Pioneers and Pathfinders

Tony Thai is an attorney, entrepreneur, and software engineer. He founded and serves as CEO and chief engineer of HyperDraft, a company which builds bespoke document automation software for law firms and legal departments. Prior to his legal career, Tony worked as an enterprise software engineer. An M&A venture capital attorney by training, his goal was always to build tech to disrupt the profession. To learn how lawyers practice and how the law is delivered, Tony practiced at some of the world's most prestigious law firms, as well as in-house at multiple technology companies. He was recently recognized as a Fastcase 50 honoree, and serves as an adjunct professor at USC Gould School of Law. In today's conversation, we talk about why Tony embraces all the boring stuff nobody else wants to do; how a desire to understand how humans think led to his work in machine learning, software, and algorithms; and how HyperDraft is a culmination of every experience he has had.

We've had a number of guests on the show focused on the A2J gap, as well as issues of social justice, but today's guest, Jazz Hampton, combines both. Jazz is CEO and general counsel at TurnSignl, a Minnesota-based tech company that he co-founded in the wake of the deaths of Philando Castile and George Floyd. TurnSignl is a mobile app where the user, if stopped for a traffic violation or involved in an accident, can push a button and be connected automatically to an attorney to receive real-time, on-demand legal guidance. The goal of the app is to keep drivers safe and empowered while speaking with law enforcement. Before joining TurnSignl, Jazz was the director of diversity and inclusion and a practicing attorney at a national law firm. Among other roles, Jazz has won a number of accolades, most recently being named to Fastcase 50. Join us for a fascinating conversation about TurnSignl’s growth plans, how this first-generation college student ended up in law school, and how a mentor made all the difference when Jazz was starting out.

We're joined today by Olga V. Mack. Olga is vice president and CEO of Parley Pro at LexisNexis. Parley Pro is a contract life cycle management platform that is pioneering online negotiation technology. Olga has dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She believes that by embracing technology, the legal profession will become stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive. Olga's TED talks are very popular, and she is an outspoken advocate for professional women. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to serve on corporate boards. In her spare time, she helps startups thrive and grow, serving as an advisory board member for a number of companies. Listen in to today's conversation to learn more about why Olga thinks it's so important that the body of law be human centered and how to make it so, the role of technology in law as a service, and why a more transparent world demands more accessible contracts.

Casey Flaherty is well known in the world of legal innovation. His career journey has taken him to nearly every corner of the legal system. Casey has been a Big Law litigator, in-house counsel at a Global 500 company, a legal operations consultant, and architect of the legal project management team with the world's largest law firm. Today he is co-founder and chief strategy officer at LexFusion, a collaborative circle of handpicked, truly excellent legal innovation companies. In Casey's role, he focuses on the consultative aspects of the company's go-to-market operation, with an emphasis on market listening, thought leadership, and community-building. Listen to our discussion to learn why market listening is so critical to LexFusion's value proposition, how the challenges around the acquisition of technology can cause people and companies to resign themselves to the status quo, and more about Casey's current project—a maturity model of transactions that firms can use as self-assessment.

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.