The Geek In Review

Matt Rasmussen, Founder and CEO of ModeOne, shares his journey from frustration to innovation in mobile device discovery. With over 20 years in litigation tech, he reveals how ModeOne revolutionizes data collection, speeding up processes from weeks to hours while protecting user privacy. He discusses the challenges of traditional forensic methods, the power of cloud scalability, and the increasing need for secure, efficient solutions amid regulatory pressures. Plus, insights on sustainable growth in a competitive startup landscape make for a captivating listen.

Kris Satkunas, Director of Strategic Consulting at LexisNexis, and Toby Brown, CEO at DV8 Legal Strategies, dive into the 2025 CounselLink Trends Report. They reveal rising partner billing rates, especially in M&A and regulatory work, while clients become savvier in managing costs. The conversation highlights a staggering 61% rate gap between large and mid-sized firms, influenced by the presence of pricing professionals. Toby brings skepticism about firm strategies as they navigate the shifting landscape of legal pricing and technology adoption.

Laura Clayton McDonnell, President of the Corporates Business Segment at Thomson Reuters, discusses her impressive journey through corporate law and technology at major firms like Apple and Microsoft. She dives into the transformative impact of AI on legal practices, emphasizing the need for adaptability and continuous learning. Laura shares her commitment to innovation shaped by her family's immigrant legacy and her drive to turn legal departments into strategic partners. She highlights the importance of collaboration in navigating the evolving landscape of legal technology.

This week, we sit down with Kenzo Tsushima, Managing Director of Mind Factory at Morae, to discuss how AI is transforming legal operations and consulting services. Kenzo shares his unique career journey, blending a passion for technology with legal expertise, and highlights why the legal industry is positioned to leverage AI advancements more quickly than heavily regulated sectors like healthcare. With a background that spans consulting leadership and GC roles, Kenzo offers a rare dual perspective on how law firms and corporate legal departments can future-proof themselves by embracing emerging technologies like MorAI, Morae’s proprietary AI platform.Kenzo discusses the creation of MorAI, launched in mid-2023, as a response to widespread legal tech “decision fatigue” — where an abundance of AI tools overwhelms buyers. Rather than pushing generic solutions, Morae designed MorAI around highly specific legal workflows such as contract review, RFP response automation, and internal helpdesk queries. Kenzo emphasizes the importance of "solutionizing" AI: showing real, targeted results rather than relying on hype. Using examples like their Helpdesk module, Kenzo explains how legal teams can instantly boost efficiency by querying historical RFP responses and deploying AI for natural language document reviews, significantly reducing administrative burdens across legal and procurement functions.A strong advocate for servant leadership and human-centric AI adoption, Kenzo outlines how Morae's approach goes beyond technology — focusing heavily on change management and upskilling legal professionals. Through programs like SEEDS (Skill Enablement Employee Development Series), Morae invests in developing both consulting and technology skills among its team. Kenzo notes that traditional legal professionals, often unfamiliar with public speaking or technology tools, can thrive when given structured, bite-sized learning opportunities. This consultative-first mindset, he argues, not only improves client outcomes but creates a more resilient and engaged workforce.Addressing cybersecurity and data privacy concerns, Kenzo details Morae’s use of private Azure instances and multiple legally trained LLMs to ensure client data security and confidentiality. Unlike public AI tools, MorAI is designed to be a trusted legal companion that never co-mingles client data or trains on external internet content. Kenzo also explains why Morae’s strategy of multi-LLM deployment (leveraging OpenAI, Anthropic, and others) future-proofs clients against rapid developments in AI models — ensuring their legal technology stacks remain agile and powerful over time.Finally, Kenzo shares his insights on the challenges ahead for the legal industry: decision fatigue, resistance to change, and the crucial need to align with younger generations’ expectations around technology use. He urges law firms and corporate legal departments to rethink build-vs-buy strategies, embrace commercially available solutions, and foster AI champions within their organizations. As new roles like legal engineers and prompt engineers emerge, firms that support AI-enabled upskilling and servant leadership will not just survive — they will lead the next era of legal innovation.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.]  Blue Sky: ⁠⁠@geeklawblog.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@marlgeb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript

Raghu Ramanathan, President of Legal Professionals at Thomson Reuters, discusses the legal industry’s pivotal role in the AI revolution. He outlines three transformative waves of AI: Optimization, which enhances workflows; Re-engineering, that rethinks processes and staffing; and the emergence of New Business Models. Raghu also highlights the innovative capabilities of Thomson Reuters' AI platform, CoCounsel, and its potential to reshape legal practices. Engaging insights on integrating technology and the future of law await listeners.

In this week’s Geek in Review, we sit down with Patrick Waldo, CEO of Unicorn Forms and proud Houstonian, to explore the intersections of data, document automation, and legal tech innovation. From the vibrant startup culture at Houston's ION and the Capital Factory's SXSW House event to the regulatory grind of form design, Waldo shares how his journey—from working in compliance-heavy industries to launching a playfully named but technically serious platform—is reshaping how we think about document-driven workflows.Waldo pulls back the curtain on Unicorn Forms’ approach to digitizing and structuring data trapped in PDFs. With a background in regulatory intelligence, he understands firsthand how critical, yet painfully inefficient, static documents can be. Unicorn Forms aims to transform the “eight-and-a-half-by-eleven world” into structured, field-driven digital tools. By mimicking the look and feel of familiar e-sign interfaces while embedding structured fields and integrations like Calendly or Stripe, the platform bridges the gap between legal formality and technical interoperability.Security and compliance are at the heart of the conversation as Waldo outlines the different levels of electronic trust, explaining how Unicorn Forms distinguishes itself with hashed documents, timestamp authorities, and encryption standards that exceed many traditional e-signature solutions. He highlights how many professionals—especially in legal, healthcare, and finance—aren’t aware of the risks they take when using non-secure PDFs for sensitive data like social security numbers or payment details.The episode also dives into the often-overlooked role of data ontologies in making government and enterprise forms interoperable. Waldo describes the complexity behind something as seemingly simple as a name or address field and how lack of standardization leads to inefficiencies and errors. By applying his years of ontology-building experience, Unicorn Forms aims to enable more intuitive, human-readable, and system-compatible data capture, with real-world use cases already in place—like improving film permitting processes for the Houston Film Commission.From a startup perspective, Waldo gets candid about fundraising challenges, the paradox of needing metrics to raise money and needing money to build metrics, and how early-stage companies must balance marketing, sales, and product development. He emphasizes the value of angel investors and local ecosystems like the ION and the Canon, while acknowledging the rising bar of investor expectations in today’s post-2023 funding environment.Finally, Waldo shares his philosophy behind the Unicorn Forms brand—born as an April Fool’s joke but grown into a conversation starter and signal for early adopters. With Party City swag, a pink logo, and a message that draws in the curious and the creative, Unicorn Forms is redefining legal tech not just through software, but through an intentional, approachable identity. As Waldo looks ahead, he sees opportunity in pairing strong data engineering with AI tools—not just to automate, but to make legal and regulatory processes smarter, faster, and more human-centered.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.] Blue Sky: ⁠⁠@geeklawblog.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@marlgeb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript

Sam Flynn, COO and co-founder of Josef, a legal tech innovator dedicated to self-service tools for justice, shares insights into the real-world impact of legal tech. He defends Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) as essential for AI in law, arguing that foundational work and data integrity are crucial. Flynn highlights Josef’s successful projects with clients like L’Oréal, which enhance efficiency and empower non-experts. The discussion includes the Roxanne project, an AI tool aiding New York tenants, illustrating the potential of legal tech to improve access to justice.

Sean West, co-founder of Hence Technologies and author of Unruly, discusses the intersection of AI, law, and geopolitics. He reveals that 62% of lawyers are now using AI tools like ChatGPT, which could transform traditional roles and lead to 'passive job displacement.' West warns about the erosion of the rule of law amidst political challenges and technological advancements. He also explores the need for organizations to adapt through transparency and retraining, highlighting the uncertain future for legal professionals as AI evolves.

Chan Hee-Koh, CEO of FileRead, and Justin Brownstone, Strategic Partnership Lead, dive into the transformative world of AI in litigation. Inspired by Chan's family experiences during the 2008 housing crisis, they discuss how FileRead aims to make legal processes more accessible and efficient. The duo highlights the importance of building trust amid industry skepticism about AI. They also share insights on the company’s recent growth, including a $6 million funding round, and their vision for a standalone AI litigation platform that enhances document review and uncovers hidden narratives.

Ed Walters, Chief Strategy Officer at vLex and an expert in legal AI, returns to discuss the latest advancements in legal technology. He dives into how AI is reshaping legal research with tools like OpenAI and Gemini, emphasizing the balance between innovation and human judgment. Walters highlights vLex's multimodal AI capabilities for analyzing audio and video files, enhancing the efficiency of legal workflows. He also raises ethical considerations around AI usage and offers insights into maintaining data security in legal practices.