Fringe Legal

In this episode of Fringe Legal, recorded live from ILTACON 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, Ab sits down with JoeySeeber, CEO of Level Legal. Joey discusses the journey and growth of Level Legal over 15 years, starting during the Great Recession. The conversation delves into various aspects of building a business for longevity, maintaining a startup mindset in a small company, and delivering services in a human-centric way. Joey shares insights on their framework and principles for doing business, client feedback, handling competition, and the role of technology in enhancing efficiency. Read the episode takeaways at: https://www.fringelegal.com/balancing-technology-and-human-connection-in-legal-services-with-joey-seeber

In this episode of the Fringe Legal podcast, host Ab interviews Stefan Ciesla, the co-founder and CEO of Ayora ai, a startup that focuses on helping law firms manage their revenues and improve the revenue management skills of fee earners such as attorneys and lawyers. Steven discusses the problem Ayora is solving in the legal industry and the role of lawyers as revenue managers. He explains that fee earners often have to make revenue management decisions throughout a matter's lifecycle, but they may not have the necessary skills or focus on revenue management. Ayora's smart lockup assistant helps fee earners by scanning a firm's data related to matters and providing recommendations on monitoring scope, estimates, budgets, resourcing, outside counsel guidelines, and billing. The assistant pre-drafts emails and provides relevant information to make the decision-making process easier and more efficient. Steven also addresses the challenge of balancing AI and machine learning with human control and building trust in the recommendations made. He emphasizes that Ayora prioritizes transparency and user consent and never takes any action without the attorney's knowledge. Key takeaways: Fee earners in law firms, such as attorneys and lawyers, often need to make revenue management decisions throughout a matter's lifecycle but may not have the necessary skills or focus on revenue management.Ayora's smart lockup assistant helps fee earners monitor scope, estimates, budgets, resourcing, outside counsel guidelines, and billing, providing recommendations and pre-drafting emails to make decision-making easier and more efficient.Ayora prioritizes transparency and user consent, ensuring that attorneys have control over the recommendations made by the system.Uncommon learning The legal industry may be missing out on billions of dollars of additional value due to suboptimal revenue management decisions.Podcast show notes00:02 Introduction to the Fringe Legal Podcast00:29 Guest Introduction: Stefan Ciesla, Co-founder and CEO of Ayora00:58 Steven's Background and Ayora's Founding Team02:07 The Unique Blend of Ayora's Founding Team02:55 Understanding Ayora's Mission and Purpose04:24 The Role of Lawyers as Revenue Managers04:43 The Impact of Decision-Making on Revenue Management08:28 Introducing Ayora's Smart Lockup Assistant20:20 The Role of AI and Machine Learning in Decision-Making27:05 The Impact of Fixed Fee Work on Revenue Management30:12 Conclusion and Contact Information

In this episode of the Fringe Legal podcast, host Ab chats with Conan Hines, Director of Legal Technology at Fried Frank, about building a tech-enabled culture in law firms. Conan shares insights from his previous roles at Clifford Chance and other law firms, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of legal technology and the psychology and behavior of users when it comes to successful adoption and change management.Conan emphasizes the need for building trust with lawyers and finding those who are curious and open to tech-enabled solutions. He suggests starting small with bite-sized engagements to build trust over time. He also discusses the value of creating a foundation for tech adoption and balancing short-term impact with long-term goals.The conversation delves into the role of vendors in adoption, with Conan highlighting the need for a strong partnership and a transparent framework for success. He stresses the importance of vendors having a real adoption strategy and sharing learnings from what has worked in the past.Ab and Conan also discuss the challenge of incentives and tracking adoption. They explore the idea of integrating technology training into legal training to emphasize the value and importance of tech skills for lawyers. Ultimately, the key to successful adoption and building a tech-enabled culture in law firms lies in trust, continuous communication, and demonstrating the value of technology.Key takeaways:Building a tech-enabled culture requires understanding the role of legal technology and the psychology and behavior of users.Trust is essential for successful adoption. Lawyers need to believe that tech solutions can help them.Adoption plans should be simplified and tailored to individual users.Integration of technology training into legal training can help emphasize the value of tech skills for lawyers.Vendors should have a strong adoption strategy and share learnings from past successes.Uncommon learning:Tech adoption requires a partnership between law firms and vendors, with a focus on transparency and continuous communication.

While technology races ahead, improving legal training and education has lagged behind. Law schools excel at teaching students the law, but critical and practical skills development is often lacking. With the traditional law firm apprenticeship model fading, junior lawyers frequently lack opportunities to gain hands-on experience.Abdi Shayesteh, founder and CEO of the legal training platform AltaClaro, is on a mission to close this practical skills gap. Frustrated by the inefficiencies he experienced firsthand as a junior lawyer, Abdi has reinvented legal education and training. AltaClaro leverages experiential learning techniques rooted in education science to provide associates with hands-on practice on simulated legal matters.Show Notes [00:01:14] Abdi's early entrepreneurial experiences managing a cafe and starting a t-shirt business in college [00:08:02] Why Abdi decided to start another company after previous exits [00:10:25] Overview of what AltaClaro does [00:17:38] Issues with the traditional law firm training model [00:23:00] Explanation of the learning science principles AltaClaro leverages [00:34:59] Training trends Abdi sees law firms requesting for 2023

As part of our series of examining Generative AI in Practice, Fringe Legal spoke with Stephanie Corey, founder of legal operations consultancy UpLevel Ops, and Brandi Pack, UpLevel's Legal Tech Analyst & AI Consultant. They share how legal teams can thoughtfully leverage generative AI to transform workflows, augment human skills, and futureproof roles. With proper governance and training, we can keep pace with the evolution of AI and maximize its potential.Show notes:Show Notes:[00:02:19] Getting early access to GPT-4[00:08:00] How are the Uplevel Ops team grew adoption internally[00:11:53] People don't care about AI[00:14:51] Why to document prompts[00:18:06] How are legal teams reacting to the changing landscape[00:28:38] GenAI as a workflow tool[00:31:03] What's the future?[00:34:16] Will my role be displaced?[00:38:47] What one thing can organizations do to see immediate value from GenAI?

We sat down with Jeff Pfeifer, Chief Product Officer at LexisNexis during ILTACON 2023 to get his insights on legal AI progress, hype versus reality, increased law firm adoption, and the importance of demonstrating tangible benefits.Topics covered: Navigating the legal AI hype cycle AI's potential to enhance legal workflows Growing law firm interest and hands-on exploration Avoiding the “trough of disillusionment” Real-world benefits driving adoption over hype

In this episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat interviews Nnamdi Emelifeonwu and Feargus MacDaeid, co-founders of legal tech startup Definely.Key Takeaways: Definely creates software plugins to simplify drafting, reviewing, and analyzing legal contracts in Microsoft Word using AI/ML. The idea originated from Feargus' need as a blind lawyer to access information in documents more easily. They validated demand with a scrappy prototype and early pilots despite its flaws. After leaving law firm jobs, their mission-driven approach focuses on access, efficiency, and transparency. Their blueprint for innovation includes launching an MVP, inclusive design thinking, gathering user feedback, and carefully leveraging AI. Maintaining ethics and reputation is central, not rushing new technology to market. When solving problems for underserved groups, solutions often benefit everyone. A framework for evaluating AI: accuracy and understanding real-world impacts. Connect with Nnamdi EmelifeonwuConnect with Feargus MacDaeidLearn more about Definely

ESG (environmental, social, governance) factors have become essential considerations for companies seeking to manage risk, attract investment, and operate sustainably.Yet myths and misconceptions persist around what ESG is and how best to approach it. This leads many legal teams to view ESG as an amorphous compliance exercise rather than a strategic priority.Recently on the Fringe Legal podcast, Abhijat Saraswat interviewed ESG expert Kai Gray, CEO of advisory firm Motiv, to demystify ESG and offer practical guidance for legal professionals. In this episode, learn what ESG means and how legal teams can pragmatically prioritize it. Get clarity on ESG frameworks, strategic rollout, and avoiding common pitfalls.

Summary:In this insightful episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat has an in-depth discussion with India Preston, Director of Platform Solutions at legal tech startup Lupl. They delve into India's winding journey into legal project management, tactical approaches to driving adoption, and how to effectively challenge established processes.India shares learnings and advice drawn from her diverse experiences - from helping build out Linklaters' LPM function from the ground up to make the leap to an early-stage legal tech startup. She provides a rare longitudinal view of how legal project management has evolved from a little-known concept in 2013 to a widely recognized, if still poorly understood, discipline today.Key Takeaways: While LPM has gone from barely existing in 2013 to being commonly known today, there is still substantial room for education on how to apply it effectively. LPM principles empower lawyers to run matters like projects, but specialized LPM roles create incremental value on complex matters. Project management qualifications alone don't cut it for legal project managers to be successful. Soft skills to integrate smoothly with lawyers and legal teams are just as important, if not more so. Technical skills can be learned on the job. Identifying concrete problems that need solving is absolutely crucial before adopting any new solution or technology. Without an anchor in specific pain points, adoption will struggle no matter how exciting the new solution seems at first glance. Rollouts of new technology or processes should start small and be targeted before expanding more widely across a firm. The tendency may be to go big with a splashy firmwide launch, but this rarely succeeds. Resources like use case guides, template libraries, and informal user communities help drive adoption by making the novel feel familiar. However, these need to be grounded in solving real firm problems. Process mapping workshops - with the help of an unbiased external facilitator - can challenge status quo thinking and processes in extremely constructive ways. Just asking "why" repeatedly can unearth entrenched inefficiencies. Actionable Takeaway: Start Small Before Going WideExplore in detail at Fringe Legal.

In this episode, our guests Brad Blickstein, David Cambria, and returning guest Keith Maziarek join host Ab to discuss the findings from the 3rd Legal Pricing and Project Management (LPMM) Survey Report. They delve into the key challenges and trends shaping the legal industry, touching upon innovation, technology, client expectations, and the future of legal service delivery. Tune in to explore the data and analysis from the report, as these experts share their perspectives on the current state and future of legal operations.Key discussion points: [00:02:16] The current state of law firm investments in innovation and technology [00:10:45] Contradictions between client expectations and rewarded behaviors [00:18:50] Challenges faced by law firm and legal department executives in adopting process and collaboration improvements [00:27:12] The real threat to law firm success and how to address it [00:34:23] The impact of economic downturns on the legal industry and the potential for future transformation Don't miss this in-depth conversation that offers valuable insights for legal professionals interested in legal tech, legal project management, and legal service delivery.A more in-depth commentary is available on FringeLegal.com

Professional services environments are stressful. Among the myriad of items to be juggled each day, you must manage workloads, managing the capacity of employees -  what kind of work & how frequently work is allocated.  How well this aspect is managed will impact performance, productivity, DEI, and retention. As part of our startup series, we speak with William Dougherty, Co-Founder of Capcity, a legal tech tool that looks to improve the allocation of work.In the episode, we'll discuss (numbers are time markers): What is Capacity → 1.48 How is work allocated → 3.09 Issues with the current approach to work allocation → 4.24 What if nothing changes → 5.48 Capacity management vs. work allocation → 12.31 Getting buy-in to effect change → 17.02 The business impact of attrition → 21.46

The guest this week are co-founders of New York-based Priori Legal.  Basha Rubin, the company's Chief Executive Officer, and Mirra Levitt, the Chief Product Officer, met as classmates at Yale Law School and found Priori. Earlier this year, they announced a funding round of $15 million.  Priori works with in-house legal teams to connect legal departments with the right outside counsel for projects globally, saving them time and money. We discuss Legal Tech trends, their origin story, raising funds a Women Founders, and the secret sauce for successful legal teams.

Legal operation teams have been increasing in popularity. In this episode, Liz Lugones and Sumi Trombley from Uplevel Opsshare why Legal Ops teams matter, why you should care, and how to leverage them to level up your legal team (in-house and at firms). Uplevel Ops are offering a complimentary 30-minute consultation, you can find more here.  In the episode, we discuss: (03:12) Why should you care about legal operations (LegalOps)? (04:21) Law school vs. practice (08:12) Enabling fail-fast thinking in legal teams (11:11) It's not just about technology  (16:32) Embedded in the organization (21:25) Creating space for creativity and ideas (28:38) Celebrating success (30:49) Gaining trust (34:25) Shifts in legal operations Article referencedStriving for Imperfection: The Complicated Relationship of Lawyers and Project Management by Sumi Trombley & Liz LugonesKey quotes(edited for a better reading experience)People and lawyers want to be able to solve the problems of their clients, but in doing so, and what's the best way to do it doesn't always mean here's the legal answer. Maybe they're looking for optionality, a strategic partner, or they are looking to reduce the risk. Whatever the answer is,  you have to talk to your business counterparts to be able to figure that out.The thing that Liz hit on was 'the therapy' - that aspect of legal operations is the bridge from getting to, I know the legal answer, to how do I deliver it to my client in a way that makes them happy and feel like they have the best result. Sometimes you're not likely to go to the person who's giving you the advice and say, "I don't like the way you're giving me the advice." You need a buffer, and that's the legal operations buffer. With that in place, you can express the problem. The legal ops professional can go share it as the buffer: "I'm generally hearing from these people, And here's what I suggest we start to do to help facilitate."Often, I believe people in the profession think that legal operations are putting technology in, right? Or you're putting a process in. And I feel like the conduit that legal offspring is legal ops is not all those things. Legal ops is a mindset that needs to happen in the culture of the org, for the department to get better. The buffer is the data coming out of the technology you put in there.About the guestsElizabeth "Liz" Lugones, COO/Senior Advisor, UpLevel OpsLiz has built and managed Legal Operations teams in various industries in both public and private companies over her 20+ year career. She excels in global project management and business reengineering, with particular expertise in process improvement, change management, cross-functional collaboration and team building, but her true passion is helping others find their own strengths and talents and harness them for the value of all.Before joining UpLevel, Liz served as the Senior Director of Legal Operations at WeWork. Prior to WeWork, Liz served as Director of Legal Operations at a diverse range of companies, including UnitedLex, DXC Technology, Becton Dickinson, and MetLife. She also worked at Citigroup as Manager, Strategy and M&A.Liz holds a BA in Political Science and Journalism from Rutgers University, is certified in Lean Six Sigma and fluent in Spanish. She is based in New Jersey.Sumi Trombley, Senior Advisor, UpLevel OpsSumi Trombley practiced in law firms and in-house legal departments for more than a decade before coming to UpLevel Ops. Sumi previously served as Director, Legal at enterprise legal services provider Marshall Denning, LLC, where she managed and trained a team of junior and senior attorneys and developed and implemented resource optimizing processes for RFPs and pre-litigation disputes. She is known for her ability to provide strategic guidance and cost-effective solutions.Prior to joining Marshall Denning, Sumi was Legal Counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, serving as a de facto general counsel to top enterprise IT outsourcing accounts. She started her legal career at the law firms of Paul Hastings LLP in New York and Latham & Watkins LLP in DC, practicing corporate finance and securities law.Sumi holds a JD from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, and a BA in Political Economy from Georgetown University. She is based in Maryland.

To supplement the release of the Fringe Legal no-code report, which provides 100s of hours of market research in 6-min, we speak with Jackson Liu, Chief Commercial Officer at Neota, about the state of no-code in legal. During the conversation, we discuss: How firms are using no-code tools Leveraging no-code tools as a competitive advantage Focusing on the customer journey and adoption for long-term success No-code challenges Future of no-code You can read the full No-code report at www.fringelegal.com/no-code-report/

On this episode with speak with Kai Jacob  - Partner at KPMG and Co-founder of Liquid Legal Institute - about digital transformation and designing the future of law. In the episode we cover (min.seconds): Introduction -> 0.20 Enthusiasm vs adoption of technology -> 1.56 Founding the think thank -> 3.24 Facilitating cross collaboration -> 5.06 Distributing projects equitably -> 6.04 Designing the future -> 10.14 Mental wellbeing -> 13.52 Skills for future lawyers -> 21.54 Being embedded with customers -> 27.12 Highlights from the episode What is Liquid Legal InstituteWe consider ourselves a collaboration community of doers. So we like to do stuff, everything that we tackle and that we focus on should lead very fast to a result. Not just talking, doing.Lack of collaboration in the legal market...they helped us really to nail down the question of 'why is the legal market not collaborating'? That was a very interesting question because we are all sharing, we all do this together. We even have this concept of Co-opetition. Then why not work with competitors on something like setting standards? Why should we, in the legal market, cooperate? We are all making good money with this private wisdom that we have and built up over time. So why should we share? We also believe that without sharing, without creating true standards in the market, it will take ages to go through this digital transformation.Struggling with digital transformationWe see that people are really struggling with digital transformation. They first don't understand why all this is happening. They're missing the digital mindset.The idea that digital transformation is something positive. They do not get the link back to legal because, they are thinking that what we do is something that's handcrafted; it's something that relies on very special knowledge.We do a perfect job of creating the perfect, beautiful contract that nobody else understands. We see beauty. And we see our role in protecting our company and defending our companies, defending our client's interests. It's just that the other side doesn't understand it.So the digital aspect is that we need to get more out of this dormant contract that's archived in the file cabinet somewhere. To make it valuable information, accessible for the digital company that we are working in.The whole idea of digital transformation is to make information that sits somewhere in an unstructured format, deep in contracts, more accessibleWe miss a huge opportunity for our profession to sit at the C-suite table and contribute to the overall goals of the enterprise. Second, everything moves so fast. We are overwhelmed with the speed of change. And we need to understand that change is constant and it will never go back to a slow motion mode. It will not happen. It will be fast. So we need to learn how to become adaptable, call it agile, call it whatever, but we need to adapt fast to a changing world. We need first to understand what is digital, and second how to deal with that in an agile working model.About Liquid Legal InstitueThe Liquid Legal Institute is an open and interdisciplinary platform for promoting a new way of thinking in the legal sector. Digitalization, new business models and technological innovations are currently changing all major industries worldwide. However, the legal sector has not yet benefited sufficiently from these trends. The Liquid Legal Institute was founded by seven experts from legal and business practice, design thinking, and computer science to close this gap.

Lawyers and firms have long struggled to find the right way to price their services.The hourly billing model focuses on the amount of time spent on a matter, project, or case. This can often lead to inefficiencies and frustration for the lawyer and the client. Value based pricing is an alternative that takes into account the value of the service being provided rather than simply the time spent. It means that lawyers and firms are paid based on the results they achieve for their clients.The incentive becomes focused on getting better results. Value-based pricing can also help build trust and improve communication between lawyers and clients.However, that doesn't make pricing or pricing conversations any easier. In this episode, we go into the rabbit hole of pricing.  SUBSCRIBE AND REVIEW:  iTunes // Spotify // Pocket Casts // StitcherSpecial thanks to Paul Stroka of LexFusion for making the introduction to Keith.Episode content Introduction and summary ➡ 1.24 Power of buyer ➡ 4.30 Power of supplier ➡ 7.34 Elastic economic market ➡ 9.42 Price discrimination ➡ 13.14 Client sophistication ➡ 17.08 Inflation and pricing for specialized services ➡ 23.46 The next service delivery model ➡ 31.04 Here are some of our favorite takeaways from the episode (edited to be reading-friendly).Value of workOne of the things that get ignored in discussions with clients or in the clients' calculus and how they determine what they're getting for the bills they're paying is that there's never a very accurate way of measuring the value that was captured from the services, and what the outcome was.It's always what was that bill? That bill is high. Maybe you bought a company, in an M&A scenario, that had subsidiaries or locations in highly regulated, highly risky territories - where there's a ton more work to be done. It's not an apples-to-apples kind of company. So you don't look at what I got for the price I paid? You're just saying the bills are higher now.Price discriminationAb: How do you demonstrate that we're going to charge you X, and it's worth more than X to you as an outcome?Keith: Price discrimination is the short answer to that. Not everything is worth the same amount. By nature, and this is not any judgment or me trying to take a position on the actual value or the value of the practitioners doing this kind of work. But by nature, there's a spectrum of complexity, and the stuff that's really complex on the highly complex side tends to be more scarce. There is a more scarce supply of people who can do it.On the opposite side, on a more commoditized side or the more routine side - it's not as complex, and there are more options to avail yourself of to do that work.Client sophistication - apply the scalpel, not the hatchetMy particular role is to ensure that the firm is as profitable as possible and that we're making our clients as happy as possible in terms of service delivery models and getting the outcomes they want.The conversation with the client depends on the level of sophistication:I'd say architecting and implementing some of those solutions depends on the sophistication that the client or the person on the buy-side has. There are only so many levers in this business in terms of what I can do. It's all about service delivery models and the underlying economics. This isn't astrophysics. There are not huge, massively complex data jobs in most cases (there are some benefits to that in different scenarios).There are a couple of levers on who's going to do the work and how much they have to do, what's the cheapest way to do it, and what the outcome will be. How do those things correlate (the price to the product)? Having those conversations with people that understand that better is important.I've worked with several legal operations groups where they have the knowledge, the understanding, and the sophistication. Still, there's a gap in the level of influence they have over the in-house attorneys...Different sides of the table, same challenges:We have very similar challenges - in-house and the law firm side - as it relates to getting the lawyers to understand the economics, the process, and to engage attorneys with it - to really adopt it. As opposed to, 'Yeah, but I'm skeptical of that because I don't understand it. So let's just do it the old way.'Next service delivery modelWhere can I get efficiencies out of technology? Which is a hugely growing market, that's going to be the new paradigm shift. It's going to be a much more dynamic service delivery model...Given that we've got a shortage of supply of people with the requisite skills to do a lot of this work and that's why we have to charge more. They [the attorneys] also have been working ridiculous man hours, and that's why we have to pay more for that. On top of that, there are obviously the mental health and quality of life concerns which is why a lot of people leave the workforce.I've been trying to make the case, and we work with our innovation group a lot, too, with several different teams internally to say: 'if you don't want people burnt out, you want them to have a better level of work-life balance and job satisfaction. Don't force them to brute force their way through everything all the time.'If you can get 30% more productivity out of the same people and let them sign off at seven or eight at night and use some tool that scales their productivity and delivers efficiencies then do it. You still get the same outcome, you just don't have to have as much input to have the same output.Resources mentioned Off The Clock Podcast Porter's Five Forces and a deeper look at Buyer Power

Leading teams during times of crisis presents a unique challenge. Many of which are multiplied when you are a startup and the team was only formed months ago. And then, overnight, everyone suddenly felt very fragile. It's a unique feeling and unique in a bad way because suddenly you have no idea what to do. And the feeling is that you're very lost.Yet, that is exactly the challenge that faced Alex Tsepko, CEO of Lawrina - a website that provides useful content and productivity tools for lawyers. The entire team for Lawrina was in Ukraine, and things changed overnight as the country was invaded. Lawrina CEO, Alex Tsepko, speaks about his experience leading a newly formed team through a sudden crisis - the invasion of Ukraine - and finding growth through a shared vision. In this episode, we cover (timestamps in parenthesis): Introduction (0:20) Ukraine as a hub for IT innovation (1:38) Experiencing unexpected crisis as a young organization (3:22) Leading through a crisis (6:08) Finding growth through a shared vision (11:57) Recognizing that it wasn't possible to continue doing anything the old way, Alex ensured that his team was safe and pivoted to continue working to execute their vision. The business went from a domestic play to having an international group with traffic growing 35%+ each month.As Alex shares, "it was not easy," but the team came together during a time when they felt fragile to build something they believed in.Alex Tsepko is the CEO of Lawrina.com. You can connect with Alex on LinkedIn.If you like the show, then I know you'll love the Fringe Legal newsletter which is full of interviews, articles, and reports to help Legal innovators like yourself learn how to put ideas into practice and find success. You can sign up for free at FringeLegal.com. 

What role does creativity play in a law firm and legal practice?  "You can be creative in any industry and anything that you do. Creativity is a mindset. It's being open to new ideas, new trends that diversity of thought, as we mentioned, being willing to experiment and try things, seeing things through a different lens than people typically do. To me, that's what creativity really is. It doesn't mean you have to invent something new and be insanely innovative. It just means you can look at a lot of things that are out there and say, 'Hey, you know what? That's interesting. Maybe we can use that somehow.'"In this episode, we cover: The role of creativity in law firms The increased focus on pricing Why firms are struggling with being client-centric What will make future firms successful Marketing as an underutilized superpower Read the Fringe Legal newsletter which includes additional commentary on each of the topics. About Dale MillerDale Miller is a Business Development and Marketing strategist with 20 years of experience and expertise in professional services firms, the advertising industry, and technology startups. She has held Director of Marketing and Business Development positions at regional and international firms, in the legal and financial industries, leading strategy, content, business development, and strategic partnerships. Dale is currently a Practice Development Manager at Holland & Knight. Prior to her work in legal, Dale founded and ran businesses, including a marketing consultancy and her talent agency, Miller Creative Partners, which represented photographers and directors, and worked with national ad agencies and their blue-chip clients. She has served on the Board of Lawyers for the Creative Arts, and is an active member of Northwestern University's Law and Technology Initiative. 

Matt Coatney is a seasoned C-level product and technology executive, entrepreneur, advisor, author, and speaker with 25 years of experience helping businesses and technology work better together. He has led divisions and portfolios for large global corporations, co-founded three companies and advised several others, been an early-stage employee of two successful tech startups, advised dozens of business and technology professionals across all stages of company formation and growth, and launched over a dozen successful products.Episode content The future of work ➡ 03.34 How would work be delivered in the future ➡ 04.52 Legal matters as projects ➡ 05.51 (Alternative) career paths for lawyers ➡ 07.36 The role of technology in the delivery of legal service ➡ 09.27 Why change now? ➡ 12.17 Disrupt the status quo ➡ 14.46 Are you profitable? Pricing analytics at law firms ➡ 15.59 Experience Management, BD, and contract analytics ➡ 17.41 Learning from adjacent industries ➡ 20.24 Making inclusion work in a hybrid world ➡ 32.13 Resources mentioned The Human Cloud Book Human Cloud Podcast Joyce Tong Oelrich on law firms as a subscription business Subscribe to Fringe Legal for deeper insights from each episode

Technology is a frequent topic of conversation. It comes up almost every single episode. And while it's fun to talk about amazing new tools or features, ultimately, you have to tie the tech back to the business strategy. Easy to say, difficult to execute.It's harder still when tracking and working with emerging technology, where there may not yet be a baseline for success. We tackle those points and so much more in the episode today.Episode content What is IncuBaker  ➡ 2.46 Watching the market ➡ 4.04 Client needs ➡ 5.03 Tracking 500+ legal tech companies ➡  6.17 Tying tech to business objectives ➡ 7.29 A process-driven approach to technology selection ➡ 11.30 Working with Vendors ➡ 16.22 Working with emerging technologies ➡ 20.31 Validating ideas ➡ 23.46 Market trends ➡ 32.31 For more detailed notes visit www.fringelegal.com

On the podcast this week, I speak to Quddus Pourshafie, co-founder of antiCPD a new training business looking to flip the necessary evil of CPD on its head. They have a bold vision:Essentially, we want it to be the most AntiCPD CPD training you've ever seen. CPD is one of the least favorite activities of any lawyer, right? It's something that must be done, but no one particularly enjoys that period of time. Or if it's spread throughout the year most people tick it off. It's a checkbox item. And now that it's virtual and prerecorded people can freely fall asleep... So that's one aspect that we wanted to completely blow out the water.

In this episode, Ab speaks with Azman Jaafar, Managing Partner and one of the founding members of RHTLaw Asia on how legal technology can drive success in a law firm.This episode is a special segment to the article "How Legal Tech Innovation Can Drive Success in Your Firm" which was published in the Singapore Law Gazette in October 2021.

I don't think we thought that it was going to be as tough of a sell because most of our clients that we have worked with and that we know very well and know how they sell, how they operate, they're all SaaS companies. So they all sell, software as a service, which is a subscription model. And we thought this would be something that, of course, they would understand the benefits of it because they're saying to their customers, here's the benefit of a subscription. It's really hard,  for the legal field to turn that corner because law traditionally has already been 10 steps behind in terms of technology. Compared to even the largest, corporate companies. So law firms are already lagging in that way. And to throw this at in-house counsel,  we were overly optimistic to think that they would swarm to adopt this idea.Joyce Tong Oelrich is the co-founder of the recently launched boutique, Tong Tejani PLLC, specializing in government contracting.Prior to the launch of her practice, Joyce was an in-house attorney at Facebook and Microsoft Corporation for nearly a decade, focusing on government contract compliance.In this episode, we explore why Joyce left to start her own firm, and how she, together with her Partner, created a firm with a difference. Resource mentionedPaul Graham on 'do things that don't scale'

Julia Salasky is the CEO of Legl, a digital workflow tool for law firms. "Solving problems that are fundamental to the way lawyers work enables lawyers to focus on the work that highly skilled professionals that they are can do best. I don't have a view as to whether in five years or ten years or 25 years, you can train AI to do those jobs, but the work that lawyers do is so varied, so technical, and so human-centric that enabling them to do that work in a way that allows them to focus on the highest value piece of that is where there's a real opportunity in this space."

Adolfo E. Jiménez is a Miami litigation attorney whose practice focuses on international disputes. Mr. Jiménez leads Holland & Knight's South Florida Litigation Practice Group, which consists of more than 80 attorneys, and also leads the firm's International Arbitration and Litigation Team. He is Board Certified in International Litigation and Arbitration by The Florida Bar. He handles general commercial litigation matters in federal and state courts. His international experience, language abilities and management skills provide innovative and comprehensive representation to clients involved in complex cases.We've spoken with technologists and innovators during previous podcast episodes, and this week we talk to a practitioner. In the show, we cover: what does a day in the life of Adolfo look like the impact of virtualization on the arbitration world benefits of multiple perspectives and how it can help stay updated thinking long term, and staying client centric Find out more at the Holland & Knight website and on LinkedIn. 

Anna Lozynski is an award winning executive general counsel & author, turned Change Agent, Advisor and Influencer.   Starting out at a major Australian law firm, she has spent the majority of her legal career in-house working in the banking, automotive, and cosmetics industries. In 2021, Anna has donned her entrepreneurial shoes and launched her own Advisory service, on a mission to help law and business adapt to the digital age. She is consulting in the areas of social media content creation, strategy & partnerships, legal ops/optimisation, change management, as well as coaching and general counsel freelancing.  She believes that innovation is invigorating, change is energising and efficiency will never go out of fashion.   In addition, she is an Advisory Board Member to Mys Tyler (a fashion tech startup), She Breaks The Law (a global female innovator network), and sits on the CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) Australia Chapter.     Described as a change agent, Anna is a sought-after commentator, mindset coach and consultant both domestically and internationally – seeking to shift the dialogue in order to propel the corporate world forward.  You are invited to join Anna's online communities @legallyinnovative and LinkedInas well as @annaloz on Clubhouse. You can also download a variety of products, and read Anna's blog here: https://annalozynski.com/  

I spoke with Matthew Waldman (Founder, San-Q, and Professor Keio Graduate School of Design) and Ruben Fernandez Vela (Senior Researcher, Samcara research lab) on transformation and innovation lessons from designing next-gen cities.This was a fascinating chat, and much of the ideas we discussed could very easily be extrapolated for firms, in-house teams, indeed any business.Here are three things I took away: Planning for obsolescence and avoiding in-action Balancing decision making and privacy Fostering innovation is simple Other resources mentioned during the episode Samcara circular design lab San-Q consultancy Professor Matthew Waldman on LinkedIn  Ruben Vela on LinkedIn Laying the foundation for Smart Cities What's fueling the smart city backlash? Carlos Moreno talks about the 15-minute city Beyond Tech - The True Meaning of a Smart City

So Legal is coming late to the party on some of this, but at least it arrived very well dressed because we get to now pick and choose some of the best parts of project management, change management transformation, continuous improvement.Peter Dombkins is a national leader in legal transformation, legal operations, and the project management of legal professional services. He has received awards from the Financial Times and AIPM for change and legal practice management. Peter is Australia's first Adjunct Associate Professor in Legal Transformation, at the University of NSW Faculty of Law. Peter is also the Director for New Law at PwC Australia.During the episode, we discuss: Is there a revolution coming to the legal profession? A brief history of changes in how professional legal services are offered from 1950 to - present day. Including the trend of appending “legal” in front of many things.  What is Legal Project Management, and how most lawyers are are already putting it into practice? What is transformation, and the difference between simple and complex transformation? This episode is a treasure trove of resources. Here are various things that were mentioned or discussed: Peter on LinkedIn Legal Project Management: Projectifying the Legal Profession What's wrong with your transformation initiative? (ILTA Whitepaper) Cognitive Bias Codex Expectancy Theory Yerkes-Dodson Law A reflection on Thomas Kuhn's - The Structure of Scientific Revolution

Mouthpiece Law is a student-run not-for-profit. As the world’s first legal education & technology platform, they connect and empower law students and legal professionals to form a legal aid task force and address legal needs through low-cost legal services.Avinash Pillay is the COO and Chief Legal Engineer at Mouthpiece Law.

Len Hickey is an IP lawyer and founder of Litigaze a case evaluation tool for modern legal teams that enables the evaluation of complex cases using intuitive visual planning.You can find out more about Litigaze at and connect with Len Hickey on LinkedIn. 

Elani is a leader in building high-growth startups through streamlined operations. After earning her master's from King's College, London, and serving more than two years at the Peace Corp. Elani spent almost a decade helping emerging tech companies develop, optimize and scale their operations marketing, and people processes. Elani is now the venture program manager at MDR Lab.

Jim Chaing is the founder of My Legal Einstein, an AI-powered legal contract review tool.

Parul Patel is the founder of Fuel and Move, a consultancy that helps Partners of law firms and General Counsels develop their teams and lawyers for performance optimization.

Matthew Golab is the Director of Legal Informatics and R+D at Gilbert + Tobin. He leads a specialized in-house multidisciplinary legal informatics team that utilizes a variety of data analytics and eDiscovery, and other AI technology tools. Matthew has more than 20 years of experience in the legal technology industry, including two of Australia’s preeminent law firms.

Rasmeet Charya is the Chief Innovation Officer at Algo Legal. As Chief Innovation Officer, Rasmeet brings a strong passion for transforming how law firms and lawyers work with clients and think about innovation. From understanding problems, curating ideas, and facilitating innovation processes, Rasmeet leads a team that focuses on analysing how technology can be used by the firm to enhance transparency, increase access, create efficiencies, and offer a new brand of service. Algo Legal is a new law firm, established in 2019, and the firm has started with a strong foundation in technology. As they got started the leadership wanted to create a new brand of legal services, driven by technology and innovation, and utilizing a process-driven approach to deliver a unique experience for their clients. During my chat we explore how: - How to apply a process-driven approach to your practice - Different ways in which Algo Legal has been involved in the community via law schools and supporting startups - How the Algo team pitches their process-driven approach, embedded with technology to clients

Giles Thompson is the Head of Growth @ Avvoka

Jan Hards is the Director of Legal Innovation at Johnson Winter & Slattery. After years of practicing as a Corporate M&A Lawyer at Freshfields in the UK, and then later at Johnson Winter & Slattery, he made a deliberate move to become the firm’s Director of Legal Innovation.

Innovation management helps to optimize the innovation process, identify bottlenecks and increase the productivity of innovation, investment, and resources. Floor Blindenbach is the founder of Organizing4Innovation. Trigged by a recent whitepaper, I speak with Floor to discuss her views on innovation management for law firms. We spoke about: - the importance of treating innovation as a process - definition for innovation' - the role of culture in driving innovative efforts - Innovation as a way to develop talent - the problem of tracking/measuring innovation efforts in law firms - best practices for innovation teams

Alice Stephenson is a founder and tech lawyer driving inclusion and innovation in law and promoting individuality within the legal profession. Alice founded Stephenson Law in 2017 to create a law firm that does things differently. Tackling each stereotype head-on, she is on a mission to build a forward-thinking, innovative law firm that puts people at the heart of everything it does. Alice's goal is to inspire young women to challenge the perceived barriers to success and see that anything is possible. In this episode we discuss: - tackling challenges - being comfortable with making mistakes - measuring lawyer value outside of the billable hour

This was first published in the Winter 2020 issue of ILTA's Peer to Peer. This is a special audio version of that article.

Contracts are crucial to the legal process, however more frequently the process of contracting can be painful. In this episode we discuss how to remove unnecessary barriers from contracts while offering the same protections, benchmarking the performance of your contracts, and Alex’s reflections on 10 years since founding Radiant Law. Alex Hamilton (LinkedIn / Twitter) is the CEO and founder of Radiant Law, the UK-based award-winning NewLaw firm. Alex is focused on improving the contracting process for clients, leading product and tech development. He also regularly talks and writes on improving contracting, LawTech and the changing legal industry. He has led a number of projects that have been recognised by the FT’s Innovative Lawyer Awards. Before founding Radiant Law, he was a Partner at Latham & Watkins and co-Chair of Latham & Watkins’ global Technology Transactions Group.

Alex Low is an expert in helping businesses implement and adopt marketing and sales strategies. He regularly speaks to experts through his podcast The Death of a Salesman and applies the principles at BeyondSales and DLA ignite. Oh and he's worked in the BD function at PwC, as Client Relationship Manager at BLP (now BCLP), lead Client Dev at JLL, and more.

In this episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat speaks with Janet Stanton. I reached out to Janet after having read her article on the importance of strategic client management. We discuss the topic in detail including what it means, the benefits for individuals and the firm, implementation advice, and pitfalls to avoid. Janet is an accomplished business person who brings her experience from diverse industries and professional service organizations to bear on issues currently facing Law Land. Prior to Adam Smith, Esq., Janet was Director, Client Relationships Program at Orrick. Previously, she served as Executive Vice President at a global communications agency where she led several large, global client relationships for organizations such as Pfizer and the US Department of Defense. She also served as President of a national communications agency. She was personally awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Janet is a graduate of Vassar College, which she attended as a Regents Scholar. She is based in New York City.

Innovation has as many definitions as the number of people you ask to define it. Regardless of what you think of as "innovative," the execution needs to permeate the business. Abhijat Saraswat speaks with Allister Spencer on how to make innovation everyone's business.

Ab speaks with Winter Wheeler, Shari E. Belitz, Esq., Lisa Lang, Laura M. Gregory, Esq., Deb Feder, and Christon Halkiotis. They are six of the 20 authors of the modern anthonly Networked.

Chatter is a special episode where Abhijat sits down with Vincent Michetti to discuss 3-5 varied topics. In this episode they discuss: Deloitte buys Kemp Little, ILTA Tech Survey, How to Stop Phishing, and iPhone upgrade cycles

This is an experimental episode, utilizing machine learning to read out one of my previously published articles. The full text of the article can be found at episode page on www.fringelegal.com

Eric Laughlin is the CEO of Agiloft - the no-code contract and commerce lifecycle management software company.

Ray Bierderman is an experienced litigator with nearly two decades of experience removing obscurity from the eDiscovery process for other attorneys and corporate resources. Ray is the President and co-founder of DiscoveryMaster.co, CEO of Proteus Discovery Group, and Partner at Mattingly Burke Cohen & Biederman LLP.

Adrian Camara is the CEO of Athennian. Athennian is a legal entity management software for in-house teams and law firms.

This is a replay from the Fringe Legal Virtual Summit held earlier this year. This panel brings together four leading knowledge managers and innovators to discuss some of the projects they have started or have seen sprouted in crisis situations. The panel will bring together a world view as we'll be joined by Thao and Priti is the US (New York and Chicago respectively), Barbara in Brazil, and Terri in Australia.