Podcasts about legalweek

Hosted by David Cowen | Careers and the Business of Law David Cowen sits down with Mark Allen, Director of Legal Operations and Strategy at Zillow Group - a title that is itself a signal of where the legal ops function is heading. Before Zillow, Mark ran legal operations at Netflix and Activision Blizzard, and has sat on the vendor side at Brightflag and CloudCourt. He's also a newly seated CLOC board member. This conversation covers career advocacy, the vendor-buyer relationship, and why legal ops is quietly becoming one of the best business training grounds in any industry. WHY THIS MATTERS? Legal operations is no longer just a support function - it's becoming the operating engine of the modern legal department. If you're in legal ops today and not thinking about AI, business strategy, and executive influence, this episode is your roadmap. KEY TAKEAWAYS Titles follow impact, not the other way around. Show the work first, then have the conversation. Legal ops is the COO role for a legal department - tech, finance, project management, people, and strategy all in one. Be clear about your intentions with your manager. Doing the work silently is not enough - say it once, clearly. If your leader never sees your value after repeated attempts, it's time to move on. Know your worth. Introverts may actually have an edge - action speaks louder than talk tracks. Vendors: skip the 30-minute sales deck. Show the tool. Buyers know what they need within 15 minutes. Make friends with vendors even when you're not buying. It's a knowledge exchange, not just a sales call. Finance and HR are your fastest path to the executive table internally. Legal ops professionals are being asked to change an operating model that has existed for hundreds of years. An AI-first mindset is no longer optional. Legal ops is essentially a small business degree - creativity, risk-taking, and cross-functional thinking built in. PEOPLE MENTIONED David Cowen — Host Mark Allen — Director of Legal Operations and Strategy, Zillow Group; CLOC Board Member Jen McCarron — Former President of CLOC; Netflix colleague of Mark's Mary O'Carroll — Legal ops trailblazer Jason Barnwell — Legal ops trailblazer Rajan Gupta, Ryan Black, Leo Murgel, Stacey Lettie - Legal ops market leaders referenced Olivia Dean — Artist; Mark's exit song pick ("Nice to Each Other") COMPANIES & ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED Zillow Group — Mark's current company Netflix, Activision Blizzard — Previous buyer-side roles Brightflag, CloudCourt — Mark's vendor-side experience CLOC — Legal ops community; CLOC Core 12 referenced; CLOC.org Solid, Running Legal Like a Business, Legal Week, ILTA — Legal ops education and community events

Hosted by David Cowen | Careers and the Business of Law Adam Rouse (Walgreens), Ashley Christakis (CrowdStrike), John Koss (Mintz), and Major Baisden (Lineal) pick up where they left off at LegalWeek in New York - ten weeks later, the conversation is sharper. The question on the table: how do you evaluate legal technology when the problem isn't fully defined yet? The answer involves a framework, a maturity arc, and a lot of grace. WHY THIS MATTERS? If your legal team is still waiting for the perfect data environment before acting on AI, you're already behind. This group agrees: the chaos is the condition. The only way through it is a deliberate strategy, documented workflows, and the courage to take the first step. KEY TAKEAWAYS Comfort with the unknown is the new baseline. The velocity of AI adoption has accelerated the FOMO - but the core evaluation process hasn't changed as much as we think. The three I's - Initiate, Investigate, Implement - apply to more than technology. Use them for concepts, use cases, and people, too. Most legal departments are somewhere between ad hoc and operational on the maturity arc. Very few are close to optimized - and that's okay. Stop chasing use cases. Start documenting how you actually get work done. That's the unlock for AI value. Data nirvana doesn't exist. Progression and discipline do. Don't wait for a perfect data ecosystem before extracting value. AI is the great information governance equalizer. Nothing is obscure anymore - if it's accessible, it will get indexed. The real AI dividend isn't just productivity. It's capability - doing things you were never able to do before. Know why you're doing what you're doing - and why you're not doing what you're not doing. That clarity builds organizational confidence and stronger client relationships. PEOPLE MENTIONED David Cowen - Host Adam Rouse - Sr. Counsel, eDiscovery & Director Legal Operations, Walgreens Ashley Christakis - Former Senior Manager, Legal Data Intelligence, CrowdStrike John Koss - Head of Innovation, AI, and E-Data Consulting, Mintz Major Baisden - CEO, Lineal Services COMPANIES MENTIONED Walgreens - Large enterprise legal operations navigating AI adoption CrowdStrike - Corporate legal team investing in technical curiosity and R&D thinking Mintz - Law firm with a formalized data strategy committee and Director of Data Strategy Lineal - Legal services company using AI to record, document, and optimize workflows Legal Data Intelligence (LDI) - Community behind this series; legaldataintelligence.org

In this episode, we sit down with Ilan Sherr, VP of Investigations and Regulatory Response at Lineal, to explore how AI is reshaping legal work, investigations, and compliance.Ilan shares how his background in competition law and regulatory enforcement led him to see early on that reactive approaches weren't sustainable, pushing him toward building AI-driven methods to identify risk before it escalates. We unpack where organizations really stand on the shift to proactive monitoring, and why many teams are still relying on legacy eDiscovery practices that create inefficiencies and exposure. The conversation also digs into culture. While companies talk about proactive risk detection, those efforts often stall when transparency and accountability become uncomfortable. On the AI front, we tackle a growing question: when does not using AI become a defensibility issue? Ilan offers a practical view on how expectations are evolving and what legal teams should be thinking about now. Finally, we zoom out to strategy. Ilan explains what becomes possible when legal expertise is tightly integrated with data and technology, how that's changing the role of investigations teams, and why, despite all the innovation, the hardest challenges are still human.Ilan Sherr is Vice President of Investigations and Regulatory Response at Lineal, where he helps organizations deal with investigations and respond to complex regulatory scrutiny while advancing proactive, AI-enabled risk strategies. An award-winning legal innovator with over 20 years' experience in competition law, regulatory enforcement, and global compliance, Ilan previously founded and led Aiscension, DLA Piper's AI-driven risk-management business, recognized for transforming how organizations detect cartel and bribery risks. He has been named in The Lawyer's Hot 100 and recognized by Legal Week, the Financial Times, and ALM for his work at the intersection of law and AI.

In this episode of Robots and Red Tape, Nick Schutt welcomes Cat Casey (TechnoCat), Chief Legal AI Futurist for Masters AI and author of the newly released AI and Legal Tech.Cat brings 20 years of experience—from leading tech at Gibson Dunn to building forensic programs and now educating the industry—along with her signature sparkly perspective. The two friends reflect on Legal Week's evolution, debate the future of the billable hour, discuss the disappearing training path for junior lawyers, unpack law-firm cybersecurity risks (including shadow AI), and explore why basic AI literacy is quickly becoming a professional necessity.From Picasso analogies to real-world hallucination cases and the critical importance of keeping humans in the driver's seat, this conversation is packed with timely, actionable insights.Guest: Cat Casey (TechnoCat) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineacasey/Watch the full conversation

Recording at LegalWeek in New York, Zach sits down with Shlomo Klapper (founder of Learned Hand) and Bridget McCormack, former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and now CEO of the American Arbitration Association, to challenge one of the biggest double standards in legal AI: “AI for me, but not for thee.” Lawyers are now widely using AI, but the moment it touches judges or arbitrators, support drops off. That hesitation comes as courts are under real strain, with judges handling thousands of cases a year and only minutes to decide each one, and no realistic way to keep up. Shlomo describes Learned Hand's “AI law clerk,” built to support judicial research, analysis, and drafting, while Bridget brings the perspective of someone who has both made decisions on the bench and now leads a major dispute resolution institution. The conversation moves beyond AI as an assistant and into a harder shift: AI as part of decision-making itself, and whether the system can continue to function without it. Learn More: Bridget - http://www.aaaicdrfoundation.org/director/bridget-m-mccormack Shlomo - https://www.learned-hand.ai/ Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/   Follow Along: Bridget - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridget-mary-mccormack-26700b30 Shlomo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sklapper Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Brian Corbin, the Global Head of Strategic Services at QuisLex   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Brian Corbin Producer: Charles Garnar

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Casepoint"s Chief Revenue Officer Chris Kruse  and Amit Dungarani, the Vice President of Product Marketing.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Chris Kruse & Amit Dungarani Producer: Charles Garnar        

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Esther Birnbaum, the Executive Vice President of Data Intelligence at HaystackID.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guest: Esther Birnbaum Producer: Charles Garnar  

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Shook, Hardy & Bacon's Partners Jamie Brown and Patrick Oot.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Patrick Oot & Jamie Brown Producer: Charles Garnar  

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Zeynep Ersin, the Chief Innovation and Strategic Design Officer at Seyfarth Shaw   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Aron Ahmadia Producer: Charles Garnar

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Simon Bayongos, Senior Director of Information Governance at  Epiq.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Simon Bayongos Producer: Charles Garnar

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Beth Ashley, a Client Success Manager at Lighthouse.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Beth Ashley Producer: Charles Garnar

Summary In this episode of Adventures in Legal Tech, host Jared Correia sits down with Joe Borstein, CEO and Co-founder of LexFusion, to unpack the evolution of legal technology and what's driving its rapid transformation today. They explore how law firms are finally embracing structured tech adoption—largely fueled by generative AI—and why this moment feels fundamentally different from past waves of innovation. Joe shares his journey from litigator to legal tech leader, insights on why legal tech companies are thriving, and how AI is expanding—not shrinking—the legal market. The conversation also dives into emerging trends like managed service organizations (MSOs), private equity in law, and the maturation of the legal tech buying process. Ultimately, Joe argues for a more optimistic future: one where technology enhances legal work, increases access, and creates new opportunities across the industry. Links & Resources redcavelegal.com lexfusion.com Keywords legal tech generative ai law firms innovation legal industry AI adoption legal startups lexfusion legal transformation legal services automation legal workflows legal ai tools corporate counsel legal operations future of law legal business models msos private equity law firms legal innovation trends. Episode Highlights (with timestamps) 00:00–01:03 – Introduction to the podcast and the episode's core problem: legal tech overwhelm for in-house counsel 01:03–02:20 – Framing the challenge: too many tools, not enough clarity or bandwidth 02:20–03:16 – Start with identifying pain points before choosing technology 03:50–05:45 – Joe Borstein's background: from litigator to legal tech entrepreneur 05:45–07:01 – The shift from labor-based services to tech-driven innovation 07:01–09:01 – Founding LexFusion and pivoting to advising legal tech companies 09:01–10:31 – Growth of legal tech valuations and emergence of billion-dollar companies 10:31–12:00 – Generative AI expands the total addressable market for legal services 13:12–14:22 – Law firms are finally adopting structured, mature buying processes 14:22–16:08 – Why legal tech and law firms are now partners instead of competitors 16:08–17:03 – Lower costs per task increase overall legal spending and demand 18:27–19:43 – Why AI adoption is different: it's familiar, accessible, and widely used 21:55–23:41 – What MSOs are and how they could reshape law firm structures 23:41–26:15 – The need for new business models in legal to improve satisfaction and access 28:22–30:20 – Legal Week reflections: more focus needed on innovators and builders

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Odette Claridge, Corporate Counsel for Privacy and Governance at ProSearch.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests:  Odette Claridge Producer: Charles Garnar

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Jaeger Glucina, the Chief of Staff at Luminance Technologies.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guest:  Jaeger Glucina Producer: Charles Garnar  

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Liz Lugones, the Vice President of Value Experience at Mitratech.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Liz Lugones Producer: Charles Garnar  

Live from Legalweek 2026, David Cowen sits down with Evan Wong, co-founder and CEO of Checkbox, to unpack a problem most legal teams still haven't solved: legal has software, but it still doesn't have a true operating system. This episode gets into why intake remains broken, why legal ops is becoming one of the most important roles in the business of law, and why the next wave of AI value will come from embedding legal into the tools the business already uses. Hosted by David Cowen Key Topics Covered Why Evan built Checkbox to become the operating system for legal, not just another point solution The core problem Checkbox solves: legal intake is still messy, manual, and invisible across most organizations Why the first major champions of this category were legal ops leaders who understood legal as a business function How Checkbox evolved from a no-code workflow tool into a system of record and front door for legal Why the future of legal intake is not forms and ticketing systems, but AI embedded into email, Slack, Teams, Salesforce, and everyday workflows Evan's view that the GC is increasingly a wartime role, creating space for legal ops to evolve into a more strategic chief-level business function A hard truth about the market right now: the biggest challenge is not lack of tools, but too much noise, too many AI labels, and not enough clarity on what to implement first

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Tom Baldwin, the Founder and CEO of Entegrata.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guest: Tom Baldwin Producer: Charles Garnar  

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Lexis Nexis' Technology Chairman Jeff Reihl as well as Alexandra Smyth, Executive Vice President  & General Counsel.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Jeff Reihl & Alexandra Smyth Producer: Charles Garnar  

Live from Legalweek 2026, David Cowen sits down with Curt Sigfstead, CFO of Clio, to unpack how one of legal tech's longest-running companies is moving upmarket and redefining what AI should do inside legal operations. The conversation centers on a major shift now underway: from software that assists lawyers to AI-powered teammates that qualify leads, streamline operations, and help law firms and legal departments rethink the way legal work actually gets done. Hosted by David Cowen Key Topics Covered Why Clio's origin story matters now: a company built for the cloud in 2008 is using that long-view advantage to enter the enterprise market at the right moment How Clio grew from serving solo and small firms to supporting a massive global footprint with 400,000 users across 130 countries Why the next legal AI opportunity is not just better research or drafting, but connecting legal work with the operational systems around it Clio's core argument for the future: AI should not just assist lawyers, it should perform tasks and move work forward A real example of AI in action: using AI to intake leads, qualify them, check conflicts, summarize issues, and save attorneys hours before the first call Why Kirk believes today's fragmented categories - research, document management, and AI tools - will eventually collapse into a more unified legal workflow The enterprise pitch: large law firms and corporate legal departments need partners who understand both the practice of law and the operations of legal service delivery

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Brad Blickstein, CEO of the Blickstein Group.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Brad Blickstein Producer: Charles Garnar  

Recorded live from Legalweek, David Cowen sits down with Patrick Forquer, the CRO of Legora, to unpack what happens after the AI experimentation phase ends. The legal industry is shifting from curiosity to proof, where firms and corporate teams are demanding measurable ROI, faster workflows, and real business impact. The big takeaway: the real AI dividend isn't just saving time - it's accelerating work, improving outcomes, and unlocking revenue that used to sit trapped inside slow legal processes. Hosted by David Cowen Key Topics Covered Why legal AI has moved from experimentation to social proof, with firms now demanding measurable ROI instead of demos and hype The three layers of the AI dividend: saving time and cost, increasing the quantity and quality of work, and ultimately generating new revenue How faster contract cycles can unlock enterprise value by accelerating revenue rather than just reducing legal spend Why the smartest buyers cut through market noise and choose AI tools based on workflow fit and adoption readiness The new implementation reality: AI success requires post-sale enablement, legal engineers, and real operational change Why AI adoption is now a cross-functional decision involving leadership, innovation teams, knowledge management, and practitioners The talent shift underway as firms look for professionals who can bridge legal expertise with AI-driven execution

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Alta Claro's CEO and Founder Abdi Shayesteh and their Chief Learning Officer Patricia Libby.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Abdi Shayesteh & Patricia Libby Producer: Charles Garnar  

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Level Legal's CEO, Joey Seeber, and their Vice President of Client Solutions Matt Mahon.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests:  Joey Seeber & Matt Mahon Producer: Charles Garnar

Live from Legalweek 2026, David Cowen sits down with Rian Kennedy, Director of Legal Hold Sales at DISCO, to talk about what has actually changed in legal tech over the last 12 months. The conversation goes beyond AI hype and gets into what matters now: cloud maturity, agentic workflows, insourcing pressure, tighter budgets, and why legal teams are starting to use technology to control spend, consolidate systems, and rethink where legal ops ends and business ops begins. Hosted by David Cowen Key Topics Covered Why the legal market has moved from cautious curiosity to real AI adoption, with law finally pushing to stay competitive instead of lagging behind How the pandemic accelerated cloud adoption and set the stage for today's faster embrace of GenAI and agentic AI Why the most valuable buyers are still the innovators who want to build alongside vendors before tools become table stakes How corporate legal teams are reassessing what to keep in-house, what to send to outside counsel, and where ALSPs fit in the middle Why legal ops leaders who mastered contracts and workflow discipline are now asking the bigger question: what comes next How litigation budgets are becoming a strategic focus, with more interest in visibility, control, consolidation, and reducing outside counsel spend Why legal hold, eDiscovery, and preservation are becoming more important as data sources multiply and automation becomes essential

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Limelight's Foundling Partners, CEO Ken Gary and CSO Erin Harrison.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Ken Gary & Erin Harrison Producer: Charles Garnar  

For the final installment of our LawNext on Location series, Bob heads across the bay, from San Francisco to Oakland, to the headquarters of e-discovery company Everlaw, where he sits down with founder and CEO AJ Shankar for a conversation about technology, AI and being in it for the long game.  AJ grew up in Connecticut, came west in 2002 for a computer science PhD at UC Berkeley, and has lived within a few blocks of the Berkeley campus ever since. He stumbled into the legal industry almost by accident — recruited to serve as a technical expert in litigation involving how the internet worked — and quickly realized that the legal world was home to some of the most technically fascinating and underserved problems he'd ever encountered. He never left. AJ had a prior startup, a computer vision company that was acquired, before launching Everlaw in 2011. The company was cloud-native and ML-infused from the start, built on the conviction, AJ says, that there's no single way to find the needle in a discovery haystack, and that building a genuinely useful litigation platform requires solving for collaboration, ease of use and scalability all at once.  The bulk of the conversation focuses on generative AI, and how Everlaw has approached it differently than much of the market. Rather than bolting on a chatbot, AJ says, Everlaw embedded AI deliberately throughout the platform — document summarization, coding suggestions, deposition analysis, fact extraction — always grounding responses in the actual documents at hand and citing sources so users can verify the work. The December launch of Deep Dive, which lets litigators pose a question and get a synthesized, cited answer drawn from an entire document corpus in about a minute, is the feature AJ calls a "new era" for discovery — one he genuinely believes represents a categorical shift. As Everlaw continues to grow, it also remains independent, with no private equity and no outside majority owners. As for AJ, he says he is in it for the long game, and has never included an exit slide in a fundraising deck.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner).   Chapters   00:00 Introduction and Setting the Scene 03:23 The Journey to Founding Everlaw 08:36 The Evolution of Everlaw's Technology 11:06 Incorporating Generative AI into Legal Processes 14:04 Deep Dive: A New Era in Discovery 19:17 Transformative Experiences in Legal Discovery 22:27 Previewing Innovations at Legal Week 25:03 Understanding AI's Limitations in Legal Contexts 28:11 Navigating Hype in Legal Technology 30:47 The Impact of Foundation Models on Legal Software 34:36 Future Vision for Everlaw and Legal Tech 38:13 Closing Thoughts and Company Philosophy   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Live from Legalweek 2026, David Cowen sits down with Rhys Hodkinson, CRO of Definely, to explore where legal AI gets truly useful for transactional lawyers. This episode is about moving beyond generic speed gains and into something more valuable: systems that understand contracts, surface the right context at the right moment, and help lawyers think more strategically without sacrificing precision or professional judgment. Hosted by David Cowen Key Topics Covered Why Definely was built to solve a problem most legal tech ignored: helping transactional lawyers work inside long, complex contracts where context is everything How Definely surfaces definitions, cross-references, schedules, annexes, and related documents directly inside Microsoft Word Why the real moat in legal AI is not just the model, but the grounding layer that understands how contracts actually work How prior contracts, past definitions, and historical drafting patterns can turn AI from a generic tool into a true drafting ally Why firms are under pressure to move faster with AI while still carrying the same professional liability for the final output Rhys's view that the market still has not figured out what to do with the AI dividend, even as lawyers gain speed, capability, and better output Why the next legal tech battle may be about interface and control: who becomes the layer where lawyers actually work, while specialized tools plug in behind the scenes

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Jason Brown, the President & CEO of the Association of Corporate Counsel   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Jason Brown Producer: Charles Garnar

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down wit Matt Rasmussen, the CEO, of ModeOne   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guest: Matt Rasmussen Producer: Charles Garnar  

Each week, the leading journalists in legal tech choose their top stories of the week to discuss with our other panelists.  This week we're all getting home from Legalweek, where there was no shortage of news being announced. Decompress with us as we sort through some of the conference's biggest news.

And Legalweek talk. ------ It was Legalweek last week, and we discuss the big happenings from the show -- which is pretty much all AI talk -- but while we saw splashy product announcements about the future of working as a lawyer within an AI-enhanced workflow, an assistant U.S. Attorney got bounced from the job for letting AI run too much of the workflow. But the most imaginative large language models wouldn't have predicted opening a federal judicial opinion with the phrase "swinging dicks." That takes a special level of deranged that's pure Judge Lawrence VanDyke. The certified non-qualified occupant of a Ninth Circuit seat kicked off an official taxpayer funded rant about wokeness framed as vulgar trolling to appeal to the White House. His colleagues -- most of them anyway -- issued a plea for decorum, that went basically nowhere.

Live from Legalweek 2026, David Cowen sits down with Alex Smyth, EVP and General Counsel at LexisNexis, to talk about where legal AI is finally getting real. The industry is moving past one-off experiments and into repeatable workflows that cut turnaround times, reduce manual work, and deliver answers lawyers can actually trust. The big question now is no longer whether to use AI. It's how to embed it into legal work in a way that is authoritative, scalable, and measurable. Hosted by David Cowen Key Topics Covered Why the legal market is shifting from AI experimentation to repeatable workflows that automate entire sequences of work How LexisNexis built an NDA workflow that reviews, comments, escalates when needed, drafts the response email, and cuts review time from days to minutes A measurable legal ops outcome: LexisNexis reduced contract turnaround time in tracked segments by 22.7% over the last year Why nearly 300 legal workflows matter more than generic prompting, especially when lawyers need structured, repeatable outcomes The difference between general-purpose AI and purpose-built legal AI grounded in authoritative, curated legal content Why authoritative content still matters: lawyers need current law, validated citations, and trusted outputs, not just plausible answers Alex's view that the market is at an inflection point, where the real return on AI will come from embedding workflows directly into legal process

  Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Megan McMillin, a Legal Innovation Partner at Harvey.     This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Megan McMillin  Producer: Charles Garnar  

In this special Legalweek recap episode Laura and Kevin unpack everything that stood out at Legalweek 2026 in New York. This year's conference felt different from the start. For the first time in decades, Legalweek moved from the Hilton to the Javits Center, giving the event a much larger, more energetic feel and bringing together thousands of lawyers, technologists, and legal operations professionals to talk about where legal tech is heading next.A big theme throughout the week was the shift from AI hype to real-world use. Vendors and practitioners alike are moving past the early experimentation phase and focusing on how artificial intelligence actually fits into litigation workflows, document review, and investigations. Kevin and Laura share what they heard on the conference floor about the changing eDiscovery market, and how the growing complexity of legal matters is increasing the value of experienced teams alongside new technology. The episode features conversations with industry leaders including Joey Seeber of Level Legal and Bryant Gauthier of PLUSnxt, who share their perspectives on where AI is genuinely helping legal teams and where expectations still outpace reality. We also pulled aside Dan Bellopede from Mitratech for a quick chat on his thoughts on the conference. Along the way, we cover the lighter side of the conference: creative booth marketing, the surprisingly weak swag this year, the parties and the conversations that make Legalweek as much about relationships as technology.If you couldn't make it to Legalweek this year, this episode offers a candid look at what people were really talking about, what trends actually matter, and how the legal tech industry may be evolving heading into the next year.

Live from Legalweek 2026, David Cowen sits down with Dennis Garcia, Vice President and General Counsel of Litera, to unpack what legal leaders still get wrong about AI, networking, and business impact. This episode is really about leverage: how trust, responsiveness, relationship-building, and smarter risk-taking turn legal from a support function into a revenue driver. Hosted by David Cowen Key Topics Covered: Why your network is still your net worth, and why LinkedIn remains one of the most underused career assets in law How commenting consistently on LinkedIn can build visibility, credibility, and real-world opportunities over time What Dennis learned moving from Microsoft to Litera, and why earning trust starts with responsiveness and clarity Why legal departments should stop being the department of no and start becoming business enablers How faster contract cycles drive revenue, margin, and growth by shrinking time to deal Why smaller legal teams need to be scrappy, versatile, and fluent in legal ops, AI, and business priorities The real future of legal work: combining human intelligence and AI to build trust, close deals, and move the business forward

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th.  And a conference this size was the perfect place to celebrate Legal Speak's 500th episode. On this special milestone episode, hosts Cedra Mayfield and Patrick Smith were joined by an amazing lineup of guests including from ALM/LBR CEO Nick Brailey, Senior Vice President of Content Gina Passarella, Vice President of Innovation Vanessa Blum, Legal Editor Leigh Jones, Editor in Chief of Litigation and Law.com Alaina Lancaster, Vice President of Professional Education & Practical Insight Publications Lazette Jackson and our special guest Ryan Samii - the Head of Product Innovation at Harvey.      This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Ryan Samii, Nick Brailey, Gina Passarella, Vanessa Blum, Leigh Jones, Alaina Lancaster, Lazette Jackson Producer: Charles Garnar

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Exterro's Chief Marketing Officer John Vincenzo (a returning guest) and Senior Product Marketing Manager Bryant Bell.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: John Vincenzo & Bryant Bell Producer: Charles Garnar  

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Greg Mazares, the CEO, Purpose Legal.   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Greg Mazares Producer: Charles Garnar  

The way litigation has been practiced for decades is cracking - and the lawyers who see it first will win. Recorded live at Legalweek 2026, host David Cowen sits down with Jeffrey Chivers, CEO of Syllo, to unpack why AI isn't just automating legal tasks - it's collapsing the traditional litigation workflow entirely. The path from discovery to trial-ready strategy is getting shorter. The question is: which legal professionals will adapt in time? What you'll learn: Why the litigation AI market has officially matured - and who's winning How Syllo was built by a litigator for litigators, not as a generic platform Why the old step-by-step workflow is dead - and what's replacing it What associates are really feeling right now, and what they need to hear Why 2025–2026 may be the most career-defining window in modern legal history

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Brittany Casey, the Vice President of Customer Success, at DISCO   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guest: Brittany Casey Producer: Charles Garnar  

Just in time for Legal Week, Zach sits down Cosmonauts founder and legal tech insider Timo Karakashev for a wide-ranging conversation about where the legal AI market really stands. Timo shares what he's seeing on the ground: growing demand for “premium” legal AI tools, dissatisfaction with generic enterprise AI solutions, and a market that's still in the very early innings of adoption.   In this episode: Why legal AI tools like Harvey and Legora feel “premium” compared to generic AI The growing dissatisfaction with enterprise AI tools like Copilot Why demand for intelligence in legal work far exceeds human supply How legal AI adoption differs across regions, including Australia The debate over whether AI will disrupt or strengthen the SaaS model Why IP law has historically lagged in tech adoption and why that's changing How legal tech conferences are evolving to focus more on practitioners and operators ⁠Why innovation at the top of the market could eventually improve access to justice Learn More: Timo - https://www.crunchbase.com/person/timo-karakashev Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/   Follow Along: Timo - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timo-from-cosmonauts Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz

Sometimes you outgrow your home … and that can be the case with a legal tech conference.  This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City at its brand new location - the Jacob Javits Convention Center.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered for the four-day conference from March 9th through March 12th. And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with the best and brightest. In this episode, hosts Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield sat down with Aron Ahmadia, Vice President of Applied Science at Relativity   This episode of Legal Speak is brought to you by Harvey.  Harvey … AI tailored for Law.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guest: Aron Ahmadia Producer: Charles Garnar  

Continuing his on-location interview tour of San Francisco, Bob heads an hour north to Santa Rosa to sit down with Nathan Walter, cofounder and CEO of Briefpoint, over a bottle of red wine at Paradise Ridge Winery, a spot literally around the corner from Nathan's house, sitting on the edge of the Mayacamas Mountain Range that divides Sonoma and Napa counties. It is a fitting setting for a founder who grew up in Sonoma wine country, where wine is less a luxury than a way of life, and where his family's most treasured heirloom was a bottle from the year he was born.   Nathan's path to founding Briefpoint is an origin story rooted in genuine frustration with the legal system. A U.C. Santa Barbara philosophy major who drifted into law school for lack of better options, he ultimately landed in civil litigation – and grew increasingly disillusioned with how discovery was weaponized to bleed defendants dry financially, even when they had done nothing wrong. After a particularly infuriating mediation where opposing counsel openly admitted the shakedown strategy, Nathan decided to do something about it. He taught himself to code from YouTube videos, built vaporware prototypes, cold-called attorneys to test demand, and eventually found his technical cofounder through a Discord gaming community he had created to build a social life after moving to Orange County.   What followed was a years-long grind – including an 18-month stretch working days as an entry-level sales rep at another legal tech company and nights building Briefpoint, until a close acquaintance invested $100,000 of her own money so he could focus full time. Briefpoint launched in June 2022, before the ChatGPT wave, focusing narrowly on automating discovery responses – drafting objections, pulling relevant documents and generating formatted Word documents ready to sign. Nathan talks about the company's deliberate "go deep, not wide" strategy: rather than expanding into motions or other legal workflows to chase the AI hype cycle, Briefpoint is doubling down on doing discovery so exceptionally well that firms will pay for it alongside broader AI platforms, the way teams use Slack alongside the full Microsoft suite.   The conversation also covers the threat to legal tech companies posed by foundation models such as Claude and GPT, the psychology behind why attorneys are resistant to automation (Nathan has a theory about "superstitious control" and lucky jerseys), the parallels between winemaking and product development, and the advice he'd give an aspiring founder: burn the ships, go full time and put yourself in a corner with no way out but forward. As for what varietal Briefpoint would be? A Russian River Pinot Noir – not a life-changing Cab, but reliably excellent at exactly what it promises.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). Legalweek, March 9-12, North Javits Center, New York City.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Ahead of the LegalWeek Conference taking place in New York City March 9-12, Legal Speak Producer Charles Garnar discusses the current state of artificial intelligence in the legal market with Danielle Benecke, Global Head of Baker McKenzie's Applied AI practice.   Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Special Guest Reporter: Charles Garnar Guest:  Danielle Benecke Producer: Charles Garnar

Greg Moreman, Partner, Client Solutions for EDRM Trusted Partner Level Legal, sits down with EDRM's Mary Mack and Holley Robinson. In this episode, Greg shares Level Legal's approach to integrating AI into client workflows, emphasizing defensibility, measurable outcomes, and the importance of not just a human in the loop, but an expert human in the loop. He discusses starting with smaller pilots before scaling, explaining why AI is not an "easy button," but a transformative one when implemented thoughtfully. The conversation concludes with plans to connect at Legalweek, where Level Legal will be at booth 345 and EDRM at booth 750.

As Bob continues his LawNext on Location series – all recorded live in the San Francisco area at locations of each guest's choosing – he sits down with Pablo Arredondo at his home in Tiburon, a quaint Marin County town with a history stretching from Mexican land grants to naval outposts to a southern railway terminus. From Pablo's home office, the view looks out over Richardson Bay towards Sausalito and, if you look carefully, the Golden Gate Bridge can be seen in the distance. It is a setting that is entirely fitting for a conversation with someone who helped shape one of the more remarkable journeys in the annals of legal technology. Pablo was cofounder of Casetext, the once-scrappy startup that spent a decade iterating, pivoting and persisting before striking gold with CoCounsel, the first GPT-4-powered AI legal assistant, unveiled on the nationally televised Morning Joe show on March 1, 2023. Just four months later, Thomson Reuters acquired Casetext for $650 million in cash. Now, 2.5 years later, Pablo recently left TR, where he is, as he puts it, building a Lego Death Star with his daughter and finally paying attention to his well-being after 16 years of nonstop pursuit. In this wide-ranging conversation, Pablo reflects on the long road to CoCounsel – from a failed crowdsourcing experiment to CARA's brief analysis tool to the pivotal moment when Casetext signed a $20,000 innovation license with OpenAI and got early access to GPT-4, 10 weeks before ChatGPT's public launch. He describes the surreal experience of those first 48 hours after CoCounsel's debut, when he and cofounder Jake Heller identified 74 distinct legal use cases the tool could handle – any one of which, he says, "would have been a company in the old world." Pablo and Bob also dig into the bigger questions surrounding legal AI, including whether the field is advancing as fast as he expected; what the foundation models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google mean for legal-specific AI companies such as Harvey; and why he believes reasoning models and agentic AI represent the next genuinely profound leap beyond GPT-4. Pablo also candidly reflects on the TR acquisition and his work while at TR, and he offers hints on what may lie ahead for him – at least once that Death Star model is done.  It is a conversation that is part memoir, part technology seminar and part meditation on what it means to have built something that changed a profession – and his life – all recorded with a sweeping, albeit cloudy, view of the majesty of San Francisco Bay.    Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.   Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). Legalweek, March 9-12, North Javits Center, New York City.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

This episode is recorded live, and is best enjoyed on YouTube. Watch the episode here.   While Bob is visiting San Francisco for two weeks, he is sitting down for conversations with legal tech innovators and entrepreneurs "in their natural habitats" – places in the Bay Area they consider special. Today, in the first in this series, Bob sits down for lunch with Alex Su, chief revenue officer at Latitude Legal, over Thai iced tea and tofu dishes at Phnom Penh House, a Cambodian restaurant in Alameda that Alex considers something of a personal institution, frequenting it for both family meals and business meetings.   Alex's career path is anything but linear. He started as an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, clerked for a federal judge in Chicago, then drifted through a plaintiff's firm, a brief solo practice, and ultimately a leap of faith into legal tech sales – joining e-discovery company Logikcull in 2016. From there, he moved to Everlaw, then to Ironclad, where he served as head of community development, building a reputation that spread well beyond any job title.   That reputation was shaped in large part by TikTok, where Alex's comedic, self-effacing videos skewering law firm culture – partners, associates, privilege logs and the absurdities of BigLaw – earned him more than 100,000 followers, got shared inside Ironclad's internal Slack, and ultimately helped land him his next job. It's a story of accidental virality and deliberate reinvention that mirrors the broader shifts he sees in the legal profession.   Now at Latitude Legal, an ALSP providing on-demand legal talent to law firms and corporate legal departments, Alex represents a kind of poetic symmetry: a lawyer known for championing "alternative careers" working at an "alternative legal services provider" — a label he thinks has outlived its usefulness, given how mainstream flexible legal talent has become.   Bob and Alex also dig into the current state of legal AI – what's overhyped, what's underhyped, and why the pandemic was arguably a bigger inflection point for legal tech adoption than generative AI. Plus, Alex and Bob reflect on Bob's three decades of covering legal innovation, the stubborn persistence of the billable hour, and why the justice gap remains stubbornly wide despite all the talk of disruption.   It is a wide-ranging and candid conversation – one you may want to watch on video instead of just listening to the audio.    Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). Legalweek, March 9-12, North Javits Center, New York City.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.   Chapters 00:00 Intro to Today's Lunch: A Special In-Person Series 04:45 Career Transitions: From Law to Legal Tech 23:27 Going Viral: The TikTok Journey 25:10 Balancing Humor and Professional Identity 26:54 Redefining Career Paths for Lawyers 28:39 The Evolution of Legal Careers 30:35 Innovation in Legal Practice 34:07 The Impact of the Pandemic on Legal Technology 34:28 The Future of Legal Technology and AI 38:10 Navigating Uncertainty in Legal Services 40:18 The Ongoing Relevance of Traditional Legal Models 42:11 Personal Reflections and Future Outlook  

Elizabeth Guthrie, Content Manager for EDRM Trusted Partner Nextpoint, sits down with EDRM's Mary Mack and Holley Robinson. In this episode, Elizabeth recounts her journey from Northwestern University to eDiscovery. Elizabeth explained how being new to eDiscovery allowed her to explore and construct understandable instructional material. Later, as her understanding deepened, she enjoyed describing the unsettled areas of practice. Elizabeth also gave us a good look at what is upcoming in 2026, a preview of their fall user conference in Chicago (On Point), and we made a plan to connect at Legalweek. Elizabeth ended on her fun fact and gave listeners the link to order their own copies of the books she edited, eDiscovery for the Rest of Us and AI for the Rest of Us.

In this episode of LawNext, we talk with Ryan Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Filevine, and Sona Sulakian, former CEO and co-founder of Pincites, about Filevine's acquisition of the AI-powered contract redlining company. The deal, which closed in December, marks Filevine's second major AI acquisition of the year. Even more notably for this traditionally litigation-focused company, it represents a significant strategic expansion into the corporate and transactional legal market — a segment where Filevine saw 120% growth in 2025. What makes this acquisition particularly compelling is its origin story: Filevine was actually a customer of Pincites before acquiring the company. After Filevine's legal team became early adopters and enthusiastic users of the product, Anderson and his team recognized that Pincites' Word-native contract intelligence platform filled a critical gap in their offerings. The acquisition brings aboard sister co-founders Sona and Mariam Sulakian and their team, who will continue developing what Filevine now calls "LOIS for Word" — a drafting and redlining tool integrated directly into Microsoft Word. Along with host Bob Ambrogi, they discuss how the Sulakian sisters identified the market gap that led them to build Pincites, why they chose to build directly into Word rather than create a standalone platform, and what attracted them to Filevine among multiple suitors. Anderson shares his vision for building a comprehensive Legal Operating Intelligence System (LOIS) that connects contracts, depositions and all legal work into a single unified platform. They also explore the broader implications of AI for legal practice and access to justice, and how tools like Pincites and Filevine are transforming the way legal work gets done.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.   Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). Legalweek, March 9-12, North Javits Center, New York City.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.