Pioneers and Pathfinders

Our guest today is Amy Yeung, VP and Deputy General Counsel at Sallie Mae, and a well-known legal tech thought leader. As a paralegal at Williams & Connolly LLP, Amy learned the ins and outs of the profession and found inspiration in the lawyers she assisted. After working in the securities group at WilmerHale, she changed course and joined the gaming company ZeniMax Media as assistant general cou...

With all the conversations on recent advancements in technology, particularly generative AI, we thought we’d revisit our interview with David Wang, chief innovation officer at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. His career exemplifies the importance of tech innovation and change management in the legal profession. We hope you enjoy. We will return with a new episode next week. The past few years hav...

As we head into the dog days of summer, we thought we would replay one of our favorite episodes. Given that August is National Civility Month, it seemed appropriate to revisit our episode with Jayne Reardon, former executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. Jayne has since retired from this role, but she continues to speak on professionalism topics such as civi...

Now more than ever, conversations around legal technology and innovation can be incredibly overwhelming—especially for those who are worried about the implications of generative AI. Our guest today helps facilitate these important discussions, with the goal of making new technology less intimidating for lawyers. Cat Casey is chief growth officer at Reveal-Brainspace, a cloud-based provider of edis...

Today we speak with Shana Simmons, chief legal officer at Everlaw, an advanced eDiscovery platform helping legal organizations solve the challenges of discovery and investigations more efficiently. Shana began her professional journey as a middle school and high school teacher before pursuing her lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer. After working in a corporate practice at an international law fir...

As we often discuss on the podcast, many lawyers resist adopting new technology or innovative practices due to a fear of the unknown. Today’s guest, however, embraces change management and is always looking to enhance the quality of legal services. Wendy Butler Curtis is the chief innovation officer and chair of the eDiscovery & Information Governance group at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. W...

Today’s guest is a true expert in legal operations. Kiran Mallavarapu is the executive vice president and senior manager of Legal Strategic Services at Liberty Mutual Insurance. A mechanical engineer by training, Kiran worked at General Motors for several years before joining Liberty Mutual as a senior business consultant. He then moved to a legal ops role, where he was able to apply his creative...

Today’s guest is Mary Juetten, founder and CEO of Traklight, a company that provides businesses, entrepreneurs, and inventors with automation software tools and resources to help them identify business risks and legal needs. Mary’s professional journey began in finance, where she learned the basics of examining systems and processes. While working as a CFO, she oversaw her company's merger and lea...

Our guest today is Michael D.J. Eisenberg, an attorney who shares his deep knowledge of legal technology through his blog and podcast, The Tech Savvy Lawyer. A tech wiz with a master’s degree in civil engineering, Michael decided to pursue law school as a way to broaden his skill set. After working at the US Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals and at the Workers’ Compensation section of th...

This week, as we celebrate Independence Day, we thought we'd revisit our conversation with Bridget Mary McCormack, former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Since we recorded this episode, Chief Justice McCormack has retired and gone on to be president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association, as well as strategic advisor to Penn Carey Law's Future of the Profession Initiative. In...

Today's episode will be an encore presentation of our inaugural session for the Pioneers and Pathfinders Virtual Roundtable Series. Last Wednesday, host Steve Poor had a live and lively discussion with four legal industry experts and thought leaders on the topic “Navigating Risks, Benefits, and Ethical Considerations in the Age of AI,” which focused on generative AI and the implications for the le...

Today we are joined by Tom Martin, founder and CEO of LawDroid, a company using artificial intelligence and automation techniques to help lawyers be more productive. Inspired by his early experiences as a legal assistant, Tom entered the legal profession with a strong commitment to efficiency and technology. While working as a lawyer at a top talent agency, he learned the basics of building a busi...

Our guest today is a self-described “unapologetic access to justice advocate.” Natalie Anne Knowlton is the founder and principal consultant at Access to Justice Ventures, an organization committed to eliminating systemic barriers to legal resources by empowering entrepreneurs who are developing scalable solutions. As a law student, Natalie was deeply passionate about humanitarian and civil rights...

Our guest today is Jimmy Vestbirk, founder of Legal Geek, an organization that hosts events around the world for the legal tech community. Jimmy started his career in business, owning and operating a number of online dating sites. As he ran into different legal issues in these ventures, his experiences ultimately inspired him to find solutions to these problems. Drawing on his business knowledge,...

We’re joined today by John Grant, a legal operations strategist who works with law firms and legal teams to improve their capacity and productivity. A fourth-generation lawyer, John was in the technology industry for nearly a decade before he entered the legal profession. As an attorney, he started in in-house counsel and legal operations roles before founding Agile Professionals LLC in 2014. As a...

Today we speak with our 100th guest, Catherine Jackson Moynihan, a true pioneer and expert in legal operations—and another great example of an allied professional driving change in the profession. Catherine is Senior Director of Strategic Intelligence & Advisory at Hyperion Research, an Epiq company. After working in product management roles for several years, she had the opportunity to join the A...

As we’ve discussed many times on the podcast, the access to justice gap is a particularly complex challenge to address, due to its links to systemic issues such as poverty and limited availability to legal resources and technology. Today’s guest, however, is helping people overcome these broader obstacles to legal services. Amanda Brown is the founder and executive director of Lagniappe Law Lab. T...

Today we are joined by Memme Onwudiwe, co-founder and executive vice president of Legal and Business Intelligence at Evisort, a company using AI and advanced contract lifecycle management functions to help companies negotiate, organize, and extract data from their contracts. While still a student at Harvard Law, Memme helped build Evisort with three of his peers, through the school’s innovation la...

Our guest today is Kathryn DeBord, vice president of product strategy at DISCO, a company that utilizes artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data analytics to automate parts of the legal practice so that lawyers can focus their attention on other important areas. While Kathryn is known today for her work in legal innovation, her career journey actually began in an unexpected place—the Cen...

Kristina Lambright is Senior Director of Strategic Growth at Perkins Coie LLP. She has had a fascinating legal career, serving various roles within the industry. After practicing in commercial litigation for nearly a decade, Kristina became a research specialist at Vinson & Elkins LLP, where she also assisted with budgeting. Seeking more involvement with driving decisions and revenue at the firm,...

As the freelance economy has grown over the past several years, more and more legal organizations and businesses have started seeking legal talent for fractional work in order to navigate budget restraints. Today’s guest, Matt Margolis, frequently discusses these developments as Head of Community at Lawtrades, a legal tech company that provides flexible, on-demand legal talent to in-house legal de...

Looking back over the past two years of guests, we see a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives: different generations, different paths, and different areas of focus—legal ops, legal tech, law education, working in the A2J space, and attorney well-being, among others. We've covered a lot of ground. Obviously, we cannot recap everything we have discussed, but as we think about change in the prof...

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of Pioneers and Pathfinders, we welcome a very special guest—Professor Richard Susskind OBE. For those who have been engaged in the discussions around legal tech for the past few decades, Richard needs no introduction. He is one of the most advanced thinkers on the impact of technology on the profession, and has been challenging our notions about what it will...

Our guest today is a true legal tech expert—Dennis Kennedy, director of the Center for Law, Technology and Innovation at Michigan State University College of Law. Dennis first saw the potential that technology had for advancing the legal industry when he started using computer tools in his estate and tax practice. He went on to work in house at MasterCard, where he focused on information technolog...

Today we speak with John Alber—retired lawyer, businessperson, and legal futurist. Like many of our guests, John’s career path has taken some fascinating turns. He was a partner at Bryan Cave LLP when he was given the opportunity to buy a company, which ultimately became Alber Leland, Inc., a database and software publisher in the transportation sector. John would later return to Bryan Cave as Str...