Pioneers and Pathfinders

Today’s guest is Mary Juetten, founder and CEO of Traklight, a company that provides businesses, entrepreneurs, and inventors with automation software tools and resources to help them identify business risks and legal needs. Mary’s professional journey began in finance, where she learned the basics of examining systems and processes. While working as a CFO, she oversaw her company's merger and learned more about contracts, inspiring her to pursue law. During law school, she came up with the idea for Traklight and decided to return to the business world after earning her JD. Additionally, Mary is an advisory board member at Integra Ledger, a digital trust technology infrastructure based on enterprise blockchain technology. She is also an advisory board member of RightsLedger, a universal ledger focused on digital ownership management tracking, rights management, and global monetization using blockchain. In our conversation, Mary discusses attending law school with a business background, making the leap to entrepreneurship, and the usefulness of blockchain.

Our guest today is Michael D.J. Eisenberg, an attorney who shares his deep knowledge of legal technology through his blog and podcast, The Tech Savvy Lawyer. A tech wiz with a master’s degree in civil engineering, Michael decided to pursue law school as a way to broaden his skill set. After working at the US Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals and at the Workers’ Compensation section of the Ohio Attorney General's Office, Michael decided to start his own practice, where he has focused on advocating for veterans, military members, and federal employees for nearly two decades. Throughout his legal career, he has used technology to make his work more efficient, offering tips to fellow attorneys along the way. In 2019, Michael started the blog The Tech Savvy Lawyer, aimed to assist legal professionals with their technology skills on a broader scale. Since launching the blog, he has also recorded a number of podcast episodes under The Tech Savvy Lawyer brand. Today, Michael talks about how his grandfather influenced his career path, his decision to become a solo practitioner, using technology to save time, and his life as a podcaster.

This week, as we celebrate Independence Day, we thought we'd revisit our conversation with Bridget Mary McCormack, former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Since we recorded this episode, Chief Justice McCormack has retired and gone on to be president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association, as well as strategic advisor to Penn Carey Law's Future of the Profession Initiative. In our discussion, Chief Justice McCormack talks about her efforts to ensure equal access to justice for all, the importance of public confidence in our court system, and collaborating with other branches of the Michigan state government on civil justice reform. This conversation highlights the incredible work of our country's public servants in solving today's A2J challenges. We hope you enjoy. In this episode, we have the distinct honor of being joined by Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack. Her passion for access to justice has been a constant throughout her career in public service. Immediately out of law school in New York, she joined the Legal Aid Society and the Office of the Appellate Defender. As a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, she launched a number of clinics devoted to domestic violence, pediatric health, mediation, low income taxpayers, human trafficking, and juvenile justice. The Michigan Innocence Clinic, which she founded—and in which students represent wrongfully convicted Michiganders—has exonerated more than 22 people so far, and has shined a light on the important justice issues underlying wrongful conviction. She joined the Michigan Supreme Court in January 2013, and became chief justice in January 2019. Since joining the court, Chief Justice McCormack continues to teach at the law school and continues to speak out on important issues around the access to justice problem in our society. Listen in to today's discussion to hear her thoughts on the access to justice challenge and how we can bridge the gap, and why judges should be agents for justice system reform.

Today's episode will be an encore presentation of our inaugural session for the Pioneers and Pathfinders Virtual Roundtable Series. Last Wednesday, host Steve Poor had a live and lively discussion with four legal industry experts and thought leaders on the topic “Navigating Risks, Benefits, and Ethical Considerations in the Age of AI,” which focused on generative AI and the implications for the legal industry. These thought leaders—Kiran Mallavarapu, Executive Vice President and Senior Manager of Legal Strategic Services at Liberty Mutual Insurance; D. Joseph Piech, Senior Loss Prevention Counsel at ALAS; Lori Roeser, Partner and General Counsel at Seyfarth Shaw LLP; and Travis Rogers, Director and Senior Managing Counsel of Innovation Law at Allstate—all offered incredible insights and perspective on this interesting and timely topic. Our panelists shared their knowledge, experience, and invaluable insights, as we discussed the risks and ethical implications associated with determining policies, weighing the use of tools and how the rules extend across your organization, and much more. A special thank you to everyone who attended last week. And thank you to our listeners for joining us today.

Today we are joined by Tom Martin, founder and CEO of LawDroid, a company using artificial intelligence and automation techniques to help lawyers be more productive. Inspired by his early experiences as a legal assistant, Tom entered the legal profession with a strong commitment to efficiency and technology. While working as a lawyer at a top talent agency, he learned the basics of building a business, ultimately leading him to pursue entrepreneurship. He would go on to start Foresight Legal Group, PC, a law firm that was an early adopter of document automation, which made legal services more affordable for clients. Tom then co-founded LawDeal, a company that was ahead of its time in offering clients flat-fee packages for legal work. He later co-founded LawDroid after realizing the potential for chatbots to change the delivery of legal services. In January, the company launched Copilot, an AI legal assistant that advances productivity even further by helping lawyers with research, summarization, grammar review, and drafting. Additionally, Tom is the co-founder of American Legal Technology, which awards legal professionals and organizations for their accomplishments in creative innovation and technology. Tom has also been named an ABA Legal Rebel and is a Fastcase 50 honoree. In our conversation, Tom tells us about his lifelong love for technology, the shortcomings of ChatGPT, his exciting work at LawDroid, and coming up with the "Oscars of legal innovation."

Our guest today is a self-described “unapologetic access to justice advocate.” Natalie Anne Knowlton is the founder and principal consultant at Access to Justice Ventures, an organization committed to eliminating systemic barriers to legal resources by empowering entrepreneurs who are developing scalable solutions. As a law student, Natalie was deeply passionate about humanitarian and civil rights issues, so she ultimately decided to focus her career on the A2J space. Her list of activities is extensive. She became a research analyst at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), a think tank that also develops and implements innovative solutions to advance the legal system and serve those in need. There Natalie and her colleagues have conducted quantitative and qualitative empirical research in order to effectively address access to justice challenges. Today she serves as advisor on regulatory innovation at IAALS, after serving various roles in research and special projects. In 2022, she launched Access to Justice Ventures, and also became a transition consultant at Self-Represented Litigation Network, which aims to reform the legal system as the number of self-represented litigants rises in the US. Additionally, Natalie is a limited partner at the investment fund LongJump and the venture capital fund Overlooked Ventures, both of which help new founders develop their businesses. In our wide-ranging discussion, Natalie talks about how she channels "empirically informed outrage" to make a difference in law, her vision for regulatory reform, her work at Access to Justice Ventures, and her goals for changing the A2J space.

Our guest today is Jimmy Vestbirk, founder of Legal Geek, an organization that hosts events around the world for the legal tech community. Jimmy started his career in business, owning and operating a number of online dating sites. As he ran into different legal issues in these ventures, his experiences ultimately inspired him to find solutions to these problems. Drawing on his business knowledge, he co-founded the legal startup Flex Legal, where he discovered his passion for events. Jimmy would go on to start Legal Geek with the goal of making legal tech events more fun and engaging—encouraging attendees to dress comfortably, learn from one another, and make friends rather than sell. Since launching in 2015, Legal Geek has reached a total of more than 50,000 attendees from over 150 countries. Legal Geek also organized the world’s first legal tech startup conference in 2016, and will host the brand new Legal Growth Geek conference focusing on legal tech adoption. In April, the Ministry of Justice in the UK awarded £3 million to Legal Geek and its partner CodeBase to accelerate the growth of legal tech through the program LawtechUK. In today’s discussion, Jimmy tells us about making the leap to the legal industry, hosting events during the pandemic, how Legal Geek has evolved since its first event in San Francisco, and the topics he's excited to hear about at the upcoming Legal Geek North America conference hosted in Chicago.

We’re joined today by John Grant, a legal operations strategist who works with law firms and legal teams to improve their capacity and productivity. A fourth-generation lawyer, John was in the technology industry for nearly a decade before he entered the legal profession. As an attorney, he started in in-house counsel and legal operations roles before founding Agile Professionals LLC in 2014. As a consultant, he helps legal professionals develop legal services that are profitable, scalable, and sustainable for themselves as well as the communities they serve. Additionally, John is board president of The Commons Law Center, a nonprofit law firm providing affordable legal services to those in Oregon who make up to 400% of the federal poverty level. Both Agile Professionals and The Commons Law Center incorporate Kanban, a methodology that aims to improve efficiency and achieve excellent client value in production processes by visualizing workflows. Today, John talks about what he learned from working in tech, the need for human connection in the A2J space, applying Kanban principles to legal organizations, and how he helps attorneys with overwhelming workloads.

Today we speak with our 100th guest, Catherine Jackson Moynihan, a true pioneer and expert in legal operations—and another great example of an allied professional driving change in the profession. Catherine is Senior Director of Strategic Intelligence & Advisory at Hyperion Research, an Epiq company. After working in product management roles for several years, she had the opportunity to join the Association of Corporate Counsel, where she started and directed the legal operation section—at a time when legal operations was not the established function that it is today. Among the numerous strategic initiatives Catherine undertook, one of her key accomplishments was developing the ACC Legal Operations Maturity Model, toolkit, and training. With mentorship from then-vice president of the ACC—and friend of the podcast—Susan Hackett, Catherine also led ACC Value Challenge (and its Value Champions awards), a program with the goal of identifying and disseminating leading practices in the industry. Today, Catherine oversees Hyperion Research, Epiq’s legal operations market intelligence program, and she spearheads practical guidance and engagement opportunities for global legal executives advancing their legal transformation efforts. In our conversation, Catherine discusses how she "wandered" into the legal industry, the importance of data in Epiq’s legal services management framework, training legal professionals on change management, and her research work. As always, we appreciate your time listening in on these conversations. Now, on to the next 100 guests!

As we’ve discussed many times on the podcast, the access to justice gap is a particularly complex challenge to address, due to its links to systemic issues such as poverty and limited availability to legal resources and technology. Today’s guest, however, is helping people overcome these broader obstacles to legal services. Amanda Brown is the founder and executive director of Lagniappe Law Lab. The organization’s mission is to facilitate access to justice at scale for Louisiana's underprivileged populations through the use of technology, human-centered design, and operations principles. Upon graduating law school, Amanda was a disaster recovery attorney, using technology to assist victims of disasters with accessing public benefits and title clearing. She then worked as a Microsoft NextGen Fellow for the American Bar Association’s Center for Innovation, helping support the design and development of the Legal Services Corporation’s legal navigator program, which connects those in need with legal resources available to them. She went on to serve as a legal technology consultant for the Louisiana Bar Foundation on its statewide triage portal. Drawing on these experiences in legal tech and the A2J space, Amanda founded Lagniappe Law Lab in 2019. She is also co-chair of Louisiana’s Access to Justice Commission’s technology subcommittee, and she is a member of the Legal Services Corporation’s Emerging Leaders Council. Today, Amanda tells us about Lagniappe Law Lab—and how the team is incorporating human-centered design in its work, the unique challenges that the Lab’s clients face in Louisiana, and how she entered the A2J path.