Legal Innovation Spotlight

Dive into the world of legal tech collaboration where resistance to the cloud is finally giving way, empowering law firms to surmount barriers and embrace collaborative tools. In this conversation, our guests Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell, hosts of the Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast, touched on the surprising dynamics of collaboration, panel convergence, and the push for standardization. Listen as we delve into strategies that can transform the way you work with clients and integrate technology effectively. In this episode, Dennis and Tom share insights on how to: Stay up-to-date on the latest advancements in the industry Uncover psychological barriers in legal collaboration Gain a deep understanding of data governance in legal teams Enhance client collaboration in the legal industry Key takeaways:  The legal profession's reliance on siloed operations and traditional methods, coupled with a hesitancy towards advanced collaboration tools, underscores a pressing need for embracing technology-driven strategies and knowledge management systems to enhance efficiency and effectiveness across law firms and corporate departments alike. Successful law firms prioritize collaboration as a key factor for business success, emphasizing the importance of showcasing the benefits of interdependence and offering multiple disciplines to clients, particularly highlighting the necessity for smaller firms to collaborate effectively in order to thrive in the legal industry. Despite the challenges and resistance to collaboration in the legal sector, there is a growing interest and demand for effective governance and retention practices, as evidenced by the overwhelming attendance and engagement at events focused on making Teams work in the legal world, indicating a shift towards recognizing the importance of structured collaboration strategies. About the guests, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell: Dennis Kennedy is an award-winning leader in applying technology to law practice. Praised for his ability to simplify complex legal and tech issues, Dennis is the Director of the Center for Law, Technology & Innovation at Michigan State University College of Law. As a published author and sought-after speaker, he focuses on promoting innovation in law practice and has co-authored several books, including "The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies." Tom Mighell, a seasoned legal technologist and published author, has pioneered technology development since joining Cowles & Thompson, P.C. in 1990. As the senior consultant for Contoural, Inc., he specializes in enhancing corporations' records management and e-discovery practices. Tom collaborates with organizations to establish robust information governance programs, mitigate privacy risks, and ensure efficient, defensible e-discovery processes, fortifying companies' readiness for legal obligations. “What you really want to do is to make it easy to work with you. And if that sort of guides what you're doing, that's going to advance you a long way toward getting into the happy zone.” – Dennis Kennedy “Collaboration is not a foreign concept. It's just not adopted well, with the different technical ways that people can use to be really successful about it.” – Tom Mighell Connect with Dennis and Tom: Book: https://www.amazon.com/Lawyers-Guide-Collaboration-Tools-Technologies/dp/1639051422 Show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-kennedy-mighell-report/id310759483 Dennis’ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennismkennedy/ Tom’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommighell/ Connect with Ted Theodoropoulos: Website: https://getinfodash.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedtheo YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getinfodash/podcasts

Feeling swamped by communication overload and struggling to prioritize? You're not alone. The surge in emails and messages makes managing tasks challenging. Traditional tools may fall short, impacting work-life balance and productivity, leading to burnout and missed deadlines. Discover the surprising way technology is transforming legal project management and collaboration with our guest, Keith Lipman. Listen to find out how his insights and game-changing solutions are revolutionizing the legal industry. In this episode, Keith shares insights on how to: Streamline communication and collaboration in the legal industry Combat burnout and achieve a better work-life balance in the legal field Apply the product-led growth methodology to legal tech Utilize the market potential for cutting-edge software solutions Adopt successful technology trends and best practices in the legal industry Key takeaways:  To combat burnout and boost productivity in the legal industry, integrating innovative technology solutions for streamlined task management is crucial, benefiting not only legal professionals but a diverse range of knowledge workers and improving communication in remote work settings. Belt, a cutting-edge productivity tool, tackles the challenges of email overload and communication saturation by intelligently identifying tasks, managing workloads, and enhancing capacity planning, ultimately improving individual and team productivity in today's dynamic work environment. Despite a slow tech adoption in corporate legal departments, the industry holds a clear opportunity for transformative change by leveraging shared channels and collaborative platforms, enhancing client engagement, and driving efficiency in legal service delivery. About the guest, Keith Lipman: Keith Lipman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Belt Software, a cutting-edge B2B SaaS startup revolutionizing daily work life by redefining time management and task execution. With a proven track record in the B2B SaaS sector, Keith previously co-founded and successfully scaled Prosperoware before his exit. Renowned for his expertise in legal tech, he's recognized as a thought leader and has been honored with prestigious industry awards. Keith's background spans law practice, administration, and technology consulting, and he has contributed to various publications and authored books on corporate governance and legal innovation. “The underlying thought is that once people are presented with a set of technology and they get used to it, they don't necessarily want to pull up stakes and change again.”  – Keith Lipman Connect with Keith Lipman: Website: https://belt.ai/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithlipman & https://www.linkedin.com/company/beltai Connect with Ted Theodoropoulos: Website: https://getinfodash.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedtheo

In this episode, Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO of Infodash, engages in a conversation with Zach Posner, Co-Founder and Managing Director of The LegalTech Fund. Zach shares insights into his background and highlights The LegalTech Fund's mission to serve as a crucial partner to entrepreneurs, similar to a co-founder. He underscores the importance of expertise in the legal tech domain. The discussion then explores the present landscape of the legal tech industry, examining the impact of AI on legal tech investment, capital markets, and the challenges encountered by startups. The episode concludes with reflections on the TLTF Conference, the future plans for the conference, and emphasizing the value of active participation in such events to stay informed about the latest trends in the legal industry.

In this episode, Ted Theodoropoulos (CEO of Infodash) chats with Meredith Williams-Range (Chief Legal Operations Officer at Gibson Dunn), about various topics related to innovation, knowledge management, leadership, the role of AI in the legal industry, and more. They discuss the challenges of implementing change in law firms, incentivizing innovation and knowledge management, and the skills required for lawyers in the modern era. Meredith speaks about her chapter in 'Knowledge Management & Innovation: A Manual for Law Firms and Other Legal Services Organizations, Chapter 3: Structuring Knowledge and Innovation Teams. They also touch on the California Bar Association's guidance on AI and the potential ROI of AI in law firms. In this conversation, Meredith discusses the potential use cases for Co-Pilot and highlights its ability to improve efficiency in document review, contract analysis, and deposition analysis. The conversation also explores the future outlook for Co-Pilot, the need for further testing and refinement, and whether Microsoft has articulated ROI sufficiently.

In this episode, Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO of Infodash, is joined by Hunter Jackson, Chief Knowledge Officer at McDermott Will & Emery, to discuss McDermott’s use of AI in their knowledge management initiatives. Hunter highlights McDermott's Form Finder platform, which can swiftly analyze a draft purchase agreement or credit agreement received from opposing counsel, instantly cross-reference it with every previously executed purchase agreement or credit agreement, and, using a similarity score, ascertain whether legal professionals have previously provided comments or engaged in full negotiations for the same type of purchase agreement or credit agreement. They talk about the use cases Form Finder accommodates and the efficiencies it creates, ethical walls, tech stacks that the platform is built on, how AI is leveraged, and more! Hunter explains how and where gen AI is being used at McDermott today, and how law firms can ethically create high-quality, curated datasets to train large language models. McDermott won Tech-Enabled Department of the Year at Legal Week, and the firm is up for an award from the Financial Times.

Ted Theodoropoulos (CEO, Infodash) is joined by Myka Hopgood (Sr. Director of Strategic Legal Innovation, Dykema) and Torie Carrillo (Applications Manager, Nelson Mullins). The group discusses why Teams should be used for client/matter work, considerations when deploying Teams, and inviting clients to Teams. They take a deep dive into information architecture and naming conventions, managing client-level dialogue, ethical walls and retention policies, co-authoring, document management integration, and more! Listen to the full episode for tips on how to maximize Microsoft Teams for client/matter work.

Ted Theodoropoulos (CEO of Infodash) and Thomas Barothy (Former Group Legal COO at UBS in Zurich, Switzerland) sit down to discuss interoperability challenges in the legal industry and propose solutions for solving the problem. Thomas shares details about his corporate background at UBS, their organization and legal department size and scope, and their legal tech investment structure and strategy. Ted and Thomas discuss how the legal value chain doesn’t interoperate efficiently today, and dive into the challenges firms face internally and externally. Listen to the full episodes to hear more about the challenges firms face, and why Ted and Thomas think the problem hasn’t already been solved.

Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO of Infodash, is joined by Infodash’s CTO, Kameron Berget. Kam has worked with hundreds of law firms to migrate SharePoint on-premise to SharePoint Online. Ted and Kam discuss budgeting and estimating migration costs, resources to support migration, migration timeline, custom development vs. out-of-the-box considerations, and lessons learned along the way. Listen to the full episode for a full guide on migrating to SPO. If your firm is looking for an intranet/extranet refresh, be sure to reach out to Infodash.

Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO of Infodash is joined by 2 special guests from Gunderson Dettmer- Joe Green, Chief Innovation Officer, and Naveen Pai, Chief Knowledge Officer. The group discusses Gunderson's organizational structure, what KM and Innovation mean at the firm, and the process for developing Gunderson's AI chat app, ChatGD. Joe talked through the motivation for developing ChatGD, and how the firm defined and managed the scope of the project. Naveen explained what use cases were the most and least valuable in the process. Listen to the full episode and hear what's next for ChatGD at Gunderson!

In this episode, Dave Boland (Ogletree Deakins) joins Ted for a conversation and shares the different ways that Ogletree defines their KM teams. Dave has led two KM teams at different organizations (Ogletree and Grant Thornton). KM at Ogletree was recently awarded APQC’s Excellence in KM award. The firm is one of eight organizations recognized by APQC this year for Excellence in Knowledge Management. The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) is a global authority in benchmarking, best practices, process and performance improvement, and knowledge management. Ogletree was 1 of 8 to receive the recognition, but 1 of 6 to receive it at the enterprise level (more than 400 companies applied for the recognition). This highlights Dave’s vision, leadership, and commitment to building and leading world-class KM organizations, and helps complete Ogletree’s KM story. Connect with us! LinkedIn YouTube Twitter Website