Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Doug Geller, the founder and president of GDSI, a software company that specializes in solving challenges in the legal industry by developing custom tools and augmenting existing applications for law firms, legal departments, and legal software vendors focused on document and records management, case management, and practice management. We discussed the genesis of GDSI, the benefits of writing custom software, and where the market for custom software is headed.

I spoke with Doug Geller, the founder and president of GDSI, a software company that specializes in solving challenges in the legal industry by developing custom tools and augmenting existing applications for law firms, legal departments, and legal software vendors focused on document and records management, case management, and practice management. We discussed the genesis of GDSI, the benefits of writing custom software, and where the market for custom software is headed.

I spoke with Emily Foges, the CEO of Luminance, an artificial intelligence platform for the legal profession. We discussed the genesis of Luminance, the challenges associated with the adoption of technology at law firms, characteristics of the law firm of 2030, and what the emergence of technology like Luminance means for the future of legal services.

I spoke with Andrew King, the founder & strategic advisor of E-Discovery Consulting, which provides litigation support guidance to law firms and corporate legal departments throughout New Zealand. He is also the creator of the LawFest New Zealand conference. We discussed the genesis of LawFest New Zealand, why legal tech conferences have become so popular, the challenges associated with developing a legal tech conference, the legal tech climate in New Zealand, and the value of a legal tech index.

I spoke with Soon Yi Loo, the co-founder and CEO of CanLaw Asia, a legal tech consultancy for law firms and corporate legal departments in Malaysia. He is also the creator of the LexTech conference, which is an event focused on educating legal professionals in Malaysia about how to enhance their practices through technology. We discussed the genesis of CanLaw Asia and the LexTech conference, how legal technology is perceived in Malaysia, the most popular type of legal technology in the country, whether lawyers in Malaysia are receptive to the application of technology to their practices, where the legal tech sector in Malaysia is headed.

I spoke with Dan Hauck and Bradlee Duncan, the vice president of Product & User Experience, and the senior product manager, respectively, for NetDocuments, a cloud-based content management platform for law firms and corporate legal departments. We discussed the company’s recent launch of ndMail, a predictive email tool, its implementation of ndThread, based on its acquisition of ThreadKM, how NetDocuments reconciles security with usability in its approach to developing technology, and the future of collaboration.

I spoke with Casey Flaherty, the founder of Procertas and the creator of the Legal Technology Assessment, a competency-based learning and benchmarking platform focused on the core technology associated with the delivery of legal services. We discussed the genesis of the Legal Technology Assessment, its advantages for employers and professionals, how law schools are leveraging it to transform legal education, and the misalignment between hiring expectations and technological proficiency.

I spoke with Robb Caruso, a vice president with Compliance Discovery Solutions, a service provider that offers defensible discovery support for law firms and corporate legal departments. We discussed the genesis of the company’s Discovery-as-a-Service offering, who benefits from that model, what is driving the interest in alternative efforts at managing discovery, and what the emergence of strategies like Discovery-as-a-Service indicate about the evolution of the legal market.

I spoke with Pratik Patel, the vice president of innovation and products at Elevate Services, a law company, where he leads the company’s product business and innovation initiatives across its range of solutions. Pratik joined Elevate in 2012 following the acquisition of RFx LEGAL Analytics, a company he co-founded. We discussed Elevate’s launch of ElevateNext in connection with Valorem Law Group and Univar, what combinations of this type signifies about the evolution of the legal profession, how lawyers can adapt to a rapidly changing legal marketplace, why alternative legal services providers are so attractive to buyers of legal services, and where this sector is headed.

I spoke with Arup Das, the co-founder and CEO of Alphaserve, a global provider of managed IT, cloud, and cybersecurity services. We discussed the genesis of Alphaserve, how the collaboration between legal and IT is evolving in corporate legal departments and law firms, whether law firms are ready for the emergence of artificial intelligence, applied data science, and blockchain, and the trajectory of innovation in the legal field.