announced it would shut down, it is not only alive and well, but showing double-digit revenue growth, consistent profitability, and accelerating demand for legal services through its lawyer marketplace. Now it is launching a crowdfunding campaign with the mission of bringing legal to the people.    [The crowdfunding campaign opens to the public July 28, but listeners of this podcast can access the private friends and family campaign, with early investor benefits including a lower valuation cap.]   On this episode of LawNext, we look at the Phoenix-like story of how UpCounsel came back from near death, saved at the eleventh hour by new owners and a new management team that reinvented its business model, and why the company is now turning to crowdfunding to raise capital to fuel its growth and development.    To tell this story, we are joined by two of the company’s top executives:    Chief Executive Officer KJ Erickson, a serial entrepreneur who Rolling Stone named in 2017 as one of 25 people shaping the future. Chief Revenue Officer Paul Drobot, a sales veteran who previously led sales at legal tech companies Atrium and Logikcull.    This episode is part of a two-part series on UpCounsel that also includes the LawSites blog post: Exclusive: As UpCounsel Launches Crowdfunding Campaign, the Phoenix-like Story Of Its Rise from Near Shutdown. 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.

With his contract-management company having just raised $40 million in Series B funding, Linksquares cofounder and CEO Vishal Sunak is aiming for some big goals, including “to build legal tech solutions that simply weren’t possible before.” In announcing the raise, which brings the company’s total funding to $61.4 million, Sunak vowed that the company will develop its AI technology to “offer functionality no one has seen before,” and that it will soon introduce “a first-of-its-kind product that will change the way businesses complete the contracting process.” Sunak returns to LawNext to discuss this latest funding round and his vision for the future of legal contracting. He was previously a guest on the show in the episode posted on June 2, 2020. That episode goes into more detail about the history of the company and its development.  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.

Mary Shen O’Carroll pioneered the field of legal operations during her 13 years as director of operations, technology and strategy at Google. She was also instrumental in forming the influential organization CLOC – the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium – and was elected its president in 2019.  In April, she walked away from both of those roles, leaving Google and stepping down as CLOC president, to join the contract lifecycle management company Ironclad as chief community officer, where she will scale and lead the company’s global community. “In Ironclad, I see the same mix of magic ingredients of community, vision, and talent that I saw in my early days at Google,” O’Carroll said in announcing the move.  On this episode of LawNext, O’Carroll joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss her new role and the experiences that brought her here. She also shares her thoughts on the accelerating growth of legal operations in recent years and the increasing prominence of CLOC.  Listeners may also be interested in the April 19, 2021, episode of LawNext, in which Ironclad’s CEO Jason Boehmig was interviewed.  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. Law Insider, producer of the show Contract Teardown, where they analyze the contracts that others are talking about.  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.

The past year has laid bare, in shockingly explicit detail, the racial inequities of the justice system. Now, LexisNexis and the Historically Black Colleges and University Law School Consortium have partnered to launch a fellowship initiative for 12 law students to spend nine months working to end this systemic racism and further the rule of law.  On this episode of LawNext, we discuss this initiative with two of the fellows who are participating in it, as well as with the president of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation, which is providing $120,000 to support each fellow with a $10,000 stipend. LexisNexis is also providing each fellow with dedicated mentorship and recurring professional development sessions to enhance their skills in technology, data analytics, and leadership. Joining host Bob Ambrogi are:  Ian McDougall, executive vice president and general counsel of LexisNexis and president of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation.  Kailyn Kennedy, a fellow from North Carolina Central University School of Law, who received a fellowship to create webinar programs that offer a space for communication, questions, knowledge, and solutions to be shared about the racial discrepancies in legal employment.  Oscar Draughn, a fellow from Florida Agricultural And Mechanical University College of Law, who received a fellowship to create a database of pro se litigant resources in Florida via a digital app with step-by-step tutorials.  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. Law Insider, producer of the show Contract Teardown, where they analyze the contracts that others are talking about.  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 the legal profession continues to transform and evolve, how can a law firm or legal department be “future ready”? What are the characteristics that define future-ready organizations and foretell their continued success?  Just out from Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory is its 2021 Future Ready Lawyer Survey Report, documenting the top trends affecting legal professionals and looking at how well prepared law firms and legal departments are to address them. And given that this year’s report comes in the wake of the global pandemic, it considers the events of 2020 and their impact on the profession now and into the future.  To discuss the report and share their insights on it, host Bob Ambrogi is joined by two top executives from Wolters Kluwer: Martin O’Malley, executive vice president and managing director of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory worldwide.  Dean Sonderegger, senior vice president and general manager of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US. 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. Law Insider, producer of the show Contract Teardown, where they analyze the contracts that others are talking about.  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.

New findings show that law firms that piloted the Mansfield Rule have grown the racial and ethnic diversity of their leadership by more than 30 times the rate of other firms. These firms have also exceeded the norm in the rates at which racially diverse lawyers progressed into partnership and at which women lawyers progressed into leadership roles.  As the legal industry continues to struggle with diversity, these are notable results – especially considering that the Mansfield Rule is an idea borrowed from the NFL’s Rooney Rule and hatched in a hackathon. The basic idea is simple: firms commit that they will consider candidate pools that are at least 30% diverse when hiring senior associates and partners, promoting into equity partnership, and filling management positions. But as Lisa Kirby, chief intelligence and knowledge sharing officer at Diversity Lab, explains, there is more to it than a simple percentage. Kirby, a former lawyer who oversees Mansfield Rule certification, joins host Bob Ambrogi to explain what the Mansfield Rule is, how it promises to drive diversity in law firms and legal departments, and how its scope and reach are expanding.  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. Law Insider, producer of the show Contract Teardown, where they analyze the contracts that others are talking about.  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.

The past year has seen the launch of several legal technology marketplaces, but Theorem LTS aims to be something more — an integrated legal technology ecosystem to power workflow-driven tech adoption by law firms and legal departments, as well as a marketplace for vendors to sell their products and connect with customers.  Founder Joshua Maley is a former lawyer and venture investor who started the company because he perceived that legal professionals had no viable way to understand all the products and services available to them on the market, and specifically at the point of pain within their workflows. “The Holy Grail of enterprise adoption and engagement is to deliver these solutions within the workflow, and that’s where our focus is,” Maley says.  After nearly two years of developing and testing the platform, Maley is now formally launching it. He joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss why he started Theorem and how he believes it will help drive broader technology adoption by law firms and legal departments.   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. Law Insider, producer of the show Contract Teardown, where they analyze the contracts that others are talking about.  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.