ABA Journal: Legal Rebels

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebels Shantelle Argyle and Daniel Spencer. Argyle and Spencer, profiled as Legal Rebels in 2015, founded Open Legal Services in Salt Lake City in 2014. Even though the two didn’t initially plan to launch a not-for-profit law firm straight out of law school, they’ve since become evangelists for the model. They talk here about the not-for-profit model they embraced and the growth of their firm.

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebel Sarah Glassmeyer. Glassmeyer, a trained law librarian and free law enthusiast, was named a Legal Rebel in 2016. She talks here about her relatively new job at the ABA’s Center for Innovation and the melding of her interests there. She gives a preview of what’s to come from the center.

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebel Sam Glover, founder of Lawyerist, a one-time blog turned robust legal information site. Sam was named a Legal Rebel Trailblazer in February 2017. Here he talks about a new venture at Lawyerist: TBD Law, a unique conference collaboration with ‘09 Legal Rebel Matt Homann of Filament in St. Louis.

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebel Nicole Black. Black was in the Journal’s first Rebels class in 2009. Just like then, when she was designated the “Boss of Blogs,” she continues to be a prolific blogger and Twitter user. She talks about blogging today and her gig at MyCase, which offers practice-management services to lawyers.

In this special ABA Techshow episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebels Ed Walters and Kevin O’Keefe. Walters, a one-time BigLaw associate and co-founder of the legal-research service Fastcase, was named a Legal Rebel Trailblazer in October 2016. Kevin O’Keefe was in the Journal’s inaugural Rebels class in 2009. The two talk here about their new integration of Fastcase and Lexblog, enabling bloggers on the Lexblog platform to link directly to caselaw they’re analyzing in their blog posts.

Born and raised in Austria, Roland Vogl fell in love with California almost from the moment he arrived in 1999 as a student at Stanford Law School. In particular, he was drawn to the entrepreneurial ethos of Stanford’s home base of Silicon Valley. “The idea of being in Silicon Valley and being immersed in the gung-ho spirit where people solve problems—not so much by policy and lawmaking but by building new systems—really appealed to me,” says Vogl, a 2017 Legal Rebels Trailblazer.

The website Lawyerist focuses on getting attorneys information they want. Determining what that is isn't hard, says founder Sam Glover, because readers frequently tell him through the site's discussion forum or on social media. "Sometimes all you can get is anecdotes, asking as many people as you can find, to try and uncover information about stuff," says Glover, a 2017 Legal Rebels Trailblazer who uses the term anecdata to describe some of the site's reporting.

At 69, Judge Herbert Dixon doesn’t fit that epigram about old dogs and new tricks. He’s still proselytizing about high tech in courthouses and courtrooms, and he predicts its future. He’s still trying some cases as a senior judge, is a member of the ABA Board of Governors and now a Legal Rebels Trailblazer, and he’s engaged in so many other endeavors that he never seems to be (under immutable laws of motion) a body at rest.

When you ask Randi Mayes about the future of technology in law firms, she says its growth will stem from attorneys’ behavior rather than specific product offerings. “The real possibility for change in the future sits more with the mindset,” says Mayes, the executive director of the International Legal Technology Association. “It’s all about the law firm adopting its client’s worldview and innovating service delivery with those views in mind.”  Randi Mayes is the founder and executive director of the International Legal Technology Association. She has also worked for worked for the Texas law firms Brown McCarroll (which merged with Husch Blackwell in 2013) and Small, Craig & Werkenthin. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Craig Ball likes to say he got into law to stay out of prison. The Austin, Texas-based attorney, professor and electronic evidence expert has always been passionate about technology—somewhat too passionate at times. When he was a teenager, he created a device that allowed him and his friends to make long-distance calls for free. He got in trouble with the law. But luckily for him, the prosecutor and judge didn’t think his crime was all that serious. “The lawyer who helped me out hired me as a law clerk, and that put me on the path to becoming a lawyer,” says Ball, who earned his JD from the University of Texas School of Law in 1982, after which he opened his own law firm. The advent of the personal computer and the internet reignited Ball’s interest in technology. He became fascinated with computer forensics and the nascent field of electronic discovery—areas that still flummox many lawyers and judges today.