The Legal Ops Podcast

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/

Zach Posner is a co-founder and managing partner of The Legal Tech Fund, an investment fund which focuses exclusively on early stage legal tech start ups. He is an accomplished entrepreneur himself, having started and sold three companies in a variety of industries. In a wide ranging and fascinating conversation, we covered many aspects of the legal tech investment world, including: * What is unique about the legal tech market, and why he and The Legal Tech Fund focus on it * What makes a good start up, both in general and in the legal industry specifically * How to validate a new business idea * Why timing is of critical importance, and what to do about it * What "pre-seed", "seed", "series A" and other investment jargon means * What funding cycles are and how they work * The role of an investor in the day-to-day operations and management of a business * What sort of exit investors look for and why the exit profile in legal tech is different to other markets LINKS Zach Posner on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachposner The Legal Tech Fund: https://www.legaltech.com/ TLTF Summit: http://tltfsummit.com/ Nate's news: https://www.legaltech.com/natesnews

In this Talking Tech episode Alex and Elliot speak with Matt Patel, co-founder and COO of Malbek. Malbek provides provides contract review and management software solutions to companies across the globe. LINKS Malbek website: https://www.malbek.io/ Matt Patel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-patel-36680a9

Electra Japonas is the founder and CEO of The Law Boutique, a legal optimisation consultancy which aims to turn law departments into commercial enablers by supercharging their business through legal design. Electra and TLB are on a mission to drive efficiency through standardization. Their first two contract standardization projects, OneNDA and OneDPA, have received widespread adoption and acclaim. Their next venture, Claustack, aims to build on that success by creating a platform which enables all industry participants to start and run their own standardization projects. We sat down with Electra to discuss these initiatives in more detail, including: * Electra's background and what led her to start her own consultancy. * How OneNDA has performed during its first year since launch. * Why Claustack is like a combined Github and Stackoverflow for legal. * How Claustack and TLB will help lawyers to run their own standardization projects. * Why standardization can and should be applied to more than just documents and contracts. * What success will look like for Claustack and standardization in general. LINKS Electra Japonas on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/electra-japonas/ The Law Boutique website: https://www.tlb.law/ Claustack website: https://www.claustack.com/ OneNDA website: https://onenda.club/