Transcription
The business model of law is not broken yet, but it's going to break. Um, it's probably starting to fracture. I think we have some time. Um, I think we have a few years easily, but the billable hour to me is is the the worst part of billable hours being used as a performance metric for lawyers. Um, I think we overblow the charging of clients billable hours. There's actually very good re sound reasons for that. And um and people always say, "Oh, you know, it's a a terrible way to capture value." I'm not going to really disagree with that, but I think it's always assumed that the lawyers make out unbillable uh arrangements and and there's plenty of times when you really help a client like immensely.
Welcome to a Legal Tech Talk podcast. Shaping the future of law. Hello Conan and welcome to the the latest episode of Shaping the Future of Law by Legal Tech Talk. Um really excited to have you on board. I think the last time we bumped into each other was at ILCON Washington at the karaoke um do and and I remember having a really interesting chat with you. So excited to to talk again. But just for anyone that might not know you, who who is Conan and yeah, maybe a bit of background.
Yeah. So, I'm currently the director of practice innovation at Freed Frank based in New York. Uh, leading all things AI innovation, practice technology, AI engineering at the firm. Um, and I've been doing this AIT stickick for probably about 15 years in legal. Um before that I was a lawyer and then uh jumped into the discovery world where which was kind of the first taste of of um some people probably don't associate that the AI term with that today u back there it looks uh I guess pretty basic um uh we're talking about technology assisted review and and things of like that nature and uh worked at Baker Husteller for five plus years and Clifford Chance after that in the innovation space and and um and if we actually just coming up on two years >> you've been involved with legal innovation change for for quite some time. I've only been here for two or three years and for me it feels like the industry is at an inflection point. You've been doing this much longer. So I'm I'm interested to hear your point your your view on this like are we at an inflection point and if so yeah what what are what are your views on where the industry is currently at?
We're definitely at an inflection point uh because the interest is there and and the new AI has sparked that interest and created FOMO and there's just real economic u positivity with this new technology. So, it's kind of like it's kind of silly to try to ignore it at this point. I think lawyers get and sometimes undeservedly a bad a rap of of being sort of u technophobes but um I think there was always some legitimacy to that. Uh the the interesting thing for me is that I I think that things to be done is not really based on the new technology. the new technology is igniting the investment and the the attention to this phenomenon. But it's really back to things that like people have been shouting especially in the knowledge space for a decade or two that get your data in order. Um because the AI we know that it has some features that aren't uh optimal for reliability and and accuracy. Um, but you can mitigate a lot of that if you have really great data and and at the end of the day, the the the data that the firm marries with the AI is going to be the differentiator, not just AI on its own.
>> I've heard the term garbage in, garbage out about 10 times in the last week alone. And even Yeah, even more true with with the Gent now. Um, how how do you get your your data in order? like what what are the important things you need to do in a in a law firm?
>> You got to get everybody in a room. I mean it's it's a very human centric initiative. Um and it's difficult because it takes a lot of effort. Um and so you're not it's hard to get immediate results. So where you start is is you prototype. What are we reporting on today? How are we how are we generating those reports? um what could you report on if you wanted to and then you're reverse engineering that back into a data layer and there's different owners of of different pieces of data across the firm. So you got to you have to get the owners of the different data to come together and there's overlap right I mean there's people who who harvest the same data types and they call it different things they may um call something the same thing and actually it means different things to those parties. So you have to normalize and define your data types and say where's the source of truth coming. Um obviously there's lots of data types and lots of systems. You don't start with every single data type and everything is system but you you have to identify the important data types that are going to inform those analytics and those reports. Um, and so getting people in the room to agree about that and take ownership and have some sort of crossf functional thread and really u I would say function that can tie all this together um and then build an operation around it to maintain it, clean it, normalize it and propagate it out into the systems that still need that data for the users who who interact with it.
And this is something law firms can do in house. Do they need to outsource get get help on on on this or does it depend?
>> Yeah, you need help. Yeah, I think you do need help because it's a um it's an orchestration, right? I think on paper and I'd done this when I was at Baker they and they ended up developing their own data lake um at the time but I in the first year that was me and I worked with a consultant and the consultant knew what to do and I was very much learning but I knew that the the uh he didn't know how a law firm operated you know what are the systems that we use so that's what I knew and together we facilitated with the business mapped it all out at that point I had left but they had taken those mappings and started to to build. Um, and yeah, you you want you want expertise on that because you are taking up people's time out of their day and you want it to be wellrun and scattered.
>> Spoke with two vendors this this week that seems to uh be be helping on on this. So there there is help out there. I'm I'm interested to get your views on the business model of of law, right? in innovation AI it's it's here to primarily make people more efficient companies more efficient when we're charging by the hour like what's the real incentive to do things quicker it what are your perspectives on the business model of law and uh is is it broken do we need to fix it what what needs to change if if anything
>> um the business model of law is not broken yet but it's going to break. Um it's probably starting to fracture. I think we got have some time. Um I think we have few years easily, but um the billable hour to me is is the the worst part of the billable hour is being used as a performance metric for lawyers. Um I think we overblow the charging of clients billable hours. There's actually very good re sound reasons for that. And um and people always say, "Oh, you know, it's a a terrible way to capture value." I'm not going to really disagree with that, but I think it's always assumed that the lawyers make out on billable uh arrangements. And and there's plenty of times when you really help a client like immensely and at the end of the day, you get paid hourly for that. not you don't you know I mean there are some firms in some types of deals that you can capture maybe a percentage of the deal value but when you talk about billable I think I think it works both ways um where where people need to focus is on the leverage model the leverage model is what um traditionally how you know how we made money and there's high margins in in in putting lots of associates on a deal so maybe and we're already seeing the reduction of of leverage that's been going down actually for quite some time. So you might have a
>> Sorry,
>> what is the leverage model? Sorry, I'm
>> So the leverage model is the the way to make money traditionally at law firms is to have associates on the deal. So the more associates you can put on the deal, the more leverage you have. So if I'm a partner and I bring in a deal and I bring in eight associates, that's that's pretty nice leverage. I'm billing eight associates on that. Um let's take that for example. Let's say I have eight associates and they bill, let's just do some easy math here, $1,000 an hour. And let's say I'm the partner and I bill $2,000 an hour. So that unit is $10,000 an hour. Um, what the goal is is at the end of the day, the the whatever you produce, the advice you're producing, the strategic advice you're producing is what the client's paying for. So we've determined that's worth $10,000 an hour. you know, collectively, let's just say, obviously people are going to work different amounts of hours, but I'm trying to keep it real simple math. Well, now if we can automate a lot of the stuff that some of those eight associates are doing, now maybe we're down to four associates per partner. Okay? And that's maybe closer to where things are today. And so now if you're at $4,000 an hour with the four associates and then at 2,000 with the part, now you're at $6,000 an hour. Whoa, we used to make 10,000 on this. Now, you can make some of that up because you're just going to hike your rates up. Now, maybe and also because if I'm the partner and I have 20 years of experience and I have an associate with three years of experience, am I only two worth two times more than that associate? Am I worth 2,000? They're worth 1,000. No, you're probably worth 3,000 and they're worth 500. you know, it's like it's there's an imbalance because we've been spreading we've been distributing uh the cost of legal work across the pipeline when honestly at the end of the day they just want the strategic advice but we've priced it in this way. So I think what you're going to see is a massive increase in rates and you're going to see leverage kind of go down. You're not going to see a a massive amount of cost reduction on the client side, but what you are going to see is you're going to see, I think, as good, if not better quality work. You're going to have faster turnaround times and and you're still going to get an amazing work product and you're going to pay the same amount for it. But like I said, you're going to get those other benefits with it. Um, and then law firms have to fill those voids because you've done it quicker. you actually can make the same amount of money and you've actually opened up opportunity to make even more money. So, what I think will happen is law firms aren't going to be obsolete anytime soon, but it's going to be the halves and have nots, the people who go invest in data and the AI systems to reduce that leverage model, but keep the value uh keep the value uh understood by the client, you're going to um I think I think those will succeed.
So, so the client is winning. They're getting work quicker and it's just as good if not better. The law firm is saving some time. Maybe they can allocate to additional work so that they're benefiting from from this as well. Um, there's a whole there's three different areas that I want to go down. I'm like which which area do we do we go down first? Does um having less associates on a project because of AI give smaller and medium firms competitive advantage in being able to compete for the same kind of work? Maybe they can compete on price which maybe will drive the price down. Is is is that a scenario that that you see like what are your thoughts on that?
>> Yeah, there's different levels of legal work. Um, and there's like I don't know there's some py pyramid I think um I think like JM has had these like pyramids of like you know the table stakes work and the the more kind of run the business work and then there's the cream work and and that's the high level work. So I think when you're talking about like the high stakes work um that firms do that clients aren't really costconscious. At the end of the day, I I think it's going to be difficult for that kind of work to be taken over by smaller middle market because they don't have the experience and at the end of the day, you want the experience and that lives in the data as well in people's heads.
>> So, I think you're um I think you're going to see um in fact, if anything, I'm seeing firms go down market like big firms go down market. I think Ro had an announcement about this like we're going down to middle market M&A. So taking on more of the market, increasing market share,
>> but going yeah down into the to the middle law firm and maybe not going up. Maybe they're going up too, but that wasn't part of the the article.
>> That's really interesting. And what does this mean for those associates that were doing the work? Are we seeing fewer jobs? Are jobs changing?
>> I think they're going to change. I think they're going to we expect to take on different skills and I think the divide between being a lawyer and doing everything else within the law firm is going to start to uh break down and converge. You'll need lawyers with these sort of tech and design and solutioning skills um within their practice area and work on the matter because you my team does that today but that's not scalable. We're not going to hire a massive bloated team to support every you matter team within the law firm, but we are going to create a platform which they can take that on themselves and uh use it where they find the most value and their clients find the most value. And as you know in a law firm there's just a you're doing you're creating a lot of different widgets. So you have to give them the platform for them to have the self-service ability um to do that. And that comes with training. I think that's what law firms have to figure out because typically the associates, they're learning on the job and the clients are paying for that. And what you're seeing, you're going to see is we need to actually spend more non-millable time training the lawyers. And how do we do that? We can use AI, I think, to do that and simulate real world scenarios um that, you know, kids out of law school have never seen because law school really doesn't teach you how to be a lawyer in practice.
Will uh legal engineers become more valuable than >> junior associates?
>> Um certain junior associates you still need to I think have a track to the to the future leaders of the firm. Um but yeah, I think the legal engineers are going to be super valuable and coveted. Um we're already seeing that.
What what advice do you have for those those you know coming out of uni wanting a career in in law maybe concerned about the changing world like where should they focus their time that what skills are going to be the most important for sustainable success in in this industry?
Yeah, I think uh you have to be adaptable, which is difficult in a law firm because you come in and you're kind of put into a funnel of the way things have always been done. Um and you're really you don't really have any say when you come into the bathroom, right? And that's like any organization. You're starting at a junior level and who's what do you really know? Um who's going to really listen to you? And not that, you know, not that these um young professionals, you know, claim that, but you you will need to be open-minded and the firms really have to to foster that. You have to be open-minded to technology. I always said law school is where smart kids go to that hate technology, right? That that's pretty much what it is. Um and I think some of that still kind of holds true. So they have to they have to learn the new skills but the law firms have to promote it, endorse it, encourage it.
>> Coming back to the the business model topic, um if if you were to build a law firm from scratch today, you know, you don't have any legacy, you can you can build it from scratch. How would you go about it?
>> Yeah, there's some doing that now, right? Oh, the it's like the AI native law firm. um you build a law firm from scratch. So and the difference between building the law firm from scratch is again you are starting from scratch. You don't it's not a transformation as a law firm would do. And the advantage that the law firms have again is all that experiential data. Um so how would I build it from scratch? I would probably pick a you know obviously you want to pick a sector of the market. I don't think we would be a, you know, I don't have the brains to start a full-ervice type law firm that could expand across several practice groups. So, let's say if you're starting a boutique, um you need probably lawyers that have some time left, um are willing to reinvent the way that they work, um explore new business models and um build the data layer at inception. So, everything has to be pre-built. you architect everything um because you've seen it before. A lot of times this stuff gets cobbled together even like a startup, right? You say, "This would be great to have really nice organized streamlined processes, but I don't have time for that, right? I got to build build and scale and sell, right? And then later we'll we'll we'll we'll try to continue to refine that." So that would flip. You would actually build the organizational architecture and the how the the the data pipelines and you would bring in experienced lawyers and then you would develop a training program to bring in young talent to sort of build out the firm. Um I there's a there's a partner uh that left a firm and started his own that I know uh and he works more with startups and he worked with a company and he they recorded like 40 or 50 hours of him just downloading knowledge and created basically like an AI based off him and he went to sell it to the clients like hey here's a subscription it's $3,000 a month and you at, you know, three hours of legal, you know, my legal services on top of that. And the clients viewed it as $1,000 an hour and he and he did a lot of focus grouping like, "Hey, you know, this AI subscription, you're going to be able to just ping on it whenever you want and you know, you can get you don't have to come to me. I'm not a bottleneck and I'm not charging you by the hour for this." And they all were like, "Yeah, this is great. We totally want this." And then when it happened, it was like, "You're charging me $1,000 an hour." like, "No, no, no, no, no. I built I spent tons of money building this thing and automating a lot of the things to your benefit." So, it was just kind of a funny um
>> Yeah, that because a lot of this is on the consumers, right? The clients are former lawyers. A lot of them worked in the same type of institutions that they're now buying from. So, it's hard for them to see a new way to procure legal services.
>> We um subscribe to Seed Legals if if you know it. when we set up our business, which was a subscription model, I think it was £1,000 a year, and you get access to a whole load of stuff that we would have paid lawyers a lot of money for, templates and contracts and um yeah, getting set up for SEI and it was it was pretty awesome. I mean, can can you see that scaling up the subscription law firm model?
Yeah, I I think there is I think when it comes to I think where I'm seeing it now is more of again in breaking it down into a little more micro level. So I talked about get your data in order blah blah blah get all the experiential data and have that data later in the firm. Also you can now uh sort of capsulize that for clients. Clients a lot of clients are their legal departments struggle with document management and organization finding things. A lot of times what does that mean? They call us. Hey, where's that document we did 18 months ago? And so the lawyer because they're a client service uh oriented person. they stop what they're doing. They go and we go and find the thing and um and then we send it over to them. U what I see in the future is when we are working with clients, we're curating that back to them. And I think that could take the form of some sort of um you know digital experience for clients to not only be able to access their data but actually analyze their data and maybe even produce first drafts um from there. And you know, to be honest, I think if you're a smart partner, you that that shouldn't bother you.
>> you you know, you you're not really interested in the first drafts. That's not really >> value. That already exists somewhere. We're just now paying money to recobbble together things we've already done in the past.
>> Uh so so that's where I think uh things will start to go and then how that manifests. I think there is some trickiness with, you know, putting too much AI into this and having AI have too much access and autonomy uh when it comes to that. But I think that's what you know people are are imagining.
>> I was watching a a funny video. I think you posted on Tik Tok, but it was on your LinkedIn because I'm not I'm not on Tik Tok my myself about um startups pitching, you know, I'm going to be the Netflix for contracts or uh the Airbnb for for document review. And yeah, it's quite it's quite a quite a funny video, but you know, you've seen we've seen companies like Netflix replace Blockbuster. We've seen Airbnb competing with, you know, the way we used to book hotels. Uber and Bolt and Lyft competing with how we used to book taxis. Like many industries, Amazon changing the way I don't think Toys R Us exists anymore, at least not in in in the UK because we we've seen new entrance come into pretty much every industry and completely transform the way people buy these services and um just just transform the the industry. You know, Monzum Revolute changing the way we bank and big banks have had to adapt and and change um so we can Yeah. This hasn't really happened in the legal industry. We've not seen that seismic shift of changing. I mean, maybe we have, but I've not been around long enough, but I don't think it compares to what we've seen. Why? Why is that? And is it a possibility?
>> Well, in a friend of mine, Enam Hulk, who uh his company's called Law Beta, he just sent me a video, I think he did um yesterday, and and he compared big law to the auto industry in Detroit, right? and how the auto industry just broke and now um they looked at it as a mechanical uh product and you know companies like Tesla look at it as like a computer with wheels and that's uh that really stuck with me. Um I was like oh that that kind of does feel right. Um there's a regulatory aspect to this. I think that's a that's quite a big barrier. Like I said, the customers and the clients themselves, I think they they know they that there's something there, but I I think it's really hard for them, especially in their day-to-day. And legal departments are usually, you know, pretty tightly budgeted um as a as a cost center within a company. So they will um so I I I do think that it we are um we're going to uh have to I I think things are going to that it's it's really hard to answer because of just sort of this fact that we've just kind of been making money um pretty easily and regularly you know over all these decades. Um, so I man I I I don't I don't really know how how this is going to turn out. I I it's kind of
>> you you you was alluding to what I thought is a possibility when I first came into this this sector when you're talking about building a new law firm from from scratch. You know, you get some of the best lawyers from from maybe different big law firms. You combine it with being AI native and are you creating a super firm then with the knowledge and the data and the the judgment that these experienced lawyers can bring and combine that with the efficiencies and automation that AI and Agentic can bring. Can you can you create the power of a thousand person law firm with 10 people for example? Is that possible?
Yeah, I I don't know what quite the the um extrapolation is, but it's it's I do think that I do think that I mean I I tell that to my firm right now. I mean, we're we're about 800 lawyers, which is a big firm, but compared to some of the firms we go up against, it's not as big. Um I actually think we're we're at a very nice headcount to be nimble, but still big enough to to compete at the top level. So, I'm like I'm super excited about that. where I think it's going to transform more is really more on typical person's life. I mean, that's where a lot of the opportunity is and and yes, their high stakes legal work for the common person, but a lot of this stuff is it's not just the legal work that they have because I think if you have a really important legal claim, you you're going to do what you can to uh to to fight for that. But there's probably lots of legal claims you have that's like not worth it to you. And imagine if AI can now make it more much easier for you to access your legal rights. I think on the corporate side, you need a um you know, there's a seal of approval. There's a CYA. There's um saying that you know, we're risk mitigators uh because we're saying, "Hey, we went to this law firm and they gave us the seal of approval." Um and I don't think AI is at a point anywhere close to a point where it's going to have judgment. um that we're want going to want to use judgment and rely on that to make critical legal decisions.
>> For important things, you're always going to go to a trusted law firm, get that seal of approval and yeah, security blanket that that comes with it, right? But yeah, for all these other types of work, may maybe there's a bit more disruption.
Thinking a bit philosophical, am I saying that right? Philosophically. um what what what are we doing this for? Why are we innovating? What is the outcome for the industry, the people working in the industry, the the people in the companies the industry serves? Like is there a big picture to all of this change that is happening?
>> I I I mean I try to tell myself so I that so I get up in the morning and and continue working. Uh it's it is always a question like what are we working for? Um, how much should I care about it? I mean, just the human condition for me is I just get excited about challenges. Um, I love working with super smart people that are industrious and working on just, you know, massive complex projects. So, I I I think that's just just fun and and I just it just gets me up every day. Um, but you know, what are we actually doing? I mean, I I I don't think law fir lawyers are going to like go home at 7:00 at night because of AI and, you know, have a more of a quality of life. I don't think AI does that for us. Like we said, it opens up a void and that void will get filled, right? You used to work on one or two matters, maybe you're now working on six or seven matters at a time. The the void will get filled as long as that billable model maintains. And I think, you know, there's just a lot of barriers to getting rid of the billable hour completely. Um, but I think what it does is give people opportunity that have been saying stuff, you know, for a while. What I do see is like the the pretty high up partners, they're now listening, right? So people who feel like, you know, that they've been in innovation and feel like they've just been a a marketing sort of instrument now are actually being asked to deliver real results and be part of the strategic vision that I think for anybody who's been paying their dues and fighting the good fight, I think this is this is great for them. And and I think it makes kind of law cool again. And and maybe we are attracting different people. Maybe the old traditional person profile is not who's wants to be a lawyer and someone who's like oh this is kind of cool. Um because you know back in the the day with AI it was it was like oh I could be a quant and I can do quantitative analysis using AI. Well, now you have a dump of unstructured data. Like now try to work with that and turn, you know, and and apply data science to that, right? That's that I think is super attractive to a machine learning sort of AI engineer type talent. And you know, maybe those we'll see more of those combined with with legal capabilities as well.
I'm thinking access to justice or uh underserved markets. Maybe people or companies that can't afford certain things. Maybe maybe now now they can. Is there a is there a big unmet need? Not with this super big billion dollar cases or visas like that that that's always been there that always will. But but do you think there's if we can democratize the cost and and access to legal help, will we have a bigger market to serve and therefore is everybody winning?
>> Massive. I mean it's what when I was asked this at Ilta um and it was like where would you put $5 million and I say I would put it in B TOC. I mean I think the you know going into big law and selling is very difficult and there's a lot of competition. It's not the biggest vertical. It's a pretty small industry comparatively. But B TOC, I mean, you see these stats, 80 to 90% of US citizens have unmet legal needs. Like I said, there's some that, yeah, there's, you know, you have a medical malpractice. I mean, you might have to go after that. That that might be your, you know, but that might be your life savings and, you know, second mortgage on the house to to do that. But then you have all this stuff like getting conned by, you know, your phone company or your cable company and you're getting gouged or like just, you know, certain types of um medical bill collection. You know, there might be a lot of nefarious, fraudulent activity that's really hard for you to um to manage and take time out of your day to speak to AI bots on a phone to get, you know what I mean? Now we're um there's a massive market for it and I see places like Arizona who are starting to allow non- lawyers to own law firms uh being something that's not really going to I don't think anytime soon impact the corporate legal side but absolutely the BTOC side. I mean I I it's we're doing ourselves a brave disservice if we're not and people say well it could make an error and stuff. Yeah, but we might not get anything done at all. Um, so we want to do it right. We have to have respect for the law. Um, we don't want to trivial trivialize it, but
>> um, we have people really suffering and if you've read legal code, right, I'm sure it's the same in the UK. Um, you know, if you're a common person, it's very difficult. And you could read it like municipality and they could have a law from le 36 and written in such a inane way you would be like what is what does it even mean?
>> Yeah, completely agree. I mean cost of going through a divorce. Uh you you've got yeah there there's so many different cases and if we can make that easier for people and there's a huge untap market. Uh I I I think may maybe not in divorce because that's not going to change anything. But no I completely agree with you. I think it's a big opportunity there.
>> Yeah. And people have you know they're starting to do that and and with divorce and things. I mean and if you think about it like Legal Zoom what's crazy though like Legal Zoom got got sued a lot, right? They mostly won. Um but they got attacked bar associations um that people came out. But Legal Zoom really what it was is they took forms that they found at like the Office Max cuz like if you go to the old office stores, they would have booklets, right? A paper like a like a sample will and uh you know like a um a trust document or a divorce you know some basic divorce stuff, right? um all they did was electronicize it, right? They just took these forms and put it on the internet and it's like practicing laws like this is already happening. We're just giving you forms. We're not advising you. Um we're just getting you started on things that are kind of like boilerplate. Um and they got attacked. So, taking that to the next level, we're going to get attacked. There's a company do not pay. I've been following for a long time. They started with parking tickets um several years ago and now they've, you know, a year or two ago they were trying to um pay somebody a million dollars to go in front of the Supreme Court with AirPods to to conduct their entire argument using AI, their AI. Um, but and but they actually have some VC funding. So I think it'll be I think what what we really need in the B TOC space is the funding and and I think the money is going to come because it's already there. It's like, okay, we like I think there's so much money and people are like a quarter of the money in here, but you you can only invest in some of these major league. I mean, you can only give Harvey so much money, right? you there's other companies we can give money to and and that's and and they're going to um and so once you have VC backing then you're going to fight these regulatory concerns but there is no in the US there's no precedent there's no case law about the unauthorized practice of law and so far do not pay came after them and they pretty much um settled it away but I think ultimately it would have been great to see it go to court and get an actual um uh a judgment on that that we can take forward um and sort of allay some of the fears but I think ultimately the benefits to society just like Uber taking over taxis which were also regulated they broke the law but at the end of the day this is what the society wanted so it didn't really matter I I see that happening and I I see that as a potential um being in the B toC
>> yeah really interested to see if we can help make that happen right we're all trying to drive positive change and and that's what we're trying to do is as as Well, so um that's something to wake up for. Get out of bed for if if we can do it.
>> Heck yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think there's an opportunity in law firm in big law proono departments to start doing that. What I I always look at. Um you know, we're capped at the amount of impact because we do it based on lawyer hours, right? That's how a lot of times we you know, how many hours did you work on proono matters? Like our firm does a ton of proono work. We do amazing work. But imagine if we had some AI powered systems to help them do that. So now you're 100 hours you may be helping some people but you also might design a system that will help tons of people right partnering with like a legal aid organization or something who also are very strapped funding have no R&D capabilities um that's where I think big law should go from the proono side where they can apply all the learnings and investments they've made to the benefit of of society. We're starting to see more and more PE VC backed law firms now and some big big firms and I think we're going to see more of it. So, so maybe this is a direction we can we can start to tackle. Um, conscious of of of time here, are there any sort of big topics, burning views or thoughts you want to share uh that that we haven't already touched on?
I mean, well, you know, it was funny you me mentioned the Tik Toks earlier and I and I think about um experience and I've been thinking a lot, Bradley, about u the amount of conferences we have in this um in our industry. I mean, that is what you you're two to three years in, but I mean, if you you know, you had to just not too long ago and there's a few conferences.
>> We're trying to make it so there's only one conference you need to go to, but uh that's another
>> that good luck with that. that that's that's not going to people like to mingle. So it's hard day conference. I mean that's that's a a big part of these things. But I mean we're at a point where we're we're way overloaded now. We've we've toppled over um what the industry can handle. I mean I don't know how people can go to all the conferences because like do you do work because there's a lot of work seems to be done needs to be done on this. And I love conferences. I I I think it's a great place to network, touch base, especially meet peers who aren't um you know in in your your city uh and hear what they're doing. Uh but there's just too many right now. So what where where I was going with this is I went to Legal Tech Talk and this Bradley did not put me up to this was telling the audience I don't get paid to endorse Legal Tech Talk but like I went last year and I was just like you know and you the venue is you know, it's by the O2 you kind of come up look at it looks kind of like unsuspecting right kind of like okay, it's like an intercontinental and it's a nice little hotel but the but you did something you did something in there. You took sort of an ordinary space and you made it and you had a lot of people and it wasn't like tons of places to go, but you somehow had this like fune type of style with it, you know, from the lighting in the um in the vendor hall, but also like the closeness, but like somehow there was freedom to move and the thoughtfulness to have places where people can connect and do one-on- ons and the lounges and all the extra effects and the stages and and how it was just super professional and and and I and I relate that to how we should be delivering technology to lawyers. It's all about the experience, right? It's it's the AI can be great, but at the end of the day, if it's not convenient, if it's not a really good user experience, um it's likely not going to get adopted to the extent you wanted to. So, I'm curious like, you know, you came into this from outside legal, you know, what because you're bringing some really good stuff. Some of these conferences, they they don't do any of this, right? you bring some sort of flavor. So, what is that? What's that secret sauce and and what impact do you think it has on, you know, people?
>> Thank you for for that, Gon. Very kind. And you you made an introduction a couple weeks ago uh and and introduced us as having some sort of proprietary magic pixie death. And I guess what you mean by that is the funue and and the energy and and the flavor that that you're referring to. So, um that's uh very humbling, but I I think we have um a different perspective on events versus current organizers because we're not from the legal industry. We, you know, me and my co-founder, we we come from an events background. And we've seen how what great events look like from other industry sectors. So, first of all, we look at the best in class outside of legal. We don't look at current legal events as our inspiration with all due respect to the the the events that exist. We're we're also scouting venues to do something amazing in America. We we haven't announced that yet. I probably shouldn't be saying that on here. Our marketing will probably cut this out, but we we think we can do something cool in America as well.
>> I I mean, I don't I don't think that I think that would be pretty um expected from people that you would go in America. Hopefully the marketing team doesn't uh cut it out. And but I think it I think you're right. I think we I expected out of co there to be a change. I thought there would be something like okay co has really flipped the way we work over our head like maybe the conferences we put on should also sort of flip and change and I haven't really seen that but
>> we you you mentioned experience right and I I didn't touch on that but it's it's like a it's a festival it's a show like you you walk out of the train station you've got people there greeting you and this branding takeover of the the train station there's live music on the way to the venue all these little touches. The app works well. It's easy to book meetings. There's a hairdresser on prem or we had a hairdressing lounge. Uh it was actually nicer than most hairdressers in London um that we built um for for just two days and massage face paints after parties. There's there's there's live music from 9:00 a.m. All of these things it creates a nice energy I think and vibe. And when when people let their hair down and they don't feel so like uptight or nervous to talk to people then you just you break straight through that and it's human humans and humans talking to each other not it's less a sort of business vibe. I don't know if you you felt that.
No, no, I completely felt that and and and like I said, I mean, whenever I talk, I mean, people who are in especially my position and you know, it's nice to go to certain sessions, but the the number one thing people are looking for anymore is not education, right? It's how are you dealing with the specific challenge and talking, you know, on the side, having, you know, these um really deep uh protected conversations. Um, and at the end of the day, we're all really trying to do the same thing. I don't think I think sharing ideas, we should be sharing as much as we can as an industry because the secret sauce is the execution. So, you know, I don't really care if people do. I I'll tell every I I feel the same as you. I'm I've been on other people's podcasts when they sort of deep dive. I'm happy to share everything we do. Executing it is is another thing, right? and and and if you're confident in that, then you should share because you learn from each other and then people share with you as well. And I think we all we all get better together.
>> Well, you're bringing the market up, too. Like when I'm with a startup, you know, I don't I don't want to keep that under wraps, you know, because I need that startup to have other customers. I need them to survive. If I pick them over somebody else, I I don't want them to have I want to promote the one I picked. Mhm.
>> And um and I think that again it's it's sort of this traditional mindset in law firms like keeping things you know undercover but um but honestly I think that you know at least in my firm I think they they want to hear they a big value of mine is the network and the competitive intelligence I have. Um and that's only possible if I also give someone else some intelligence.
>> This is a market.
>> I I I like the mindset. I think when we first entered, well, I don't know if it's still true today, but so many people that work within law firms are bound by what they can and can't say on stage and you can say this, don't say that, share this, don't share this, don't give away competitive secrets. It's like, come on, let's just all help each other be better.
>> Yeah, because that that's the thing. We're we're going to move much more slowly if we're being KG um about it. And to be honest, like I've I this is this is something that's been going on. I've seen, let's just say, I've seen examples of people tight-knit groups asking questions about are you doing this or that, and the answers are not consistent with what I know the answers to be, which is just really funny um to me that that we even at the highest levels in a in a very like sort of um safe space of people trying to all just get their job done that even then it won't be shared. So hopefully we're breaking down those barriers and we're
>> well conversations like this is is helping. You know, thank you for being open and and and transparent on a recorded device. Um
>> I know how to do it.
>> Yeah. And yeah, no really really appreciate the the conversation. Conan, is is there a final parting message for for anyone tuning in?
Um, I think let's I I I want to see the con, you know, I'm I'm my big thing is is is experience and content. I want to see I'd love to see other people really get more interested in um, you know, doing things differently. And you know, I'm not saying you have to go on TikTok or do stuff, but like like that, like wild stuff, but I I just think people getting out um and and sort of and also exploring AI. I one thing we didn't get into is is we talk a lot about the promise of AI, but I think there's a lot of concerning things in the AI industry outside of legal, right? and just the broader things. And I think people really need to educate themselves on this. um one because you're an expert at your firm. So it's not just about like oh what are the legal use cases okay that's fine but like I think you really need to know nuts and bolts of how AI works and and and for those who are wanting to get into this space and really grow in this space that's it you become an expert just like our lawyers are experts to our clients for the matters they deal with
>> appreciate it and uh I will if I don't see you any anytime sooner I'll see you in June in London again so look forward to that hopefully we can bring you some some new surprises.
>> Yeah.
>> Before that. Well, good. I I'll be I'll be out in New York in in in March most likely. So, I'll I'll probably see you there.
>> Awesome, Bradley. Thanks for having me on.
>> Cheers, G. Take care. Thanks for listening. For more episodes like this, make sure you subscribe to Shaping the Future of Law on Spotify or YouTube. If you want deeper insights on legal innovation and how the sector is changing, make sure you head over to the Legal Tech Talk website. And if you want to see the future of law come to life in person, make sure you attend Europe's event for legal transformation. Details are all on the website. I look forward to seeing you there.