Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Soumya Nettimi and Sarah Schaaf, the CEO and general manager of payments, respectively, for ASG LegalTech, a platform of legal SaaS products including PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase, and now following its recent acquisition, Headnote, of which Sarah is a co-founder and the former CEO. We discussed the alignment of Headnote with ASG LegalTech’s suite of products, how the future of payments in legal is evolving, and what the appetite for a suite of technology tools indicates about the shift in the business of law.

I spoke with Amy Osteen, the founder of Outside CLO, a service for corporations that need an outsourced chief legal officer. We discussed why a company would outsource its in-house counsel needs, how that work differs from outside counsel at a law firm, and how the pandemic has impacted the appeal of outsourced in-house counsel services.

I spoke with Jared Correia, the founder and CEO at Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, and the co-founder of Gideon Software, a website chatbot and automatic scheduling tool built exclusively for law firms. We discussed the challenges that Gideon helps law firms address, ways that the pandemic impacts how lawyers approach and use technology, and advice for launching a consulting practice and a legal tech startup.

I spoke with Evan Shenkman, the senior director of knowledge management at Fisher Phillips, a labor and employment law firm. We discussed how knowledge management has changed over the past few months, the firm’s recent alliance with LegalMation and Thomson Reuters, how it will benefit clients and practitioners, and what the heightened focus on automation means for the future of the practice of law.

I spoke with Carolyn Elefant, an attorney, who focuses her practice on energy and environmental matters. She is also the author of several books, including the popular, Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be, and has been blogging at MyShingle for almost 18 years. She is producing a virtual conference called the Lawyer Mom Owner Summit for lawyers who are moms that own or want to start a law firm. We discussed the Summit, what its attendees can expect, and how the practice of law has changed.

I spoke with Eric Laughlin, the CEO of Agiloft, a provider of contract and commercial lifecycle management software. We discussed his new role at Agiloft, how the pandemic has impacted the way companies leverage CLM, the overall market changes he is seeing, and the challenges associated with raising capital in the current environment.

I spoke with Ray Biederman, a partner with Mattingly Burke Cohen & Biederman in Indianapolis, the co-founder and CEO of Proteus Discovery Group, and the president of DiscoveryMaster. We discussed whether attorneys with large firm backgrounds should take the leap and start their own firms, the trend of attorneys and law firms to develop related businesses, and the most common misconceptions or frustrations about e-discovery.

I spoke with Nicole Clark, the co-founder and CEO of Trellis, a legal analytics platform that uses AI and machine learning to provide state trial court litigators with strategic legal intelligence and judicial analytics. We discussed what it will take for courts to return to a pre-pandemic level of activity and how the appetite for legal intelligence and judicial analytics is evolving.

I spoke with Terry Dohrman, a co-founder and the Chief Revenue Officer for Litify, the developer of a practice management software platform. We discussed how the case management needs of law firms and legal departments are changing, shifts in the way legal teams are managing their matters in the pandemic, and the catalyst for the company’s collaboration with Assure Disability.

I spoke with Curt Meltzer, the former chief information officer for various large law firms and an evangelist for Litera, a software company that provides document lifecycle and deal management solutions to the legal profession. We discussed why law firms are embracing the paperless office, how they are leveraging technology for digital transformation, and the impact of the remote working environment on software adoption.