Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast

Chris Cartrett, CEO of Aderant, discusses Aderant's new platform 'Stridyn' and GenAI's natural language processing features. He emphasizes the importance of security in cloud-based legal tech and advises on value-based pricing strategies for legal tech startups.

Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Jim cover the following in this episode:   How Jim’s undergrad major in computer science and his graduation from law school took him from his first job as a lawyer doing document review to working for over a decade in e-discovery.    Eventually leaving e-discovery work to found his own company offering services outside the legal tech field, Jim nonetheless kept track of the immense benefits accruing to document review from the use of NLP and, eventually, GenAI solutions.    Jim realized how these GenAI-driven solutions could solve longstanding problems with less up-to-date e-discovery solutions. With this realization, Jim returned to the e-discovery field to start his own business, eDiscoveryAI (www.ediscoveryai.com), and bring the benefits of GenAI to e-discovery customers.   Jim explains how GenAI-driven e-discovery tools advance e-discovery far beyond the levels of accuracy achievable from the predictive coding tooling previously used in e-discovery - all at a lower cost and with faster time-to-value.   Jim explains how, by operating as a nimble startup with virtually no bureaucracy to get in the way, Jim and his colleagues at eDiscoveryAI can get closer to the customer and build customer-requested features more rapidly than his big-company competitors.

Peter Duffy, founder of Titans and Legal Tech Trends newsletter, discusses legal tech adoption trends, GenAI hype cycle, contrarian views on legal tech, common mistakes by vendors, and blue ocean spaces in the legal tech competitive landscape. The podcast explores Titans' global reach, impact of Legal Tech Trends newsletter, evolving legal tech leadership landscape focusing on generative AI, and untapped opportunities in the legal tech market such as document automation and project management tools.

Engineer and VC Tanguy Chau and AI expert Michael Ulin discuss Paxton, an award-winning legal tech startup. They focus on developing tailored legal language models for research, drafting, and document analysis. Tips include early product release, customer feedback, and innovation in the legal industry.

Jackie Schafer, founder of Clearbrief, discusses the challenges faced by women founders in the legal tech industry, the importance of confidently presenting products, marketing to law firm decision-makers, and the implications of AI on billing practices. The podcast explores her journey from lawyer to tech CEO and the transformative impact of Clearbrief's AI tools on legal practices.

In this episode, your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Dan Broderick discuss: How Dan started BlackBoiler after practicing law for 7 years, having gotten the idea for Blackboiler while reviewing large numbers of contracts for a client and realizing how much of the work could be automated. BlackBoiler’s focus on automating high-volume contract review and markup during the negotiation phase, with BlackBoiler using machine learning AI to learn from historical edits and rule sets in order to suggest edits in tracked changes. BlackBoiler’s target market consists principally of corporate legal departments, with people in those departments - and in other departments in the enterprise - using BlackBoiler’s software to help them review contracts more efficiently and to empower business users who “touch” contracts frequently, but who aren’t lawyers. What some of the challenges are in selling AI, including the challenge (and importance) of separating hype from reality and getting customers to think “problem-first,” not “AI-first.” How BlackBoiler uses machine learning, but currently not of the generative AI type, as the tasks that Blackboiler carries out are more a matter of text-classification than text-generation. However, Dan does point out that generative AI may be helpful for purposes of initial drafting and finding clauses. For legal tech startup leaders, some of Dan’s key pieces of advice are finding the determination to get through business highs and lows and making sure to reward positive team dynamics.

         · Otto is CEO of TermScout, which provides data and analytics on market terms in contracts to reduce friction in negotiations. · Otto was motivated to start TermScout after seeing startups overpay for legal services due to a lack of data on market terms. · TermScout uses AI and human review to analyze contracts and provide market data on common clauses. · TermScout's offering helps lawyers know what's "market" to resolve disputes over contract terms. TermScout's customers are both the contracting parties and their legal teams. · TermScout also offers contract certification to validate a vendor's contract as balanced and have it labeled as such. · Otto sees room for more contract standardization not only by way of the use of standard forms, but also through the standardization of various contracts' overall concepts. · When it comes to the interoperation of various legal tech vendors' offerings, Otto and Charlie discuss how legal tech tools should ideally interoperate via APIs using a standard schema. · Otto and Charlie also consider how the onus is on legal tech companies to coordinate standards and seamless interoperability to improve customer experience and reduce the drag on software use that comes from having to constantly shift among different legal tech applications.

Mat Kerbis founded Subscription Attorney LLC to offer legal services through recurring monthly fees rather than hourly billing; in that way better aligning incentives between lawyer and client.       Going solo allowed Mat the freedom to innovate with new billing models, which is harder at larger firms wedded to the billable hour.       The subscription model expands affordable access to legal help, helping close the "justice gap."       Mat leverages legal tech and other automation strategies to work efficiently and keep costs low as a virtual solo practitioner who charges on a subscription basis.       When developing their product offerings, legal tech companies should consider the needs of subscription model law firms as a growing niche.        An "all-in-one" solution tailored to subscription law firms could integrate practice management, document automation, intake, billing, etc.        Mat's "Law Subscribed" podcast profiles lawyers using alternative fee arrangements and also features the tech enabling new models beyond the billable hour.        The legal industry needs new models like subscription-based billing as it competes for talent against fields with better lifestyles and fewer grueling hours.        Mat aims to spread the subscription model to save the legal profession and head off competition from alternative legal services.     Mat's Subscription Attorney Website:  https://subscriptionattorney.com/ Mat's LawSubscribed Podcast: https://lawsubscribed.com/#podcast

Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Steve Fretzin discuss: Lawyers need training in business development and client relations, which is not taught in law school. Technology can help lawyers be more efficient, so they have time for business development.   Social media is a great marketing equalizer that allows individual lawyers, as well as small-to-medium-sized firms, to build their brand and get their voice out, social media's certainly not just for big firms.   Automating scheduling, email outreach, and content creation through technology frees up lawyer time and builds relationships through organization and consistency.   Becoming a thought leader takes consistency and multiple touches, through content creation, networking, writing, and speaking engagements. Business coaches can help too.   Leveraging virtual assistants, marketing professionals, and technologies like chatGPT allows lawyers to focus on their strengths and delegate marketing tasks.   Tracking marketing data and metrics helps assess what's working through things like CRMs (though CRM adoption is slow).    Investing time and money in marketing coaching provides high ROI through increased business and, in larger firms, control over one's career. Lawyers should learn enough to guide the process rather than do it all.   Steve's website: https://www.fretzin.com/ All Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast episodes at:  https://legalfocus.libsyn.com/

Gaurav Oberoi, CEO and co-founder of Lexion, shares how they transformed from a contract repository to a CLM, focusing on contract visibility and management. Lexion integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, promoting high adoption rates. They discuss challenges faced by law firms in adopting technology and the importance of clear communication and transparency within the company. Treating team members as adults and providing autonomy is emphasized. Learn about Lexion and their webinars on legal tech startups.