Future Law Podcast

How do you build and re-build collaborative and innovative cultures in a virtual environment? The future of law isn't all face-to-face. In this reunion episode, original Future Law Podcast host Lisa Leong returns to talk with Mike Madison about pivoting her broadcasting and consulting practices in response to COVID shutdowns, what practicing lawyers and law teachers can borrow from her experience, and about shifting mindsets from "me" to "we." Links and references: Lisa Leong at LinkedIn Robert Putnam, "The Upswing" Otto Scharmer and PresencingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daniel W. Linna, Jr. is Senior Lecturer and Director of Law and Technology Initiatives at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law, with an additional appointment in Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering.  He's also a former litigation partner in a large law firm in Detroit.   He joined Mike Madison for an energetic conversation about legal system innovation and change, what law schools and law firms are doing right and wrong today, and about the need to ground innovation on all sides in evidence.  Dan Linna at Northwestern Law. Dan hosts the LegalTech Lever blog. And he has his own podcast, Law Technology Now.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michele DeStefano is the founder and leader of Law Without Walls, or LWOW, a pioneering program for team- and project-based legal education that gathers students and partners from around the world. She is a full-time professor of law at the University of Miami who has also documented her methods and published research on their effectiveness. Mike Madison talks with Michele about the origins and impacts of LWOW. Michele DeStefano's biography at the University of Miami. The Law Without Walls website. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cat Moon leads the Program on Law and Innovation (PoLI) at Vanderbilt University's law school, a role that she took on after practicing law for nearly 20 years in Nashville, Tennessee. At PoLI and beyond, for the last several years she has become a passionate voice for making lawyers - and law - better.  Mike Madison talks with Cat about PoLI, her vision for future lawyers, and her work helping to build and promote the Delta Model for lawyer competence.  Cat Moon's biography at Vanderbilt Law. The Program on Law and Innovation at Vanderbilt. The Delta Model.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thomas Aertgeerts is the co-founder and CEO of a Belgium-based LegalTech startup offering tax law services today and on a mission to transform the legal industry tomorrow.  He talks with Mike Madison about the legal entrepreneur's life, transitioning out of a classic law practice career, and the future of legal services. He is the author of a provocative essay in the American Bar Association (ABA) Journal in April 2020 titled, "Is my law firm preparing me for success in the next decade?" His company, Aeco, can be found here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elizabeth "Lizzy" Shackelford took her law degree and followed her dream to serve internationally, eventually spending more than seven years with the US Department of State in a series of posts in Eastern Europe and in Africa. Now retired from her diplomatic service and the author of a recent book on US foreign policy and diplomacy, in this podcast she reflects with Mike Madison on what it means to be a lawyer in a rapidly-evolving world. Link to the book:  Elizabeth Shackelford, The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age (PublicAffairs, 2020)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dean Dan Hunter chats with Tom Dreyfus, CEO and co-founder of the Melbourne-based legal technology firm Josef. Josef gives both practitioners and law students a leg up in creating bots - automated processes for legal analysis - without expecting lawyers to know how to code and without expecting that legal experts should be cut out of the professional loop.   Dan and Tom talk about Tom's path to leadership:  a law degree, followed by an early career in law practice, and then the world of entrepreneurship in robotics and legaltech - all without a computer science background. Find Josef here.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Miguel Willis caught the innovation and entrepreneurship bug early in his law school career, and he exited with a JD and leadership of an innovative program that blends technology skills, design, law, and the public interest. The Access to Justice Technology Fellows program connects law students with civil justice organizations for an immersive, 10-week, paid project-based fellowship experience, changing lives in the community and priming the students for careers as 21st century lawyers. Mike Madison caught up with Miguel for this podcast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Duc Trang, former private practitioner, general counsel, and now Managing Director of Major, Lindsey & Africa Transform Advisory Services, talks with Mike Madison about the changing marketplace for legal services and legal professionals and what those changes mean for private firms, for legal technology development, and for legal education. Also featured in this episode:  Michael Madison, The Shapes and Letters of the Modern Lawyer (August 3, 2020).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eric DeChant isn't a lawyer. He's a recent graduate of the novel Master of Science in Law program at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law, which aims to give STEM professionals (like Eric) enough grounding in law to accelerate them into careers as allied legal professionals but not so much that they qualify to become licensed lawyers. Mike Madison interviews Eric to hear how he found the Northwestern program, what he thought of his time in school, and his plans for a future in law - though not as a lawyer. Here is the background to Eric DeChant's story, from Legal Evolution. Eric has started a voluntary organization titled the American Society of Legal Engineers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.