Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Wendy Curtis (named the Most Innovative Lawyer of 2018 by the Financial Times), Kate Orr, and Daryl Shetterly, the Chief Innovation Officer, the Senior Innovation Counsel, and the Director of Orrick Analytics, respectively, for Orrick, a global law firm, which the Financial Times named North America’s Most Innovative Law Firm for the third consecutive year. We discussed the alignment of Orrick’s new legal tech investment initiative with the firm’s core business, why innovation has taken a more central role in law firm operations in the past year, the impact of Orrick Analytics on the firm’s innovation roadmap, how firms can coordinate their various innovation initiatives under a single effort, best practices for creating a culture of innovation at a large global organization, ways to build multi-disciplinary teams to execute on a unified vision, and how the era of law firm innovation is evolving.

I spoke with André König, the managing partner for professional services at BusyLamp, a corporate legal operations SaaS solution for billing, matter management, and sourcing. We discussed ways that in-house legal operations teams can benefit from artificial intelligence, the maturity level of blockchain in legal departments and law firms, the common use cases for AI and blockchain in the legal community, and how prospective users can get started.

I spoke with Keith Laska, a board member for Hanzo, a software provider that captures and preserves dynamic web content to help organizations meet compliance requirements, mitigate risk, and simplify e-discovery. We discussed the biggest challenges corporations are facing today in compliance, risk management, and e-discovery, what makes the diversity of communication so difficult to monitor and manage from a legal perspective, how companies can more effectively address e-discovery and compliance challenges surrounding the use of Slack, and how e-discovery is evolving in light of the changes in how professionals communicate.

I spoke with Sacha Kirk, the co-founder and chief marketing officer for Lawcadia, an Australian software company that helps in-house legal teams manage their outside counsel relationships, including selection, budgeting, and spend. We discussed the genesis of Lawcadia, why it is necessary for in-house legal teams to leverage technology to manage their outside counsel, the associated challenges, the best practices for marketing a legal tech start-up on a global scale, and where the Australian legal tech sector is headed.

I spoke with Steve Gluckman, the founder and CEO of LawFirmElearning, a provider of customized on-demand learning for the legal industry. Steve is the co-author of E-Learning for Law Firms (American Bar Association, 2006) and a former senior fellow with Harvard University’s Center for Business and Government. We discussed the genesis of LawFirmElearning, how on-demand learning has changed across the legal industry, ways that law firms can leverage e-learning technologies, the challenges associated with doing so and where on-demand learning is headed.

I spoke with Sabina Horgan, the vice president of market development for Thread Legal, a practice management software provider based in Dublin. We discussed the genesis of Thread Legal, how small and mid-sized law firms can leverage technology to gain a competitive advantage, and the state of legal tech in Ireland.

I spoke with Warren Agin, the director of professional development at LexPredict, a consulting firm focused on legal data strategy, and the founding chair of the ABA’s Legal Analytics Committee. We discussed his new role at LexPredict, the mission of the ABA’s Legal Analytics Committee, what lawyers need to do to adapt to new technologies, the practical applications of data and analytics, and how he sees the legal field evolving.

I spoke with Allison Josephy Key, the sales lead for ZipWhip, a platform that allows law firms and their clients to leverage the firm’s existing telephone infrastructure and interact through text messaging. We discussed how Zipwhip works, the features in its platform that are most appealing to legal professionals, how users can leverage this technology to enhance their marketing and business development, the advantages of communicating through text over phone and email, and how this level of communication is evolving within the legal profession.

I spoke with Dan Anderson, co-founder and CEO of SeeUnity, a provider of content integration, migration, and synchronization products for law firms, corporations, and government agencies. We discussed the genesis of SeeUnity, the content integration challenges that law firms are facing, content transformation and how it helps law firms access, manage, and interact with their data, and what law firms should avoid as they migrate from on-premises content management systems to the cloud.

I spoke with Michele DeStefano, a professor of law at the University of Miami School of Law and the founder & executive director of LawWithoutWalls, a think tank designed to create innovations at the intersection of law, business, and technology. She is also a guest faculty member at Harvard Law School’s Executive Education program and the author of the newly released book, Legal Upheaval: A Guide to Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation (American Bar Association, 2018). We discussed her background and work at the University of Miami School of Law, her motivation for writing Legal Upheaval: A Guide to Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation, why she founded LawWithoutWalls, how the profession has changed in the years since she created that organization, whether innovation can be measured, and where the legal industry is headed, among other topics.