Pioneers and Pathfinders

Today’s episode of Pioneers and Pathfinders takes a slightly different approach. We are joined by Tony Thai, a returning guest, who is the CEO and Chief Engineer of HyperDraft, a contract automation software platform for various enterprises. We’re also joined by Byong Kim, Senior Director of Technology Innovations at Seyfarth. He runs Seyfarth Labs, which is a tech R&D team that leads the way in applying emerging technologies to the legal profession. Earlier this year, the three of us led a highly curated roundtable at Seyfarth’s New York office for in-house counsel, innovation leaders, and Seyfarth partners, where we had an open conversation on best practices for the implementation of AI and automation. This was a confidential conversation, so we didn't record it. Today, we won’t be talking about specific people or comments made at the roundtable, but we thought we'd go over what we had learned from it and how we see the progression of AI and automation in the industry, as well as best practices. We discussed how generative AI is often treated like a "solution in search of a problem," how organizations are approaching implementation of the technology, potential security and confidentiality concerns with using generative AI, and advice for legal professionals starting to use this new technology.

Our guest this week is a leading thinker on the application of generative AI in the legal profession. Dr. Megan Ma is the associate director of Stanford’s Law, Science, and Technology Program, as well as the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics—better known as CodeX. She also teaches courses in computational law and insurance tech. Dr. Ma has a background in a variety of fields: She majored in political science and economics, has master's degrees in health law and economic law, and earned her PhD in law. Additionally, Dr. Ma is an advisor to the PearX for AI program, and serves as editor-in-chief for the Cambridge Forum on AI, Law, and Governance, as the managing editor of the MIT Computational Law Report, and as a research affiliate at Singapore Management University in their Centre for Computational Law. We had a fascinating conversation about Dr. Ma’s lifelong interest in linguistics, how "empathetic" large language models can be for users, how generative AI could change lawyer mentorship, and her thoughts on the future of technology in the profession.

This week, we're joined by Nicole Clark, founder and CEO of Trellis, a state trial court research and analytics platform. For several years, Nicole was an attorney in private practice, handling business litigation and labor and employment matters. The idea for Trellis came from her experience doing research for complicated summary judgement motions. Nicole worked with software developers on an early version of the tool, collecting state trial court data and creating an extensive database of tentative rulings issued by judges in Southern California. As Nicole's practice flourished from using the database, she decided to turn it into a scalable legal analytics platform that would help democratize access for state trial court data. Outside of her work at Trellis, Nicole shares everything she has learned over the years about legal analytics with other legal professionals by authoring articles for ABA Journal, New York Law Journal, Texas Lawyer, and Santa Barbara Lawyer. She is also regularly featured as a legal expert in Southern California Record, and has appeared as a guest on podcasts produced by Above the Law and Corporate Counsel Business Journal. In our discussion, Nicole spoke about her transition from practicing law to developing Trellis, her experience starting college at 16, how lawyer engagement with tech has changed in recent years, and her advice for those considering making a leap to business.

In this engaging discussion, Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO of Infodash and recognized as ILTA's 2024 Innovative Leader of the Year, shares his extensive legal tech insights. He reflects on his experience at ILTACON 2024 and emphasizes the key skills for new legal professionals. Ted reveals how he utilizes generative AI to enhance both personal and business processes. He also explores the future of Infodash, aiming to streamline collaboration and efficiency within law firms, addressing the importance of data integration and innovation in the legal landscape.

Today's guest, Lourdes Fuentes, is the founder and CEO of Karta Legal, a legal operations and law firm management consulting firm dedicated to transforming law firms and legal departments through efficiency. Lourdes has over 30 years of experience in the legal field, focusing on insurance litigation, legal technology, and legal operations, among many other areas. As a practicing lawyer, she took an interest in eDiscovery and document digitization at a time when these processes were still very new. Having gained years of experience and knowledge, she shifted her focus toward improving the delivery of legal services for law firms and legal departments. In her work, Lourdes utilizes curated design thinking, Lean Six Sigma, and Agile project management tools and techniques tailored to the management of the business of law and legal processes. In our wide-ranging discussion, she talks about the origins of Karta Legal, the challenges of encouraging lawyers to embrace technology, how her thoughts on generative AI have changed over time, and her advice for those starting a legal tech business.

This week, we’re speaking with Dr. Kirsten Davis of Stetson University College of Law. Dr. Davis began her legal career practicing in the areas of litigation, employment, and taxation. After a few years, she decided to pursue education, becoming a professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where she focused on legal writing. It was during this time that Dr. Davis started her PhD in Human Communication. Today, at Stetson University College of Law, Dr. Davis is a professor of law, Faculty Director of Online Legal Education Strategies, and Provost's Faculty Fellow for Generative Artificial Intelligence and Higher Education. Her research and scholarship focus on legal communication, law and rhetoric, professionalism, professional identity, and professional ethics, and she is currently working on issues at the intersection of generative AI, legal education, and legal practice. Additionally, she is a consultant, trainer, writer, and blogger on various topics in the legal profession. We had a lively conversation about her experience becoming a law professor, how she has adapted to generational changes among her law students, why we may have a "process renaissance" in legal education, and her thoughts on how generative AI will affect legal education in the near future.

We're delighted to welcome back Bridget Mary McCormack, the former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. She is currently president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA-ICDR), a nonprofit that provides arbitration and mediation services to individuals and organizations that wish to resolve conflicts out of court. Former Chief Justice McCormack joined the association just as generative AI was exploding onto the scene. Knowing that the technology would have a deep impact on the legal profession, she worked quickly with AAA-ICDR leadership, as well as futurists and technologists, to determine an innovation strategy for the organization. Additionally, former Chief Justice McCormack is a strategic advisor to the Future of the Profession Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She also co-hosts the podcast 2030 Vision: AI and the Future of Law with Jen Leonard, a previous guest on Pioneers and Pathfinders. Today, former Chief Justice McCormack discusses why she joined the AAA-ICDR, change management at a venerable organization in response to generative AI, the future of online dispute resolution, and rethinking lawyer formation.

We’re joined today by Dan Rabinowitz, founder and CEO of Pre/Dicta, which offers litigators AI tools that can forecast litigation timelines and provide accurate predictions for outcomes of motions. Dan has had many different roles in his legal journey. He started as a litigator at Sidley Austin LLP, and later became a trial attorney at the US Department of Justice. He then served as general counsel at a data science company, and went on to be associate general counsel, chief privacy officer, and the director of fraud analytics for WellPoint Military Care. With all of these experiences, Dan took a deep interest in the innovation and technology side of legal work. Wanting to focus on data analytics in particular, he ultimately decided to leave practice and develop Pre/Dicta. In today's discussion, Dan speaks about the behavioral science factors that can help forecast legal outcomes, the information Pre/Dicta provides lawyers in a given case, how he became involved with behavioral analytics, and the need to think outside the box in the legal world.

Brian Corbin, Vice President of Legal Solutions at QuisLex, shares insights from his diverse career in the legal tech landscape. He discusses the transformative impact of eDiscovery and his role in navigating legal services through technological change. Brian reflects on the cultural shifts that are enabling the rise of alternative legal service providers and how generative AI will shape the future. He also addresses the challenges of change management in legal operations, emphasizing the need for structured methodologies to drive technology adoption.

As the summer comes to an end, many in the legal world will soon return to academic settings as students or as educators. So, this week, we wanted to look back on a wonderful discussion we had with Andrew Perlman, Dean at Suffolk University Law School. In this episode, Dean Perlman spoke about his various roles as a leader in the legal industry, and we discussed the impact of recent technological advancements on legal training as well as the bar exam. Thank you for listening. We will return next week with a new episode. Our guest this week is a leading voice on the future of legal education and law practice. Andrew Perlman is Dean at Suffolk University Law School, and has been a faculty member there since 2001. Before entering academia, Dean Perlman was a litigator with a lifelong fascination with innovation and technology. He has served several important functions in the American Bar Association, and was recently appointed to serve on the Advisory Council of the ABA Task Force on the Law and Artificial Intelligence. Dean Perlman has also been involved in various national and local reform efforts—from police practices and access to justice, to developing alternate paths to law school and bar admission. He has served as a member of the Content Scope Committee of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which helped to identify content for the next generation of the bar exam. Additionally, he has written numerous articles on professional responsibility and legal innovation, and he has served as a presenter or panelist at more than 100 academic, judicial, and other professional programs. Today, Dean Perlman talks about how his passion for innovation started with a Commodore 64, the history and culture of Suffolk, helping law students embrace generative AI, and updating the bar exam.