The Legalpreneurs Sandbox

This podcast was recorded on 22 July 2024 as the fifth session in CLI’s Legal GenAI Around the World Series. In this session Terri Mottershead, Executive Director at the Centre for Legal Innovation facilitated a discussion with three amazing panellists from Africa and the Middle East: Peter Hall, Chief Operating Officer, Cognia Law Leah Molatseli, Founder, Contract Alchemists Katie Whang, Legal Counsel, Johnson & Johnson Topics covered included: An overview of legal AI in Africa and the Middle East How, where and why GenAI is being used in legal businesses, what’s driving/limiting adoption, and the importance of metrics The focus on education, capability development, and access to talent to deliver legal GenAI solutions The changing role of tech providers and how that is impacting adoption and implementation The focus on country/region wide AI strategy, regulations, standards and policies and how this is/is not/should not be influenced by global initiatives What’s unique about the legal GenAI market in Africa + the Middle East If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here. Please join CLI’s free Legal GenAI Global Community for a lightly curated newsfeed on how legal GenAI is transforming the legal ecosystem.

In this session, we spoke with Colin Lachance, the Innovator in Residence at the Ontario Bar Association (OBA) and the Principal of law firm coaching and consulting business, PGYA Consulting. Colin has spent most of his career in the legal industry. He’s worked in publishing, consulting, and legaltech development just to name a few. In all that he has done, and it’s a lot, there’s been a consistent theme – he’s comfortable with challenging the status quo and doing things differently. He’s been named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers” by Canadian Lawyer Magazine, a “Legal Rebel” by the ABA Journal and is a member of the Fastcase 50 class of legal innovators and visionaries. Colin’s amazing background both qualifies and recommends him for his role as Innovator in Residence at the OBA. It’s a unique role for legal member organisations. It was launched in 2018. Each innovator is appointed for 12 months and pursues a different focus area, always with a change agenda. Colin’s focus area could not be more topical…it’s legal AI. His action plan is ambitious, critical, timely and compelling. It comprises a multi-pronged approach to supporting the digital literacy of OBA’s members at scale. His work will impact the 16,000 lawyers OBA represents and influence many, many more. It includes tech demos, weekly information sessions, establishing an interactive learning platform and…he is just getting started! We spoke about all of this as well as the global and local context that led to Colin’s appointment i.e., how GenAI has become an enabler for significant change in the legal world; how the pace, depth and breadth of that change is reinventing legal practice; and how it is incumbent on us all to embrace that change.  Don’t miss this spotlight, it’s going to excite and inspire you! If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here. About the Future 50 Series In the Future 50 Series we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

This podcast was recorded on 18 June 2024 as the fourth session in CLI’s Legal GenAI Around the World Series. In this session Terri Mottershead, Executive Director at the Centre for Legal Innovation facilitated a discussion with four amazing panellists from Europe and the UK: Giulio Coraggio, Partner – Location Head of Italian Intellectual Property and Technology Department, DLA Piper Uwais Iqbal, Founder, simplexico Tanja Podinic, Global Legal Gen AI Lead, PwC Tara Waters, Partner & Chief Digital Officer, Ashurst Topics covered included: How, where and why GenAI is being used in legal businesses and what’s driving/limiting adoption LLMs, the impact of RAGs, and the case for/against the decision to build or buy What capabilities are needed to deliver legal GenAI solutions today, tomorrow, and how to bridge the gaps What’s unique about the legal GenAI market in Europe + UK How legal GenAI is likely to evolve in 2024 If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here. Please join CLI’s free Legal GenAI Global Community for a lightly curated newsfeed on how legal GenAI is transforming the legal ecosystem.

Discover how Wendy Butler Curtis, Nikki Shaver, and Horace Wu discuss the usage of GenAI in legal businesses, the decision to build or buy AI tools, needed capabilities for legal GenAI solutions, unique aspects of the US market, and predictions for legal GenAI in 2024.

Legal innovation thought leaders from India, Hong Kong, and Singapore discuss the practical aspects of implementing Generative AI in the legal space. They explore challenges, customization, and integration of AI tools in legal departments, emphasizing the need for multidisciplinary teams. The discussion delves into regulatory responses, bilingual environments, ethics, and the importance of including the lawyer's voice in global legal innovation conversations.

Legal GenAI in Australia + New Zealand explored in this podcast, discussing challenges and benefits of using GenAI in legal businesses. Topics include building vs buying LLMs, legal drafting enhancements, impact of generative AI in legal cases, and navigating technological risks in the legal industry.

This session has become an annual event for us and, this was a BIG year to review the world of legaltech, AI and innovation. So much has happened since ChatGPT exploded onto the market in November 2022. Its impact has been pervasive, even in an industry like legal which would not, in the past, have been described as agile. So, what changed in 2023?  What stuck, what didn’t, and why? We welcomed back Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer at Gilbert + Tobin and Co-chair of the CLI Advisory Board; Graeme Grovum, Head of Legal Technology and Client Services at Allens; and Tessa van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader at Moores, to discuss this and, we wrapped with a little crystal ball gazing into 2024 too! We started this session with identifying why GenAI has captured our attention, dominated every conference, meeting, and the media so completely. Then we moved into the nitty gritty of it all, identifying use cases, interrogating how tech stacks have changed, and how that is impacting the law firm business model (client relationships, billing, risk and value). And we spent a little time on the huge question around capabilities too – do we have them, what do they look like, and how we can bridge the gaps? There’s a lot going on in legal businesses right now, in all these areas, so we also explored how these businesses are strategising and planning for/in a market that is changing so rapidly and dramatically. That discussion took us to the next, how leaders/leadership are/is being reinvented for a new legal world, and that for many, this will involve a steep learning curve. We wrapped with what will come next, in the first month of 2024. While plans differed, one thing was certain, we all have to find the space to reflect, consider next steps, and find the calm in this AI storm. Thank you sooooo much Caryn, Graeme and Tessa – this is a session we look forward to every year and we’re certain you will too – don’t miss this one!  If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here. About the Future 50 Series In the Future 50 Series we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

In this session, we spoke with Beth Patterson, the Founder and Director of legal industry-focused tech consultancy, ESPconnect and an Adjunct Professor (Industry) at UTS Faculty of Law. Beth’s career has the distinctive hallmark of being groundbreaking. The depth and breadth of her experience in tech and legaltech, in tech companies and law firms, as a consultant and educator, means she has a highly practical, global and unique perspective on where AI in the legal industry is going today. Our discussion began with context - placing generative AI in the broader AI continuum - and moved into its impact on the legal industry. We are all still experimenting (testing and investing) in every industry, legal included, and we should be because there are still major issues with the tech that need to be worked out. However, what was also clear from our chat is the need for us to engage with the tech NOW because it’s not going away, not ever! Senior management in law firms know this (as do our clients) and they’re driving the engagement with it, something that makes this tech journey different from others. What AI will we end up with at the end of this journey? Beth opines it will be a portfolio - a combination of enterprise-wide tech and point solutions, with commercial models driving the selection of what you use, for what and when. But, integration will also remain key; data governance critical; and capabilities to identify pain points, choose and use/apply fit-for-purpose tech increasingly part of every solution and BAU. The opportunities with AI in legal are plentiful for those who jump in – new roles, new responsibilities, new practice areas (or expanded), new revenue streams, increasingly refined LLMs that do more and do it better – it’s a brave old and new world which we will embrace with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) or JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) – you’ll definitely want to listen to or watch this session to see where you fall on the continuum! If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here. Resources: Thomson Reuters Institute, Edge International, and ESPconnect: 2023 Australia: State of the Legal Market Report Thomson Reuters, Tech & the Law 2023 Report: Perceptions and Priorities The conference referred to it this session is CLI’s Legal Generative AI Summit 2023 (24 and 25 October) – you will find the video and podcast recordings here. About the Future 50 Series In the Future 50 Series, we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

In this session, we spoke with Jean Yang, the VP and Co-founder of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence. The Center is a note-worthy offering from a software vendor. Jean’s journey to Onit seems like it was a natural progression. A former practising lawyer from New Zealand, she has spent most of her career so far (there’s lots more still to come) at the leading edge of AI in legal and, that has now taken her to Onit in Austin, Texas. Our discussion focussed on the application of AI in legal - how much that has changed this past year; emerging trends in AI uptake; whether it’s realistic to expect definitive use cases right now; and the challenges, opportunities, needs, expectations and reality of the tech becoming pervasive/BAU in the legal world next year or maybe later - it’s hard to look too far ahead in this space right now but we did a little AI crystal ball gazing! If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here. About the Future 50 Series In the Future 50 Series, we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

In this session, we spoke with Michele DeStefano about how we can approach change, manage it and leverage it for the benefit of lawyer and allied legal professional wellbeing, for our clients, and legal businesses.  Michele knows a thing or two about this from her many roles as law professor, business founder, educator, consultant, and serial entrepreneur. Her work is visionary tempered with a strong dose of reality and, getting stuff done! Michele has been building the foundations, paving the road, and walking the talk of legal ecosystem transformation for many years and, helping others to do that successfully too. We discussed what it will take to change the legal industry, the BIG pieces of the change puzzle - lawyer mindset, human-centred design, multidisciplinary collaboration and culture. We also chatted about how to combine the pieces in a way that creates sustained agility in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, it can be found in her most recent book (one of many already published with more to come), The Leader Upheaval Handbook: Lead Teams on an Innovation & Collaboration Journey with the 3-4-5 Method. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here. About the Future 50 Series In the Future 50 Series, we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.