Pioneers and Pathfinders

Marlene Gebauer is a self-described “knowledge heroine.” After a successful stint as a practicing lawyer, Marlene became a law librarian, where she then transitioned into legal information management. She focuses on research, outreach and education, procurement, licensing, and management. Today she is the director of knowledge management at Locke Lord, where she drives adoption of innovative legal service technologies. In her spare time, she is co-host of the award-winning The Geek In Review podcast with a friend of our podcast, Greg Lambert. In today's conversation, we talked about how an art kid ended up as a lawyer and legal industry innovator, how she went from being quiet to being co-host of a podcast, and what she has learned from more than 160 episodes of The Geek In Review.

Over the past decade or so, the legal industry has expanded dramatically to include different kinds of providers, and no part of the industry has contributed to that growth more than the managed services sector. Today we're joined by Ed Sohn, a veteran of that segment of the industry. As with so many of our guests, Ed started out in Big Law—in this case, as an attorney with King & Spalding. A desire to see India led Ed to spend seven years as an executive with Pangea3, the company that pioneered legal managed services and that was acquired by Thomson Reuters. When Thomson Reuters sold Pangea3 to Ernst and Young, Ed moved to EY Law, where he led its global innovation and technology initiatives. Ed has since left EY Law and joined Factor, which is a spinoff of Axiom and is a unique player in the managed services sector. In his current role at Factor, he is responsible for the learning, development, and capacity of the more than 600 lawyers who call Factor home. Ed tells us that his goal is to advance change in the legal industry by delivering practical scale and quality through managed services. Listen in to today's conversation to learn how key moments of reflection changed Ed’s career path, how his personal interest in traveling India led to one of the most defining experiences of his career, and more about his belief that true innovation isn't about disaggregation or artificial intelligence—instead, it's about tapping into human potential.

For those conversant with the world of legal tech, today's guest needs no introduction…but we’ll do it anyway. Noah Waisberg is a serial legal tech entrepreneur who is changing the way lawyers practice law. Most recently, he co-founded and became CEO of software company Zuva, which uses AI to extract the value out of documents and contracts within client businesses. Zuva, in turn, is a spinoff of Kira, which Noah co-founded and led as CEO from its start, through to its exit to Litera. Kira continues to be a leader in the contract analysis space, and is trusted by a majority of Am Law 100 law firms. Noah has received numerous honors for his work and is often featured in mainstream and legal media. Interestingly enough, he is also the author of the world's first children's book on machine learning, called Robbie the Robot Learns to Read, as well as AI for Lawyers, which is not for kids, but for adults, and is the definitive guide to AI in law practice. In our conversation, we talked about how his experience as a corporate lawyer at a global law firm in New York City led to the founding of Kira, how and why he decided to skip business school and jump straight into business, and how a slow internet connection led to his biggest sales breakthrough.

Today’s guest is Nicole Black, legal technology evangelist at MyCase. Nicole describes her role as a bridge between technology and the practice of law. On the MyCase side of the bridge, she represents the lawyer point of view, and shares insights and industry knowledge with MyCase’s tech and marketing teams. (We should note that following our recording of this episode, MyCase announced its acquisition by AffiniPay; we did not discuss that because of the timing.) On the attorney side of the bridge, she educates lawyers on using technology to streamline their law firms, increase efficiencies, and provide better client representation. In addition to her day job, Nicole has written or co-authored three books, including Cloud Computing for Lawyers. She also writes regular legal tech columns and frequently speaks at legal conferences across the country. Join today’s conversation to learn why Nicole considers the work she did as an intern her most significant legal work, how her history in small and solo firms set her up for success as a legal technology evangelist, the biggest challenges faced by small firm and solo practitioners, and what excites her the most about the near-term and longer-term changes in legal technology.

Today’s guest is Nikki Shaver, a high-achieving legal technology executive specializing in legal business transformation and enterprisewide change management. Her experience in the legal industry includes 10 years of legal practice with top-tier law firms and Fortune 500 companies and close to a decade of experience as a global innovation leader in large law firms. Most recently, she left her role as lead of innovation and KM lead at Paul Hastings to devote herself full-time to Legal Technology Hub, an insights and analysis platform bringing transparency to the procurement and adoption of legal technology by commercial legal organizations. Her recognition includes ILTA as Innovative Leader of the Year, Fastcase 50, and ABA Distinguished Women of Legal Tech. Listen in to today’s conversation to learn how she founded Legal Technology Hub, how it works, and what’s next for the platform; how she dealt with change management in her roles; and what law firms can do to make KM and innovation programs a success.

Anyone following the business of Big Law will be familiar with today’s guest. Over the past few years, Roy Strom has been one of the key reporters covering the country's biggest law firms and how money flows through the legal system. His weekly column, “Big Law Business,” examines the economics, cultures, and personalities inside law firms and an increasingly competitive industry. For the past five years, he has focused on change in Big Law, devoting his 100th column to the accelerating pace of change in the industry. Listen in to today’s conversation for his take on the recent Upsolve, Inc. decision in New York, which opens the door for “nonlawyer” legal practitioners; how his passion for the Cubs led to his career as a legal reporter; and the trend lines that he sees in the industry post-pandemic.

Today’s guest is Ivy Grey, a legal tech entrepreneur, well-regarded writer, and former practicing lawyer. Her work on technology competence, ethics, and innovation has made her a respected thought leader in legal tech. Ivy has been recognized as a Fastcase 50 Honoree and was recently named to Women of Legal Tech by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. Currently, Ivy is Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for WordRake, an editing software for professionals. Ivy writes and speaks frequently about change management and legal technology implementation. Listen in to today’s conversation to learn about how Ivy went from anthropology and journalism to bankruptcy law, the algorithm she used to choose a law school, and how swing dancing has influenced her major life decisions.

In today's episode, we're joined by Pieter van der Hoeven. Pieter is the co-founder and CEO of Clocktimizer, which was one of the first legal tech products that applied machine learning techniques in an effort to pull actionable data from individual lawyer time records. An M&A lawyer by training, Pieter co-founded Clocktimizer out of frustration with a manual process of reviewing time records to report to clients and a belief that there had to be a better way. Over the years, Clocktimizer grew into a multimillion-dollar business with customers all over the globe. In April 2021, it was acquired by Litera, a legal tech company that helps legal organizations streamline operations, improve firmwide profitability, and build and scale pricing and legal management teams. Among other things, Litera itself has been on a bit of an acquisition binge in the legal tech space. Today Pieter is with Litera, where he continues to build on the successes of Clocktimizer and continues to work on the cutting edge of legal tech and its application to the profession. Our conversation covered Pieter’s individual journey and how Clocktimizer arose out of an aha! moment when he realized that the rich data and timecards could be leveraged with automation. We also talked about his thoughts around the evolution of legal tech and its impact on profitability.

David Johnson is a lawyer, teacher, and writer. His fascinating career path has taken him from Miami courtrooms in the '80s to general counsel roles for Silicon Valley tech startups in the '90s, and now teaching and research posts at Stanford Law School and the Stanford Institute of Design—known as the “d.school.” His work in design began as GC and COO for a consultancy that was applying design thinking for business advice. This eventually led to his d.school class, Negotiation by Design. Today, he is applying design thinking learnings, not just to the wicked problems facing legal, but to the even bigger problems facing climate change in his new book, Climate Activism by Design, which brings design thinking to citizen activists responding to the climate change crisis. His most recent article, “Design for Legal Systems,” was published by the Singapore Academy of Law. Listen in to today’s conversation to learn more about how design thinking can help with the development and improvement of human systems, how it can help lawyers think more collaboratively, and how it can move us from the feeling of individual powerlessness to collaborative power to solve massive problems such as climate change.

Today we welcome Jessica Stuart, Senior Product Manager at Pro Bono Net. In her role, she combines her passion for access to justice with her interests in technology, process improvement, and the user experience to increase the effectiveness and reach of law firm pro bono programs via the practice management software Pro Bono Manager. Jessica has also helped lead the platform development and product strategy for Pro Bono Net’s Remote Legal Connect platform, which allows legal services providers, pro bono initiatives, courts, and community partners to rapidly build and manage a legal support program regardless of location. Jessica has been crucial in implementing the development strategy for Remote Legal Connect, which has been adopted by organizations such as Atlanta Legal Aid and Legal Aid of Nebraska. Listen in to today’s conversation to hear more about the growth and evolution of Pro Bono Net, the power of virtual courtrooms to increase access to justice, how Jessica’s love of music got her started on the A2J technology path, and how SeyfarthLean was an early inspiration.