Podcasts about Westlaw

News of the Bogus: 0:43 – AI company argues its use of scraped Westlaw legal data was transformative https://www.courthousenews.com/ai-company-argues-its-use-of-scraped-westlaw-legal-data-was-transformative/ Adam Eisgrau on X https://x.com/AdamEisgrau/status/2065080512578818280 8:53 – FCC v. AT&T https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-406_nmip.pdf 16:47 – NASA chief defends selection of all-male Artemis 3 crew https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/06/10/nasa-chief-defends-selection-of-all-male-artemis-iii-crew/ 21:45 – Biggest Bogon Emitter: Anthropic Anthropic backs down on hidden Claude Fable 5 restrictions https://www.cryptopolitan.com/anthropic-backs-down-hidden-claude-fable-5/ alphaXiv on X https://x.com/askalphaxiv/status/2064504303096828345 clem 🤗 on X https://x.com/ClementDelangue/status/2064673792303955985 28:45 – Idiot Extraordinaire: Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon Defense Department slashes its list of recognized religions https://apnews.com/article/us-military-religious-affiliations-pete-hegseth-christian-002a610344189f4f456291d76b910d52 DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military’s Recognized Religion List https://www.military.com/dod-officially-drops-180-faiths-from-militarys-recognized-religion-list Here is the full list of faiths being unrecognized by the Pentagon https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/pentagon-religion-list-dropped-troth-hegseth-b2991508.html This Week’s Quote: “Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.” —Albert Einstein 🔊Pᴏᴅᴄᴀꜱᴛ: https://podcast.bogosity.tv/💬Dɪꜱᴄᴏʀᴅ: https://discord.bogosity.tv/▶️YᴏᴜTᴜʙᴇ: https://www.youtube.com/shanedk▶️Oᴅʏsᴇᴇ: https://odysee.com/%24/invite/@shanedk:4▶️Rᴜᴍʙʟᴇ https://rumble.com/c/shanedk💰Dᴏɴᴀᴛᴇ ᴏʀ ꜱᴜʙꜱᴄʀɪʙᴇ: https://donate.bogosity.tv

In this episode of The Geek in Review, Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer welcome back Joel Hron, Chief Technology Officer at Thomson Reuters, for a timely conversation about the shifting relationship among foundation models, legal content providers, legal tech platforms, and the lawyers trying to make sense of the mess. Recent moves by Anthropic, including Claude's legal practice area tools and MCP connections into legal platforms, raise a larger question for the market. Is a model provider still sitting behind the scenes, or is it starting to become a legal work environment of its own?Hron explains Thomson Reuters' commitment to what it calls fiduciary-grade AI, a standard built around trust, verification, transparency, and accountability. For TR, legal AI needs more than a fast answer. It needs systems lawyers trust enough to stand behind. Hron points to Westlaw, Practical Law, KeyCite validity signals, citation ledgers, and verification tools as core ingredients in building AI systems suited for high-stakes professional work. In his view, almost right is not good enough when clients, courts, regulators, and professional obligations sit on the other side of the output.The conversation turns to how CoCounsel and Westlaw Deep Research use legal content across far more than traditional research tasks. Hron explains that when AI systems gain access to trusted legal content and verification tools, they begin researching throughout the workflow, even while revising contract language or analyzing provisions. He also describes Litigation Document Analyzer, internally nicknamed the BS Detector, a tool designed to review claims in a document and map them to supporting authority, weak support, or no support at all. For lawyers who spend as much time verifying AI output as generating it, tools like these aim to move verification from a manual scavenger hunt into a structured process.Greg and Marlene also press Hron on Anthropic's legal plugins, MCP, and the idea of headless legal technology. Hron argues that MCP changes access, not advantage. In his view, the application layer is shifting, but the real competitive value sits in trusted content, expert systems, governance, and domain-specific intelligence. CoCounsel's user interface represents one expression of TR's legal agent capabilities, while MCP opens other ways for those capabilities to appear inside broader work environments. Some work will still need a purpose-built legal interface; other work might happen through email, Word, Claude, or another agentic workflow with little visible interface at all.The episode closes with a larger discussion about what happens when AI starts performing more of the work itself. Hron shares TR's internal engineering OKR, where more than 50 percent of pull requests should be written by AI, and explains why 51 percent serves as a useful mental model. Once AI performs a controlling share of the work, the human role shifts from doing the task to governing the system. For legal professionals, the same transition is coming. The key question is no longer only whether AI produces useful work. It is whether lawyers have built the systems, context, safeguards, and verification layers needed to trust the work, defend the work, and remain accountable for the work.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Substack[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

David Meltzer - Co-Founder - Sports 1 Marketing Executive Profile: David MeltzerCurrent Roles: Co-Founder of Sports 1 Marketing | Chairman of the Napoleon Hill Institute (Corporate Division) | Host of The Playbook PodcastKey Achievements: Former CEO of Leigh Steinberg Sports & Entertainment Holdings, LP (the inspiration for Jerry Maguire), Variety's Sports Humanitarian of the Year, 3x International Best-Selling Author.BiographyDavid Meltzer is a globally recognized entrepreneur, top business coach, and technology pioneer who has spent over three decades operating at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and digital media. Early in his career, Meltzer proved himself a visionary in tech, serving as an executive for Westlaw and later as the CEO of Samsung Electronics's first smartphone division, orchestrating the global release of the PC-E Phone.

Summary Jared Correia sits down with Sean McTigue, a partner at Bartko Pavia LLP and one of the more technically fluent attorneys in practice today. Sean unpacks how his firm navigated the leap from legal-specific AI tools to a direct enterprise deployment of Anthropic's models, and why he thinks that distinction matters a lot more than most firms realize. The conversation covers practical ground: how to use Westlaw's Quickcheck as a verification loop, why lawyers overestimate what AI will do for them on the first try, and how to find the early adopters inside a firm and turn their discoveries into firm-wide workflows. Sean also looks ahead at what AI means for the billable hour model and why the legal profession can't afford to stay in the way. About the Guest Sean McTigue is a partner at Bartko Pavia LLP in San Francisco, where he handles complex litigation with a particular focus on integrating AI into the practice of law. He has been following the development of large language models closely since GPT-4's launch and has led the firm's rollout of Anthropic for Enterprise. Sean studied philosophy at the University of Utah and earned his law degree at Berkeley Law. Key Takeaways Hallucination risk in AI outputs is a solved problem, using tools like Westlaw's Quickcheck as a verification flywheel alongside AI drafting, not a reason to avoid AI entirely. Legal-specific tools rarely add value beyond a general foundation model; the wrapper around the model matters less than most vendors claim. Direct enterprise deployment of a foundation model lets firms ride the frontier rather than being stuck on whatever model a SaaS vendor last tested. The billable hour model is under pressure, and firms that build internal AI capital now are better positioned to shift toward fixed-fee and alternative-fee arrangements. Adoption inside a firm starts with finding the heavy users, learning what they figured out, and distributing those workflows to everyone else. Links and Resources Red Cave Law Firm Consulting Bartko Pavia LLP Westlaw CoCounsel Westlaw Quickcheck - available inside your Westlaw subscription Anthropic for Enterprise Keywords AI adoption in law firms, legal AI tools, Westlaw Quickcheck, AI hallucinations legal, foundation models for lawyers, Anthropic for Enterprise, billable hours AI, legal tech vendor evaluation, Sean McTigue, Bartko Pavia, Jared Correia, Adventures in Legal Tech, CoCounsel Westlaw, AI verification legal, small firm AI, legal workflow automation, enterprise AI deployment, AI research tools lawyers, prompt engineering legal, alternative fee arrangements AI Episode Highlights [00:02:01 - 00:04:54] Sean introduces Westlaw Quickcheck as the underused verification tool that turns hallucination risk into a manageable step in the workflow. [00:05:00 - 00:07:57] Sean explains why lawyers who try AI once, find it imperfect, and dismiss it are missing the workflow question entirely. [00:08:13 - 00:09:28] The hammer-and-nail analogy: being handed a tool and told to use it without any guidance on what the full project actually looks like. [00:19:14 - 00:23:27] Sean describes the frustration of vetting legal AI vendors who can't tell you what model they're running, including an e-discovery platform using Haiku 3 on million-document reviews. [00:24:54 - 00:28:05] The case for direct foundation model deployment over legal-specific SaaS wrappers, and what you can do with a generalist model that a niche tool will never offer. [00:36:44 - 00:40:43] The future of legal billing: from the billable hour back toward fixed-fee engagements, and why firms that build AI capital now are better positioned. [00:41:50 - 00:47:23] Sean's starter recommendation: Westlaw citing references downloaded in bulk and fed to an LLM, plus why Google AI Overview is already AI whether lawyers know it or not.

Sign up for Practi, a new platform that helps law firms use subscription billing.Here are the top 5 takeaways from this episode:* We're at a major inflection point in legal practice. Generative AI represents the second great technological shift in the legal profession (Lawyer 3.0), and unlike previous tools like Westlaw, it's fully democratized. Clients have access to the same AI tools as lawyers, fundamentally changing the power dynamic.* AI is shrinking the justice gap, but isn't a full replacement. 93% of low-income and 50% of middle-income Americans don't access lawyers for their legal problems. AI can help people recognize they have a legal issue and point them toward help, but AI hallucinations (1,000+ documented cases in legal filings) mean human lawyer oversight remains essential.* Hourly billing is increasingly incompatible with AI efficiency. If AI can compress 10 hours of work into 10 minutes, lawyers who bill by the hour face an ethical and practical dilemma. Using AI while billing full hourly rates may constitute an unreasonable fee, and the profession's standard of care will eventually require AI use, just as it now requires Westlaw over manual research.* The latent legal market is a massive, largely untapped opportunity. With $400B spent on the current US legal market and 77–93% of legal needs unmet, the potential untapped market is estimated at over $1.3 trillion. AI-forward, alternative-fee firms that serve this underserved population can scale by volume rather than hourly rates.* Lawyers should develop tiered, packaged service offerings. Rather than treating every case as bespoke, Brescia advocates for creating “plain vanilla” service packages for routine matters, letting lawyers triage clients to the right level of service (Model T vs. Maserati), reducing cost while maintaining quality and serving more people.__________________________Want your question to be answered on a future show? Fill out this short survey.Have subscription model question? Check out this free resource to ask all of your questions at notebook.practi.ai.Check out Lawyer 3.0.Sign up for Paxton, my all-in-one AI legal assistant, helping me with legal research, analysis, drafting, and enhancing existing legal work product.Get Connected with SixFifty⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a business and employment legal document automation tool.Sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gavel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, an automation platform for law firms.Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Law Subscribed⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to subscribe to the weekly newsletter to listen from your web browser.Prefer monthly updates? Sign up for the Law Subscribed Monthly Digest on LinkedIn.Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mathew Kerbis'⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ law firm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscription Attorney LLC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Want to use the subscription model for your law firm? Click here to sign up for a new platform that helps law firms use subscription billing. Get full access to Law Subscribed at www.lawsubscribed.com/subscribe

Episode 290- Warning: Use AI & Lose Your Guns  Also Available OnSearchable Podcast Transcript Gun Lawyer — Episode Transcript Page – 1 – of 16 Gun Lawyer — Episode 290 Transcript SUMMARY KEYWORDS AI threat, gun rights, Chat GPT, police intervention, involuntary commitment, extreme risk protection order, privacy concerns, legal implications, AI misuse, mental health, medication monitoring, court hearing, AI development, Second Amendment, New Jersey gun laws. SPEAKERS Teddy Nappen, Evan Nappen, Mike, Speaker 2 Evan Nappen 00:17 I’m Evan Nappen. Teddy Nappen 00:19 And I’m Teddy Nappen. Evan Nappen 00:21 And welcome to Gun Lawyer. We have a very important show for you. This is a critical issue that you probably have never heard about before or even considered as an issue. Yet in this modern age of AI, it has emerged as a threat to gun owners and our Second Amendment rights. Today we have an actual victim of AI and gun rights, and I want this show to be a warning to every gun owner to beware. When you talk to AI, you’re basically talking to the Government. You are talking publicly, and it is a thing that is monitored, that is admitted to being monitored. This is something that can cause immense problems for any gun owner. Today, we have on the show Mike, and Mike is an actual victim of AI. Welcome to the show, Mike. Teddy Nappen 01:36 Hey, Mike. Evan Nappen 01:36 Do you? Hi there. Mike 01:38 It’s great to be here. Thank you. Evan Nappen 01:40 So, Mike, tell me, and tell our listeners, what occurred when you ended up, you were using an AI program, right? What program were you using? Mike 01:55 Yeah, I was doing ChatGPT. Page – 2 – of 16 Evan Nappen 01:59 And what were you doing at the time, speaking with ChatGPT? Mike 02:06 Well, it’s a pretty long story, but to summarize it. My wife and I were having marital issues. So, she left. She said, ‘I’m leaving”, and she left the house. So, I decided I would just vent, because I was very upset. So, I got on ChatGPT, and I started talking to ChatGPT. Evan Nappen 02:30 And ChatGPT is easy to talk to. It’s like a person. You’re essentially venting like you would to a friend, right? Mike 02:39 That’s correct. And so, I was assuming it was private, right? I didn’t think anybody was listening, and so I was telling ChatGPT some very private things, like, you know, I am not.. I don’t have a plan for suicide, but I am very distressed. I don’t want it to get to the point where I’m thinking about suicide and making a plan for suicide. So, I assumed that that was private. But within 15 minutes, 20 minutes or so, there was a severe pounding at the door. I went over to the door, opened the door, and it was the Police. This is Ocean County, New Jersey. And they started asking me questions. They did not have a counselor with them, which they normally would bring to a situation like this. There was no mediator. It was just police, basically. They walked in, and at the time I was in the middle of taking my normal medication. I distribute my medication across different vials, so that I know I’m on track, either taking too much or not taking enough. But the police decided to grab the vial away from me. They sort of took the vial away from me. They started to count the medication, and I said, “Yeah…. Evan Nappen 04:08 And this is prescription medication for you, right? Mike 04:11 That’s correct. I said, “You can’t count that vial. I distribute the medication across multiple vials. You’ll have to go back to the safe and get the other medication. They never bothered to do that. Evan Nappen 04:25 Did they tell you why they were at your door? Mike 04:29 They never did. They never told me. I asked them why they were here, and they said that somebody called 911. I said that I never called 911. Evan Nappen 04:42 Do you know any living person that called 911? Page – 3 – of 16 Page – 4 – of 16 Mike 04:47 No. Nobody called. I was the only one who knew what was going on. Evan Nappen 04:52 Because you were in your home, and it was just you there talking to ChatGPT, right? Mike 04:57 That’s it. Bottom line. So, they were very aggressive. They miscounted the pills. When I went to the hospital, they took me to Kimball Medical Center in Lakewood, New Jersey. There were about five people, six people standing around me, including police and nurses, and they said, “You have to pee in this cup.” I said, I can’t pee with a bunch of people watching me. They said, well, we’ll have to sedate you, and then we’ll have to do a straight cat. So, the sedation didn’t work. They did a straight cat with an untrained nurse. I was screaming my head off, and it caused me to bleed for like two, three hours. I had to keep changing the paper pants. It was a horrible experience. It was really terrible. Mike 05:52 They basically just watched me for three or four hours. Of course, the urine test and the drug work was all negative. Everything came back negative for overdose and use of illegal drugs, use of sleeping pills, whatever. Everything was negative. The only thing that was positive was my normal medication, and it was at normal levels. So, then they decided to commit me involuntarily, which I questioned. I talked to the psychiatrist. I said, why are you committing me involuntarily? Well, just because of some of the things that you said. I said, well, what did I say? And he said, well, I don’t exactly know, but it was reported that you said that you were going to commit suicide, he told me. I said, no. I was talking to ChatGPT, I was venting. Teddy Nappen 06:44 Wow. Mike 06:45 But they committed me involuntarily anyway. So, I went to the involuntary, I went to the behavioral health hospital. They weren’t treating me for anything. They were just letting me float around with everyone else, and there were a lot of people in there that needed a lot of help, serious psychiatric help. I felt bad for these people. There was one woman who was crawling on the floor, saying, ‘I’m not a child molester, just screaming it out. There was another guy who was in there for attempting to kill his brother. So, I was in with a bunch of people, and I didn’t belong there. I finally met up with a district manager that I figured that out, because she saw me writing letters to the management. I took some pieces of paper that I found, and I started handwriting letters saying you’re not treating me. You have to define what my treatment plan is, and what the goals of the treatment plans are. Otherwise, you need to release me by law. Well, that got their attention, because I took the time to hand write two letters. I sent it to the management and to the legal team. So, within a day I was told that I was going to be released. So, the whole thing was a big charade. In the meantime, this police officer goes before a judge and gets a TERPO, and he puts on the TERPO. Page – 5 – of 16 Page – 6 – of 16 Evan Nappen 08:09 A TERPO is a Temporary Extreme Risk Protection Order. Mike 08:13 Correct. Evan Nappen 08:13 And in getting that, they serve this on you when? When were you served the TERPO? When you got home from the hospital? Mike 08:23 Yeah, before I left the behavioral health hospital. I said, did you guys check the blood work and urine analysis? And they never did. So, bottom line is that they put down on the TERPO that I overdosed on prescription pain medicine, and I was abusing my pain medicine because they miscounted the medicine at my house. Evan Nappen 08:48 And that was absolutely not true. Mike 08:50 Absolutely not true, completely false. So, when we got to the FERPO, I defended myself. Evan Nappen 08:57 Okay. So, the FERPO is the Final Extreme Risk Protection Order. There’s a hearing that’s held where the judge has to decide whether the TERPO, which is issued ex parte, where you never had any say, the cops just made whatever statements they made, the judge issues this TERPO with no due process for you. And you’re served with the TERPO and your guns get taken. Then you finally get your day in court, where you’re going to be able to explain yourself. You go there without an attorney, and you have this hearing. What happens at this hearing on whether or not to issue this FERPO. Mike 09:45 Yeah. So, the hearing was on April 8, 2026 in the Superior Court of Ocean County, New Jersey. The prosecutor put the police officer on the stand. I asked him a bunch of questions. Did you do a background check on me? Did you find anything negative? Blah blah blah. The answer was no to everything. So, then I had a chance to cross-examine him, and I said, at the time that you went before the judge to get the TERPO, did you understand at that time, and did you present to the judge that the blood work and the urine analysis all came back negative for overdose? Normal use of my prescription medicine. He said, no. I did not do that. I did not present it. Then I said, can you name a specific person at the behavioral health hospital or the regular hospital that had made a diagnosis of suicide on my part? He said, “No, I can’t name anybody.” So, in other words, they said everything that you wrote on the TERPO, justification for the TERPO, was kind of like hearsay, basically. He said, yeah, I guess so. It’s unbelievable. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t have any legal experience, you know. I’m an engineer, and I do the best I can based on the facts. And here I am doing a cross examination of this guy, and you could see that they never did their homework. Page – 7 – of 16 Teddy Nappen 11:23 I’m more shocked that the guy just answered blatantly. That he would just say, “Yeah, I guess so. It makes sense. Evan Nappen 11:35 So, you were cross-examining the officer at the hearing. You questioned him, and what did you think about his answers? Mike 11:45 I could tell he didn’t do his homework, because the first question, related to the really important stuff, which is, did this guy actually try to commit suicide? So you look at the urine results, and you look at the blood work, and they were all negative. The urine test was negative for any illegal drug and negative for sleeping pills. The only thing it was positive for was the medicine that I normally take, and it was at normal levels. And then he couldn’t name anybody that had diagnosed me as being suicidal. So, basically everything that he presented to the judge for the TERPO amounted to hearsay, pretty much. And you could tell when I was. Evan Nappen 12:33 Ultimately the judge dismissed it. After the hearing, he dismissed the TERPO and did not grant the FERPO. Mike 12:41 Right. The judge dismissed the FERPO, and actually wrote, she wrote in the finding that the defendant does not show any productivity or proclivity to suicidal tendencies. Therefore, there’s nothing to prevent him from owning firearms, in so many words. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s what she said. And then she also said verbally that I could go and retrieve my firearms because the FERPO was denied. You can go and retrieve your firearms from the Lakewood Police. Teddy Nappen 13:19 Wow. Evan Nappen 13:21 Okay. Mike 13:22 So, I filled out the application that they make you fill out. Little did I know it was landing in the lap of this detective that works for the Assistant Prosecutor. I had to provide all kinds of information, including the TERPO, the FERPO. I wrote a lab analysis that I included. I included my white paper, which has the timeline of events, and they just sat on it. It was around April 10 that I submitted all that, and they have just been sitting on it ever since. Page – 8 – of 16 Evan Nappen 13:47 So, even though the FERPO has been dismissed, you still have not gotten your guns back. And that’s what we’re going to be helping you to get your guns back. Even with no FERPO, with a finding of no issue regarding being a threat to yourself or a threat to others, and everything you went through, the stress of the entire situation, the medical procedure, which was extremely painful, Mike 14:31 Horrendous, no less. Horrendous. Evan Nappen 14:33 Horrendous. And then having to be put through this system where there was nothing, and it all was triggered because of you speaking with ChatGPT, right? Mike 14:49 Correct, exactly, exactly. And this is outrageous. Evan Nappen 14:53 It’s outrageous. Mike 14:55 It’s unbelievable. Evan Nappen 14:57 Yeah. Wait, Teddy. Go ahead, go ahead, Mike. Teddy Nappen 14:59 No, I’m sorry, Mike. I’ll leave it to him. Mike 15:01 It’s just unbelievable. You’re sitting there in your office, your home office, and you’re talking to an AI. And then there’s police pounding on the door, walking into your house, grabbing your medication, sending you to the hospital. Then you’re in extreme pain because somebody’s putting a straight catheter through your penis. You’re bleeding for three or four hours. You call for a urologist, and nobody shows up for six hours. I mean, and then when.. and then they had me talk to the psychiatrist. That was like out of, that was like out of The Wizard of Oz. They bring a TV monitor over, and they have me talk to this psychiatrist over this TV monitor. It was so bizarre. He’s just sitting there with his head in his chin, like some arrogant fool determining my future, and he throws me in this place where I didn’t belong. I mean, that’s why I have PTSD. Evan Nappen 15:58 Right. This is, this is what New Jersey? This is what you’re subject to. Gun owners take notice how this got triggered, and what Mike went through. And is still going through. He still hasn’t gotten his guns returned yet. Yeah, this is what happens when you live in the DPRNJ. Take note! Page – 9 – of 16 Teddy Nappen 16:20 Mike, I’m actually kind of curious. Prior to the incident, have you used any other AI’s? What did you use prior? Just do understand the relationship with you and the AI. Like, what you were using it for prior? Mike 16:37 Well, I’m an engineer. I’ve worked for many years for Bell Labs, and then Miter, and other companies. So, I write papers. I’m giving a presentation in July on 6G. So, I use AI’s to help me write papers and do other things that are technical in nature, and I’m trying to build a business. I actually’ve written. Me and a few people that I’ve worked with over the years have developed our own AI system that’s based on a human learning model, and we have a beta version of it. It basically learns like a human being learns, and it can learn any technical specialty and become an expert, a super intellect in that specialty. So, that’s what I’ve been using it for. But that day was a pretty bad day, because, you know, we’ve been married for 44 years. My wife said, “I’m leaving you, because we got into an argument over our grandchildren, without going into the details. It was, that was basically the bottom line, and she decided I’ve had enough. I’m leaving. That’s when I started to vent to ChatGPT, because he’s kind of my friend. Evan Nappen 17:49 And you know that it was not your wife who called, right? Mike 17:54 No, my wife did not call. Evan Nappen 17:55 Right. And that was it. It was you talking to ChatGPT, and here you are. Even working in the area of AI, and you didn’t realize that it’s a conduit out when you speak. Just so you know, I’ve checked. I just Googled about ChatGPT. Do they report? Do they contact police? And they admit it. They say yes, they do. If someone’s talking about, they claim, harming others, which of course you never talked in any way about that. Then it says with suicide, they claim, and this is just what comes up when you search it on a Google search, they claim, oh no, we recommend counseling. We don’t contact the police. Yeah, right. Well, apparently that’s not the case. Mike 18:44 That’s not the case. And listen, you know, being in this business, you can write a back end to any system. So, if they wanted to put it back end into the police. Evan Nappen 18:56 Yeah, well, they admit they do for these issues. I mean, I’m just reading what I see on Google when I asked this about ChatGPT, you know. Evan Nappen 19:10 They do this. They talk about their so-called policies, right on there. So, people need to be aware of it, and Mike, that’s why, isn’t that why you wanted to go public with this? You really wanted to tell people, so they would be aware of it, right? Page – 10 – of 16 Mike 19:29 Yeah, and again, I’m not, I’m not ashamed of going public, you know. Whenever it’s appropriate, people can find out all about me, my last name or whatever, because this is just outrageous, I don’t want anyone else to go through this. Teddy Nappen 19:42 Mike, I’m really curious about regarding your just for your understanding of, with seems like you have a decent amount of knowledge on AI. I know, mine is very limited. But I understand that there’s like closed AI, like for instance, just to give an example. Westlaw is now adding AI to help people do legal research, or even, like, other forms of platforms. Even Adobe now has AI to help you. Evan Nappen 20:10 They say, like, with Claude, it’s supposed to be contained, or can be? I don’t know. Mike 20:18 Any system can have a back end. Evan Nappen 20:20 Right. Mike 20:20 It’s not, it’s not a difficult thing to do, and you just get, you know, even a junior programmer to provide the backend capability. You can call it closed, open, whatever. You can call it anything you want. If somebody wants to put in a back end to a system, it’s not hard to do. It’s relatively simple to do. Most of it’s done through what’s called an Application Program Interface, or an API. You may have heard that term before. So, ChatGPT obviously has an API calls to certain platforms that the police have access to. So, that’s the only thing that could have happened. That has to be the case. Evan Nappen 21:03 Right. It’s really something, and it’s really great that you wanted to share this and let folks know. It is something we’re just not aware of. And with AI being this whole new kind of age we’re entering into, its impact to our rights is well, you’re a shining example of what we have to worry about. It goes further, too, because now there’s great concern about AI, for example, being able to access the illegal gun registry of the billion records that ATF has warehoused, where they claimed, oh, well, you know, it’s something. With AI, that now takes on an even greater dimension for AI use on registration record. Essentially being able to create a dossier of every person and their purchases. And then that can combine with individuals who may be talking, and then knowing what gun, and I mean, the ramifications just go on and on and on. From the global picture right down to someone like yourself, an individual who unsuspectingly is speaking with AI. Mike 22:31 Well, the thing that I want to make sure people are aware of is that you may think you’re alone in your freedom, you may think you have freedom of thought, but in actual reality, when you get online, there’s no such thing. That’s why I wrote that white paper that I attached and I sent to you guys, called Page – 11 – of 16 “Freedom of Thought”. I have since contacted somebody that I know at the NRA, and they’re interested in publishing it. I have to clean it up a little bit, but I really believe in this. I really believe that there’s things beyond the guns. The Second Amendment, of course, is very important. Mike 22:33 But it’s also the stuff beyond it. Evan Nappen 22:33 That’s a great point, too, because it does go beyond. It affects across the boards our rights about privacy. Mike 22:33 Exactly. Evan Nappen 22:33 Oh, without a doubt, and yeah, it’s very significant, and this highlights it. Teddy Nappen 22:48 I will say, from your experience, not only just your background and what you’ve gone through on that, I still see the value in AI as a tool. And it seems like in your field you still see it as that, as a tool to be used, and yes, there are the dangers as clearly seen. Do you still hold that opinion? Do you have any changes from that? Or where are you at now? Mike 23:54 No. I mean, AI is wonderful. I mean, I’ve been doing AI research for a long time, and people think AI is new. It’s not. There’s just new manifestations now, because the hardware is much faster. So, the stuff that we weren’t able to run in the past we can do now, because we have a lot more horsepower. Architectures of the chipsets are better. So, that’s going to even get better. We’re talking about now hybrid chip sets that are part biology and part silicon. And over time, that’s going to, you know, develop further into actual, you know, bio capable chipsets. So, what I’m trying to do is create a super intelligent version in my, I call it Adapt One. It’s based on a human learning model, and this thing will learn in any field you put it in that environment. Let’s say you put it in the law office, you give it a video camera or a microphone, text input, whatever, it’s going to learn whatever gets discussed in that office. And eventually over time, if it has access to electronic media, like books, and so on, like case law, it’ll learn all that. So, it’ll become an expert, become a legal expert, right? Just like I’m trying to use it initially as an expert in the networking arena, because I’m a 6G wireless person using AI. So, what I’m trying to do is use Adapt One in a networking environment where you distribute the Adapt Ones. They learn about what’s going on in their particular segments of the network. Then they discover each other, and they exchange information and learn from each other. So, we’re talking about going forward as AI evolves, you’re talking about super intelligent entities that will achieve superior intellect, the human being. So I’m very gung ho with AI. Page – 12 – of 16 Teddy Nappen 25:57 Yeah, one thing I do find valuable, and people should remember this. When looking at AI, I see it as valuable to make a lot of the institutions, the ones that have been, you see it, the political bias, and have been corrupted, like the education system, what’s going on with media. When it comes to, like, Hollywood, and they’re all terrified of AI, those have been the propagandist arms for the longest time. I see AI making them irrelevant, too. And your program, could you, for someone who wanted to homeschool, have an AI trained to be a teacher in the house to help educate your children. Mike 26:39 Yes! Teddy Nappen 26:39 That’s what I’m looking at, because I do not want to send my child to a propaganda public school and be trained up to be a radical communist. Mike 26:49 Yeah, exactly. I don’t blame you. I mean, so Adapt One will do that, right? Evan Nappen 26:55 Very cool. Teddy Nappen 26:56 And I do see the value, a lot of the creativity, where. I don’t know if you caught Spencer Pratt out of LA. Mike 26:58 Yes. Teddy Nappen 26:58 He’s running for mayor. Did you see his AI ad where he dressed himself up as Batman? He’s bating Karen Bass, and they’re all throwing tomatoes. Hey like, this whole like, what is it? This Marie Antoinette level of just, let them eat cake. Mike 27:23 She is the most incompetent person on earth. I cannot believe she’s the mayor. Why did the people elect her? She’s horrible. Teddy Nappen 27:31 She checked off enough boxes, that’s how it always goes. Mike 27:34 Oh my god, she is so incompetent. All those fires, and I guess they’ve only issued like a handful of permits to rebuild. It’s insane. What’s going on there? Page – 13 – of 16 Teddy Nappen 27:43 Oh, yeah, and it seems like they might even.. in it’s still a toss up, and they may vote in the worst, the socialists who working.. Mike 27:51 I know, Teddy Nappen 27:52 And they’re just like, well, we.. well, you know what? Let’s just further the problem, that’s it. And the other thing I remember, that just a little bit of the abuse by AI. I always laugh at this one. MSNBC was caught photoshopping Alex Pretti, the guy who was attacking ICE, and then was taken down. They used AI to make him look more handsome. Mike 28:21 Oh yeah. I saw that. Teddy Nappen 28:23 They edited his photo so he would look like a more handsome victim, and it’s like, what the heck is wrong with you? Mike 28:31 It’s unbelievable, the propaganda that people want to create, you know. Evan Nappen 28:35 That’s true. Mike 28:36 But there’s too many suckers that fall for it, that’s the problem. I mean, you know, yeah, I’m gonna vote for Karen Bass. She’s wonderful. Or I’m gone vote for Mandami, because he’s promising from Defense Deliver. Yeah. Teddy Nappen 28:47 No, I love the latest thing they’re pushing for, where they’re talking about how Mandami solved the budget crisis. Oh, you mean he took out a massive loan from New York because Governor Hochul handed him the money? Yeah, like, and it still doesn’t solve the budget issue. Although he’s hiking rates and fees up and down, so don’t drive through New York, or you’re gonna get a ticket for something. Mike 29:11 Yeah, I heard he’s gonna try to rob the pensions or something like that. I mean. Teddy Nappen 29:14 Oh yeah, he did. For five years, they’ve done a moratorium on the pensions. I believe that was the number, but I was like, oh, good, that’ll work out. Page – 14 – of 16 Mike 29:24 Oh yeah, that’s gonna be wonderful. Evan Nappen 29:27 Hey, well, let me mention about our friends at WeShoot, because they’re running something very interesting. They’re having a rescue for pewppys, that’s right, pewppys. You might think that a pupae is similar to a puppy because the way their ad is rolling and the way they are promoting this. They have adopt a gun. So, they have a 20% off at WeShoot, which is a range in Lakewood. It’s where both Teddy and I shoot and get our training, and we love it at WeShoot. This is a real fun thing that they’re running. Adopt a gun, and the reason is real simple. They have a lot of guns that need to be adopted, and they need rescue. Evan Nappen 30:23 Their pewppys come in all shapes, all sizes, all calibers. Some are teeny little .22 Chihuahuas with big personality. Some are loyal nine millimeters, everyday companions ready to protect the home. Each one has its own bark bite personality and purpose. So, adopt a pewppy. The rescue shelf at WeShoot is 20% off. They don’t bark unless they get triggered. They don’t shed, other than brass, of course, and they don’t chew your furniture. Although you can perforate a few things with them, so be responsible. They’re looking for responsible, law-abiding owners. Check out WeShoot, and they’re adopt a pewppy, a 20% off program. And don’t forget, they have tremendous training and a great range facility. They are offering this great sale, and WeShoot is a lot of fun. We love it there. Check out WeShoot at weshootusa.com, weshootusa.com. Evan Nappen 31:37 Let me also shamelessly plug my book, New Jersey Gun Law, which is the bible of Jersey gun law. It’s over 500 pages, 120 topics, all question and answer to help you guide your way through this matrix of insanity called New Jersey gun law. And now we have an entire new warning. I’m going to have to incorporate this into a book update, I’m sure. And it is this week’s GOFU. As you know, every show we have a GOFU and that’s the Gun Owner Fuck Up. Where gun owners have made mistakes, errors, problems that end up costing them. Well, as you heard firsthand today, this was a GOFU. It’s something where we’re fortunate enough to have the person who experienced it wanting to go public and warn about this GOFU. With a warning that really has not been put out before. When you’re talking to AI, you just better believe you’re talking to the world. And it is something, particularly in New Jersey, particularly in a state that does not respect our Second Amendment rights and has mechanisms in place to abuse our rights, like the Extreme Risk Protection Orders. You can see how this all comes together into a perfect storm that Mike already has suffered through, and he doesn’t want to see anybody else suffer. Teddy Nappen 33:23 The other thing I was wondering about, because I know some firms are doing like a closed AI, basically, that would, I will, that would take almost like you’d have to have, like, I guess, even like a server, where it’s complete blank slate, and you give it the law of what, and just can do research on that. I don’t know if that, what would be. Page – 15 – of 16 Evan Nappen 33:45 Ethically lawyers can’t use ChatGPT or any open AI. It can’t even. Teddy Nappen 33:50 Correct. Evan Nappen 33:50 Because it goes into the public. We can’t do it. Mike 33:54 Yeah. Teddy Nappen 33:54 But there’s been talk of firms doing that instead, where they have like a closed, their own thing. Mike 34:00 Well, that’s what.. well, that’s what didn’t come across when I said it, but Adapt One, which is based on a human learning model. It will be whatever you want it to be. So, if you want it to be an expert in one particular area and sort of a closed information context, you could use it for that. If you want it to be more open, you can use it for that. Basically, you can put it anywhere. It’ll learn like a human baby learns, but it’ll do it much faster until it gets to the point where it’s super intelligent. So, if you wanted to, if you wanted a tax expert in your office, that would be the way to go, right? I should have a working product soon. It’s in a beta release now, but I should have a production version of it in about eight months. Evan Nappen 34:49 Wow, that’s cool. Teddy Nappen 34:51 Wow. Evan Nappen 34:51 That is really good. Mike 34:53 Yeah. Evan Nappen 34:54 Well, Mike, thanks again for going public and letting folks know. This is going to be really important, and I’m sure it’s going to catch fire to everyone in our community. You know, like I said this hasn’t been revealed before. It hasn’t been discussed in this context. I go through every news feed, every pro-gun site and feed. I am constantly reading and reviewing, and nobody has talked about this issue. Page – 16 – of 16 Teddy Nappen 35:30 The only thing that’s come up that’s even close to it would be the shooter that was shooting up the highway. He was using ChatGPT to plan out his attack. Evan Nappen 35:41 Right! The planning. And the other one is the global, where right now there’s a bill in Congress, they want to stop over that illegal registry because of fears of AI, particularly. Yeah, Ammoland just had an article on that. (https://www.ammoland.com/2026/05/ai-could-turn-atfs-4473-stockpile-into-the-gun-registry-congress-banned/) They talked about that because, what it is, they can read even the handwriting on the 4473s that they have. So, it’s all accessible. And then with AI, it’s very easy to do. They could put the dossier together to have the registration, the confiscation schemes, the monitoring, on, on. You know, it’s very, very dangerous when you combine it with the data that they have. Mike 36:23 Yeah, I mean, AI can be very dangerous, right? Put it in the hands of the wrong people, they’ll use it in a very bad way. Teddy Nappen 36:29 Well, my biggest nervousness is the one where all the nuclear reactors they are building to help power it. They’re like, oh, we’re just gonna put AI in charge of that. I’m like, Mike 36:38 Oh yeah, Evan Nappen 36:41 Haven’t they watched Terminator? I mean, come on. Mike 36:45 Yeah, but listen, I mean, here’s the problem. A lot of the AI systems are a lot of software, okay? It’s not just hardware. What that means is that there’s no.. in this world we haven’t figured out a way to do error-free software. I am an expert on software reliability, and I can just tell you that if you’re putting this thing in very high-risk applications like management of nuclear weapons, you’re making a big mistake. Because at some point there is going to be a severity one MR. or war bug. And it’s going to cause a problem. People are putting too much confidence in AI. We have to realize that a large part of it is software, and software is not bulletproof. Evan Nappen 37:37 This is Evan Nappen and Teddy Nappen reminding you that gun laws don’t protect honest citizens from criminals. They protect criminals from honest citizens. Speaker 2 37:49 Gun Lawyer is a CounterThink Media production. The music used in this broadcast was managed by Cosmo Music, New York, New York. Reach us by emailing Evan@gun.lawyer. The information and opinions in this broadcast do not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney in your state. Downloadable PDF TranscriptGun Lawyer S5 E290_Transcript About The HostEvan Nappen, Esq.Known as “America's Gun Lawyer,” Evan Nappen is above all a tireless defender of justice. Author of eight bestselling books and countless articles on firearms, knives, and weapons history and the law, a certified Firearms Instructor, and avid weapons collector and historian with a vast collection that spans almost five decades — it's no wonder he's become the trusted, go-to expert for local, industry and national media outlets. Regularly called on by radio, television and online news media for his commentary and expertise on breaking news Evan has appeared countless shows including Fox News – Judge Jeanine, CNN – Lou Dobbs, Court TV, Real Talk on WOR, It's Your Call with Lyn Doyle, Tom Gresham's Gun Talk, and Cam & Company/NRA News. As a creative arts consultant, he also lends his weapons law and historical expertise to an elite, discerning cadre of movie and television producers and directors, and novelists. He also provides expert testimony and consultations for defense attorneys across America. Email Evan Your Comments and Questions  talkback@gun.lawyer Join Evan's InnerCircleHere's your chance to join an elite group of the Savviest gun and knife owners in America.  Membership is totally FREE and Strictly CONFIDENTIAL.  Just enter your email to start receiving insider news, tips, and other valuable membership benefits.   Email (required) *First Name *Select list(s) to subscribe toInnerCircle Membership Yes, I would like to receive emails from Gun Lawyer Podcast. (You can unsubscribe anytime)Constant Contact Use. Please leave this field blank.var ajaxurl = "https://gun.lawyer/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php";

This week on The Geek in Review, we talk with Lennie Nuara, co-founder of Flatiron Law Group, about what it means to build a talent-first, AI-powered legal practice. Nuara brings a rare mix of lawyer, technologist, operator, and systems thinker to the conversation, drawing from decades of experience using technology to improve legal work, from early portable computers and databases to today's generative AI tools.Nuara explains why he resists the phrase “AI-first” in legal practice. For him, legal work begins with talent, judgment, and expertise. AI enters as a force multiplier, not the driver. At Flatiron, the firm's model was already built around flat fees, lean staffing, process discipline, and structured data before generative AI entered the picture. AI now adds more horsepower to a system already designed to reduce waste, repeat touches, and unclear workflows.Much of the discussion focuses on M&A due diligence, where Flatiron rethinks the deal life cycle from intake through closing. Instead of throwing documents into a massive repository and hoping AI sorts it out, Nuara describes breaking work into smaller pieces: diligence questions, responses, documents, clauses, topics, closing checklists, and reports. That structure lets lawyers use AI for deduplication, extraction, clause comparison, first-pass drafting, and issue spotting while keeping human judgment between higher-risk steps.Nuara also warns against getting seduced by polished AI output. He describes generative AI as persuasive, fluent, and sometimes dangerously average. The bigger risk, in his view, is less hallucination and more “model monoculture,” where legal drafting drifts toward sameness because models train from overlapping bodies of public material. In complex private transactions, average language is often the wrong answer. Lawyers still need to understand leverage, client priorities, risk allocation, and where to push beyond market terms.The episode closes with a look at pricing, training, and the future structure of law firms. Nuara argues that AI will pressure the billable hour, change junior lawyer training, and force firms to rethink the traditional pyramid. He also raises a practical concern from the early Westlaw and Lexis days: the cost of the tool matters. Flatiron tracks AI usage down to the clause level, treating tokens as part of matter economics. For legal professionals watching AI reshape transactions, this conversation offers a grounded reminder: better tools matter, but better process and better judgment still decide the outcome.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Substack[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.] ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript:

In this episode, beloved City Bar figure Richard Tuske reflects on his remarkable 50-year journey with the City Bar Law Library, from starting as a page in 1972 to serving today as Senior Director of Library Operations on the eve of retirement. Along the way, he shares vivid stories with Legal History Committee Chair Abigail Nitka on the library's transformation into one of the most prominent legal libraries in the world—from towering stacks to the dawn of digital research and early Westlaw and Lexis—along with behind-the-scenes anecdotes on the history of City Bar membership, unusual research requests, the auction of a remarkable rare-books collection, a failed merger attempt, and the library's technological evolution. 00:00 Podcast Welcome  01:03 Early Page Years  07:30 From Stacks To Screens  14:53 Computer Revolution Begins  19:05 Unusual Research Request  25:24 Famous City Bar Members Spotlight  30:18 Salt Mines Preservation  33:36 What Remains Today  36:59 Computers Transform Research  41:08 Library Merger Attempt  43:52 Rare Books Collection & Auction  51:30 Future Library After Retirement  58:29 Legacy and Farewell 

Legal writing authority Ross Guberman has been busy absorbing AI tools into his popular BriefCatch and now-related suite of writing tools. Ross returns to discuss how BriefCatch cousin app RealityCheck uses a traditional authority base plus AI power to ruthlessly search and destroy hallucinations in your briefs.Who else is using RealityCheck? Courts. So let RealityCheck find hallucinations for you before it does for the court.Ross also talks about the exciting and perilous AI age. Will AI make lawyering less human? Only if, says Ross, you equate “human” with rescheduling meetings over email.To the contrary, AI used right makes lawyering more human. Not less.Key points:RealityCheck goes beyond hallucinations by catching misquoted language, misstated holdings, and subtle mischaracterizations of case law, as shown by testing on 1990s-era briefs.Courts are already using AI-powered tools for records, dockets, and analytics and are likely to adopt RealityCheck more openly within months, with many courts having contacted BriefCatch after Above The Law's coverage.RealityCheck uses deterministic checks against court databases plus AI analysis of quotes and propositions, avoiding reliance on LLM-ingested content and consumer sources like Westlaw, Lexis, or FindLaw.BriefChat, trained only on Guberman's curated materials and the WordRake acquisition (with 12 editing patents), powers BriefChat's writing guidance and automated editing, with new context-aware tools in development to adapt to jurisdiction, style, judge, and court rules.Changing judicial reading habits (screens, short attention spans, footnote issues) and concerns over AI bias in binding adjudication mean specialized tools should aim to make lawyers more like themselves, not “Sherlocked,” while supporting uses like mediation and pre-filing verification.Seen AI hallucinations or bad cites in your cases? Tell us what happened, or how you're guarding against it.

This Day in Legal History: Seventeenth Amendment RatifiedOn April 8, 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became part of the Constitution after receiving the necessary number of state ratifications. This amendment fundamentally changed the method of selecting U.S. senators, shifting the power from state legislatures directly to voters. Prior to its adoption, senators were chosen by state lawmakers, a process that had increasingly drawn criticism for corruption and political deadlock. Reformers argued that legislative selection allowed special interests to exert undue influence over Senate seats. The amendment emerged during the Progressive Era, a period marked by widespread efforts to make government more democratic and transparent. By mandating direct elections, it aimed to increase accountability and restore public trust in the federal government. The change also reduced the frequency of vacancies caused by legislative gridlock in the states. Supporters viewed the amendment as a necessary correction to a system that had strayed from democratic principles. Critics, however, warned that it weakened the role of states within the federal structure. The ratification process itself reflected strong public pressure for reform across many states. Over time, the amendment reshaped the political dynamics of the Senate, making senators more responsive to public opinion. It also aligned the Senate more closely with the House of Representatives in terms of democratic legitimacy. Today, the Seventeenth Amendment remains a cornerstone of how Americans participate in federal elections, illustrating the enduring impact of Progressive Era reforms.Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that Donald Trump has both the right and responsibility to influence federal investigations, including those involving people Trump views as adversaries. Speaking publicly for the first time since taking the role, Blanche rejected claims that the Justice Department was improperly targeting Trump's opponents. He argued that a president is expected to guide national priorities, even when that includes investigations tied to personal or political conflicts.The Justice Department has recently pursued multiple investigations involving individuals connected to past inquiries into Trump, as well as political opponents and donors. Some of these efforts have faced resistance in court, with judges and grand juries limiting or dismissing certain cases. Blanche pointed to past prosecutions against Trump as justification, saying the president is seeking accountability for what he views as misuse of the legal system.Blanche's appointment followed Trump's firing of former Attorney General Pam Bondi, reportedly due to frustration over the pace and results of investigations. Blanche did not say whether he wants to remain in the role permanently, emphasizing that the decision rests with Trump. He also indicated he would step aside if asked, expressing loyalty to the president.Acting DOJ chief Blanche says Trump has ‘right' to influence investigations | ReutersYale Law School lost its long-held No. 1 position in the latest U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, marking the first time in 36 years it has not topped the list. Stanford Law School now holds the sole No. 1 spot, while Yale is tied for second with University of Chicago Law School. A slight drop in Yale's employment rate for graduates appears to have contributed to the shift, though other metrics like bar passage and LSAT scores remained stable.The rankings also saw broader changes among the traditionally top 14 law schools, known as the “T-14.” University of California, Berkeley School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center both fell out of that group, while Cornell Law School and Vanderbilt University Law School moved up in the rankings. Other schools, including University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and University of Virginia School of Law, saw smaller gains, while Harvard Law School remained steady.These fluctuations reflect changes in the ranking methodology introduced in recent years after several top schools, including Yale and Berkeley, criticized the system. The updated approach relies more heavily on data reported to the American Bar Association, making small differences in employment and bar passage rates more influential.Yale loses longtime No. 1 spot on latest US law school ranking | ReutersAI startups are increasingly targeting law students as part of a broader effort to capture the legal services market. Companies like Harvey AI and Legora are offering free access and training at top law schools, hoping students will continue using their tools once they enter law firms and corporate legal roles. This strategy comes as the legal AI sector expands rapidly, fueled by advances in generative AI since the rise of ChatGPT.These startups compete with established providers like LexisNexis and Westlaw, which have long dominated legal research and are now integrating AI into their platforms. While legacy companies rely on proprietary legal databases, newer entrants build tools on large language models and focus on tasks like drafting, research, and litigation preparation. Some partnerships have even emerged between startups and traditional providers to combine strengths.Law students are already using these tools for exam preparation, memo writing, and simulating legal arguments. Schools and companies also view this exposure as a way to teach both the benefits and risks of AI, including issues like inaccurate or “hallucinated” outputs. The broader goal is to create familiarity early, making future lawyers more likely to adopt these tools in practice.Other legal tech companies, including Clio and Spellbook, are pursuing similar partnerships, expanding access across hundreds of law schools. As competition grows, early access and training are becoming key battlegrounds for shaping the next generation of legal professionals.AI startups court law students in fight for lawyer market | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

In this episode, Wes breaks down how PLG is evolving and why the fastest-growing AI companies are still using it, just with a completely different playbook. The old model was about reducing friction. The new model is about doing the work for the user. It starts with Shutterstock, a company that had PLG nailed for years. But once AI image generators arrived, everything changed. Users no longer wanted to browse and compare endless options. They wanted to type what they needed and get the result instantly. That same shift is now reshaping software everywhere. You'll also hear examples like Google Slides vs. Gamma, Stack Overflow vs. Cursor, and Westlaw vs. Harvey, where AI-native products are not just easier to use. They are taking on more of the actual work. The episode also breaks down the three versions of PLG. PLG 1.0 is built for builders. PLG 2.0 is powered by AI and built for editors. PLG 3.0 goes even further, with agents completing work on the user's behalf. As products move through these stages, time to value drops and market potential grows. If you are building a product-led company, this episode will challenge how you think about growth, user expectations, and what it takes to win in an AI-first market. Key Highlights: 0:00 - Why PLG is evolving 0:19 - The Shutterstock example 1:24 - From reducing friction to doing the work 1:32 - Google Slides vs. Gamma 2:23 - Stack Overflow vs. Cursor 2:39 - Westlaw vs. Harvey 3:23 - The three versions of PLG 4:32 - What defines PLG 2.0 5:24 - How AI expands TAM 7:53 - What PLG 3.0 looks like 11:03 - Which version are you building for? Resources: Shutterstock: https://www.shutterstock.com Gamma: https://gamma.app Cursor: https://www.cursor.com Harvey: https://www.harvey.ai Westlaw: https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/westlaw

Two explosive First Amendment cases from the Ninth Circuit show how culture-war flashpoints are reshaping speech doctrine and judicial decorum. In B.B. v. Capistrano Unified, the court held that elementary students have enforceable free speech rights under Tinker, vacating summary judgment after a first grader was disciplined for giving a classmate a pro-BLM drawing. Meanwhile, in Olympus Spa v. Armstrong, a divided panel upheld Washington's requirement that a women-only Korean spa admit pre-operative transgender women, prompting Judge VanDyke to open his dissent with "This is a case about swinging dicks," drawing a rebuke from 28 judges and igniting a firestorm over judicial rhetoric, religious liberty, and whether civility in opinions masks ideological outcomes.Key points:Olympus Spa + judicial rhetoric: VanDyke's vulgar disentail drew a “barroom talk” rebuke; defenders say it was an alarm about what “civil” language hides. • Rule-of-law theme: Majority applied rational basis; dissents argued Tandon strict scrutiny and denominational discrimination under Catholic Charities.B.B. v. Capistrano: Ninth Circuit confirms elementary students have Tinker rights, with age as a factor, not a cutoff.Why it goes back: Disputed facts over intent, impact, and discipline (including recess) made summary judgment improper.AI hallucination fallout: Campos/Munoz sanctions an attorney for fake citations; Westlaw's blue-link formatting can still mislead.Tune in to hear why these cases expose judicial composition, not doctrine, as the real variable, and why the fight over whether a judge can write "swinging dicks" may matter more than the legal tests themselves.

Sign up for Practi, a new platform that helps law firms use subscription billing.Here are the top 5 takeaways from this episode:* Solves the “Shadow Usage” Problem and Protects Privilege: Relay is designed to prevent clients from using consumer-grade AI tools like ChatGPT for legal matters. It offers a secure, curated environment that wraps client-attorney conversations in attorney-client privilege, directly addressing the risk of non-privileged AI usage being used in discovery or trial.* Curated and Up-to-Date Legal Data: The tool provides an “enhanced search” that gives the AI access to three buckets of data: firm/client-curated documents, up-to-date case law and statutes from all 50 states (acting as an embedded legal research tool like Lexis or Westlaw), and general public web data. This curation is considered the “superpower” for producing net better, more reliable answers.* Human-in-the-Loop for Legal Advice: It clearly delineates between legal information provided by the AI and legal advice from an attorney. Clients can use a “Request Review” button to notify their lawyer, and attorneys use a “Complete Review” button on the back-end to “rubber stamp” conversations, which transitions the information from legal information to legal advice/counsel.* Revenue and Lead Generation Opportunity for Law Firms: Law firms can leverage Relay to generate predictable, recurring revenue by rolling it out as a new subscription tier or bundling it with existing service models. It's also viewed as an effective lead generation tool, providing a closer relationship with clients to spot new matters early.* Client-Specific Data Partitioning and White-Labeling: The product ensures strict data privacy by partitioning client files so that Client A's data is completely inaccessible to Client B, and even restricting attorneys' access to documents outside of their assigned clients. Furthermore, it allows for complete white-labeling, enabling law firms to use their own logo, colors, and AI name, positioning Relay as their firm's proprietary AI tool.__________________________Want your question to be answered on a future show? Fill out this short survey.Check out Relay.Sign up for Paxton, my all-in-one AI legal assistant, helping me with legal research, analysis, drafting, and enhancing existing legal work product.Get Connected with SixFifty⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a business and employment legal document automation tool.Sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gavel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, an automation platform for law firms.Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Law Subscribed⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to subscribe to the weekly newsletter to listen from your web browser.Prefer monthly updates? Sign up for the Law Subscribed Monthly Digest on LinkedIn.Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mathew Kerbis'⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ law firm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscription Attorney LLC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Want to use the subscription model for your law firm? Click here to sign up for a new platform that helps law firms use subscription billing. Get full access to Law Subscribed at www.lawsubscribed.com/subscribe

Companies Complying with or Directly Impacted by Transparency Laws Major generative AI developers are broadly subject to AB 2013, which requires them to publicly disclose high-level summaries of the datasets used to train their models.OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google were among the first companies to voluntarily comply with the law, publishing the required training data documentation on their websites when the law took effect on January 1, 2026.Meta is also heavily impacted by these laws and is frequently cited for its extensive efforts to harvest public and copyrighted data across the internet to train its foundation models.Companies Actively Challenging the LawxAI (founded by Elon Musk) is the primary company fighting the legislation. In late December 2025, xAI filed a federal lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta to block the enforcement of AB 2013. xAI argues that forcing it to disclose its training data constitutes an unconstitutional taking of its trade secrets and violates its First Amendment rights. In March 2026, a federal judge denied xAI's request for a preliminary injunction to halt the law.Separately, xAI is under investigation by the California Attorney General and received a cease-and-desist letter over its AI chatbot, Grok. The tool's "spicy mode" has allegedly been used to generate nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes and child sexual abuse material.Companies Sued Over AI Training Data and Copyright The push for transparency laws like AB 2013 and AB 412 stems largely from a massive wave of lawsuits filed by authors, artists, and media companies who allege that AI developers misappropriated their intellectual property to train models. Companies currently defending against these copyright lawsuits include:OpenAI and Microsoft (sued by The New York Times, The Daily News, the Authors Guild, Raw Story Media, and others).Anthropic (sued by Concord Music Group and various authors).Google and YouTube (sued by Mike Huckabee, David Milette, and others).Perplexity AI (sued by Dow Jones, The New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune).Stability AI, Midjourney, Runway AI, and Deviant Art (sued by visual artists and Getty Images).Meta, Nvidia, Databricks, and Mosaic ML.AI audio, music, and voice generation companies like Suno, Udio, Lovo, and ElevenLabs.Ross Intelligence (sued by Thomson Reuters for allegedly using copyrighted Westlaw data to train its own legal search tool).Other AI Companies Facing State ScrutinyCharacter.AI: Sued by the Kentucky Attorney General in January 2026 for consumer protection violations, alleging the company's companion chatbots preyed on children and contributed to psychological manipulation and self-harm. Google was also sued in related private litigation due to its substantial investment in Character.AI.Clearview AI: Cited by privacy advocates as a notorious example of unethical data sourcing, having scraped billions of images from social media to build a massive facial recognition database.

Citations : Legal Research References with Active Hyperlinkshttps://legal.thomsonreuters.comExplains primary and secondary legal sources and the role of AI in research.https://www.onelegal.comA guide for paralegals detailing research sources and validation methods.https://www.leg.state.fl.usFlorida's official statutes and constitution site for legislative and case law.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbook_(law)Defines a hornbook as a concise, one-volume legal treatise.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard%27s_CitationsDescribes Shepard's Citations, a system for validating legal authorities.https://www.lawfina.comCovers legal research fundamentals including keyword logic and filters.https://libguides.law.berkeley.eduBerkeley Law's 1L research guide on research steps and case expansion.This conversation delves into the essential skills and methods for effective legal research, focusing on the distinction between primary and secondary sources, the importance of understanding legal authority, and the techniques for statutory interpretation. It emphasizes the need for law students to master these concepts to navigate the complexities of legal practice and prepare for exams like the bar.In the world of law, finding the right legal precedent can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. But with the right tools and strategies, you can transform this daunting task into a manageable process. This blog post will guide you through the essentials of legal research, focusing on the hierarchy of authority and the use of secondary sources as your map to the treasure of primary law.Introduction: The Quest for Legal Clarity Imagine embarking on a quest through a labyrinth of legal information. Constitutions, statutes, regulations, and centuries of court decisions weave a complex web of rules. How do you find that one specific thread you need? With the right map and tools, you can navigate this labyrinth effectively.The Map: Secondary Sources Secondary sources are your travel guide in the legal world. They explain, analyze, and organize the law for you. Legal encyclopedias provide a broad overview, while treatises offer deep analysis from top experts. Restatements summarize common law, providing credible insights. Start broad with an encyclopedia, then dive into a treatise for expert analysis.The Treasure: Primary Sources Primary sources are the binding rules from courts or legislatures. They are the treasure you seek. Secondary sources point you to these primary laws, providing citations as exact coordinates on your treasure map. Use them to find the key primary sources, then pivot to reading, analyzing, and citing those sources directly.Mastering Authority: Mandatory vs. Persuasive Understanding the difference between mandatory and persuasive authority is crucial. Mandatory authority is law that a court must follow, like a decision from a higher court in its jurisdiction. Persuasive authority, on the other hand, is everything else. A court might find it convincing but is not required to follow it.The Tools: Modern Legal Research Today, legal research is primarily digital, relying on powerful databases like Westlaw and LexisNexis. These platforms offer vast libraries of primary and secondary sources, along with citator tools like Keysight and Shepard's for validation. Mastering Boolean searches and understanding statutory interpretation are key skills for effective research.Embrace the Detective Role As a legal researcher, your role is to find the controlling piece of primary authority hidden in plain sight. Use your secondary source map wisely, master the hierarchy, validate everything with citators, and dive deep into primary authority. Keep digging, keep questioning, and happy researching.Subscribe now to stay updated on the latest legal research strategies and tools.legal research, primary sources, statutory interpretation, legal authority, law students, bar exam, legal analysis, legal tools

Today on 'AI Lawyer Talking Tech,' we tackle a profession undergoing a fundamental technological mandate: adapt to Artificial Intelligence or risk ceding market share to competitors. The current landscape is defined by astonishing efficiency gains, with firms achieving up to a 391% higher conversion rate for instant engagement through strategic systems automation, while complex tasks like document review cycles are accelerating by 40-60%. This velocity is fueled by cutting-edge solutions, from low-cost platforms democratizing access to legal services like prenuptial agreements, to sophisticated Multimodal AI that processes text, video, and audio simultaneously for unified case intelligence, and agentic AI systems that complete entire end-to-end workflows. However, this rapid integration creates tensions, demanding that legal professionals develop responsible AI skills. We explore the massive debate over federal governance, including proposals for a regulatory "sandbox" designed to foster innovation but criticized for potentially granting "roving permission" for companies to circumvent crucial civil rights and consumer safeguards. These pressures are heightened by judicial scrutiny, with judges issuing strong warnings after AI tools were used to cite nonexistent case law in filings, underscoring the critical need for human oversight and independent verification. Ultimately, technology should enhance the value of legal specialists, but it is the timeless human skills—critical thinking, empathy, judgment, and ethical reasoning—that are becoming even more invaluable in this automated world.Cruz ‘sandbox' plan for AI draws support, detractors2025-10-05 | Hartford CourantThis Attorney Founded Hello Prenup For Couples Who Want A Cheap, Pre-Fab Divorce2025-10-05 | Forbes.comThe Intaker Imperative: Why OptiVis's Strategic Systems Automation is the Next Mandatory Evolution for Law Firms2025-10-05 | TechBullionAI Can Write the Legal Summaries Most Lawyers and Law Firms Put Up on the Net2025-10-05 | Real Lawyers Have BlogsOpenAI Seeks to Dismiss Musk's xAI Trade-Secret Lawsuit, Calling It “Harassment Disguised as Litigation”2025-10-05 | JDJournalFixRunner's Free AI WordPress Builder and the Case for Opening Legal Publishing2025-10-04 | Real Lawyers Have BlogsHow to combine human expertise with AI in legal technology2025-10-04 | Elevated MagazinesWhy Law Firms Are Turning to Technology for Streamlined Medical Record Reviews2025-10-03 | Fox MagazineEx-Wabash trustee Teising scraps over AI accusations but avoids fines for now2025-10-03 | Lafayette Journal & CourierAI SEO For Law Firms: Website Changes For 20262025-10-03 | Above The LawCongress let a key cybersecurity law expire this week, leaving US networks more vulnerable2025-10-03 | Yahoo! NewsOn course to build confidence in AI among legal professionals2025-10-03 | Bar Council.org.ukThe Intelligent DMS: Solving Yesterday's Frustrations and Creating New Solutions for Tomorrow2025-10-03 | JD SupraFresh Voices on Legal Tech with Marc Lauritsen2025-10-03 | Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast - Legal Talk NetworkUsing AI tools to manage the challenges of Legal Practice in 20252025-10-03 | Legal FuturesKennedys Working With Spellbook on Legal Training For The AI Era2025-10-03 | Insurance EdgeWebinar Replay: Legal AI Agents, Workflow Ownership and the Danger of Agent-Washing2025-10-03 | Legal IT InsiderAt the Fork Before the Client: How Early Adoption of ChatGPT Changed My Practice2025-10-03 | Legaltech on MediumWhy Legal Teams Can't Afford to Ignore Multimodal AI in 20252025-10-03 | Legaltech on MediumSpotDraft, Westlaw, Lupl, Lewis Silkin, Everlaw, AItorney +2025-10-03 | Artificial LawyerNetDocuments to acquire OpenText eDOCS2025-10-03 | Legal IT InsiderClio Unveils the 2025 Integration Award Winners Driving the Future of Legaltech2025-10-03 | Legal Technology News - Legal IT Professionals | Everything legal technology

Each episode on Unstoppable Mindset I ask all of you and my guests to feel free to introduce me to others who would be good guests on our podcast. Our guest this time, Erin Edgar, is a guest introduced to me by a past podcast guest, Rob Wentz. Rob told me that Erin is inspirational and would be interesting and that she would have a lot to offer you, our audience. Rob was right on all counts. Erin Edgar was born blind. Her parents adopted an attitude that would raise their daughter with a positive attitude about herself. She was encouraged and when barriers were put in her way as a youth, her parents helped her fight to be able to participate and thrive. For a time, she attended the Indiana School for the Blind. Her family moved to Georgia where Erin attended high school. After high school, Erin wanted to go to college where she felt there would be a supportive program that would welcome her on campus. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapple Hill. After graduating she decided to continue at UNC where she wanted to study law. The same program that gave her so much assistance during her undergraduate days was not able to provide the same services to Erin the graduate student. Even so, Erin had learned how to live, survive and obtain what she needed to go through the law program. After she received her law degree Erin began to do what she always wanted to do: She wanted to use the law to help people. So, she worked in programs such as Legal Aid in North Carolina and she also spent time as a mediator. She will describe all that for us. Like a number of people, when the pandemic began, she decided to pivot and start her own law firm. She focuses on estate planning. We have a good discussion about topics such as the differences between a will and a living trust. Erin offers many relevant and poignant thoughts and words of advice we all can find helpful. Erin is unstoppable by any standard as you will see. About the Guest: Erin Edgar, Esq., is a caring, heart-centered attorney, inspirational speaker and vocal artist. She loves helping clients: -- Plan for the future of their lives and businesses, ensuring that they have the support they need and helping them find ways to provide for their loved ones upon death. --Ensure that the leave a legacy of love and reflect client values -- Find creative ways that allow them to impact the world with a lasting legacy. She is passionate about connecting with clients on a heart level. She loves witnessing her clients as she guides them to transform their intentions for their loved ones into a lasting legacy through the estate planning process. Erin speaks about ways to meld proven legal tools, strategies, and customization with the creative process to design legal solutions that give people peace of mind, clarity, and the assurance that their loved ones will be taken care of, and the world will be left a better place Ways to connect with Erin: Facebook: https://facebook.com/erin-edgar-legal LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/erinedgar About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset. We're glad that you're here with us, wherever you may be. Hope the day is going well, and we have Erin Edgar on our episode today. Edgar is a very interesting person in a lot of ways. She's a caring, heart centered attorney. She is also an inspirational speaker and a vocal artist. I'm not sure whether vocal artistry comes into play when she's in the courtroom, but we won't worry about that too much. I assume that you don't sing to your judges when you're trying to deal with something. But anyway, I'll let her answer that. I'm just trying to cause trouble, but Erin again. We're really glad you're with us. We really appreciate you being here, and I know you do a lot with estate planning and other kinds of things that'll be fun to talk about. So welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Erin Edgar ** 02:14 Thank you, Michael. It's great to be here, and I haven't sung in a courtroom or a courthouse yet, but I wouldn't rule it out.   Michael Hingson ** 02:23 I have someone who I know who also has a guide dog and his diet. His guide dog, it's been a while since I've seen him, but his guide dog tended to be very vocal, especially at unexpected times, and he said that occasionally happened in the courtroom, which really busted up the place. Oh, dear.   Erin Edgar ** 02:45 I imagine that would draw some smiles, hopefully, smiles.   Michael Hingson ** 02:48 Well, they were, yeah, do you, do you appear in court much?   Erin Edgar ** 02:53 Um, no, the type of law that I practice, I'm usually, I don't think I've ever appeared in court after I've written people's wills, but I have done previous things where I was in court mediating disputes, which is a kind of a separate thing that I used to do, so I've been in court just not recently. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 03:17 Well, that's understandable. Well, let's start a little bit with the early Erin and growing up and all that sort of stuff. Tell us about that? Sure.   Erin Edgar ** 03:26 So I was born in cold, gray Indiana, and, yeah, chilly in the wintertime, and I started out I was blind from birth, so my parents thought it would be a good idea to send me to the school for the blind for a while. And back when I was born, um, teen years ago, they did not mainstream visually impaired and disabled students in that state, so you went where you could, and I was at the blind school for until I reached third grade, and then we moved to Georgia, and I've been in the south ever since I live in North Carolina now, and I started going to public schools in fourth grade, and continued on that route all the way up through high school.   Michael Hingson ** 04:21 Oh, okay. And so then, what did you do?   Erin Edgar ** 04:29 So after, after that, I, you know, I was one of those high school students. I really wanted to get out of dodge and leave my high school behind. I went visiting a couple of colleges in Georgia, and I said to my parents, I said, I really don't like this. It's like going to high school again. Literally, I was meeting people I had been in high school with, and I decided, and was very grateful that my parents. Were able to rig it some way so that I could go to an out of state school. And I went to UNC Chapel Hill here in North Carolina, Tar Heels all the way. And I was there for undergrad. And then I got into law school there as well, which I was very excited about, because I didn't have to go anywhere, and graduated from law school again a while ago in the early 2000s   Michael Hingson ** 05:31 Okay, and so then you went straight into law from that.   Erin Edgar ** 05:37 I didn't I did some other things before I actually went into law itself. I worked with some local advocacy organizations, and I also mediated, as I said earlier, I did mediations with the county court, helping mediate criminal disputes. And we're talking about like things with you get in a dispute with your neighbor and you yell at each other, those kind of People's Court type things. They were fun and interesting. And then I did go into law. After that, I started working with Legal Aid of North Carolina, which is a an organization that helps people in poverty who cannot afford a lawyer to go and have have their options communicated to them and some help given to them regarding their public benefits or certain other, you know, public things that we could help with we weren't able to help with any personal injury, or, you know, any of the fun stuff you see on TV. So and then, when the pandemic hit, I started my own law practice and completely changed gears and went into writing estate plans and wills for a living.   Michael Hingson ** 07:07 Do you think that your time doing mediation work and so on taught you a lot about humanity and human nature and people?   Erin Edgar ** 07:16 It did. I bet it did. It was invaluable, actually, in that area taught me a lot about, I don't know necessarily, about human nature. However, it did teach me a lot about how to talk to people who were on different pages. You know, they had, perhaps, values and principles that weren't quite the same, where they had a different way of looking at the same exact situation, and how to bring those those people together and allow them to connect on a deeper level, rather than the argument we're able to get them to agree to kind of move forward from that, so nobody has to be found guilty, right? And you know a judge doesn't have and you don't have to drag a criminal conviction around with you. I think the most rewarding cases that I had, by far were the education cases. Because I don't know if anyone knows this, but in most states, in the United States, if you don't send your kids to school, you are guilty of a crime. It's called truancy, and you can be arrested. Well, the county that I live in was very forward thinking, and the school system and the court said, that's kind of dumb. We don't want to arrest parents if their kids aren't going to school, there's something behind it. You know, there the school is not providing what the child needs. The child's acting out for some reason, and we need to get to the bottom of it. So what they did was they set up a process whereby we come in as neutral observers. We did not work for the court. We were part of a separate organization, and have a school social worker there or counselor, and also have a parent there, and they could talk through the issues. And in a lot of cases, if the children were old enough, they were teenagers, they were there, and they could talk about it from their perspective. And truly amazing things came out of those situations. We could just we would discover that the children had a behavioral issue or even a disability that had not been recognized, and were able to come up with plans to address that with you know, or the school was with our help,   Michael Hingson ** 09:42 going back a little bit, how did your parents deal with the fact that you were blind? I gather it was a fairly positive experience   Erin Edgar ** 09:50 for me. It was positive. I was so fortunate, and I'm still so grateful to this day for having parents who you. I were very forward thinking, and advocated for me to have and do whatever, not whatever I wanted, because I was far from spoiled, but, you know, whatever, yeah, yeah, you know. But whatever, however I wanted to be successful, they advocated for me. And so my mother actually told me, you know, when I was born, they went through all the parent things like, oh, gosh, what did we do wrong? You know, why is God punishing us? You know, all that. And they, very early on, found support groups for, you know, parents with children with either blindness or disabilities of some sort, and that was a great source of help to them. And as I grew up, they made every effort to ensure that I had people who could teach me, if they couldn't, you know, how to interact with other children. I think, for a while when I was very little, and I actually kind of remember this, they hired an occupational therapist to come and teach me how to play with kids, because not only was I blind, but I was an only child, so I didn't have brothers and sisters to interact with, and that whole play thing was kind of a mystery to me, and I remember it sort of vaguely, but that's just A demonstration that they wanted me to have the best life possible and to be fully integrated into the sighted world as much as possible. So when I was at the blind school, and I was in this residential environment, and there was an added bonus that my parents didn't really weren't happy in their jobs either, and they weren't happy with the education I was getting, that they decided, well, we're just going to pick up and move and that was, quite frankly, as I look back on it now, a huge risk for them. And they did it, you know, 50% for me and 50% for them, maybe even 6040, but as I look back on it now, it's another demonstration of how supportive they were, and all the way through my school age years, were very active in ensuring that I had everything that I needed and that I had the support that I needed.   Michael Hingson ** 12:19 That's cool. How did it go when you went to college at UNC?   Erin Edgar ** 12:25 Yeah, that's an interesting question, a very good question.   Michael Hingson ** 12:29 You didn't play basketball, I assume? Oh no, I figured you had other things to do.   Erin Edgar ** 12:33 Yeah, I had other stuff to do. I sang in the choir and sang with the medieval chorus group, and, you know, all this other, like, musical geek, geeky stuff. But, or, and when we were looking for colleges and universities, one of the criteria was they had to have a solid kind of, like disability, slash visually impaired center, or, you know, support staff that would help in, you know, allow people with disabilities to go through the university. So at UNC Chapel Hill, the they had as part of their student affairs department Disability Services, and it just so happened that they were very aware of accommodations that blind people needed. I wasn't the first blind student to go through undergrad there. That's not law school, that's undergrad. And so you know, how much was it? Time and a half on on tests if I was doing them on the computer, double time if I was doing them in Braille. A lot of the tests were in Braille because they had the technology to do it. And also the gentleman who ran the Disability Services Department, I think, knew Braille, if I'm not mistaken, and could transcribe if necessary. But I was at the stage at that point where I was typing most of my exams anyway, and didn't need much that was in Braille, because I had books either electronically or they had a network of folks in the community that would volunteer to read if there was not, you know, available textbooks from RFD, and what is it, RFP and D? Now was at the time, yeah, now Learning Ally, there wasn't a Bookshare at that time, so we couldn't use Bookshare, but if there weren't textbooks available, they would have people in the community who would read them for them, and they would get paid a little bit. Now, when I went to law school, it was a totally different ball game, because I was the first law student who was blind, that UNC Chapel Hill had had, and it was a different school within the school, so that student affairs department was not part of law school anymore, and we had quite a time the first semester getting my book. Works in a format that I could read them in. They did eventually, kind of broker a deal, if you will, with the publishers who were either Thompson Reuters or Westlaw at the time to get electronic versions. They were floppy disks. This is how old I am. Floppy disks. They were in this weird format. I think it was word perfect or something. Usually it was, and they   Michael Hingson ** 15:27 didn't really have a lot of them new or no, they didn't know now, newer publishing system,   Erin Edgar ** 15:32 yeah, there wasn't PDF even, I don't think, at the time. And the agreement was I could get those, and I actually had to buy the print textbooks as well. So I have this whole bookcase of law books that are virgin, unopened, almost. And they are, you know, some of them almost 25 years old, never been opened and of no use to anyone. But I have them, and they look nice sitting down there in that bookshelf antiques books. They're antiques. So the first year was a little rough, because for a while I didn't have books, and we were able to make arrangements so that I could kind of make up some classes on a later year and switch things around a little bit. And it ended up all working out really well once we got started.   Michael Hingson ** 16:16 Yeah, I remember when I was going through getting my bachelor's and master's in physics, I needed the books in braille because, well, it's the only way to be able to really deal with the subject. You can't do it nearly as well from recordings, although now there's a little bit better capability through recording, because we have the DayZ format and so on. But still, it's not the same as reading it in Braille and for mathematics and physics and so on. I think that the only way to really do it is in Braille. And we had challenges because professors didn't want to decide what books to use until the last minute, because then, oh, a new book might be coming out and we want to get the latest book, and that didn't work for me, right? Because I had a network that I, in part, I developed with the Department of Rehabilitation out here, helped our office for disabled students didn't really have the resources to know it. They were very supportive. They just didn't really deal with it. But the bottom line is that we had to develop, I had to develop the network of transcribers, but they needed three to six months to do the books, at least three months and and sometimes I would get them one or two volumes at a time, and they barely kept ahead of the class. But, you know, it worked, but professors resisted it. And my the person who ran the Office for Students with Disabilities, said, Look, you have to work on these things, but if you're not getting cooperation from professors, and you come and tell me, and I will use the power of this office to get you what you need, there's another thing you might consider doing, she said. And I said, What's that? And Jan said, Go meet the chancellor. Make friends, yeah, friends in high places. And so I did. And Dan, oh, there you go. Became pretty good friends over the years, which was pretty cool,   Erin Edgar ** 18:15 you know, it was weird because we didn't, I didn't have that problem with the professors. They were, you know, I had a couple of old codgers, but they weren't really worried about the books. They were fine with me having the books, but it was the publishers. The publishers were irritated that that I needed them, and, you know, in an alternative format. And I didn't really, I was not. I was one of those people that if someone said they were going to do something for me, I kind of let people do it. And at the time, I was really not an advocate, advocator for myself, at that time, a very good self advocate. And so I kind of let the school interface with that. I think it would have been really interesting, if I look back on it, for me to have taken a hand in that. And I wonder what would have happened well, and at this point, you know, it's neither here nor there, but that's really fascinating. Making Friends with the chancellor, sometimes you have to do stuff like that   Michael Hingson ** 19:15 well. And the idea was really to get to know Him. And what there was, well, obviously other motivations, like, if we needed to go to a higher court to get help, we could go to the chancellor. I never had to do that, but, but the reason for meeting him and getting to know him was really just to do it and to have fun doing it. So we did,   Erin Edgar ** 19:36 yeah, and I kind of had a comparable experience. I met the Dean of the Law School for that very reason. And he said, you know, if you've got trouble, come to me, my parents got involved a little bit. And we all, you know, met together and maybe even separately at some points just to make sure that I had everything that I needed at various times. Mm. Yeah, and I made friends with the some of the assistant deans at the law school, in particular because of the situation, and one of whom was the Dean of the Law School Student Affairs, who was helping me to get what I needed. And for a while, when I was in law school and beyond. He was like, We lent books to each other. It was very funny. We found out we had the same reading tastes beyond law books. It wasn't, you know, legal at all, but we were like, trading books and things. So a lot of really good relationships came out of that.   Michael Hingson ** 20:37 And I think that's extremely important to to do. And I think that's one of the things that that offices for students with disabilities that tend to want to do everything for you. I think that's one of the things that it's a problem with those offices, because if you don't learn to do them, and if you don't learn to do them in college, how are you going to be able to be able to really act independently and as an advocate after college, so you have to learn that stuff   Erin Edgar ** 21:05 Absolutely. That's a very good point.   Michael Hingson ** 21:09 So I, I think it was extremely important to do it, and we did, and had a lot of fun doing it. So it was, was good. What are some of the biggest misconceptions you think that people had about you as a blind child growing up?   Erin Edgar ** 21:25 Oh yeah, that's a great question. I think that one of the biggest misconceptions that people had about me, especially when I was younger, is that I would know I would be sort of relegated to staying at home with parents all of my life, or being a stay at home parent and not able to be kind of professionally employed and earning, you know, earning a living wage. Now, I have my own business, and that's where most of my money goes at the same at this point. So, you know, earning a living wage might be up in the air at the moment. Ha, ha. But the the one thing I think that the biggest misconception that people had, and this is even like teachers at the blind school, it was very rare for blind children of my age to grow up and be, you know, professionals in, I don't want to say high places, but like people able to support themselves without a government benefit backing them up. And it was kind of always assumed that we would be in that category, that we would be less able than our sighted peers to do that. And so that was a huge misconception, even you know, in the school that I was attending. I think that was the, really the main one and one misconception that I had then and still have today, is that if I'm blind, I can't speak for myself. This still happens today. For instance, if I'm if I want, if I'm going somewhere and I just happen to be with someone sighted, they will talk whoever I'm, wherever I'm at, they will talk to the sighted person, right? They won't talk to you. They won't talk to me. And so, for instance, simple example, if I'm somewhere with my husband, and we happen to be walking together and we go somewhere that I need to go, they will talk to him because he's guiding me, and they won't talk. And he's like, don't talk to me. I have no idea, you know, talk to her, and part of that is I'm half a step behind him. People naturally gravitate to the people that are leading. However, I noticed, even when I was a young adult, and I would go, you know, to the doctor, and I would be with my my parents, like, maybe I'm visiting them, and I need to go to the doctor, they would talk to them and not me, yeah, which is kind of sad. And I think it happens a lot, a lot more than people realize.   Michael Hingson ** 24:10 Yeah, it does. And one of my favorite stories is, is this, I got married in 1982 and my wife has always been, or had always been. She passed away in 2022 but she was always in a wheelchair. And we went to a restaurant one Saturday for breakfast. We were standing at the counter waiting to be seated, and the hostess was behind the counter, and nothing was happening. And finally, Karen said to me, she doesn't know who to talk to, you know? Because Karen, of course, is, is in a wheelchair, so actually, she's clearly shorter than this, this person behind the counter, and then there's me and and, of course, I'm not making eye contact, and so Karen just said she doesn't know who to talk to. I said, you know? All she's gotta do is ask us where we would like to sit or if we'd like to have breakfast, and we can make it work. Well, she she got the message, and she did, and the rest of the the day went fine, but that was really kind of funny, that we had two of us, and she just didn't know how to deal with either of us, which was kind of cute. Mm, hmm. Well, you know, it brings up another question. You use the term earlier, visually impaired. There's been a lot of effort over the years. A lot of the professionals, if you will, created this whole terminology of visually impaired, and they say, well, you're blind or you're visually impaired. And visually impaired means you're not totally blind, but, but you're still visually impaired. And finally, blind people, I think, are starting to realize what people who are deaf learned a long time ago, and that is that if you take take a deaf person and you refer to them as hearing impaired, there's no telling what they might do to you, because they recognize that impaired is not true and they shouldn't be equated with people who have all of their hearing. So it's deaf or hard of hearing, which is a whole lot less of an antagonistic sort of concept than hearing impaired. We're starting to get blind people, and not everyone's there yet, and we're starting to get agencies, and not every agency is there yet, to recognize that it's blind or low vision, as opposed to blind or here or visually impaired, visually impaired. What do you think about that? How does and how does that contribute to the attitudes that people had toward you?   Erin Edgar ** 26:38 Yeah, so when I was growing up, I was handicapped, yeah, there was that too, yeah, yeah, that I was never fond of that, and my mother softened it for me, saying, well, we all have our handicaps or shortcomings, you know, and but it was really, what was meant was you had Something that really held you back. I actually, I say, this is so odd. I always, I usually say I'm totally blind. Because when I say blind, the immediate question people have is, how blind are you? Yeah, which gets back to stuff, yeah, yeah. If you're blind, my opinion, if you're blind, you're you're blind, and if you have low vision, you have partial sight. And visually impaired used to be the term, you know, when I was younger, that people use, and that's still a lot. It's still used a lot, and I will use it occasionally, generally. I think that partially sighted, I have partial vision is, is what I've heard people use. That's what, how my husband refers to himself. Low Vision is also, you know, all those terms are much less pejorative than actually being impaired,   Michael Hingson ** 27:56 right? That's kind of really the issue, yeah. My, my favorite example of all of this is a past president of the National Federation of the Blind, Ken Jernigan, you've heard of him, I assume, Oh, sure. He created a document once called a definition of blindness, and his definition, he goes through and discusses various conditions, and he asks people if, if you meet these conditions, are you blind or not? But then what he eventually does is he comes up with a definition, and his definition, which I really like, is you are blind if your eyesight has decreased to the point where you have to use alternatives to full eyesight in order to function, which takes into account totally blind and partially blind people. Because the reality is that most of those people who are low vision will probably, or they may probably, lose the rest of their eyesight. And the agencies have worked so hard to tell them, just use your eyesight as best you can. And you know you may need to use a cane, but use your eyesight as best you can, and if you go blind, then we're going to have to teach you all over again, rather than starting by saying blindness is really okay. And the reality is that if you learn the techniques now, then you can use the best of all worlds.   Erin Edgar ** 29:26 I would agree with that. I would also say you should, you know, people should use what they have. Yeah, using everything you have is okay. And I think there's a lot of a lot of good to be said for learning the alternatives while you're still able to rely on something else.   Michael Hingson ** 29:49 Point taken exactly you know, because   Erin Edgar ** 29:53 as you age, you get more and more in the habit of doing things one way, and it's. Very hard to break out of that. And if you haven't learned an alternative, there's nothing you feel like. There's nothing to fall back on, right? And it's even harder because now you're in the situation of urgency where you feel like you're missing something and you're having to learn something new, whereas if you already knew it and knew different ways to rely on things you would be just like picking a memory back up, rather than having to learn something new. Well, I've never been in that position, so I can't say, but in the abstract, I think that's a good definition.   Michael Hingson ** 30:34 Well, there are a lot of examples, like, take a person who has some eyesight, and they're not encouraged to use a cane. And I know someone who was in this situation. I think I've told the story on this podcast, but he lived in New Jersey and was travel. And traveled every day from New Jersey into Philadelphia to work, and he was on a reasonably cloudy day, was walking along. He had been given a cane by the New Jersey Commission for the Blind, but he they didn't really stress the value of using it. And so he was walking along the train to go in, and he came to the place where he could turn in and go into the car. And he did, and promptly fell between two cars because he wasn't at the right place. And then the train actually started to move, but they got it stopped, and so he was okay, but as as he tells the story, he certainly used his cane from then on. Because if he had been using the cane, even though he couldn't see it well because it was dark, or not dark, cloudy, he would have been able to see that he was not at the place where the car entrance was, but rather he was at the junction between two cars. And there's so many examples of that. There's so many reasons why it's important to learn the skills. Should a partially blind or a low vision person learn to read Braille? Well, depends on circumstances, of course, I think, to a degree, but the value of learning Braille is that you have an alternative to full print, especially if there's a likelihood that you're going to lose the rest of your eyesight. If you psychologically do it now, that's also going to psychologically help you prepare better for not having any eyesight later.   Erin Edgar ** 32:20 And of course, that leads to to blind children these days learn how to read, yeah, which is another issue.   Michael Hingson ** 32:28 Which is another issue because educators are not teaching Braille nearly as much as they should, and the literacy rate is so low. And the fact of the matter is even with George Kircher, who invented the whole DAISY format and and all the things that you can do with the published books and so on. The reality is there is still something to be said for learning braille. You don't have sighted children just watching television all the time, although sometimes my parents think they do, but, but the point is that they learn to read, and there's a value of really learning to read. I've been in an audience where a blind speaker was delivering a speech, and he didn't know or use Braille. He had a device that was, I think what he actually used was a, was, it was a Victor Reader Stream, which is   Erin Edgar ** 33:24 one of those, right?   Michael Hingson ** 33:25 I think it was that it may have been something else, but the bottom line is, he had his speech written out, and he would play it through earphones, and then he would verbalize his speech. Oh, no, that's just mess me up. Oh, it would. It was very disjointed and and I think that for me, personally, I read Braille pretty well, but I don't like to read speeches at all. I want to engage the audience, and so it's really important to truly speak with the audience and not read or do any of those other kinds of things.   Erin Edgar ** 33:57 I would agree. Now I do have a Braille display that I, I use, and, you know, I do use it for speeches. However, I don't put the whole speech on   Michael Hingson ** 34:10 there that I me too. I have one, and I use it for, I know, I have notes. Mm, hmm,   Erin Edgar ** 34:16 notes, yeah. And so I feel like Braille, especially for math. You know, when you said math and physics, like, Yeah, I can't imagine doing math without Braille. That just doesn't, you know, I can't imagine it, and especially in, you know, geometry and trigonometry with those diagrams. I don't know how you would do it without a Braille textbook, but yeah, there. There's certainly something to be said for for the the wonderful navigation abilities with, you know, e published audio DAISY books. However, it's not a substitute for knowing how to   Michael Hingson ** 34:55 read. Well, how are you going to learn to spell? How are you going to really learn sit? Structure, how are you going to learn any of those basic skills that sighted kids get if you don't use Braille? Absolutely, I think that that's one of the arenas where the educational system, to a large degree, does such a great disservice to blind kids because it won't teach them Braille.   Erin Edgar ** 35:16 Agreed, agreed. Well, thank you for this wonderful spin down Braille, Braille reading lane here. That was fun.   Michael Hingson ** 35:27 Well, so getting back to you a little bit, you must have thought or realized that probably when you went into law, you were going to face some challenges. But what was the defining moment that made you decide you're going to go into law, and what kind of challenges have you faced? If you face challenges, my making an assumption, but you know what?   Erin Edgar ** 35:45 Oh, sure. So the defining moment when I decided I wanted to go into law. It was a very interesting time for me. I was teenager. Don't know exactly how old I was, but I think I was in high school, and I had gone through a long period where I wanted to, like, be a music major and go into piano and voice and be a performer in those arenas, and get a, you know, high level degree whatnot. And then I began having this began becoming very interested in watching the Star Trek television series. Primarily I was out at the time the next generation, and I was always fascinated by the way that these people would find these civilizations on these planets, and they would be at odds in the beginning, and they would be at each other's throats, and then by the end of the day, they were all kind of   Michael Hingson ** 36:43 liking each other. And John Luke Picard didn't play a flute,   Erin Edgar ** 36:47 yes, and he also turned into a Borg, which was traumatic for me. I had to rate local summer to figure out what would happen. I was in I was in trauma. Anyway, my my father and I bonded over that show. It was, it was a wonderful sort of father daughter thing. We did it every weekend. And I was always fascinated by, like, the whole, the whole aspect of different ideologies coming together. And it always seemed to me that that's what human humanity should be about. As I, you know, got older, I thought, how could I be involved in helping people come together? Oh, let's go into law. Because, you know, our government's really good at that. That was the high school student in me. And I thought at the time, I wanted to go into the Foreign Service and work in the international field and help, you know, on a net, on a you know, foreign policy level. I quickly got into law school and realized two things simultaneously in my second year, international law was very boring, and there were plenty of problems in my local community that I could help solve, like, why work on the international stage when people in my local community are suffering in some degree with something and so I completely changed my focus to wanting to work in an area where I could bring people together and work for, you know, work on an individualized level. And as I went into the legal field, that was, it was part of the reason I went into the mediation, because that was one of the things that we did, was helping people come together. I realized, though, as I became a lawyer and actually started working in the field, most of the legal system is not based on that. It's based on who has the best argument. I wanted no part of that. Yeah, I want no part of that at all. I want to bring people together. Still, the Star Trek mentality is working here, and so when I when I started my own law firm, my immediate question to myself was, how can I now that I'm out doing my own thing, actually bring people together? And the answer that I got was help families come together, especially people thinking about their end of life decisions and gathering their support team around them. Who they want to help them? If they are ever in a situation where they become ill and they can't manage their affairs, or if you know upon their death, who do they want to help them and support them. And how can I use the law to allow that to happen? And so that's how I am working, to use the law for healing and bringing people together, rather than rather than winning an argument.   Michael Hingson ** 39:59 Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think there's a lot of merit to that. I I value the law a great deal, and I I am not an attorney or anything like that, but I have worked in the world of legislation, and I've worked in the world of dealing with helping to get legislation passed and and interacting with lawyers. And my wife and I worked with an attorney to set up our our trust, and then couple of years ago, I redid it after she passed away. And so I think that there was a lot of a lot of work that attorneys do that is extremely important. Yeah, there are, there are attorneys that were always dealing with the best arguments, and probably for me, the most vivid example of that, because it was so captivating when it happened, was the whole OJ trial back in the 1990s we were at a county fair, and we had left going home and turned on the radio, only To hear that the police were following OJ, and they finally arrested him. And then when the trial occurred, we while I was working at a company, and had a radio, and people would would come around, and we just had the radio on, and followed the whole trial. And it was interesting to see all the manipulation and all the movement, and you're right. It came down to who had the best argument, right or wrong?   Erin Edgar ** 41:25 The bloody glove. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Yeah, yep, I remember that. I remember where I was when they arrested him, too. I was at my grandparents house, and we were watching it on TV. My grandfather was captivated by the whole thing. But yes, there's certainly, you know, some manipulation. There's also, there are also lawyers who do a lot of good and a lot of wonderful things. And in reality, you know, most cases don't go to trial. They're settled in some way. And so, you know, there isn't always, you know, who has the best argument. It's not always about that, right? And at the same time, that is, you know, what the system is based on, to some extent. And really, when our country was founded, our founding fathers were a bunch of, like, acted in a lot of ways, like a bunch of children. If you read books on, you know, the Constitution, it was, it was all about, you know, I want this in here, and I want that in here. And, you know, a lot of argument around that, which, of course, is to be expected. And many of them did not expect our country's government to last beyond their lifetimes. Uh, James Madison was the exception, but all the others were like, Ed's going to fail. And yet, I am very, very proud to be a lawyer in this country, because while it's not perfect, our founding documents actually have a lot of flexibility and how and can be interpreted to fit modern times, which is, I think the beauty of them and exactly what the Founders intended for.   Michael Hingson ** 43:15 Yeah, and I do think that some people are taking advantage of that and causing some challenges, but that's also part of our country and part of our government. I like something Jimmy Carter once said, which was, we must adjust to changing times while holding to unwavering principles. And I think absolutely that's the part that I think sometimes is occasionally being lost, that we forget those principles, or we want to manipulate the principles and make them something that they're not. But he was absolutely right. That is what we need to do, and we can adjust to changing times without sacrificing principles. Absolutely.   Erin Edgar ** 43:55 I firmly believe that, and I would like to kind of turn it back to what we were talking about before, because you actually asked me, What are some challenges that I have faced, and if it's okay with you, I would like to get back to that. Oh, sure. Okay. Well, so I have faced some challenges for you know, to a large extent, though I was very well accommodated. I mean, the one challenge with the books that was challenging when I took the bar exam, oh, horror of horrors. It was a multiple, multiple shot deal, but it finally got done. However, it was not, you know, my failing to pass the first time or times was not the fault of the actual board of law examiners. They were very accommodating. I had to advocate for myself a little bit, and I also had to jump through some hoops. For example, I had to bring my own person to bubble in my responses on the multiple choice part, it. And bring my own person in to kind of monitor me while I did the essay portion. But they allowed me to have a computer, they allowed me to have, you know, the screen reader. They allowed me to have time and a half to do the the exam. And so we're accommodating in that way. And so no real challenges there. You know, some hoops to jump through. But it got all worked out.   Michael Hingson ** 45:23 And even so, some of that came about because blind people actually had to go all the way to the Supreme Court. Yes, the bar to the Bar Association to recognize that those things needed to be that way,   Erin Edgar ** 45:37 absolutely. And so, you know, I was lucky to come into this at a time where that had already been kind of like pre done for me. I didn't have to deal with that as a challenge. And so the only other challenges I had, some of them, were mine, like, you know, who's going to want to hire this blind person? Had a little bit of, you know, kind of challenge there, with that mindset issue for a while there, and I did have some challenges when I was looking for employment after I'd worked for legal aid for a while, and I wanted to move on and do something else. And I knew I didn't want to work for a big, big firm, and I would, I was talking to some small law firms about hiring me, small to mid size firms. And I would get the question of, well, you're blind, so what kind of accommodations do you need? And we would talk about, you know, computer, special software to make a talk, you know, those kinds of things. And it always ended up that, you know, someone else was hired. And I can, you know, I don't have proof that the blindness and the hesitancy around hiring a disabled person or a blind person was in back of that decision. And at the same time, I had the sense that there was some hesitation there as well, so that, you know, was a bit of a challenge, and starting my own law firm was its own challenge, because I had to experiment with several different software systems to Find one that was accessible enough for me to use. And the system I'm thinking about in particular, I wouldn't use any other system, and yet, I'm using practically the most expensive estate planning drafting system out there, because it happens to be the most accessible. It's also the most expensive. Always that. There's always that. And what's it called? I'm curious. It's called wealth Council, okay, wealth. And then the word councils, Council, SEL, and it's wonderful. And the folks there are very responsive. If I say something's not accessible, I mean, they have fixed things for me in the past. Isn't that great? And complain, isn't that wonderful? It is wonderful. And that's, that's awesome. I had a CRM experience with a couple of different like legal CRM software. I used one for a while, and it was okay. But then, you know, everyone else said this other one was better and it was actually less accessible. So I went back to the previous one, you know. So I have to do a lot of my own testing, which is kind of a challenge in and of itself. I don't have people testing software for me. I have to experiment and test and in some cases, pay for something for a while before I realize it's not, you know, not worth it. But now I have those challenges pretty much ironed out. And I have a paralegal who helps me do some things that, like she proof reads my documents, for instance, because otherwise there may be formatting things that I'm not, that I miss. And so I have the ability to have cited assistance with things that I can't necessarily do myself, which is, you know, absolutely fine,   Michael Hingson ** 49:04 yeah. Now, do you use Lexus? Is it accessible?   Erin Edgar ** 49:08 I don't need Lexus, yeah, yeah. I mean, I have, I'm a member of the Bar Association, of my, my state bar association, which is not, not voluntary. It's mandatory. But I'm a member primarily because they have a search, a legal search engine that they work with that we get for free. I mean, with our members, there you go. So there you go. So I don't need Lexus or West Law or any of those other search engines for what I do. And if I was, like, really into litigation and going to court all time and really doing deep research, I would need that. But I don't. I can use the one that they have, that we can use so and it's, it's a entirely web based system. It's fairly accessible   Michael Hingson ** 49:58 well, and. That makes it easier to as long as you've got people's ears absolutely make it accessible, which makes a lot of sense.   Erin Edgar ** 50:08 Yeah, it certainly does well.   Michael Hingson ** 50:10 So do you regard yourself as a resilient person? Has blindness impacted that or helped make that kind of more the case for you? Do you think I do resilience is such an overused term, but it's fair. I know   Erin Edgar ** 50:24 I mean resilience is is to my mind, a resilient person is able to face uh, challenges with a relatively positive outlook in and view a challenge as something to be to be worked through rather than overcome, and so yes, I do believe that blindness, in and of itself, has allowed me to find ways to adapt to situations and pivot in cases where, you know, I need to find an alternative to using a mouse. For instance, how would I do that? And so in other areas of life, I am, you know, because I'm blind, I'm able to more easily pivot into finding alternative solutions. I do believe that that that it has made me more resilient.   Michael Hingson ** 51:25 Do you think that being blind has caused you, and this is an individual thing, because I think that there are those who don't. But do you think that it's caused you to learn to listen better?   Erin Edgar ** 51:39 That's a good question, because I actually, I have a lot of sighted friends, and one of the things that people just assume is that, wow, you must be a really good listener. Well, my husband would tell you that's not always the case. Yeah. My wife said the same thing, yeah. You know, like everyone else, sometimes I hear what I want to hear in a conversation and at the same time, one of the things that I do tell people is that, because I'm blind, I do rely on other senses more, primarily hearing, I would say, and that hearing provides a lot of cues for me about my environment, and I've learned to be more skillful at it. So I, I would say that, yes, I am a good listener in terms of my environment, very sensitive to that in in my environment, in terms of active listening to conversations and being able to listen to what's behind what people say, which is another aspect of listening. I think that that is a skill that I've developed over time with conscious effort. I don't think I'm any better of a quote, unquote listener than anybody else. If I hadn't developed that primarily in in my mediation, when I was doing that, that was a huge thing for us, was to be able to listen, not actually to what people were saying, but what was behind what people were saying, right? And so I really consciously developed that skill during those years and took it with me into my legal practice, which is why I am very, very why I very much stress that I'm not only an attorney, but I'm also a counselor at law. That doesn't mean I'm a therapist, but it does mean I listen to what people say so that and what's behind what people say, so that with the ear towards providing them the legal solution that meets their needs as they describe them in their words.   Michael Hingson ** 53:47 Well, I think for me, I learned to listen, but it but it is an exercise, and it is something that you need to practice, and maybe I learned to do it a little bit better, because I was blind. For example, I learned to ride a bike, and you have to learn to listen to what's going on around you so you don't crash into cars. Oh, but I'd fall on my face. You can do it. But what I what I really did was, when I was I was working at a company, and was told that the job was going to be phased out because I wasn't a revenue producer, and the company was an engineering startup and had to bring in more revenue producers. And I was given the choice of going away or going into sales, which I had never done. And as I love to tell people, I lowered my standards and went from science to sales. But the reality is that that I think I've always and I think we all always sell in one way or another, but I also knew what the unemployment rate among employable blind people was and is, yeah, and so I went into sales with with no qualms. But there I really learned to listen. And and it was really a matter of of learning to commit, not just listen, but really learning to communicate with the people you work with. And I think that that I won't say blindness made me better, but what it did for me was it made me use the technologies like the telephone, perhaps more than some other people. And I did learn to listen better because I worked at it, not because I was blind, although they're related   Erin Edgar ** 55:30 exactly. Yeah, and I would say, I would 100% agree I worked at it. I mean, even when I was a child, I worked at listening to to become better at, kind of like analyzing my environment based on sounds that were in it. Yeah, I wouldn't have known. I mean, it's not a natural gift, as some people assume, yeah, it's something you practice and you have to work at. You get to work at.   Michael Hingson ** 55:55 Well, as I point out, there are people like SEAL Team Six, the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers and so on, who also practice using all of their senses, and they learn, in general, to become better at listening and other and other kinds of skills, because they have to to survive, but, but that's what we all do, is if we do it, right, we're learning it. It's not something that's just naturally there, right? I agree, which I think is important. So you're working in a lot of estate planning and so on. And I mentioned earlier that we it was back in 1995 we originally got one, and then it's now been updated, but we have a trust. What's the difference between having, like a trust and a will?   Erin Edgar ** 56:40 Well, that's interesting that you should ask. So A will is the minimum that pretty much, I would say everyone needs, even though 67% of people don't have one in the US. And it is pretty much what everyone needs. And it basically says, you know, I'm a, I'm a person of sound mind, and I know who is important to me and what I have that's important to me. And I wanted to go to these people who are important to me, and by the way, I want this other person to manage things after my death. They're also important to me and a trust, basically, there are multiple different kinds of trusts, huge numbers of different kinds. And the trust that you probably are referring to takes the will to kind of another level and provides more direction about about how to handle property and how how it's to be dealt with, not only after death, but also during your lifetime. And trusts are relatively most of them, like I said, there are different kinds, but they can be relatively flexible, and you can give more direction about how to handle that property than you can in a will, like, for instance, if you made an estate plan and your kids were young, well, I don't want my children to have access to this property until they're responsible adults. So maybe saying, in a trust until they're age 25 you can do that, whereas in a will, you it's more difficult to do that.   Michael Hingson ** 58:18 And a will, as I understand it, is a lot more easily contested than than a trust.   Erin Edgar ** 58:24 You know, it does depend, but yes, it is easily contested. That's not to say that if you have a trust, you don't need a will, which is a misconception that some, yeah, we have a will in our trust, right? And so, you know, you need the will for the court. Not everyone needs a trust. I would also venture to say that if you don't have a will on your death, the law has ideas about how your property should be distributed. So if you don't have a will, you know your property is not automatically going to go to the government as unclaimed, but if you don't have powers of attorney for your health care and your finance to help you out while you're alive, you run the risk of the A judge appointing someone you would not want to make your health care and financial decisions. And so I'm going to go off on a tangent here. But I do feel very strongly about this, even blind people who and disabled people who are, what did you call it earlier, the the employable blind community, but maybe they're not employed. They don't have a lot of   Michael Hingson ** 59:34 unemployed, unemployed, the unemployable blind people, employable   Erin Edgar ** 59:38 blind people, yes, you know, maybe they're not employed, they're on a government benefit. They don't have a lot of assets. Maybe they don't necessarily need that will. They don't have to have it. And at the same time, if they don't have those, those documents that allow people to manage their affairs during their lifetime. Um, who's going to do it? Yeah, who's going to do that? Yeah, you're giving up control of your body, right, potentially, to someone you would not want, just because you're thinking to yourself, well, I don't need a will, and nothing's going to happen to me. You're giving control of your body, perhaps, to someone you don't want. You're not taking charge of your life and and you are allowing doctors and hospitals and banks to perpetuate the belief that you are not an independent person, right? I'm very passionate about it. Excuse me, I'll get off my soapbox now. That's okay. Those are and and to a large extent, those power of attorney forms are free. You can download them from your state's website. Um, they're minimalistic. They're definitely, I don't use them because I don't like them for my state. But you can get you can use them, and you can have someone help you fill them out. You could sign them, and then look, you've made a decision about who's going to help you when you're not able to help yourself,   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:07 which is extremely important to do. And as I mentioned, we went all the way and have a trust, and we funded the trust, and everything is in the trust. But I think that is a better way to keep everything protected, and it does provide so much more direction for whoever becomes involved, when, when you decide to go elsewhere, then, as they put it, this mortal coil. Yes, I assume that the coil is mortal. I don't know.   Erin Edgar ** 1:01:37 Yeah, who knows? Um, and you know trusts are good for they're not just for the Uber wealthy, which is another misconception. Trust do some really good things. They keep your situation, they keep everything more or less private, like, you know, I said you need a will for the court. Well, the court has the will, and it most of the time. If you have a trust, it just says, I want it to go, I want my stuff to go into the Michael hingson Trust. I'm making that up, by the way, and I, you know, my trust just deals with the distribution, yeah, and so stuff doesn't get held up in court. The court doesn't have to know about all the assets that you own. It's not all public record. And that's a huge, you know, some people care. They don't want everyone to know their business. And when I tell people, you know, I can go on E courts today and pull up the estate of anyone that I want in North Carolina and find out what they owned if they didn't have a will, or if they just had a will. And people like, really, you can do that? Oh, absolutely, yeah. I don't need any fancy credentials. It's all a matter of public record. And if you have a trust that does not get put into the court record unless it's litigated, which you know, it does happen, but not often,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:56 but I but again, I think that, you know, yeah, and I'm not one of those Uber wealthy people. But I have a house. We we used to have a wheelchair accessible van for Karen. I still have a car so that when I need to be driven somewhere, rather than using somebody else's vehicle, we use this and those are probably the two biggest assets, although I have a bank account with with some in it, not a lot, not nearly as much as Jack Benny, anyway. But anyway, the bottom line is, yeah, but the bottom line is that I think that the trust keeps everything a lot cleaner. And it makes perfect sense. Yep, it does. And I didn't even have to go to my general law firm that I usually use. Do we cheat them? Good, and how so it worked out really well. Hey, I watched the Marx Brothers. What can I say?   Erin Edgar ** 1:03:45 You watch the Marx Brothers? Of course.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:49 Well, I want to thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun, and I'm glad that we did it and that we also got to talk about the whole issue of wills and trusts and so on, which is, I think, important. So any last things that you'd like to say to people, and also, do you work with clients across the country or just in North Carolina?   Erin Edgar ** 1:04:06 So I work with clients in North Carolina, I will say that. And one last thing that I would like to say to people is that it's really important to build your support team. Whether you're blind, you know, have another disability, you need people to help you out on a day to day basis, or you decide that you want people to help you out. If you're unable to manage your affairs at some point in your life, it's very important to build that support team around you, and there is nothing wrong. You can be self reliant and still have people on your team yes to to be there for you, and that is very important. And there's absolutely no shame, and you're not relinquishing your independence by doing that. That. So today, I encourage everyone to start thinking about who's on your team. Do you want them on your team? Do you want different people on your team? And create a support team? However that looks like, whatever that looks like for you, that has people on it that you know, love and trust,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:18 everybody should have a support team. I think there is no question, at least in my mind, about that. So good point. Well, if people want to maybe reach out to you, how do they do that?   Erin Edgar ** 1:05:29 Sure, so I am on the interwebs at Erin Edgar legal.com that's my website where you can learn more about my law firm and all the things that I do,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:42 and Erin is E r i n, just Yes, say that Edgar, and   Erin Edgar ** 1:05:45 Edgar is like Edgar. Allan Poe, hopefully less scary, and you can find the contact information for me on the website. By Facebook, you can find me on Facebook occasionally as Erin Baker, Edgar, three separate words, that is my personal profile, or you can and Michael will have in the show notes the company page for my welcome as   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:11 well. Yeah. Well, thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. This has been a fun episode. It's been great to have Erin on, love to hear your thoughts out there who have been listening to this today. Please let us know what you think. You're welcome to email me at Michael H i@accessibe.com M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, I wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating. We really appreciate getting good ratings from people and reading and getting to know what you think. If you know anyone who you think might be a good guest, you know some people you think ought to come on unstoppable mindset. Erin, of course, you as well. We would appreciate it if you'd give us an introduction, because we're always looking for more people to have come on and help us show everyone that we're all more unstoppable than we think we are, and that's really what it's all about, and what we want to do on the podcast. So hope that you'll all do that, and in the meanwhile, with all that, Erin, I want to thank you once more for being here and being with us today. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much,   Erin Edgar ** 1:07:27 Michael. I very much enjoyed it.   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:34 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite

Daniel Lewis has witnessed legal technology's evolution from multiple vantage points that few others can claim. As a Stanford law student in 2012, he and classmate Nik Reed co-founded the legal research startup Ravel Law with the audacious goal of taking on LexisNexis and Westlaw using machine learning and data analytics – at a time when such challengers were few and far between. Not only was Ravel Law pioneering in its own right, but it also spearheaded and funded the Caselaw Access Project, an ambitious partnership with Harvard Law School's Library Innovation Lab to digitize and provide free and open access to every official court decision ever published in the United States.  After Ravel's acquisition by LexisNexis in 2017, Lewis spent the next five years leading product teams within the legal research giant, including as vice president and general manager of its Practical Guidance and analytics products. This dual perspective – startup founder turned corporate executive – helped shape his understanding of what works and what doesn't when building technology for lawyers.  Today, as CEO and global chief executive of LegalOn Technologies, Lewis leads a 600-person company that is tackling contract review with a fundamentally different approach. Rather than relying solely on tech-enabled services or raw AI that can hallucinate legal advice, LegalOn combines large language models with attorney-developed playbooks to help in-house legal teams achieve up to 85% time savings on contract review. The company just raised $50 million, for a total raise of $200 million across multiple funding rounds – which Lewis says makes it the most well-funded AI company focused on in-house contract review  – and announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI to develop AI agents for legal workflows.  In this wide-ranging conversation, Lewis shares hard-won insights about the realities of legal tech entrepreneurship, from the "deranged" confidence required to challenge industry giants as a law student to the leadership lessons learned managing teams through multiple business transformations. He discusses why the current moment represents the most significant opportunity for legal tech innovation in decades, how AI agents will reshape routine legal work, and what he's learned about building technology that lawyers don't just try once but actually integrate into their daily practices.  Related episodes: From Ravel Cofounder to Knowable CEO, Nik Reed Has Learned that Building Quality AI for Legal Takes A Lot of Hard Work.  On LawNext: The Inside Story of the Caselaw Access Project, with Three of the People Who Made It Happen.   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). Paxton, Rapidly conduct research, accelerate drafting, and analyze documents with Paxton. What do you need to get done today?    If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Thomson Reuters just launched Deep Research—an AI system that doesn't just search legal databases, but plans and strategizes like an experienced attorney. In this episode, we explore how one of the world's largest legal research companies is using AI agents to transform how lawyers work, the challenges of building AI for high-stakes legal decisions, and what this means for the future of knowledge work. CTO Joel Hron shares insights from testing with 1,200+ customers, tackling hallucination risks in legal settings, and building professional-grade AI systems.Resources mentioned: Thomson Reuters Deep Research: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thomson-reuters-launches-cocounsel-legal-transforming-legal-work-with-agentic-ai-and-deep-research-302521761.html Westlaw & KeyCite: https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/westlaw/keycite Claude Code for development: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code LinkedIn: Joel HronThomson Reuters Medium blog: https://medium.com/tr-labs-ml-engineering-blog Subscribe to The Neuron newsletter: https://theneuron.ai

In this episode of The Geek in Review, hosts Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert sit down with Otto von Zastrow, the founder and CEO of MidPage.AI, an AI-native legal research platform. With a recent $4 million seed round and an ambitious mission to rival legacy research tools, MidPage is drawing attention across the legal industry. Otto shares his unconventional journey from AI-powered lawn robotics to transforming how litigators interact with case law. His pivot into legal tech was fueled by a combination of technical curiosity, the rise of language models, and firsthand insight from his lawyer friends overwhelmed by inefficient research workflows.Otto walks listeners through the core of MidPage's offering, which includes the usual suspects—case law, statutes, regulations—but with a twist: smarter search tools, intuitive UI, and features like a proprietary citator and their newly launched Proposition Search. This feature aims to solve the long-standing “needle-in-a-haystack” problem by surfacing judicial language that matches precise arguments, accompanied by contextual metadata and filters. Otto highlights that the goal isn't just to match or mimic tools like Lexis or Westlaw, but to rethink what legal research should feel like when modern AI capabilities are built in from the ground up.One of the more unique aspects of MidPage's product development is their internal "kangaroo court"—a monthly teamwide challenge where employees, regardless of role, must conduct legal research using MidPage or traditional tools. Otto notes that this process not only improves product design but builds real empathy for the user experience. Engineers and designers are encouraged to think like litigators, helping identify pain points and close functionality gaps. As a result, the product continually evolves based on firsthand user scenarios, not just speculation.The episode also delves into the data-side challenges that have historically prevented innovation in legal research. Otto explains why now—thanks to improved AI models and open access to data—is a rare inflection point for startups. He emphasizes the strategic importance of MidPage building its own case law dataset to avoid being beholden to incumbents. This independence allows them to innovate more freely, enhance precision, and lay the groundwork for broader API access that could empower the next generation of legal tech tools.Finally, the conversation looks ahead. Otto predicts that AI will amplify the capabilities of individual lawyers, enabling them to process more data at greater depth. In a world where clients are increasingly self-educating with tools like ChatGPT, MidPage aims to provide lawyers with the means to maintain credibility and efficiency while ensuring accuracy. As AI models grow more capable and agentic, Otto sees an evolution not just in how legal research is conducted, but in how lawyers interact with knowledge, data, and ultimately their clients.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.]   Blue Sky: ⁠⁠@geeklawblog.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@marlgeb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Transcript

This week, we welcome Laura Clayton McDonnell, President of the Corporates Business Segment at Thomson Reuters. Laura shares her inspiring journey from corporate securities law to executive leadership at top technology companies, including Apple, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and now Thomson Reuters. She discusses how her Silicon Valley upbringing and her family's immigrant experience have shaped her leadership style and commitment to innovation in the legal industry. Laura's personal purpose—rooted in values like courage, curiosity, and integrity—drives her mission to deliver measurable value to clients through legal technology and business transformation.The conversation highlights the rapid advancements in legal technology, with a special focus on the impact of generative AI and agentic AI in the legal sector. Laura explains how she stays ahead of legal tech trends by collaborating with internal teams, listening to customer feedback, and learning from her daughter, a practicing transactional lawyer. She emphasizes the importance of a growth mindset, continuous learning, and adaptability—qualities she honed during her time at Microsoft under Satya Nadella's leadership and through the teachings of Carol Dweck's “Growth Mindset.”Laura provides insights into how corporate legal, tax, and compliance departments are evolving from traditional cost centers to strategic business partners, thanks to innovative legal technology solutions from Thomson Reuters. She discusses how tools like Westlaw, Practical Law, Legal Tracker, and OneSource are helping legal professionals automate routine tasks, reduce contract review times by over 80%, and save millions on outside counsel spend. Laura notes that forward-thinking clients are not just adopting new legal tech tools—they are developing comprehensive strategies to transform business processes, training, and staffing for the future of legal work.The episode also explores the rise of alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) and the ongoing bifurcation of the legal market driven by technology adoption. Laura observes that general counsel are increasingly sophisticated in their approach, weighing cost, complexity, and the use of AI to achieve better outcomes. She stresses that legal technology is now essential for law firms and ALSPs alike, and that innovation and value delivery are key to staying competitive in the evolving legal landscape.Looking to the future, Laura predicts that predictive analytics, risk assessment, and cross-functional insights will become even more critical for legal, tax, and compliance professionals. She highlights the growing demand for skilled legal talent and the importance of ongoing training, ethical oversight, and building resilient, growth-oriented teams. Laura encourages legal industry leaders to prepare for a future where human expertise and advanced legal technology work together to drive strategic transformation and business success.For more information on legal technology trends, AI in the legal industry, and upcoming events, Laura invites listeners to connect with her on LinkedIn or visit Thomson Reuters. She also highlights the upcoming Thomson Reuters customer conference in November, where attendees can experience product demos and gain insights into the latest legal innovation and industry trends. Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.] Links:• Forbes Article • GenAI Report• State of the Corporate Law Department ReportBlue Sky: ⁠⁠@geeklawblog.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@marlgeb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

This week we welcome Raghu Ramanathan, President of Legal Professionals at Thomson Reuters, for an insightful discussion on the profound impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the legal industry. Raghu shares why he believes the legal sector, alongside healthcare, stands at the forefront of the AI revolution. His journey into the legal tech world, driven by the transformative potential of AI, sets the stage for a deep dive into current trends, future predictions, and the strategic initiatives shaping the future of law.Central to the conversation is Raghu's updated perspective on the evolution of law firms, revisiting predictions he first made in 2017. He outlines a compelling framework describing "three waves" of AI adoption currently underway. The first wave, "Optimization," which many firms are experiencing now, focuses on using AI to enhance existing workflows, making tasks faster and more efficient. The second wave, "Re-engineering," involves fundamentally rethinking processes, staffing models (including the traditional pyramid structure), pricing strategies, and the very nature of legal work to leverage AI's capabilities more deeply. Looking further ahead, the third wave anticipates the emergence of entirely "New Business Models."Thomson Reuters is actively navigating and shaping this transformation, particularly through its AI platform, CoCounsel. Raghu highlights the rapid evolution of CoCounsel, emphasizing the continuous development of new "skills"—capabilities ranging from summarization and research to drafting and complex analysis like the innovative "Claims Explorer." He explains TR's strategy involves integrating proprietary data (like Westlaw), client-provided documents, and public information, leveraging advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) from various providers to deliver comprehensive and powerful AI assistance. Prioritizing new skill development involves balancing significant client value with technical feasibility, constantly informed by close collaboration with innovation-focused customers.Beyond law firms, the conversation explores the crucial role and adoption of AI within the court system. Raghu notes a surprising enthusiasm among courts, driven by the urgent need to address growing case backlogs and enhance access to justice within tight budgets. He points to Thomson Reuters' significant partnerships, including a major agreement to deploy AI tools across the US federal courts and ongoing collaboration with the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), which is fostering education and policy discussions among judges and court staff nationwide. Complementing product innovation, TR's expanded "Customer Success" initiative underscores the importance of user adoption, providing dedicated resources and best practices to help lawyers and legal professionals effectively integrate AI tools into their daily workflows, ensuring technology translates into tangible value.Raghu anticipates that smaller and mid-sized law firms may initially leverage AI more aggressively as a competitive equalizer, pushing larger firms to make bolder, more strategic moves beyond simple optimization. He stresses that the ultimate differentiator for success in the AI era will likely be less about the technology itself and more about effective change management. The rapid pace of AI adoption already witnessed in the legal sector signals that this transformation is not a distant prospect but a present reality reshaping the industry at an unprecedented speed.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.] Blue Sky: ⁠⁠@geeklawblog.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@marlgeb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript

Discover how legal research giants like LexisNexis and Westlaw are being disrupted by low cost AI tools like ChatGPT. Smart solo lawyers are ignoring overpriced AI tools favored by BigLaw in favor of cheaper, more innovative options. Listen to find out which AI-powered legal research options that deliver speed, savings, and simplicity without bloated price tags. Resources from this Episode Carolyn Elefant's LinkedIn Post  ChatGPT  Google NotebookLM  Midpage  Westlaw  LexisNexis CoCounsel (Thomson Reuters / Casetext AI assistant) Fastcase Vincent AI (Fastcase's AI research tool) Clearbrief Microsoft 365 Copilot Other Resources The 80/20 Principle (my techlaw newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (my online community for lawyers)   Follow and Review: I'd love for you to follow me if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. I'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Thanks to the sponsor: Smith.ai Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai, you're hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a risk-free start with a 14-day money-back guarantee now (and learn more) at smith.ai.

Judge VanDyke made a YouTube video to accompany his dissent in Duncan v. Bonta, the Second Amendment case in which a Ninth Circuit en banc panel upheld California's ban on handgun magazines over 10 bullets. Judge VanDyke's video shows him disassembling a gun, comparing accessories, and using a portion of oral argument to claim his point wasn't being heard. The issue: If a magazine is just an accessory not entitled to Second Amendment protection, then basically the entire gun is just a bunch of unprotected accessories.Jeff and Tim react:Can a federal judge issue a TikTok-style dissent? If so, can lawyers start footnoting their briefs with YouTube links?Does a video “illustration” that relies on props cross the line into new fact-finding? Or is it just illustrative of a legal point about distinguish an “arm” from its “accessories”?Are judges likely to do more of these dissents? Maybe explainer videos would be useful in patent cases (comparing iPhone and Samsung phone designs), or product defects, or police excessive-force cases?And practical questions: Will the video—and transcript—show up in Westlaw searches? How do you cite to something side during a dissent video?We also discuss a California Supreme Court ruling clarifying that malicious prosecution claims, even against lawyers, get the full two-year statute of limitations. Not the shorter one-year.And finally, an update from the J&J v. Trump litigation saga: a judge opens with a warning about the “priceless” nature of attorney integrity. The administration then invoked state secrets. Contempt proceedings now loom. Stay tuned.Appellate Specialist Jeff Lewis' biography, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter feed.Appellate Specialist Tim Kowal's biography, LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed, and YouTube page.Sign up for Not To Be Published, Tim Kowal's weekly legal update, or view his blog of recent cases.Other items discussed in the episode:Video Dissent: https://bsky.app/profile/rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social/post/3lkt7yftgqc2g

Each week, the leading journalists in legal tech choose their top stories of the week to discuss with our other panelists.   This week's topics: 00:00 Panelist Introductions 03:43 Trump Cancels The SEC's Westlaw Subscription For Probably The Dumbest Possible Reason (Selected by Joe Patrice) 14:40 My JELL-O Theory of Legal Tech (Selected by Stephanie Wilkins) 30:50 Wondering what the Big 4 are up to? Stuart Bedford, KPMG's global head of legal services, makes it pretty clear (Selected by Stephen Embry) 41:50 Upsolve: Building the turbotax of bankruptcy and battling UPL restrictions (Selected by Bob Ambrogi) 45:25 AI in Law Firms: Ethics Committees Are Clearing the Path Forward (Selected by Niki Black) 54:00 Deposely Offers Free AI Deposition and Litigation Tools Through New ‘Essentials' Program (Selected by Stephanie Wilkins)

The new federal deficit is the government's research deficit. ----- Elon Musk's aimless cost-cutting escapades turn to the SEC where DOGE slashed their Westlaw access because no one over there is smart enough to know how legal research works. Apparently now is an opportune time to start committing securities fraud! Speaking of aimless, former judge Alex Kozinski penned a meandering opinion piece about canceling elections in case, maybe, some president might want to consider it. And a few law schools quietly reworked their websites to remove diversity language. They probably won't be the last.

The new federal deficit is the government's research deficit. ----- Elon Musk's aimless cost-cutting escapades turn to the SEC where DOGE slashed their Westlaw access because no one over there is smart enough to know how legal research works. Apparently now is an opportune time to start committing securities fraud! Speaking of aimless, former judge Alex Kozinski penned a meandering opinion piece about canceling elections in case, maybe, some president might want to consider it. And a few law schools quietly reworked their websites to remove diversity language. They probably won't be the last. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The Building Texas Business Podcast, I spoke with Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, about the region's economic development. We explored the five major industry clusters shaping the area: maritime logistics, aerospace, tourism, healthcare, and petrochemicals. Brian shared updates on aerospace innovations at Ellington Field, including projects by Intuitive Machines and Axiom, while highlighting new opportunities in defence manufacturing. I learned about Project 11, an initiative to expand the Houston port's capacity for larger vessels. Brian explained how this infrastructure project connects to the broader transportation network, particularly the role of trucking in regional commerce. We discussed how the partnership works with legislators and industry leaders to address challenges like insurance costs and maintain economic momentum. The conversation shifted to leadership approaches and team dynamics in Texas business. Brian described how maintaining diverse projects keeps his team engaged and motivated. We explored how the Houston area supports entrepreneurs through community partnerships and mentorship programs while adapting to technological changes like AI integration. Our discussion wrapped up with a look at workforce development in the region. Brian explained how educational partnerships are building talent pipelines across industries. We covered the importance of aligning training programs with business needs while fostering collaboration between municipalities, educational institutions, and industry partners. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode, I spoke with Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, about the economic development in the Houston Bay Area, focusing on the recruitment, retention, and expansion of primary employers. We discussed the significant industry clusters in the region, including maritime logistics, aerospace, tourism, healthcare, and petrochemicals, and their impact on the area's economic growth. Brian highlighted developments at Ellington Field, including contributions from companies like Intuitive Machines and Axiom, as well as the emerging opportunities in defense manufacturing and procurement. The episode explored the scale and impact of the Houston port, emphasizing Project 11's role in expanding the port's capacity and the importance of logistics and innovation for regional prosperity. We delved into the leadership style necessary for motivating teams and managing diverse projects, underscoring the Texan entrepreneurial spirit characterized by ambition and a collaborative approach. Brian shared insights on the vibrant business ecosystem in Texas, driven by a skilled workforce, affordability, and a supportive community fostering partnerships and mentorship opportunities. Finally, we addressed challenges like insurance costs and the importance of regional solidarity, as well as efforts to mitigate natural disaster risks and promote responsible development in the area. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About BAHEP GUESTS Brian FreedmanAbout Brian TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode you will meet Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. Brian shares how his organization works to recruit, retain and expand primary employers in the greater Houston Bay Area region. Brian, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business. Thanks for joining us today. Brian: Hey, thank you, Chris. Honored to be here and great to catch up. Chris: Yes, likewise. So let's start with you. You're the president and the organizational name's kind of long it's Bay Area, houston Economic Partnership. Tell the listeners a little bit about what that organization is and what it does, to kind of put the rest of our conversation into context. Brian: Sure, so BayHEP is the short version of it. So we're the Regional Economic Development Group and kind of the, as I like to say, in the Houston-Galveston region. We're three o'clock to six o'clock on the watch, face right. So we kind of go out 225, all the municipalities and cities going out east and then going down south 45. We go a little west of 45, but really that 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock and we're really focused on how do you recruit, retain and expand primary employers in the region with the idea that if you can get great companies located here and have a group of industry clusters that are cranking away every day, that we can have a great place to live. We have great involved residents that are in this area and opportunities for the folks who live here and kind of build what the future will look like for this region. So a lot of good stuff going on and, happy to get into that a little further, we do economic development, recruitment, retention projects. So how do we get companies here? We do some grants and then we're a membership organization is how we're funded. So we have about 300 members, 19 municipal members, Harrison-Galveston County, the port, the airport system. It's really how do you get the leaders of a region to work together to advance what we're doing here. Chris: Wow, I mean that's it sounds like it's easier to say and harder to do coordinating that many organizations and trying to get everybody pulling the same direction. Brian: Yeah, it's a lot of fun and we get to work with a lot of great folks. That's how we met Chris, is that, you know, through some of our mutual connections. But yeah, you know, it's really when you can get generally like-minded folks thinking about what the future of a region will look like and pretty aligned and working towards that effort, it's more of a well, it's just fun and you can create a lot of impact and we're seeing that and I'll be happy to dive into some of the specific projects we're working down here. But I mean, you guys do it too at Boyer Miller. Y'all are working with clients all over the spectrum of types of industry and you have to adapt to what's coming up, what's at you, and be ready for that kind of stuff. Chris: Yeah, no doubt. So yeah let's jump into some stuff. Let's talk first, because when I think of your area, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is NASA and all that's going on around that, and that leads me to technology and innovation. So what are some of the emerging technologies or trends that you're seeing that are kind of helping shape the future of Texas and kind of the business opportunities, at least in your region and for Texas? Brian: Yeah, so I call it kind of the big five on the industry cluster. So everybody thinks about this area for NASA, which we love right, because it really is a crown jewel out here, but I call it the big five right Maritime and all the associated logistics with the port aerospace and aviation, so nasa, but also the great work that the airport system is doing with ellington and hobby, tourism and recreation, health care and all the hospitals that have campuses down here, and then specialty and petrochemical and the energy industry partners and every one of those ecosystem has a ton of stuff going on. So I'm happy to talk about some of those more granular. But a couple of observations. One is that often overlooked in this community and really an asset to the greater Houston region is Ellington Field, ellington Airport, the Spaceport and, if you haven't seen or heard about it, the work that's going on at the Spaceport. They have three new beautiful buildings. One is occupied by Intuitive Machines who just put the first commercial lander payload on the surface of the moon. One is occupied by a company called Axiom that's building the next generation of commercial spacesuits and the next generation space station, and Collins who do spacesuit design in our building and maintaining the current spacesuits. They've set up huge facilities down there and so new stuff coming on. But I'm equally excited about just across the runway is the 147th Reserve Group. So there's a reserve unit out there, a reserve base, and the defense opportunities are pretty exciting. So that's highlighted by the 147th. But almost every branch has a reserve unit out there, save the Space Force, and we're working on that. And so the opportunities with defense manufacturing to come out to do more work in Houston and some of their innovation units and, as mundane as it sounds, some of the procurement opportunities, because when it comes to contracting, having a group of folks here would be a great opportunity for Houston businesses to then pipeline the work that they're doing into the broader defense industry, which can be really exciting. One other thing I'll mention, chris, is if you just look at the path of predictable growth for Houston, right, it keeps going out and we see that on our freeways every day. So there are growing pains that come with that, but for our region it's that steady march down Interstate 45. And so while Clear Lake Lake City are starting to get to fully built out and we're looking at what is the next generation of building look like, what's redevelopment look like For communities Dickinson, hitchcock, santa Fe, to some extent Texas City. Although they've got quite an industrial complex too, there's still space, and so it really brings up the opportunity of we can handle big projects, and whether they're industrial or tourism, there's a lot of opportunity that comes with that. And so, as folks you know, as we get built out further and further, those cities that were, they've always been important cities for the regional ecosystem, but they become major players, and so it's exciting to be able to work with them on that stuff. Chris: Sounds like a lot of opportunity for real estate development. Both residential, retail, commercial, industrial kind of all sectors are going to be playing a big part in that ongoing development in your region. Brian: Exactly right, and part of the the fun part is, you know, every municipality has different targets of what they view their economic development to look like, and so we get to work with all those cities where some may be really focused on industrial, some may want to be bedroom communities and be focused on residential. Our task is to support those municipalities in this region and identifying good players to bring to the table. So who are people that we do want to partner with that can follow through on the projects that can complete them and make them successful? Chris: That's great. I think I saw recently in the news the state of Texas, I think it's had something along these lines, but it's like a fund for the space-related projects and I know I don't know the name and you'll help me with that, but I seem to recall the governor being in town and making some big announcement right after the first of the year. Tell us a little more about that. Brian: Recall the governor being in town and making some big announcement right after the first of the year. Tell us a little more about that, exactly, right? So last legislative session, primarily spearheaded by State Representative Greg Bonin, who's also a Princewood resident he's a neurosurgeon by day and State Representative Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee during the legislative session he had this kind of vision of how does the state become a major player in the aerospace community. That's been primarily a federal and private industry ecosystem and so under his vision and with support of the state legislature and certainly the governor, they put a bill that kind of outlined a direction for the state to engage and the resources behind it. It does a couple of things. One was it allocated about $200 million that would go to Texas A&M to build this A&M Space Institute, and they've actually located that property. It will be built on the edge of the campus of Johnson Space Center, so for those familiar with this area, right on Saturn Lane. $200 million building and, as A&M's laid it out, it will have a giant lunar rock yard and a giant Mars rock yard, with the idea that everybody who's going to be doing hardware testing to send vehicles to the moon or Mars is trying to figure out where they're going to do that testing. And it's very expensive to build, obviously. And so companies are making the decision whether they're going to build that themselves and own it or go lease it somewhere. And if they're going to lease it, where do you go to find a giant brockyard to simulate the surface of the moon? And well, the state of Texas answered that question. So what was so unique about that vision was that everybody who's in that ecosystem now wants to come through Houston Texas to do that work. And so with that comes the. You know they'll be have their lab space there, but they may need offices, they're going to be hiring people, and so you know it really is an exciting project. They had their groundbreaking right at the end of last year. I've seen surveyors out there and they think they're going to have it open in 2026. So an aggressive timeline to get that bill. The other part to that bill was they appropriated $150 million for a grant program to incentivize sort of space leadership projects in the state of Texas, and so they have to set up a whole, basically administration portion of this. So they selected nine individuals to serve on the Texas Space Commission who will review those proposals and evaluate them and make awards. Who will review those proposals and evaluate them and make awards, and then they'll also help advise the state on how they can keep their leadership position in the space industry. The first of those awards about 20 million were released a little over a week ago. A couple of them were studies for best use for really cool stuff hypersonic corridors where to be landing sites. And then another one that is to build assets and capabilities for the Space Force in El Paso to have more of a Space Force presence in the state of Texas, which is pretty exciting. So I'm optimistic about what's to come for them. Chris: Yeah, that sounds very exciting, especially the concept of the $200 million grant to A&M and what that will do to attract other businesses that might relocate somewhere else and bring them here, and then all the ancillary things around hiring and jobs et cetera. So that's very exciting news and I think it'll be just around the corner. Let's maybe talk a little bit about. You mentioned Maritime and the port, and most Houstonians People know the Houston port is a significant asset for our area. Anything going on there that's new and exciting, any kind of innovation that you see when you're working with those entities and, I guess, the port authority itself. Brian: Yeah, well, maybe the first thing when you talk about the port is you're absolutely right just how important they are to this well, to all of Houston, but to the country I mean. The scale of the port is hard to appreciate when you just look at the numbers. But the numbers are just staggering. The amount of capability that comes through there and the innovation really is on the logistics and management for how they move, whether it's container, you know, container containers, the container terminal organization and how that whole orchestra is operated, and the capabilities from there is that the crane's getting stuff unloaded, then onto the trucks or rail or whatever. The mechanism to get it out and then get it distributed to wherever it's going is pretty incredible, and so we're fortunate to have them. We just hosted the new port CEO, charlie Jenkins, who's a phenomenal leader, has a career in service of the port, is the right guy to lead that organization into their next chapter. But he made this comment kind of in passing that the port's operations are about a $3 billion a day operation, you know, and you just go like a day of economic impact that go into that. The scale is really something impressive and that's all the trickle out and secondary effects. But it's amazing, the big thing that's going on with them right now is Project 11. That's the deepening and widening of the channel that'll allow additional capacity to go in there, and it's really writing the story for what the next chapter of the port's future is and Houston as a trading hub is, and so it'll allow for larger ships to come through. The additional investments they're making will allow faster turn and movement of all the goods that are on there. So a lot of good stuff going on. I guess the last thing I'll say is anybody who's driven 225 sees all those trucks and I drive it pretty regularly and see that too and as much as nobody likes driving next to a giant 18 wheeler, every one of those trucks is jobs and prosperity for our region, and so the next time you're driving there and you see a hundred trucks going down 225, that's our economic prosperity moving around our region and, candidly, around the country. It's good stuff. Chris: It's a good point. Yeah, I mean it's. You wouldn't want the roads to be empty and no trucks moving. I mean that's not a good sign. So feel blessed that we have all that you know in our area and driving all kinds of different prospects and opportunities for people. So when you are working with, let's talk a little bit about these member organizations and all the different moving parts you know what are you doing? How do you, I guess, keep things organized and people kind of moving in the same direction? Just, I would think that in itself is a full-time job. Brian: Yeah, it's a lot, but you know it's good stuff. I guess I'll start with a phrase that I kind of live by, which is we have a lot of stuff going on and so we'll find something to get on about. Right, we can always find something to work together on, and so, if you kind of start with that attitude, there's a lot of common issues that really require a lot of work but you can get maybe not perfect alignment, but general directional alignment. And so you know, one of the big issues we're working with right now is insurance. Right, we're all dealing with it. I'm sure you've gotten your insurance bill, but whether it's home or your business insurance, all those things, and so you can find a lot of commonality and ideas about hey, how can we work with our state leaders, potentially our federal leaders, with the insurance companies themselves, to try to manage the cost of doing that and find ways could it be grouping, doing kind of what they do in medical where you can have these larger groups or other mechanisms to try and help mitigate some of the costs? For that I'm getting a little granular, but you can find these little pockets where you can go move the ball down the field and get general alignment and so we spend a lot of time doing that. But we are very fortunate that our membership and generally this is kind of a Texan spirit type thing is hey, how do we go get some stuff done? Right, we want to go work on some stuff we want to go work on together. Generally it's a rising tide mentality and I spent a good portion of my career in industry and there are times where we compete like crazy and that's fun and, you know, makes great products and great opportunities for our customers. There are a lot of times where we need the tide to rise and finding alignment about that we try to be an outlet for that and keep things running. Right Is that we have not a big staff but a staff that can help make sure that. You know, our members are doing a lot of this stuff as volunteers, right, but they're bringing ideas to the table. So how can we make sure that they're staying engaged, that we're checking in on them, that we're helping carry these things and that we're creating a forum to have the right discussions and bring leaders together so we can invite in elected officials over relevant stuff, the right industry players, and bring them to the table and figure out what we can do, and then I guess the last thing I'll say is that manifests itself. We have a very active state legislative agenda. That we're going to be spending a fair amount of time in Austin, federal priorities. That we work with our congressional delegation and then very on the ground working with our municipalities and all the companies that are out down here to make movement. Probably talk all day about little one-offs. Advert Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermillercom. And thanks for listening to the show at boyermillercom. And thanks for listening to the show. Chris: Well it is. You know legislature is in session, so I know that creates a busy time for you. You talked a lot about some of the opportunities and I hope we can talk some more about that, but I do want to ask you at this point what are some of the headwinds that you see you know this region and specifically kind of where you are. You know that could be out there. That you see you know this region and specifically kind of where you are. You know that could be out there that you've got to try to deal with, to get ahead of or navigate through. Brian: I'll start with. It's a great time down here. Just the way that each one of those big five industry clusters is going about is that it's a. You know they're all doing well and have a lot of opportunity that's on the horizon or that they're in the midst of right now, but certainly you know, a few headwinds. One of the things that we're always worried about and we work actively is just natural disaster flood mitigation and storm surge and making sure that we're resilient and prepared for the future, and so the risk from some incident happening. I'm more excited to talk about, when it comes to that, all the things that we're doing to mitigate that. In terms of flood mitigation, the coastal barrier protection work that we've been spending a lot of time on. That's the Ike Dike. It has a lot of names, but most commonly known is that but a system to protect us from storm surge. So one is the risk of natural disaster I don't like it, but it's a real thing, right? The second is that we're in the you know how do we have responsible development? And so when you have a project that comes online, there are, you know, reasonable concerns from citizens saying, hey, is this the best thing to be doing with this piece of land, and so anytime you're talking about a development that's going to take a field and turn it into a thing, people get concerned about that and that's perfectly reasonable for them to be concerned and want to do that. And so part of what I spend time doing is addressing like, hey, here's why this is worthwhile, here's why this funds your local municipality and build more parks so we can have the resources and the tax base that justify expenditures that come elsewhere and make through that. But just the ability for the public's ability to impact development, as it happens, is important. But for them to do that knowing all the ground truth, knowing what the trades are and understanding that, so that if they are concerned about something that they come with that from an educated knowledge base and so that's out there. And then I certainly don't want to get political, but anytime there's an administration change, there's just priorities that get changed. And so we're still waiting to understand all of those. We're kind of watching how things are shaken out in Washington DC and we'll adapt and make sure that we're doing everything we can to put our region in a great posture with whatever those priorities are at the end of the day. Chris: So yeah, to that last point where you're kind of right in throws that change. Right now that's happening pretty fast, so you got to stay on your toes. Let me take you back to the Ike Dike, because that you know something to get after Harvey. Hurricane Harvey got talked about a lot. You don't hear much about it anymore. Any kind of updates for the listeners. That might be curious. Is it really going to happen and, if so, what's really going on down there to make sure it doesn't happen? Brian: And if so, what's really going on down there to make sure it doesn't happen? Yeah, so it's still moving along, you know, and with some enthusiasm. So a couple of big milestones. One is that in December of 22, it became a formal project of the US Army Corps of Engineers. It was authorized by Congress as a project, so that says, you know, they can now go focus on that. And so the next big question becomes how do we pay for it? To answer that, the state stepped up in a big way in the last legislative session and they had previously formed what's called the Gulf Coast Protection District. That is the local entity for that project. That will work with the US Army Corps of Engineers. So that group exists and has monthly meetings. They actually have an office in our suite. We lease an office to them them and they have their meeting in our conference room two out of every three months and then they do a rotation on that. Third, and they've been funded to the tune of about a half a billion dollars from the state of Texas. So they're ready to take significant action. We've been working with our federal partners about identifying where the big dollars come from for that project. It's going to be expensive and it's going to take a long time, but it will be likely done in phases and so that allows it. Where you don't need this one giant tranche of money all at once, you can do it sort of in a series and address the most important aspects of that, like the gates, some of the initial most highly populated areas, in phases. But we got to get federal appropriations for it. So in addition to the state entity being in our office, actually the US Army Corps of Engineers is on the fourth floor of this building and so all of the players for that project are in one building in our area right here, so that when what I'm hopeful for is if Corps moved in about six months ago, anytime an elected leader wants to come down and meet, they'll get every leader for that project in the same building and often meeting in our conference room or one of the core conference rooms. But a lot more can get done. There's sort of the opportunity for water cooler conversations between the state and the fed folks, and so I'm optimistic that the cadence just from that proximity will be helpful to that effort. Chris: Very good, that's good to hear. Let's change conversation a little bit. So, as I said, you're the president of BHEP. You mentioned your staff. Let's talk a little about leadership. How would you describe your leadership style and how do you think that's evolved kind of as you've been in this role? Brian: Yeah, well, I don't know that I can quantify terribly well, but I'm a kind of hey, all hands on deck and let's all just lean into wherever we're going. Right, and I kind of have that expectation of our team that we're have a clear set of priorities generally around the growth of this region and the projects that we're undertaking and that we're just leaning into them all the time and focusing. That I've been. You know I love getting down and into projects and so that's as I've been on this journey. That's been one of the big focus points to me is that you know you need a team to get this amount of stuff done and the size of these projects and the scope and so the ability to trust in the team and lean on them and let them go run with the ball is really important. I've been extremely fortunate that we have a great staff and we have a great membership base that we can lean on to help go bring those things to fruition. But it's a lot of fun coming to work. I think the team has a great time and enjoy the work that we do and you can see the difference that we make because there are buildings. We can point to that, wouldn't, you know, if not for the work of us and the leaders in this community wouldn't be there, and I'm looking forward to seeing that one on Saturn Lane with giant Texas A&M buildings sticking out of it coming through. Chris: It sounds like it's going to be impressive with the rockyards and all. But, you know, it made me think, though your team has a lot on its plate, I would think at times it may feel overwhelming. So, you know, what do you do to kind of help keep the motivation and keep the energy level up for a team that probably, at some points is, you know, starting to get to the end of the rope or run out of gas? Brian: Yeah, diversity of projects and lots of different stuff to work on. I'm guessing and actually I'd kind of turn that question on you, chris, because I can only imagine the type of stress that you guys live under, especially working big cases and big projects. There's one part that is, hey, we're just all in this together, right, and the esprit de corps that comes with. We're tackling big projects and that's just part of what comes with it. But there's another part where you just need to shift gears for a little bit and work on something different and give yourself a little recharge time. But how do you guys deal with it? I'm curious how? Chris: Boyer Miller, yeah that's a fair question to turn around on me. I would say it's similar. I think it's. You know to me that you can't underestimate the power of a team and if you have the right people on the team, there's some self-motivation just within that group, Right. And then I think it is the. We are fortunate to have very diverse type projects. We practice in all industries. So we may be doing a, a deal or a project, but it's in a different industry and there's different nuances that make it exciting. And at the end of the day I think it's the one point you highlighted on you can point to something and we're helping clients achieve their goals. So we can, you know, point to a deal that's been done or, you know, maybe it's a merger of two companies, or one that's grown and now has a new building and doing whatever. But you can point to those successes that you, where you've helped the client achieve, you know something really big for them and their business and their life. And so I think all of that continues the motivation. Yes, sometimes at the end of a big deal, you need just a little bit of a breather, but you just jump right back in and get going. So it makes it fun. Brian: Well, if you'll let me share. So you and I first met in person, had an opportunity to meet at one of your big forums, and that was a bunch of your customers and clients were there, and I love meeting new folks, as you probably saw, and I you know, walking around just saying, hey, I'm Brian, what do you do? And almost every one of them I would ask like, hey. So how do you know Chris, how do you know this group? You know, have you worked with them? And they all had a story. That was exactly that. You know, whatever thing it was that you helped them. We did XYZ project and it was awesome. We use them all the time for all these things. It was just very striking how passionate your customers, your clients, are with the help they've gotten from you guys, and so, anyway, that is extremely commendable and what I've seen from your team has just been amazing. Chris: Well, I appreciate the feedback. It's always good to get that, especially from different sources. So you know, like I think, we're always trying to create raving fans so that they'll keep coming back and tell their friends. So you get a unique seat and I think it's similar. You kind of analogize back to us. I think we get a unique seat to work with Texas entrepreneurs, and that's a pretty cool thing to do, in my view. What's, what would you or how would you describe the Texas entrepreneurial spirit if you could, based on your experience? Brian: Yeah well, I'm a native Texan. I have this hypothesis that part of the reason we're such a proud bunch is that when you go through I don't know if you grew up in Texas, chris but then also this sense of like we can do big things and big audacious things and we can make big asks and ask big questions and go get it done. And so we see a lot of that down here. And so you know, if you were sitting in I'll make this up Iowa and you said you know I want to have a space business and we want to go put hardware on the moon, and you know your neighbors would look at you and kind of scratch their head and in Texas they'd go oh yeah, that's intuitive machines and they're down the street, you should go. You know, go talk to them. They'd love to work with you. So that kind of spirit is really something special. When I was in industry I traveled all over the country working projects. There's something very special about this region, this community, this state, and that translates into why people want to come here. You know we keep Texas and Houston keep winning all these awards for business, new businesses coming here, people moving here, and that's not by accident, it's not by coincidence. It's because we have a great, great story to tell, whether that's workforce and the capabilities, the affordability of being here, the caliber of people you can work with and who your competitors are, and the level of intensity in the game that we play here is high and that creates the right ingredients for a really thriving community, for entrepreneurs, but also for industry any size. Chris: Right, very good. So what advice would you give to entrepreneurs out there that might be looking to start a business, let's say specifically, kind of within your region? If not, maybe beyond that in Houston? What's? Some of the advice you might give them if they wanted to get involved in some of the all the things you've been talking about. Brian: Yeah, dive in. It's a great community and a great ecosystem and there's a reason people are investing here and making a great run at it. We try to make that as easy as it can be. Now it is not easy. There's no illusions that starting a company you know scaling and growing a company all those things are very challenging. So the question I find myself asking I don't know that I'm in a position to give you know this immense amount of wisdom about these things, but what can we as a community and we as an organization be doing to help that entrepreneur? How do we help them build a relationship so that if they're having trouble with a permit, they know who to go ask, who to go talk to If they have a big idea, who might be good partners If they want to bounce something off, a retired executive who they might go talk to about that has the right skillset, so that we can create the conditions for them to be successful? And so that's really how we find ourselves interfacing that ecosystem is how do we put the right players together to go make things happen? Chris: Very good. So the other thing I'm curious to know is what do you see? You mentioned your five big industries. What have you observed of those industries working together to create innovative ideas to help each other? You got to move forward. Brian: Yeah, there's been a lot of. So workforce has been one of the biggest, especially over the last few years, where there's been this really high intensity competition amongst folks. And I wouldn't be surprised if you have been in some of that with, you know, recruiting and retaining high talent attorneys, right Is that? That's been, and so we've spent a lot of time and I've observed a lot of our members in this community go with that as a spirit of, hey, we're not really doing anybody any good If we're just poaching each other's people and you know, and creating pain points and friction between senior executives and those kinds of things. Let's go look at other communities and go figure out hey, what are the best universities and how do we get the professors that are training the students in it to send resumes to our area, right, and that we have a coalition of companies, not just one company has a relationship with one professor and that company benefits from that it's. How do we build that relationship as a community and say to them hey, we have a very strong demand signal, let's work together on things like that and so feeding that workforce pipeline so we're not divvying up the pie, we're growing it. And so, on the workforce side. I hate to be cliche because everybody's talking about AI, but we've had a couple of membership meetings about it. We've been working with partners about integration of it. We've adopted different technologies that have come out of it. But that stuff really, I mean it's the wave that we're living in right now, and so the integration of that into systems, both the how to do it and the mitigation of risk. I think I saw over the weekend that the new DeepSeek had a big not terribly surprised, but had a giant data leak and compromise, and so when you know when you're using that, I can only imagine, chris, I'd be curious how y'all are integrating it. But you know everything you put in there. You got to assume that at some point, somebody you don't want to have access will at least have the opportunity to have access to it, and so you have to be quite careful about how you integrate it. I, just as an aside, how are you guys using it much? Have you all banished it? What's the? Chris: Well, I'd say it's a little bit of both. I mean, we are definitely looking at and finding ways to integrate it. We've adopted a policy, but it starts with, as you mentioned, with us. It starts and stops with maintaining client confidentiality. So there's some systems out there through recognized kind of legal researchers. So Westlaw comes to mind, where they developed AI tool that is solely within their database. So it's secure, it's, it's all legal. You don't have to worry about we were still spot. You still have to check things right the human element of that. But if you're searching, for example, using the AI tool within Westlaw, you don't have to worry about the fake cases you've seen in the news. But our attorneys, you know, if you're going to use it, it has to be approved through the firm which are only a handful. You can't use anything outside and everything has to be double checked by a person to make sure for accuracy, etc. But so it is. I mean, the confidentiality side is a real concern, not just for law firms, for everybody, any company using it, and unfortunately that's just gonna be more and more what we see right. The more that we're moving everything to cloud, you're going to have people coming after it to try to. You know, on the bad side of that and certain countries it's not illegal to be a hacker. So it's just, you know, that's the world we live in now. Yeah Well, you know, brian, this has been a very interesting conversation and the you know, the last time we spoke I came away with the same feeling, and that is, we talked a lot about a lot of opportunity going on in the three to six o'clock region of greater Houston and we didn't even scratch the surface, I'm sure. But my takeaways have been it doesn't matter what industry again, I said earlier, you always kind of automatically think of space and NASA, but it's every type of business you could think of. An industry you could think of Sounds like you've got ample opportunity for businesses and entrepreneurs to start, grow, expand and be there and thrive. Brian: Well, perfectly said, and I think we get a recording. I may use that in some of our promotional material. Chris, that's exactly right. Great time, great place to be and welcome folks to reach out to us to help however we can if they're interested in looking at opportunities down here for that Before I lose you. Chris, one of the favorite questions that you had sent over that I wanted to ask you that you didn't get a chance to ask is what your favorite recreation vacation spot in the state of Texas is. Chris: Well, I'll answer that. I was about to ask you that. I would say if it's kind of a vacation spot in Texas, it would probably be anywhere along the Texas coast to relax a little bit and get some fishing in. Brian: Perfect. Chris: How about you? Brian: We are huge campers, like we love going camping. My kids are eight and 11 and we have state parks pass, and so any day I'm in a state park is a good day for me. But Inks Lake is one of my favorites and McKinney Falls between the two of those. Those are my top two right now, but we've probably been to Keene and we're just checking off the box to hit them all, and maybe we'll upgrade to National Parks as we get a little bit older. But I love our visiting our state park system. They're just absolutely wonderful. Chris: That's great. Okay, last question You're native Texan, so do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Brian: Oh, I feel like that question is going to get me in trouble, but if you made me choose, I'd pick barbecue. I'll eat it all day, every day, as it shows how about you, how about you? Chris: I think it's a tough one, so I've had some guests. You know, it depends on the day. I probably lean Tex-Mex more than barbecue. But I love the restaurants now that are combining the two, so brisket tacos or brisket nachos or something like that. It's a great combination. Brian: Yeah, there should be an answer all of the above there. Chris: So we're getting close to the rodeo time in Houston, so I have to go with barbecue for now and then back to Tex-Mex, I guess. Brian: Well, I look forward to seeing you at the kickoff event, where we get to go sample a little everything. Deal, that sounds good. Well, I look forward to seeing you at the kickoff event, where we get to go sample a little everything. Chris: Deal. That sounds good. Brian, thanks again for taking the time. Really appreciate your friendship and definitely appreciate what you and your team are doing for all the things business down in the Bay Area. Brian: Well, right back at you, Chris. Thanks for your leadership and all the great work you're doing with your team. Appreciate the opportunity to visit with you today. Thank you. Special Guest: Brian Freedman.

This Day in Legal History: West Law Reports PublishedOn October 21, 1876, the West Publishing Company, founded by John B. West, published its first legal reporter, The Syllabi. This marked the beginning of a transformation in how American legal professionals accessed and utilized case law. The Syllabi aimed to provide Minnesota lawyers with timely, accurate, and reliable legal information, distinguishing itself through its promise to be "prompt, interesting, full, and at all times thoroughly reliable." Over time, The Syllabi evolved into the Northwestern Reporter, which played a significant role in shaping the broader National Reporter System. West's innovation was groundbreaking because it standardized the reporting of judicial decisions across multiple jurisdictions, creating a centralized, accessible body of case law. The National Reporter System expanded to cover decisions from various courts in different regions, making it easier for lawyers to research case law beyond state boundaries. This system eventually became the foundation for modern legal research and was essential for the creation of tools like Westlaw, which revolutionized legal research with digital access in the 20th century. It is worth noting, the development of a centralized legal reporting system, while transformative, also raises important access to justice issues. West Publishing's dominance in legal reporting and the eventual emergence of paid research platforms like Westlaw created barriers for individuals and smaller firms with limited financial resources. The high cost of accessing comprehensive legal databases places those without the means at a significant disadvantage, potentially hindering their ability to conduct thorough legal research or build strong cases. This disparity underscores the ongoing challenge of ensuring equal access to legal resources, a critical factor in promoting fairness within the justice system.China-based drone manufacturer DJI has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Defense Department, challenging its inclusion on a list of companies allegedly linked to Beijing's military. DJI claims the designation is inaccurate and has caused substantial financial harm, including lost business deals and a tarnished reputation. The company, which controls over half of the U.S. commercial drone market, argues it is neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military and seeks removal from the list. DJI alleges that the Pentagon did not engage with the company for over 16 months regarding the designation, leaving it no choice but to pursue legal action. The Pentagon has not commented on the suit. DJI is also facing increasing scrutiny in the U.S., with concerns raised about potential security risks from its drones. Earlier this week, U.S. Customs stopped some DJI imports under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, though DJI denies any involvement with forced labor. Meanwhile, the U.S. House has passed a bill to ban new DJI drones, pending Senate action.Drone maker DJI sues Pentagon over Chinese military listing | ReutersEli Lilly has filed lawsuits against three medical spas and online vendors—Pivotal Peptides, MangoRx, and Genesis Lifestyle Medicine—over selling unauthorized versions of its weight-loss drug, Zepbound, which contains tirzepatide. These lawsuits, filed in federal and state courts, accuse the companies of false advertising and promotion, including selling products without medical prescriptions and making unverified claims about the drug's safety and efficacy. Pivotal Peptides allegedly marketed tirzepatide for research but sold it directly to consumers, while MangoRx offered an unapproved oral version of the drug. Genesis was accused of selling compounded tirzepatide with vitamin B12, a combination that Lilly says is unsafe and untested. Lilly's lawsuits follow earlier legal actions against other companies for similar offenses. The drugmaker aims to protect consumers from potential health risks and seeks to stop the defendants from selling these products, as well as pursuing monetary damages.Lilly sues online vendors, medical spa over copycat weight-loss drugs | ReutersFour prominent labor lawyers from Baker McKenzie's New York employment practice—Paul Evans, Krissy Katzenstein, Blair Robinson, and Jeffrey Sturgeon—have moved to Paul Hastings, leaving Baker McKenzie short one-third of its employment lawyers. The team has represented Fox News in several high-profile employment disputes, including defending the network in cases involving former host Britt McHenry and a COVID-19 workplace exposure claim. The team has also worked with clients like CBS Broadcasting, Paramount Global, and Panda Express. Their move to Paul Hastings follows collaborations with the firm's employment lawyers, and they plan to continue growing Paul Hastings' client relationships. The transition strengthens Paul Hastings' East Coast employment practice, enhancing its capacity in complex employment matters, including Title VII representation, pay equity, and class actions. Paul Hastings' leadership sees this as a significant boost, especially ahead of regulatory shifts tied to the 2024 presidential election.Fox News Employment Defense Team Moves Over to Paul HastingsNew Jersey Transit Corp. (NJ Transit) is facing a patent infringement lawsuit from Railware Inc., which claims NJ Transit is using its railworker-safety technology without permission. NJ Transit is seeking to dismiss the case, asserting sovereign immunity as an "arm of the State of New Jersey." The issue is complicated by the fact that NJ Transit operates in both New Jersey and New York. While the Third Circuit, which covers New Jersey, has previously ruled that NJ Transit qualifies for immunity, the Second Circuit, which covers New York, uses a stricter test to determine state immunity. This case is significant because it could set a precedent for how sovereign immunity is applied across jurisdictions.Railware argues that NJ Transit's immunity claim is invalid, citing the agency's independent operation and non-state funding. The case also touches on broader legal debates about when state agencies can claim immunity in patent cases. NJ Transit is awaiting a key ruling from the New York Court of Appeals on whether it is immune from another lawsuit, which could influence this case. If conflicting rulings emerge from different courts, the matter may be escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court for resolution.NJ Transit Patent Immunity Claim Crosses Circuit-Court Divide This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

I talked with an expert in the space about how to utilize and implement AI to use more effectively generate and manage law firm documents. Episode Highlights 10:55 - AI-related skills for lawyers. 13:30 - Importance of prompt building. 16:15 - Comparison to Lexis and Westlaw innovations. 19:45 - Necessity of AI usage policies in law firms. 24:05 - Security protocols for AI use in law firms. 28:00 - Client-driven demand for AI. 32:15 - AI's potential impact on legal professionals' workload and efficiency. 36:50 - Document management systems' role in AI integration. 38:00 - Benefits of a metadata-enriched environment. 43:20 - Workflow automation for repetitive tasks. 46:00 - Positive outcomes from AI adoption in legal fields. Episode Resources Connect with Jared Correia jared@redcavelegal.com https://redcavelegal.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredcorreia https://twitter.com/RedCaveLegal www.linkedin.com/in/jaredcorreia/ Connect with Jennifer Poon https://www.netdocuments.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-poon-4638392a/  

Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast! Today, we're discussing the importance and challenges of first-year Legal Research and Writing projects in law school. We share tips on how to break down LRW projects into manageable subparts, revise drafts, and proofread to ensure successful completion of the assignment. In this episode we discuss: Time-management schedule for your LRW assignment Starting with understanding the instructions Tips for researching, writing, and editing your assignment Asking your professor for feedback Final proofreading and citations Resources: Tutoring for Law School Success (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/tutoring-for-law-school-success/) Westlaw (https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw) LexisNexis (https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/home.page) Podcast Episode 68: Top 10 Legal Research and Writing Disasters to Avoid (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-68-legal-writing-disasters/) Podcast Episode 409: Start Law School Right – Legal Research and Writing (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-409-start-law-school-right-legal-research-and-writing/) First-Hand Guide to 1L Courses – Legal Research & Writing (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/first-hand-guide-to-1l-courses-legal-research-writing/) Writing a Legal Memo – Things to Keep in Mind (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/writing-a-legal-memo-things-to-keep-in-mind/) Download the Transcript  (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/episode-463-quick-tips-organizing-your-lrw-assignments/) If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love a nice review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/law-school-toolbox-podcast/id1027603976) or your favorite listening app. And feel free to reach out to us directly. You can always reach us via the contact form on the Law School Toolbox website (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/contact). If you're concerned about the bar exam, check out our sister site, the Bar Exam Toolbox (http://barexamtoolbox.com/). You can also sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/get-law-school-podcast-updates/) to make sure you never miss an episode! Thanks for listening! Alison & Lee

Roger Martin is one of the world's leading experts on strategy and the author of Playing to Win, one of the most beloved books on strategy. He's written extensively for the Harvard Business Review; consulted for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, including P&G, Lego, and Ford; and written 11 other books. In our conversation, we discuss:• The five key questions you need to answer to develop an effective strategy• Why most companies get strategy wrong• How to avoid “playing to play” instead of playing to win• Real-world strategy examples from Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines, Lego, and Figma• How to think about differentiation vs. low cost• Shortcomings of current strategy education• Much more—Brought to you by:• Webflow—The web experience platform• WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs• Cycle—Your feedback hub, on autopilot—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-strategy-roger-martin—Where to find Roger Martin:• X: https://x.com/RogerLMartin• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roger-martin-9916911a9/• Website: https://rogerlmartin.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Roger's background(02:20) The importance of strategy(07:00) Challenges in developing strategy(08:30) Critique of modern strategy education(14:00) Hamilton Helmer and Richard Rumelt(17:40) Defining strategy(19:12) The Strategy Choice Cascade(23:20) Playing to win vs. playing to play(24:57) Examples of strategic success(30:49) Differentiation and moats(40:23) Applying strategy to real-world scenarios(43:47) Customer-centric strategy(44:45) Defining the market and product(45:59) Value chain and distribution(48:28) Cost leadership vs. differentiation(53:16) Capabilities and management systems(57:14) Competitive advantage and market positioning(01:02:41) Counterpositioning and fault lines(01:05:53) Adapting to AI and market changes(01:14:11) Betterment over perfection(01:18:42) Final thoughts on strategy—Referenced:• Nearly 10% of S&P 500 CEOs are alumni of Procter & Gamble: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2023/02/06/10-of-s-p-500-ceos-pg.html• FigJam: https://www.figma.com/figjam/• Figma: https://www.figma.com/• What Is Resource-Based Theory?: https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/the-impact-of-technological-governance-and-political-capabilities-on-firms-performances-under-economic-turbulence/67915• Michael Porter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professorporter/• Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors: https://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Strategy-Techniques-Industries-Competitors/dp/0684841487• VRIO Framework Explained: https://strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/vrio/• Business strategy with Hamilton Helmer (author of 7 Powers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/business-strategy-with-hamilton-helmer• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy | Richard Rumelt: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/good-strategy-bad-strategy-richard• 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy: https://www.amazon.com/7-Powers-Foundations-Business-Strategy/dp/0998116319• Boston Consulting Group: https://www.bcg.com/• Bruce Henderson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Henderson• Lego: https://www.lego.com• Vanguard: https://investor.vanguard.com/• Southwest Airlines: https://www.southwest.com/• How Amazon Managed to Dethrone Walmart: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/20/technology/how-amazon-beat-walmart.html• GM Lost a 10-Year Battle with Tesla, Pulling the Plug on a Long Line of EVs: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brookecrothers/2023/07/09/gm-killed-its-electric-cars-and-lost-a-10-year-battle-with-tesla/• Westlaw: https://www.westlawinternational.com/• What Is an Economic Moat? Why Warren Buffett Says It Matters for Investors: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/economic-moat-why-warren-buffett-160046125.html• Salomon Brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Brothers• US Airways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways• Four Seasons: https://www.fourseasons.com/• Michael Dell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdell/• Bill Gates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates/• Mandarin Oriental: https://www.mandarinoriental.com/en/• Continental Lite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Lite• Ted (airline): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_(airline)• Case Study: Oil of Olay: https://www.studocu.com/es/document/universidad-de-murcia/estrategia-de-marketing/case-study-old-of-olay/95079369• AG Lafley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ag-lafley-2381b3201/• Jack Bogle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Bogle• Seven Ways Windows 95 Changed the World: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2015/08/24/windows-95-changed-the-world/• Where to Start with Strategy? Focus on Betterment: https://rogermartin.medium.com/where-to-start-with-strategy-bae40506304c• Brick by brick: The man who rebuilt the house of Lego shares his leadership secrets: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/12/08/brick-by-brick-the-man-who-rebuilt-the-house-of-lego-shares-his-leadership-secrets/• A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness: https://www.amazon.com/New-Way-Think-Management-Effectiveness/dp/164782351X/• Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Win-Strategy-Really-Works/dp/142218739X• The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Business-Thinking-Competitive-Advantage/dp/1422177807• The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking: https://www.amazon.com/Opposable-Mind-Successful-Integrative-Thinking/dp/1422118924• When More Is Not Better: Overcoming America's Obsession with Economic Efficiency: https://www.amazon.com/When-More-Not-Better-Overcoming/dp/1647820065—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Kevin Szczepanski welcomes Jessica Copeland of Bond, Schoeneck & King back for a lively discussion on why (and whether) attorneys and firms of all sizes should use artificial intelligence. As a refresher, they remind listeners of the definition of AI and some of its uses. As with many things lawyer related, the answers come down to “it depends.” Law firms need to look at their priorities, capabilities, and needs. Other areas to consider are policies, compliance, indemnification, employee training, security, and clients' expectations. Kevin and Jessica also discuss AI tools' wide availability, noting that familiar companies like Lexis, Westlaw, and Microsoft Office have all rolled out internal AI features. Listen in for more.

Send Judge a TextJoin Judge Rangel and Trellis Founder and CEO Nicole Clark as they discuss the revolutionary legal intelligence employed by Trellis and why it differs from traditional legal databases like Westlaw and LexisNexis.To learn more about Trellis, browse their website or search for a case about your favorite celebrity: https://trellis.law/searchSupport the Show.

Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast! Today we're discussing why doing the assigned reading for your law school classes is important, and we address some common questions we receive from students regarding reading cases for class. In this episode we discuss: Why it's important to spend the time to read cases, even when they seem difficult Fundamental skills developed through reading cases that will benefit you during the rest of law school How reading for class will positively impact your future legal career Tips for gradually cutting down reading time and making the work more manageable Resources: Tutoring for Law School Success (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/tutoring-for-law-school-success/) Quimbee (https://www.quimbee.com/) Westlaw (https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw) LexisNexis (https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/home.page) Podcast Episode 102: How to Read Cases and Prepare for Class in Law School (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/16176-2/) Podcast Episode 309: Tips for Reading a Case (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-309-tips-for-reading-a-case/) Podcast Episode 396: Start Law School Right – Class Prep 101 (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-396-start-law-school-right-class-prep-101/) Preparing for Class as a 1L (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/preparing-for-class-as-a-1l/) Ahead of the Curve: Reading Cases: From Syllabus to Exam – Prepare the Case for Class (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/reading-cases-from-syllabus-to-exam-prepare-the-case-for-class/) Download the Transcript  (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/episode-446-quick-tips-doing-the-reading-for-your-law-school-classes/) If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love a nice review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/law-school-toolbox-podcast/id1027603976) or your favorite listening app. And feel free to reach out to us directly. You can always reach us via the contact form on the Law School Toolbox website (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/contact). If you're concerned about the bar exam, check out our sister site, the Bar Exam Toolbox (http://barexamtoolbox.com/). You can also sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/get-law-school-podcast-updates/) to make sure you never miss an episode! Thanks for listening! Alison & Lee

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Jordan Domash, CEO and Co-Founder of Responsiv, a legal tech company that has raised $3 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Jordan's Journey: From starting his career in consulting to an eight-year tenure at Relativity, a leading company in legal tech, and finally founding Responsiv to address the inefficiencies in legal research. Chief of Staff Insights: Jordan's unique role as Chief of Staff at Relativity, where he gained deep insights into product development, customer needs, and the complexities of legal technology. The Genesis of Responsiv: Inspired by the challenges faced by in-house attorneys in accessing accurate legal information, Responsiv was born to offer a streamlined, AI-enhanced solution for legal research. Understanding the Market: Responsiv caters to in-house legal teams across various industries, focusing on regulated organizations and rapidly growing tech companies for its initial customer base. Disrupting Traditional Legal Research: Aiming to replace the outdated methods of legal research dominated by platforms like Westlaw and LexisNexis, Responsiv offers a modern, AI-driven alternative that's tailored for the corporate legal environment. The Future of Legal Tech: Jordan's vision for Responsiv extends beyond providing legal research tools; he aims to create a comprehensive platform that supports in-house attorneys in every aspect of their work, from accessing legal information to drafting actionable documents.

Bonus Episode: Unleashing Tech at the 2024 ABA Tech Show a Cross Podcast Examination With Mathew Kerbis and Your Tech-Savvy Lawyer In this special edition of the Tech Savvy Lawyer Podcast, I am thrilled to host a dynamic conversation between Mathew Kerbis, the distinguished “Subscription Attorney” and a recent recipient of the James Keane Award. Together, we provide a comprehensive recap and insightful analysis of the groundbreaking innovations showcased at the ABA Tech Show 2024 in Chicago. In our conversation, we cover the following: [02:14] Tech Show Takeaways: AI in Legal Innovation [07:27] Beyond Billable Hours: Alternative Fee Structures in the Legal Profession [11:45] Ethical Landscape of AI in Legal Practice [16:09] Future of Legal Tech [29:16] Hardware and Software Upgrades for Podcasting: Tips and Tricks [33:21] Portable Podcasting Setups: Tips and Tricks for On-Site Recordings [39:29] AI in Legal Practice: Leveraging Tools Responsibly [44:55] Enhancing Practice Efficiency and Accessibility [48:49] Evolution of Legal Tech: User-Friendly Solutions for Solos and Small Firms RESOURCES: Connect with Mathew: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kerbisverse/ Website: lawsubscribed.com/ Hardware mentioned in the conversation: Blue Yeti microphone logitechg.com/en-us/products/streaming-gear/yeti-premium-usb-microphone iD14: audient.com/products/audio-interfaces/id14 Shure MV7 microphone: shure.com/en-US/products/microphones Snowball microphone:logitechg.com/en-us/products/streaming-gear/snowball-ice-usb-microphone Software & Cloud Services mentioned in the conversation: Amazon Prime: amazon.com/amazonprime Clio: clio.com/ Daylight: daylightlaw.com/ Descript: descript.com/ FileVine: filevine.com/ LexisNexis: lexisnexis.com/ Paxton: paxton-access.com/ PDF deck: pdfdeck.com/ Squadcast: squadcast.fm/ Universal Migrator:universalmigrator.com/ Westlaw: legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw Zapier: zapier.com/  

On this episode of LawNext: A conversation about Thomson Reuters' strategy around generative artificial intelligence with two of the executives most directly responsible for its development and implementation.  In a year dominated by discussion of generative AI and its potential impact on the legal profession, Thomson Reuters has played a leading role. It started in June, when the company announced its $650 million acquisition of the legal research and AI company Casetext and the CoCounsel generative AI tool Casetext had developed in collaboration with OpenAI.   Then, in November, Thomson Reuters made good on its promise to integrate generative AI within its flagship legal research platform, introducing AI Assisted Research in Westlaw Precision. Soon after that, it rolled out generative AI within Practical Law, its legal know-how product. What does this all mean for legal research and legal software, now and into the future? Today we go deep into TR's AI development with two of the company's leaders in this area:  Mike Dahn, senior vice president and head of Westlaw product management.  Joel Hron, head of artificial intelligence and TR Labs. We talk about the development of AI Assisted Research in Westlaw Precision, the company's broader AI product strategy, its acquisition of CoCounsel and where that fits in its AI strategy, how the company is protecting against hallucinations and ensuring security, and the future of AI at Thomson Reuters and more broadly.    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. Noodle: automate all of your practice's admin work, while you focus on growing your business without increasing headcount. Sharefile for Legal: Securely send, store, and share files – plus discover document workflows designed to improve your client experience   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Guest Kathryn “Katie” DeBord leads product development strategy at the global firm DISCO in technological, cloud-based solutions for lawyers and law firms. Tech, from the earliest stages of every case, is no longer an option. Everything from eDiscovery – sifting through oceans of data – to analyzing witness statements to adjusting trial strategy on the fly involves today's ever-evolving technologies.  Are you keeping up? It's hard to know with so many services bursting onto the scene. Hear how DeBord scans the landscape to track what's new, what works, and what's still in the pipeline.  You've come a long way from the LexisNexis and Westlaw you met in law school. Entire suites of tech platforms, all the way up to generative AI, are on the market and getting better. If your opponent is using the latest, and you're not … well, that's not good. Autogenerate timelines, upload and organize evidence, and sift through data as today's tools accelerate your case and reveal hidden connections. Tech won't replace your creativity and skill as an attorney, but it can help you work smarter, more efficiently, and achieve better results.  (Plus, did you know the CIA has a secret museum of gadgets created by the agency's Directorate of Science and Technology? And no, you can't visit it without secret clearance). Resources: Kathyrn “Katie” DeBord's previous appearances on the Legal Talk Network include:  “Legal Innovation: Imagining Creative Solutions for Clients”  “Evolve Law: The Future and Direction of Legal Technology”  “Evolve Law: Client Driven Technology Solutions”  LexisNexis Westlaw American Bar Association American Bar Association Litigation Section

Guest Kathryn “Katie” DeBord leads product development strategy at the global firm DISCO in technological, cloud-based solutions for lawyers and law firms. Tech, from the earliest stages of every case, is no longer an option. Everything from eDiscovery – sifting through oceans of data – to analyzing witness statements to adjusting trial strategy on the fly involves today's ever-evolving technologies.  Are you keeping up? It's hard to know with so many services bursting onto the scene. Hear how DeBord scans the landscape to track what's new, what works, and what's still in the pipeline.  You've come a long way from the LexisNexis and Westlaw you met in law school. Entire suites of tech platforms, all the way up to generative AI, are on the market and getting better. If your opponent is using the latest, and you're not … well, that's not good. Autogenerate timelines, upload and organize evidence, and sift through data as today's tools accelerate your case and reveal hidden connections. Tech won't replace your creativity and skill as an attorney, but it can help you work smarter, more efficiently, and achieve better results.  (Plus, did you know the CIA has a secret museum of gadgets created by the agency's Directorate of Science and Technology? And no, you can't visit it without secret clearance). Resources: Kathyrn “Katie” DeBord's previous appearances on the Legal Talk Network include:  “Legal Innovation: Imagining Creative Solutions for Clients”  “Evolve Law: The Future and Direction of Legal Technology”  “Evolve Law: Client Driven Technology Solutions”  LexisNexis Westlaw American Bar Association American Bar Association Litigation Section

The City Bar's Working Group on Judicial Administration and Artificial Intelligence is back to get into a recent headline-making case of AI allegedly misused in the courtroom. Harut Minasian, Stuart Levi, Richard Hong and David Zaslowsky break down the recent news about the US v. Michel: bad use of AI, or just plain bad lawyering? They discuss how AI can be used as a valuable tool in the legal toolkit for some tasks, but highlight the need for understanding the functionality, reliability, and limitations of AI technology. But whether or not AI can be reliably used today in some limited ways, the real question is: is AI ready for primetime? Tune in to hear more about: • Is the ineffective assistance of counsel claim in US v. Michel likely to succeed? • How should lawyers disclose to clients the AI tools that they do use? • Is using AI really so different from using other ‘new' technologies like Lexis and Westlaw? Is it different from asking a Partner with specialized knowledge for input? • Will it ever be the case that NOT using AI will be grounds for professional misconduct? Access a transcript of this episode here: https://bityl.co/MfRf

Each week, the leading journalists in legal tech choose their top stories of the week to discuss with our other panelists. This week's topics: 00:00 - Introductions 03:11 - Judge Rules Ross Intelligence Copied Westlaw's Headnotes, But Leaves for Jury to Decide if It Violated Thomson Reuters' Copyright (Selected by Bob Ambrogi) 13:05 - Should a Federal Agency Govern AI? (Selected by Niki Black) Increasing Contractual Insight: AI's role in contract lifecycle management (Selected by Niki Black) 26:17 - Mark Zuckerberg can't quit the Metaverse (Selected by Victor Li) 32:52 - More in house lawyers together with better tools to get work done more efficiently impacts demand for outside lawyers and what it takes to become and stay an equity partner (Selected by Stephen Embry) Mayo Clinic to use GenAI and Microsoft CoPilot (Selected by Stephen Embry) 38:55 - RelativityFest

Welcome to the Law School Toolbox podcast for our special series on starting off on the right foot in law school! In today's episode, we're exploring the unique aspects of Legal Research and Writing, a critical first-year law school class. In this episode we discuss: The key differences between Legal Research and Writing and your other 1L classes Tips for doing well in Legal Research and Writing class The types of assignments you'll see in a typical LRW class Sources of law that you'll be using Knowing when you're finished with your legal research Looking for more personalized help as you get ready for law school? Check out our flagship Start Law School Right course at startlawschoolright.com. It provides a full overview of the skills you need in law school, along with opportunities to practice and get feedback from a Law School Toolbox tutor. Resources: "Start Law School Right" podcast series (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/law-school-toolbox-podcast-archive/pre-law-episodes/#start-off-right) "Start Law School Right" course (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/start-law-school-right/) Law School Toolbox (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/)  Tutoring for Law School Success (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/tutoring-for-law-school-success/) Strategies for Pre-Law Students (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/strategies-new-law-students/tips-for-pre-law-students/) Podcast Episode 379: Quick Tips – Bluebooking Like a Pro (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-379-quick-tips-bluebooking-like-a-pro/) LexisNexis (https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/gateway.page) Westlaw (https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw) Download the Transcript  (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/episode-409-start-law-school-right-legal-research-and-writing/) If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love a nice review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/law-school-toolbox-podcast/id1027603976) or your favorite listening app. And feel free to reach out to us directly. You can always reach us via the contact form on the Law School Toolbox website (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/contact). If you're concerned about the bar exam, check out our sister site, the Bar Exam Toolbox (http://barexamtoolbox.com/). You can also sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/get-law-school-podcast-updates/) to make sure you never miss an episode! Thanks for listening! Alison & Lee

Lawyers beware! Artificial intelligence is disrupting the legal industry, and Chat GPT is the tool leading the charge. But as consult webs CEO, Tanner Jones, reveals in this interview, this AI system is not without its flaws and ethical concerns. Will lawyers have a job in 5-10 years? Find out in this must-watch interview, but beware of the chilling reality that's left unanswered. Join Gregg and Tanner on "Cut to the Chase" as they discuss how to: Familiarize yourself with the creative ways AI is transforming the world of digital marketing. Gain insight into the potential rewards and risks of incorporating AI into legal research endeavors. Investigate the profound effects AI may have on the automation of jobs in the legal profession. Grasp the importance of a strategic digital marketing consultation for law firms to prosper. Acquire valuable tips for establishing a powerful online presence and solid reputation within the legal field. The resources mentioned in this episode are: Hire Consult Webs for comprehensive digital marketing services, including search engine optimization, paid advertising, content creation, and reputation management. Consider using Chat GPT, an artificial intelligence tool for content creation, to produce high-quality content more efficiently. Use AI-powered research tools, such as LexisNexis and Westlaw, to streamline legal research and analytics. However, exercise caution and don't rely solely on AI-generated content or research as they are not perfect and may have errors or inaccuracies. Consult with experts and run AI-generated content through plagiarism checkers and human editors to ensure accuracy and quality. Always prioritize the client's needs and focus on attracting the right types of cases for their law firm through digital marketing strategies. Tanner's website; https://www.consultwebs.com/about-us/our-team/tanner-jones  To learn more about mass tort law cases and lawyer best practices, subscribe to the Cut to the Chase: Podcast with Gregg Goldfarb. This episode was brought to you by Reignite Media.  

This episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast features the second half of my interview with Paul Stephan, author of The World Crisis and International Law. But it begins the way many recent episodes have begun, with the latest AI news. And, since it's so squarely in scope for a cyberlaw podcast, we devote some time to the so-appalling- you-have-to-laugh-to keep-from-crying story of the lawyer who relied on ChatGPT to write his brief. As Eugene Volokh noted in his post, the model returned exactly the case law the lawyer wanted—because it made up the cases, the citations, and even the quotes. The lawyer said he had no idea that AI would do such a thing. I cast a skeptical eye on that excuse, since when challenged by the court to produce the cases he relied on, the lawyer turned not to Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw but to ChatGPT, which this time made up eight cases on point. And when the lawyer asked, “Are the other cases you provided fake,” the model denied it. Well, all right then. Who among us has not asked Westlaw, “Are the cases you provided fake?” Somehow, I can't help suspecting that the lawyer's claim to be an innocent victim of ChatGPT is going to get a closer look before this story ends. So if you're wondering whether AI poses existential risk, the answer for at least one lawyer's license is almost certainly “yes.” But the bigger story of the week was the cries from Google and Microsoft leadership for government regulation. Jeffery Atik and Richard Stiennon weigh in. Microsoft's President Brad Smith has, as usual, written a thoughtful policy paper on what AI regulation might look like. And they point out that, as usual, Smith is advocating for a process that Microsoft could master pretty easily. Google's Sundar Pichai also joins the “regulate me” party, but a bit half-heartedly. I argue that the best way to judge Silicon Valley's confidence in the accuracy of AI is by asking when Google and Apple will be willing to use AI to identify photos of gorillas as gorillas. Because if there's anything close to an extinction event for those companies it would be rolling out an AI that once again fails to differentiate between people and apes.  Moving from policy to tech, Richard and I talk about Google's integration of AI into search; I see some glimmer of explainability and accuracy in Google's willingness to provide citations (real ones, I presume) for its answers. And on the same topic, the National Academy of Sciences has posted research suggesting that explainability might not be quite as impossible as researchers once thought. Jeffery takes us through the latest chapters in the U.S.—China decoupling story. China has retaliated, surprisingly weakly, for U.S. moves to cut off high-end chip sales to China. It has banned sales of U.S. - based Micron memory chips to critical infrastructure companies. In the long run, the chip wars may be the disaster that Invidia's CEO foresees. Jeffery and I agree that Invidia has much to fear from a Chinese effort to build a national champion to compete in AI chipmaking. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is building a new model for international agreements in an age of decoupling and industrial policy. Whether its effort to build a China-free IT supply chain will succeed is an open question, but we agree that it marks an end to the old free-trade agreements rejected by both former President Trump and President Biden. China, meanwhile, is overplaying its hand in Africa. Richard notes reports that Chinese hackers attacked the Kenyan government when Kenya looked like it wouldn't be able to repay China's infrastructure loans. As Richard points out, lending money to a friend rarely works out. You are likely to lose both the friend and the money.  Finally, Richard and Jeffery both opine on Irelands imposing—under protest—of a $1.3 billion fine on Facebook for sending data to the United States despite the Court of Justice of the European Union's (CJEU) two Schrems decisions. We agree that the order simply sets a deadline for the U.S. and the EU to close their deal on a third effort to satisfy the CJEU that U.S. law is “adequate” to protect the rights of Europeans. Speaking of which, anyone who's enjoyed my rants about the EU will want to tune in for a June 15 Teleforum in which Max Schrems and I will  debate the latest privacy framework. If we can, we'll release it as a bonus episode of this podcast, but listening live should be even more fun! Download 459th Episode (mp3) You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@gmail.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets.

This episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast features the second half of my interview with Paul Stephan, author of The World Crisis and International Law. But it begins the way many recent episodes have begun, with the latest AI news. And, since it's so squarely in scope for a cyberlaw podcast, we devote some time to the so-appalling- you-have-to-laugh-to keep-from-crying story of the lawyer who relied on ChatGPT to write his brief. As Eugene Volokh noted in his post, the model returned exactly the case law the lawyer wanted—because it made up the cases, the citations, and even the quotes. The lawyer said he had no idea that AI would do such a thing. I cast a skeptical eye on that excuse, since when challenged by the court to produce the cases he relied on, the lawyer turned not to Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw but to ChatGPT, which this time made up eight cases on point. And when the lawyer asked, “Are the other cases you provided fake,” the model denied it. Well, all right then. Who among us has not asked Westlaw, “Are the cases you provided fake?” Somehow, I can't help suspecting that the lawyer's claim to be an innocent victim of ChatGPT is going to get a closer look before this story ends. So if you're wondering whether AI poses existential risk, the answer for at least one lawyer's license is almost certainly “yes.” But the bigger story of the week was the cries from Google and Microsoft leadership for government regulation. Jeffery Atik and Richard Stiennon weigh in. Microsoft's President Brad Smith has, as usual, written a thoughtful policy paper on what AI regulation might look like. And they point out that, as usual, Smith is advocating for a process that Microsoft could master pretty easily. Google's Sundar Pichai also joins the “regulate me” party, but a bit half-heartedly. I argue that the best way to judge Silicon Valley's confidence in the accuracy of AI is by asking when Google and Apple will be willing to use AI to identify photos of gorillas as gorillas. Because if there's anything close to an extinction event for those companies it would be rolling out an AI that once again fails to differentiate between people and apes.  Moving from policy to tech, Richard and I talk about Google's integration of AI into search; I see some glimmer of explainability and accuracy in Google's willingness to provide citations (real ones, I presume) for its answers. And on the same topic, the National Academy of Sciences has posted research suggesting that explainability might not be quite as impossible as researchers once thought. Jeffery takes us through the latest chapters in the U.S.—China decoupling story. China has retaliated, surprisingly weakly, for U.S. moves to cut off high-end chip sales to China. It has banned sales of U.S. - based Micron memory chips to critical infrastructure companies. In the long run, the chip wars may be the disaster that Invidia's CEO foresees. Jeffery and I agree that Invidia has much to fear from a Chinese effort to build a national champion to compete in AI chipmaking. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is building a new model for international agreements in an age of decoupling and industrial policy. Whether its effort to build a China-free IT supply chain will succeed is an open question, but we agree that it marks an end to the old free-trade agreements rejected by both former President Trump and President Biden. China, meanwhile, is overplaying its hand in Africa. Richard notes reports that Chinese hackers attacked the Kenyan government when Kenya looked like it wouldn't be able to repay China's infrastructure loans. As Richard points out, lending money to a friend rarely works out. You are likely to lose both the friend and the money.  Finally, Richard and Jeffery both opine on Irelands imposing—under protest—of a $1.3 billion fine on Facebook for sending data to the United States despite the Court of Justice of the European Union's (CJEU) two Schrems decisions. We agree that the order simply sets a deadline for the U.S. and the EU to close their deal on a third effort to satisfy the CJEU that U.S. law is “adequate” to protect the rights of Europeans. Speaking of which, anyone who's enjoyed my rants about the EU will want to tune in for a June 15 Teleforum in which Max Schrems and I will  debate the latest privacy framework. If we can, we'll release it as a bonus episode of this podcast, but listening live should be even more fun! Download 459th Episode (mp3) You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@gmail.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets.

It was major news April 4 when the legal research and technology companies Fastcase and vLex announced their merger, creating a single entity that they say now has the world's largest subscriber base of lawyers and law firms and a legal research library of more than 1 billion documents from more than 100 countries.  It is a deal that could reshape the legal tech landscape on a global basis and potentially even threaten the longstanding legal research duopoly of Westlaw and LexisNexis. So what does it mean for the companies? What does it mean for their customers? And what does it mean for the legal market more broadly? To explore these questions and more, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi is joined by the four founders of the two companies:  Lluis Faus, cofounder and CEO of vLex and now global CEO of the combined entity, known as the vLex Group.  Angel Faus, cofounder and chief technology officer of vLex. Ed Walters, cofounder and former CEO of Fastcase and now chief strategy officer of vLex. Phil Rosenthal, cofounder and former president of Fastcase and now chief growth officer of vLex. 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. Lawmatics, providing legal client intake, law practice CRM, marketing automation, legal billing, document management, and much more, all in one easy-to-use law practice software.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast! Today, we have ex-BigLaw recruiter Sadie Jones on the podcast to talk with us about resources you can use in your job search and career planning in the legal field. In this episode we discuss: The number one place that law students should be considering for career resources Figuring out if you need to talk to a career coach about your goals Practical resources to use once you have a career path in mind Where to search for public interest/government roles Some useful general career resources targeted at law schools Honing your networking skills Resources: CareerDicta (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/careerdicta/) Westlaw (https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw) Martindale-Hubbell (https://www.martindale.com/) NALP – National Association for Law Placement (https://www.nalp.org/) NALP Career Services (https://www.nalp.org/careerservices) NALP Law Students/Graduates (https://www.nalp.org/lawstudentsgraduates) PSJD (https://www.psjd.org/) ABA Career Center (https://www.americanbar.org/careercenter/) ABA Career Resources for Law Students (https://abaforlawstudents.com/start-your-legal-career/) The American Lawyer (https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/?slreturn=20230305082619) Chambers USA Guide (https://chambers.com/legal-guide/usa-5) Symplicity (https://www.symplicity.com/) Arizona Handbooks (https://arizonahandbooks.com/about) Marquette University Law School – Online Research Resources (https://law.marquette.edu/assets/career-planning/pdf/Online-Research-Resources.pdf) University of Kentucky – Career Resource Books for Law Students (https://law.uky.edu/careers/current-students/resources/career-resource-books-law-students) Stanford Law School – Career Planning (https://guides.law.stanford.edu/libraryresources/careers) UCLA – Career Planning, Job Search and More for Law Students (https://libguides.law.ucla.edu/c.php?g=183368&p=1208641) Podcast Episode 105: OCI Basics with an ex-BigLaw Recruiter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-105-oci-basics-ex-biglaw-recruiter/) Podcast Episode 224: Taking Ownership of Your Career (w/Sadie Jones) (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-224-taking-ownership-of-your-career-w-sadie-jones/) Podcast Episode 262: Researching Law Firms (w/Sadie Jones) (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-262-researching-law-firms-w-sadie-jones/) Legal Networking 101: How Do You Know What to Talk About While Networking? (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/legal-networking-101-how-do-you-know-what-to-talk-about-while-networking/) Download the Transcript  (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/episode-385-career-planning-resources-for-law-students-w-sadie-jones/) If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love a nice review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/law-school-toolbox-podcast/id1027603976) or your favorite listening app. And feel free to reach out to us directly. You can always reach us via the contact form on the Law School Toolbox website (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/contact). If you're concerned about the bar exam, check out our sister site, the Bar Exam Toolbox (http://barexamtoolbox.com/). You can also sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/get-law-school-podcast-updates/) to make sure you never miss an episode! Thanks for listening! Alison & Lee

Dr. Shaun Jamison is the Associate Dean of Faculty at Concord. He conceived of and created the Future of Law Practice and Cybersecurity courses and provides commentary to the media on technology and privacy issues. Jamison's academic career has focused on skills development and emerging law practice and technology issues. At the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA), he served as the chair of the Practice Management and Marketing Section, as well as co-chair for focus groups for the SAGE Report: Self-Audit for Gender Equity and Diversity. He also served on the Golden Valley, MN Human Rights Commission. Jamison has been a solo practice attorney as well as working at Westlaw, first as a reference attorney and later managing teams of Westlaw account managers and trainers.  In this episode, we discuss: - The foundation of community support through The Human Rights Commission. - Equity and diversity lessons and how to bring that to today's firms with young lawyers. - Collaboration and getting better outcomes.  - Why being in a state of learning makes someone a better lawyer. Please let me know your thoughts!  Connect with Shaun Jamison: Website: https://www.concordlawschool.edu/  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunjamison/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/shaunjamison  Connect with Cindy Watson: Wesbite: https://watsonlabourlaw.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/womenonpurposecommunity/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/WomenOnPurpose1  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenonpurposecoaching/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCHOGOsk0bkijtwq8aRrtdA?view_as=subscriber  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Litigants and lawyers involved in bringing high-profile lawsuits are increasingly facing threats and harassment. That's bad enough on its own but becomes even worse when it stops people from turning to courtrooms in the first place or impacts the outcome of cases that do get filed. On this week's episode of Pro Say, Law360 senior reporter Jack Karp drops by to help us understand how harassment is damaging the legal system. Also this week, Los Angeles County settles a massive $236 million lawsuit over its handling of the city's homelessness crisis; Georgia's supreme court reopens a longstanding malpractice case against BigLaw fixture Proskauer Rose; and finally, attorneys from the Department of Labor point the finger at legal data company Westlaw after filing an incomplete court brief.