The Legal Ops Podcast

Kevin Clem, Chief Growth Officer at HBR Consulting, discusses predictions about AI and data, the dominance of Microsoft's productivity suite, and HBR's lively Mingle party at the recent CLOC Global Institute. The speakers explore the buzz around generative AI in the legal industry and the challenges faced by legal professionals in building dashboards. They also provide insights into HBR Consulting's Council Command, a comprehensive software-enabled service that offers expertise in analyzing and interpreting legal data. Lastly, they share a glimpse of the vibrant atmosphere and hot topics discussed at the beach-themed HBR Mingle event.

Want to know what it's like to attend the world's biggest legal operations conference? Or did you go and you're now keen to relive it? This is the episode for you!The unofficial theme of this year's event was: artificial intelligence and its role in the legal industry. AI was discussed in almost every session and essentially every conversation over breakfast, lunch and networking drinks. And the consistent message is that AI is already having a real impact on the legal industry through a number of practical use cases and technologies.In our interviews we covered AI from many angles, including how legal ops professionals are adopting it, how vendors are incorporating it into their products and how it will continue to affect the shape of the legal tech market.A big thanks to Evisort for sponsoring this episode and for enabling us to bring this amazing content to you. In the episode you'll hear a number of interviews with their staff, customers and partners, all of whom gave valuable insights on topics at the heart of legal operations and technology (including artificial intelligence). Find out more about Evisort here: https://www.evisort.com/

Alex and Elliot discuss: * The podcast heading to CGI 2023! * A recent survey of perceptions of legal department efficiency * Current attitudes to generative AI in legal practice * Gartner's 2023 report on core capabilities for legal operations technology LINKS Legal's role in revenue generation: https://www.legaldive.com/news/legal-department-revenue-generation-contract-negotiations-onit-elr-report/647087/ Legal department responsiveness: https://www.legaldive.com/news/legal-department-reputation-onit-elr-report-bypassing-legal/645224/ Lawyers' intentions to use generative AI: https://www.lawnext.com/2023/03/few-legal-professionals-using-or-planning-to-use-generative-ai-so-far-lexisnexis-survey-finds.html Allen & Overy's approach to generative AI: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/generative-ai-is-coming-for-the-lawyers Gartner's core capabilities for legal operations technology: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-04-24-gartner-identifies-core-capabilities-for-legal-operations-technologies

Raymond Blyd, a legal tech expert, delves into the funding trends and market analysis of the legal tech industry. He discusses the impact of AI and GPT models, the evolution of funding trends, and the debate between legal point solutions and enterprise solutions. The podcast explores the transformative effects of AI on legal services and empowers legal professionals through innovation and technology.

Alex and Elliot discuss: * The release of GPT-4 * GPT-4 passes the Uniform Bar Exam * Microsoft announces Copilot for Office online * Copying GPT for under $600, by using GPT LINKS Release of GPT-4: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/14/23638033/openai-gpt-4-chatgpt-multimodal-deep-learning GPT-4 has passed the Uniform Bar Exam: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2023/03/17/how-gpt-4-mastered-the-entire-bar-exam-and-why-that-matters/ Microsoft Copilot: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/17/23644501/microsoft-copilot-ai-office-documents-microsoft-365-report Copying GPT for under $600: https://newatlas.com/technology/stanford-alpaca-cheap-gpt/

Interest in artificial intelligence has skyrocketed in the past few months thanks to rapid advances in the GPT language model and, equally importantly, many vendors incorporating the model into their products and services. But what does this mean for the legal industry, both now and in the future? To answer this question we invited Mary O’Carroll and Cai GoGwilt onto the podcast. Mary is currently Chief Community Officer with Ironclad, a US-based contract lifecycle management vendor, as well as the immediate past president of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium and the former Director of Legal Operations at Google. Cai is a co-founder of Ironclad, its current Chief Technology Officer and formerly a software engineer with a data analytics software provider. Having both Mary and Cai on the show enabled a rich conversation about GPT and the legal industry, both from a technology perspective and a commercial perspective. Here is a taste of the topics we covered: * What actually is GPT? * What does GPT offer in the digital contracting space? * What is it good at and what are its limitations? * Is the current hype justified? * What does this mean for lawyers and legal work? * Are there any risks and, if so, how can they be managed? * What does the future hold for GPT and the legal industry? By the way, our conversation with Mary and Cai was recorded on 2 March 2023. We think it's important to provide a timestamp, given the rapid rate of developments in this space. LINKS Mary O'Carroll on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryshenocarroll Cai GoGwilt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cai-gogwilt-77b18a22

Alex and Elliot discuss: * A roundup of legal tech investments in 2022 including their thoughts on the trends for 2023 * Microsoft’s potential integration of ChatGPT into Outlook and Word, and what this would mean for the legal industry * Why Elliot is hanging out for the rumoured-to-be-upcoming 15.5 inch M2 MacBook Air LINKS 2022 legal tech investment: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2023/01/20/legal-tech-investments-dropped-in-2022-but-the-number-of-investors-spiked/ ChatGPT for Outlook and Word: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/9/23546144/microsoft-openai-word-powerpoint-outlook-gpt-integration-rumor

It's the start of the year and time for a new round of legal tech predictions! In this episode we discuss a bunch of predictions from Gartner, including what we do and don't agree with, and why. Here's a sneak peak of the issues covered: * Big growth in the proportion of funding spent on legal tech * Replacing lawyers with non-lawyers * Ever increasing automation * Capturing the benefits of CLM, or not * Spending on non-specialist technology providers Then Alex and Elliot make some predictions of their own, including: * The rise of platforms * More "no code" tools * Technology rationalisation * The continued importance of rich APIs * The impact of ChatGPT * Consolidation in the CLM market * Microsoft's legal tech acquisition LINKS Gartner legal tech trends: https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-legal-technology-trends-changing-in-house-legal-departments

Carl Morrison is the Director of Legal Operations at MGM Resorts International, based in Las Vegas. He began his legal career as a paralegal, working primarily in litigation support and legal project management. He progressed to management roles in which he lead teams of paralegals to efficiently deliver complex discovery and document review initiatives, eventually combining his existing skills with technology, analysis and strategic advice to move fully into legal operations. We covered many topics with Carl, including: * How he progressed from paralegal to director of legal operations * What specific challenges he encountered on his journey and how he handled them * The challenges that come with being a legal operations leader in a small legal team * As a sole legal operations resource, how he prioritises his time and effort * The impact of an organisational merger on a legal operations function * Observations on the legal operations market in the US compared to other parts of the world LINKS Carl Morrison on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlmorrison/ Carl's email: carl@dearlegalops.com

Nam Truong is the head of Digital and Innovation at Law Squared, an innovative and young law firm based in Melbourne, Australia. Nam is relatively new to the legal industry, having spent a number of years working with digital products in the financial services industry. This non-legal background, combined with the blank canvas of Law Squared's existing tech stack, enabled Nam and the firm to eschew many traditional legal tech services and instead create a flexible and robust system which leverages modern architectural principles. We covered many topics with Nam, including: * Why he moved from fintech to the legal industry, and what key observations he had after making the move. * How Law Squared is different to a traditional law firm and how that affects the day-to-day employee experience. * How Nam and the firm approached the design of their tech stack. * Which particular applications the firm uses, how they are integrated and how it improves the handling and management of data. * Why they chose a modular approach over a monolithic approach, and what benefits and costs it offers. * How the tech stack is expected to grow and develop in the future. LINKS Nam Truong on Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/namtruong96 Law Squared: https://www.lawsquared.com/