Today's guest is Dr. Sonja Ebron, a PhD of electrical engineering and an entrepreneur with a background in AI. She co-founded Courtroom5 with her wife, Dr. Debra Slone, PhD, a former librarian, school professor, and qualitative data and analysis expert. Motivated by their own difficult experiences navigating the judicial system, they decided to help others in similar situations. Courtroom5 provides people with the tools, resources, and workshops needed to help them settle civil cases, with or without a lawyer to accompany them. Through the resources they provide, people of all classes can learn and understand the legal process without being shut out. Courtroom5 won first place at the Duke Law Tech Lab Demo Day in 2019 and since then, has continued to grow. In 2022, Courtroom5 partnered with Fastcase to provide limited scope access to lawyers who use Fastcase, and to select individual elements of cases where they can provide the most help. It was a fascinating conversation with Dr. Ebron, covering everything from her personal journey to her experience as a serial entrepreneur, and how her training as an engineer influences her approach to the development of Courtroom5. Dr. Ebron is also the host of a podcast called Who Wrote That Up For You?, so we talked shop about the ins and outs of podcast life. Dr. Ebron is a fabulous example of the incredibly important role allied professionals can play in driving change in the profession.

To close out this year, we are delighted to welcome back an old friend, Jae Um. Jae is one of the most sought-after strategy executives in the legal industry. She is the founder and executive director of Six Parsecs, an insights firm for the legal vertical. In addition to strategic consulting for law firm leadership, Jae serves on advisory boards for emerging legal tech companies, including LegalMation, Datana, and LexFusion. Jae got her start in Big Law at Seyfarth, where she served in a progression of high-impact roles in client service innovation and strategic growth. She then went on to serve as director of pricing strategy for Baker McKenzie worldwide. She is a contributing author to Legal Evolution, The American Lawyer, and other publications covering the legal industry. In her spare time, Jae has created a series called Lawyering at Scale on Luminate+. Her work is consistently brilliant. Jae was one of our first guests on the podcast when we launched in 2021, and we are thrilled to have her back for a fascinating conversation about her life on the road, the role of empathy in her consulting practice, the cultural commonalities of the most successful law firms, and how she sees the landscape for the profession unfolding in 2023.

We have had numerous guests on the podcast focused on legal tech, but in today’s conversation, we talk about practical governance strategies for AI and other frontier technologies with Karen Silverman, the CEO and founder of The Cantellus Group. Karen advises Fortune 50 companies, startups, consortia, and governments on how to govern cutting-edge technologies in a rapidly changing policy environment. Her expertise is informed by more than 20 years of practice and management leadership at Latham & Watkins LLP, where she advised global businesses in complex antitrust matters, M&A, governance, ESG, and crisis management. Karen is a leading voice in the governance of AI and other frontier technologies. She is a regular speaker at conferences and forums, and her thoughts on the governance oversight and real-world applications of AR, AI, VR, and other nascent technologies have been featured in numerous journals and publications. Most recently, Karen launched a series on Luminate+, a streaming platform for cutting-edge legal content featuring the most respected thought leaders of the profession. Karen’s series, “Where Lawyers Meet Tech and Tech Meets the Law,” is about how new technologies affect the substance and practice of law, and what all lawyers need to know in order to be effective counselors. In our conversation, we talk about how Karen developed her level of expertise in business and legal issues around frontier technologies. We also discuss what The Cantellus Group does and the type of companies they work with, together with her views on the knock-on effects of machine learning on the culture of the practice. And of course, we talk about the changes necessary in the regulatory framework to keep up with the speed of change in technology.

Today's guest is Haley Altman. She is a corporate attorney, founder, and a friend to many of us in the legal technology innovation space. Haley has had a fascinating career, where she moved from attorney for buyers and sellers, to founding and selling her own company, and eventually landing on the buy side with Litera. She began her career in Big Law, first as an associate and then partner, moving into entrepreneurship as the founder of Doxly, Inc., which was acquired by Litera. There she took on the role of global head of corporate development, and eventually led 10 acquisitions in a time span of less than two years. Most recently, Haley has shifted to a strategic advisor consulting role at Litera, where she continues to support the leadership team and their M&A and product strategy. In our conversation, we talk about why Haley jumped from equity partner to founder, and the support she got from her firm and the venture studio High Alpha. We also discuss why she turned her focus to the talent side of the legal industry, and how she is addressing burnout and career progression—both for herself and for others in the profession.

Today’s guest is Carmin Ballou, vice president of Data Analytics and Innovation at Attorneys' Liability Assurance Society, also known as ALAS. ALAS is the country’s largest lawyer-owned mutual, insuring 223 law firms—including 89 of the Am Law 200—with more than 74,000 lawyers located around the world. A lawyer with a Master of Science in Analytics degree from the University of Chicago Graham School, Carmin is focused on a key element of the legal profession: risk management. She uses her legal background and technical skills to lead the data analytics team at ALAS, with a goal of instilling more robust risk management-based analytics across all functional areas of ALAS, and providing analysis and tools for use of their member firms. The analytics initiatives are designed to assist in ALAS' ongoing operations, and to provide a service to ALAS' member firms by helping them understand and manage their professional liability risk. To this work, she brings many years of experience as a practicing attorney at Skadden, as well as expertise in machine learning, natural language processing, SQL, Python, and Power BI. Listen in to today’s conversation to learn how Carmin's team uses data to test and support the experiences of her loss prevention colleagues. We also talk about the use of data visualization techniques to help communicate the messages learned from the data as to a firm’s area with the most issues. And of course, we talk about her professional journey and how her interest in project management and data analytics instructed her personal path.

Today we welcome back our premiere guest, Dr. Heidi K. Gardner. An economist by training, she is a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession and chair of the school’s Smarter Collaboration Master Class and Sector Leadership Master Class. In addition to these roles, she founded and runs her own consultancy, Gardner & Co. In our first conversation, we talked about her journey, how she got involved in studying the legal profession, and her bestselling book, Smart Collaboration, a data-driven look at the business case for effective collaboration. Now, Dr. Gardner has a new book, Smarter Collaboration, co-authored with Ivan Matviak. In this book, she builds on the concepts of smart collaboration with data, case studies, and ways to help leaders identify places where smarter collaboration is already happening—and take it to the next level. Join us as we catch up with Dr. Gardner on what she has been doing since we last spoke, and explore why she was inspired to write her new book. We cover a wide range of topics: why we should continue to cultivate “serendipitous encounters” at work, how organizations can avoid the dangers of over-collaboration, and how they can better collaborate with outside parties such as consultants and vendors. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.

Today’s guest is Alex Smith, Global Product Management Lead for iManage RAVN. He got his start at legal publishing giant LexisNexis, where he began in online editorial work and eventually evolved his role to product management and platform innovation. An interest in new roles in law firms led to his time as innovation manager at Reed Smith, a global firm where he oversaw the firm’s Innovation Hub program that encouraged, communicated, connected, and managed a pipeline of ideas across the firm's global network. Today, he oversees the product roadmap for the search, knowledge, and AI offerings within the wider iManage experience, bringing the voice, needs, and ideas of the customer in service design. The common thread in his career journey is his fascination with search and data, and the evolution of new and emerging technologies, from CD-ROM to contract management, artificial intelligence, semantic search, and linked data. In many ways, Alex’s career maps the evolution of technology in the legal sector. Our conversation flashes back to the early days of online legal publishing up to today's emerging technologies. We talk about Alex's various work experiences, and how he uses lawyers’ penchant for talking about themselves in his work in product design. We also discuss how he has been at the core of some of the critical technology products in the legal industry.

Contracts are a hot topic in education, technology innovation, and practice in the legal industry. In fact, we've had several guests on the show focused on those aspects of contract management, but today's guest focuses on contract formation. She asks a simple, but important question: Can we learn to do a better job of negotiating and drafting better contracts? Laura Frederick is the founder and CEO of How to Contract. Drawn from her 26 years practicing contract law, How To Contract teaches real-world skills in negotiating and drafting contracts. The formation of How To Contract is a fascinating story. Two years ago, Laura began sharing daily contracting tips as part of a 30-day challenge of posting on LinkedIn. The reaction to these posts was overwhelmingly positive, and Laura went from 1,000 followers on LinkedIn to more than 33,000 followers today. This, in turn, led to her book, Practical Tips on How to Contract. Laura also launched How To Contract, the global leader in practical contract training for lawyers and professionals. Through its training membership and events, it has helped thousands of people learn how to manage contract risk and get deals done. Laura is also the managing attorney of Laura Frederick Law, PLLC, a boutique law firm based in Austin, Texas that helps companies that need practical and affordable advice on commercial contracts. In today's conversation, we talk about Laura’s use of social media and her move to being an entrepreneur. We also discuss what ignited Laura's love of contracts, how and why she addresses the human side of contracting at a time when technology dominates, and the influence of SeyfarthLean on her evolution.

Mishcon de Reya is one of the most unique and fascinating law firms in the world. Today’s guest, Elliot Moss, is the mind behind Mishcon’s brand. Elliot is chief brand officer and a partner at Mishcon, a 600 fee-earner firm headquartered in London. This unique combination of roles is made possible by the Legal Services Act 2007 in the UK. Elliot has overall responsibility for brand, marketing, communications, client development, new business, and social impact for the firm. He comes from the world of advertising, having worked for Leo Burnett and Leagas Delaney. It was here that he first met Mishcon’s managing partner—now executive chairperson—Kevin Gold. After a two-year contract with the firm, Elliot stayed on, attracted by what he calls the great “volume of intellectual capital” in the law. Since then, he has become the first nonlawyer to be named as one of the Financial Times' 10 Most Innovative Individuals. He also happens to have a long-running podcast called Jazz Shapers, where he interviews founders and entrepreneurs on their own professional journeys. It was a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation. We discussed the cultural attributes that make Mishcon such an innovative and unique firm. We also veered into a number of other intriguing topics. For example, the firm recently sponsored a film from The Economist on the culture wars, which is not typical for a law firm, and we talked about how their atypical branding moves are “utterly rational.” We also talked about why he made the leap from consumer-oriented branding to the law, how he made the case for Mishcon to make him a partner, and what's next for their IPO—and how he sold it to his partners.

It's always a delight to talk to people who are passionate about what they do. Dr. Silvia Hodges Silverstein is such a person. She researches, teaches, and speaks on purchasing decisions and change in the legal industry. Silvia is the CEO of Buying Legal Council, which supports professionals tasked with sourcing legal services and legal tech through education, research, and advocacy. Their mission is to advance the field of buying legal services and legal tech by sharing intelligence and best practices on how to buy and manage supplier relationships. Silvia is the editor of The Definitive Guide to Buying Legal Services and has authored two Harvard Business School case studies on legal procurement and the legal industry. She has also taught management at Columbia Law School and Fordham University School of Law. Our conversation covered a number of interesting topics. We talked about how Silvia's journey in marketing for an Italian law firm led to her interest and expertise in procurement, the evolution of procurement's role in buying legal services and the ongoing struggle between lawyers and procurement professionals, and her view on which pricing model is least used by in-house counsel and the reason why.