ABA Journal: Legal Rebels

Richard Granat–the creator of MyLawyer.com, SmartLegalForms and the People’s Law Library of Maryland–has joined Intraspexion, a new artificial-intelligence software company, as a strategic adviser. At 75, Richard Granat does not fit the stereotype of a startup entrepreneur. However, he says, although there may be bias against older entrepreneurs, his experience is a benefit, not a detraction.

What will be a big legal trend for 2018? Mary E. Juetten is putting her hopes on legal technology improving access-to-justice problems.

Robert Litt has confronted cybersecurity and encryption issues for two presidential administrations. With Russian interference in the 2016 election as a backdrop, Litt, an ABA Journal Legal Rebels Trailblazer, says the U.S. has been facing online threats essentially since the internet's creation.

Adriana Linares considers it a badge of honor to work in the legal profession without being a lawyer. Linares co-founded LawTech Partners with Allan Mackenzie in 2004 after several years in the IT departments of two of the largest firms in Florida. Now she travels across Florida, throughout the country and sometimes abroad as a law practice consultant and legal technology coach. “Lawyers, as far a...

Legal journalist and blogger Bob Ambrogi recounts his unorthodox path towards legal journalism, as well as where he sees the legal industry heading – especially as it relates to technology.

Bruce MacEwen is both a doctor and an epidemiologist in the world of BigLaw firms. A Legal Rebels Trailblazer, the Adam Smith, Esq. founder can diagnose structural illnesses, including aspects of the partner-as-owner model, and he can point to unhealthy customs and practices, such as when aversion to failure becomes its cause. He also can give advice and guidance for getting better and surviving o...

John Tredennick started a focus on legal technology in 1988—back when law firms saw it as something limited to fancy computers and adding machines. He asked Holland & Hart, the Denver-based firm where he was a partner, to add the words chief information officer to his title. “You need a leader, not just somebody on staff but somebody who understands the bigger vision of the firm—where we fit in th...

Michael Mills has been helping law firms figure out their technological needs since before there was an internet. As one of the first of what are now known as chief knowledge officers, Mills played a leading role in educating his fellow lawyers and implementing tools and processes designed to help lawyers do their jobs more effectively. After over two decades in Big Law, Mills decided to stake out...

For more than three decades, Richard Susskind has been one of the profession’s most prolific voices in support of implementing technology with legal services delivery. The author of more than 10 books on the topic, his next one will focus on technology in the courtroom. “A better way of running state-based dispute resolution is largely using technology, rather than using traditional methods,” says...

For years, Paul Lippe has been a leader in helping corporate law departments adopt the approaches used in the best and most innovative parts of their own companies—and in doing so, significantly changing the relationships with and the work done by their outside lawyers. A Legal Rebels Trailblazer and one of the original New Normal contributors for ABAJournal.com, Lippe’s career path has been all a...

Plenty of lawyers hate to do legal research: It can be tedious and time-consuming, and one mistake can tank an entire case. For lawyers of a certain generation, the very sight of those two-toned, musty-smelling books that all look the same is enough to fill them with dread. For younger lawyers, electronic resources can be just as intimidating and mystifying. Luckily for Lisa Solomon, she loves tha...

Stacy Stern is in charge of revenues, among her other roles at a successful for-profit company, but she tends to talk more about giving away products and services. It becomes obvious that she thinks giving is more important than receiving—not that Justia, the legal portal she and her husband, Tim Stanley, created, isn’t out to make money. But–philosophically at least–they turn the standard busines...

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebel Stacy Stern, president of the vast legal portal Justia. Stern, one of the co-founders of Findlaw, was named a Legal Rebels Trailblazer in early 2017. She talks here about the expansion of Justia, which champions free law for all in the United States and Mexico.

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebels Shantelle Argyle and Daniel Spencer. Argyle and Spencer, profiled as Legal Rebels in 2015, founded Open Legal Services in Salt Lake City in 2014. Even though the two didn’t initially plan to launch a not-for-profit law firm straight out of law school, they’ve since become ev...

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebel Sarah Glassmeyer. Glassmeyer, a trained law librarian and free law enthusiast, was named a Legal Rebel in 2016. She talks here about her relatively new job at the ABA’s Center for Innovation and the melding of her interests there. She gives a preview of what’s to come from th...

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebel Sam Glover, founder of Lawyerist, a one-time blog turned robust legal information site. Sam was named a Legal Rebel Trailblazer in February 2017. Here he talks about a new venture at Lawyerist: TBD Law, a unique conference collaboration with ‘09 Legal Rebel Matt Homann of Fil...

In this special ABA TECHSHOW episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebel Nicole Black. Black was in the Journal’s first Rebels class in 2009. Just like then, when she was designated the “Boss of Blogs,” she continues to be a prolific blogger and Twitter user. She talks about blogging today and her gig at MyCase, which offers practice-management se...

In this special ABA Techshow episode of the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels Podcast, Molly McDonough catches up with Legal Rebels Ed Walters and Kevin O’Keefe. Walters, a one-time BigLaw associate and co-founder of the legal-research service Fastcase, was named a Legal Rebel Trailblazer in October 2016. Kevin O’Keefe was in the Journal’s inaugural Rebels class in 2009. The two talk here about their new...

Born and raised in Austria, Roland Vogl fell in love with California almost from the moment he arrived in 1999 as a student at Stanford Law School. In particular, he was drawn to the entrepreneurial ethos of Stanford’s home base of Silicon Valley. “The idea of being in Silicon Valley and being immersed in the gung-ho spirit where people solve problems—not so much by policy and lawmaking but by bui...

The website Lawyerist focuses on getting attorneys information they want. Determining what that is isn't hard, says founder Sam Glover, because readers frequently tell him through the site's discussion forum or on social media. "Sometimes all you can get is anecdotes, asking as many people as you can find, to try and uncover information about stuff," says Glover, a 2017 Legal Rebels Trailblazer wh...

At 69, Judge Herbert Dixon doesn’t fit that epigram about old dogs and new tricks. He’s still proselytizing about high tech in courthouses and courtrooms, and he predicts its future. He’s still trying some cases as a senior judge, is a member of the ABA Board of Governors and now a Legal Rebels Trailblazer, and he’s engaged in so many other endeavors that he never seems to be (under immutable laws...

When you ask Randi Mayes about the future of technology in law firms, she says its growth will stem from attorneys’ behavior rather than specific product offerings. “The real possibility for change in the future sits more with the mindset,” says Mayes, the executive director of the International Legal Technology Association. “It’s all about the law firm adopting its client’s worldview and innovati...

Craig Ball likes to say he got into law to stay out of prison. The Austin, Texas-based attorney, professor and electronic evidence expert has always been passionate about technology—somewhat too passionate at times. When he was a teenager, he created a device that allowed him and his friends to make long-distance calls for free. He got in trouble with the law. But luckily for him, the prosecutor a...

Legal technology has changed since 1999, when Ed Walters and Phil Rosenthal founded the legal research service Fastcase—but not as much as they’d like. Phil Rosenthal and Ed Walters are the founders of the legal research service Fastcase. They were associates with Covington & Burling when they started the company in 1999.

Most people see librarians as the quiet personification of technical obsolescence. Jean O'Grady is out to change that. The senior director of research and knowledge at DLA Piper in Washington, D.C., is at the forefront of pushing the legal industry toward embracing technology as a means of enhancing the practice of law. Through her acclaimed blog, Dewey B Strategic (which has been selected for the...