LawNext

On Thursday, March 12, facing the escalating threat of the coronavirus pandemic, Brigham Young University Law School made the decision to close down live classes, send students home, and teach the remainder of the semester online.  As it happened, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi was at the law school that day, where he was scheduled to interview the school’s head of infrastructure and technology, David Armond, about its law and corpus linguistics initiative.  But as they sat down to record, Armond had just come from a meeting with the school’s deans and others in which the school had finalized the decision to close down for the remainder of the semester and put its classes online, so he graciously agreed to discuss how the school reached that decision and how it would be implemented.  In this brief episode, Armond discussed how a law school prepares to shut down and then executes on that decision. We’ll post the remainder of the interview – the part about law and corpus linguistics – later as a separate episode.  NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our sponsor, MyCase, and to John E. Grant and Agile Professionals LLC for being a lead Patreon supporter of our show.

At ABA TECHSHOW 2020, Vicki Huff Eckert, U.S. and global new ventures and innovation leader at PwC, was the featured speaker at the Rebels Riot Luncheon, an event honoring the Legal Technology Resource Center’s 2020 Women of Legal Tech and the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels.  Shortly after the luncheon, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi sat down with Eckert for a live conversation to discuss innovation in professional services, the parallels between the accounting profession and the legal profession, and PwC’s recent launch of PwC InsightsOfficer, an automated bookkeeping product designed for small and medium law firms.  As PwC’s new ventures and innovation leader since 20176 Eckert is responsible for streamlining the firm’s approach to the marketplace by elevating its strengths in new and creative ways to unlock business value. Previously, she served in a range of roles for PwC, having led its global technology industry and co-founding its Silicon Valley Advisory practice.  In 2016, Eckert was named one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. In 2008, she was recognized by Consulting magazine as a leader in client service within the consulting industry. In 2007, she was recognized by the Silicon Valley Business Journal as a member of the 40-under-40 emerging leaders within Silicon Valley. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our sponsor, MyCase, and to John E. Grant and Agile Professionals LLC for being a lead Patreon supporter of our show.

When Jerry Levine became general counsel of IPsoft in December 2015, the artificial intelligence company had been in business since 1998, but it had never had an inhouse lawyer. That meant Levine had the daunting task of creating a legal department from scratch, within an established company that had customers worldwide.  More than four years later, Levine has built an international team of inhouse legal professionals, implemented governance standards, put in place compliance policies, set up processes for contract management and legal operations, and much more.  He is also a tech- and business-savvy lawyer who has relied heavily on technology to help build the department and accomplish its goals.  In a special episode of LawNext recorded live during Legalweek 2020 in New York City, host Bob Ambrogi sat down with Levine to talk about the challenges of building a legal department and the role technology played -- and continues to play -- in helping him meet those challenges.  Special thanks to Valerie Chan, founder of Plat4orm PR, for her assiduous assistance in organizing this panel. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our sponsor, MyCase, and to John E. Grant and Agile Attorney Consulting for being a lead Patreon supporter of our show.

The growing use of legal analytics is rapidly transforming the practice of law. Within law firms, analytics drive litigation strategy, business development efforts, and hiring decisions. Within corporate legal departments, analytics drive outside counsel hiring and internal business operations.  In a special episode of LawNext recorded live during Legalweek 2020 in New York City, we bring together a super session of leading experts to discuss this new world of data-driven law.  Joining host Bob Ambrogi for this special episode are: Eric M. Falkenberry, litigation partner at DLA Piper, where he specializes in the assessment, quantification and transfer of litigation risk through data mining, litigation analytics, and predictive modeling. Peter A. Geovanes, head of data strategy, AI and analytics at the law firm Winston & Strawn, where he is responsible for achieving innovation in the areas of enterprise-wide data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence/machine learning. Karl Harris, CEO at legal analytics company Lex Machina, where he leads strategy and operations and, prior to the company’s acquisition by LexisNexis, he led all product development. Mark A. Smolik, chief legal and compliance officer at DHL Supply Chain Americas, where he serves as global chair of the organization's supply chain legal practice group. Listen to this episode to learn how data analytics are enabling lawyers to make more informed and strategic decisions about all facets of their practices, and hear the panelists’ predictions for how this field will evolve in coming years.   Special thanks to Valerie Chan, founder of Plat4orm PR, for her assiduous assistance in organizing this panel. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our sponsor, MyCase, and to John E. Grant and Agile Attorney Consulting for being a lead Patreon supporter of our show.

As corporate legal departments seek to control costs and drive innovation, how can better use of data, metrics and analytics help? How are corporate counsel using analytics to measure and improve performance internally and among outside counsel? These questions were the topic of a special episode of LawNext, recorded live during Legalweek 2020 in New York City with a panel of four corporate counsel and executives who are leaders in law department innovation. My guests for this special episode were: Jason Barnwell, assistant general counsel-modern legal at Microsoft, where he leads a team tasked with driving legal department innovation. Laurie Ehrlich, associate general counsel and head of legal operations at Cognizant, where she manages the finances, technology and knowledge management for its 200-plus person legal department. Jeff Reihl, executive vice president and chief technology officer at LexisNexis, where he is responsible for driving technology transformation, with a focus on data analytics and artificial intelligence. Mark A. Smolik, chief legal and compliance officer at DHL Supply Chain Americas, where he serves as global chair of the organization's supply chain legal practice group. Listen to hear their insights and experiences using data analytics to improve legal department operations and drive efficiencies both internally and externally. Special thanks to Valerie Chan, founder of Plat4orm PR, for her assiduous assistance in organizing this panel. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our sponsor, MyCase, and to John E. Grant and Agile Attorney Consulting for being a lead Patreon supporter of our show.

In the legal industry, the concept of design thinking has become synonymous with the name Margaret Hagan. Director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession, she is also a lecturer at the Stanford d.school, a ubiquitous speaker at legal conferences worldwide, and a leading advocate for making the law more accessible. After graduating from Stanford Law in 2013, she became a fellow at the d.school, where she launched the Program for Legal Tech & Design, experimenting in how design can make legal services more usable, useful and engaging. She also started the blog Open Law Lab to document legal innovation and design work.  Now, she teaches a series of project-based classes, with interdisciplinary student groups tackling legal challenges through user-focused research and design of new legal products and services. She also leads workshops to train legal professionals in the design process, to produce client-focused innovation. During the past year, Hagan has played a leading role in helping Utah launch an ambitious experiment in legal regulatory reform.   At the recent Innovations in Technology Conference presented by the Legal Services Corporation, Hagan sat down with LawNext host Bob Ambrogi to record a live conversation  about design thinking in law and how it can enhance access to justice. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to Agile Attorney Consulting for supporting our show, and to our sponsor, MyCase.

In multiple ways, Stacy Butler is immersed in seeking to innovate the justice system and the delivery of legal services.  As director of the Innovation for Justice program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, she leads students in thinking critically about the power of technology and innovation to close the justice gap. As president of the board of Step Up To Justice, she is helping to rethink the provision of free legal services. As a member of the Arizona Task Force on the Delivery of Legal Services, she is helping to reshape the regulatory rules that inhibit innovation. Among the projects she has helped spearhead are a new tier of civil legal professional in Arizona, a free tool for helping tenants and landlords communicate, a toolkit for advocates of human trafficking survivors, and an ambitious tenant-education program to reduce evictions. She has 20 years of experience in community advocacy work related to pro bono legal services, and was named three times as one of the Top 50 Pro Bono Attorneys in Arizona. At the recent Innovations in Technology Conference presented by the Legal Services Corporation, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi sat down with Butler for a face-to-face conversation about her work and her broader thoughts regarding innovation in legal services.  NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

It was an epiphany, of sorts, for Greg Garman. In 2015, after 18 years at the same firm, including several as managing partner, he came to believe that most firms operated under a broken business model. Within weeks, he and several colleagues left the firm to start a smaller, more innovative practice, and he began to develop the concept for LawClerk, a marketplace where solos and small firms can hire freelance lawyers to assist them with specific projects.  Now CEO of LawClerk, Garman -- who started the company together with his law partners Talitha Gray Kozlowski and Kristin Tyler -- has a vision for someday building it into the largest backbone provider of legal services in the United States. More importantly, he believes LawClerk will disrupt how small firms hire and how freelance lawyers get work -- providing both firms and freelancers greater profitability and flexibility.  In this episode of LawNext, Garman joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss why he believes LawClerk provides small firms with a better option for staffing their firms, one that he says will enable them to be more profitable while charging their clients less. He also shares his thoughts about the business of law more broadly and how he sees the industry evolving. NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to support the show, be able to access show transcripts, and more. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Jim Sandman may be one of the most impassioned advocates in the United States for ensuring access to justice for all. As president of the Legal Services Corporation since 2011, he oversees an organization that funds free civil legal services to more than 130 legal aid programs throughout the country. As a frequent speaker and advocate, he forcefully makes the case for equal access to justice.  In this episode of LawNext, Sandman joins host Bob Ambrogi for a frank and thoughtful discussion about the justice gap in the U.S. and his ideas for how to bridge it, from increasing funding for legal aid to loosening restrictions on legal practice. They also discuss the role of technology and the 2013 report that Sandman spearheaded, Report of The Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice.  Before joining the LSC, Sandman spent 30 years as a lawyer with the firm Arnold & Porter, including 10 years as the firm’s managing partner. Wanting to spend more time in public service, he became general counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he stayed until the opportunity arose to join the LSC. He is a past president of the 100,000-member District of Columbia Bar.  NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Jeroen Plink was named in 2018 as CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions, a subsidiary of the international law firm Clifford Chance that designs and develops software to address clients’ business challenges. He is responsible for product development and go-to-market strategy for all its products, including CC Dr@ft, a legal document automation platform.  Plink is a legal technology veteran who, in 2007, moved to the United States to set up Practical Law Company US. Within five years, he successfully grew the business from two employees to 250, and had 80% of the AmLaw 200 and thousands of in-house departments as customers. In 2013, Practical Law Company was acquired by Thomson Reuters. After leaving Practical Law, Plink focused on providing strategic guidance as a board member and senior advisor to legal tech startups. He is currently on the board of the legal research startup Casetext and he has also served on the boards of Compliance.ai, a regulatory data and predictive analytics company, and Kira Inc., which uses AI to analyze and review complex documents.  Plink started his career at Clifford Chance's Amsterdam office in 1996 as a private equity associate. He left the firm in 2000 to cofound a company that developed software for due diligence in the M&A transactions. In 2002, he sold that company to Practical Law Company, where he led application development in London before launching its U.S. operation.  NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.