Pioneers and Pathfinders

As the current discussion around the hot topic of ChatGPT evidences, legal technology is constantly evolving and developing. This results in a level of complexity and confusion for both legal organizations and tech companies as they try to stay competitive. One of the people helping them navigate these waters is Zach Abramowitz, founder of Killer Whale Strategies. A former M&A attorney, Zach found...

Today’s guest is Paula Davis, founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, which helps legal professionals and teams manage stress and avoid burnout. Paula entered the legal profession as a real estate attorney, but facing burnout herself, she ultimately left her practice to pursue a master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. There she began working...

Today we are joined by David Cunningham, chief innovation officer at Reed Smith and founder of Legal Metrics. David began driving change in the legal industry many years ago—first working with legal professionals as a tech strategy consultant for law firms, drawing on his business background to help clients improve their practices. David went on to become chief information officer at Winston & Str...

Today's episode takes a break from our usual format. Last week, Steve Poor participated in a webinar hosted by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Law Department Management Network (LDMN) about the implications of ChatGPT with Khurram Gore of Verizon, and Amy Yeung of Sallie Mae. Khurram has a deep background in technology and innovation, focusing on the intersection of law, technology, and...

Today we speak with Alma Asay, senior director of Practice Innovation and Client Value at Crowell & Moring. Alma’s interest in innovation began while she was a litigator at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, using technology to improve efficiency for the firm’s clients. Without any experience in the technology industry or as an entrepreneur, she founded Allegory, a cloud-based litigation management platform...

Today we are joined by Catherine Alman MacDonagh, a lawyer, entrepreneur, and CEO and founder of the Legal Lean Sigma Institute. Catherine started her legal career as director of corporate marketing for Counsel Connect, a first-of-its-kind social network platform for attorneys. After several roles in marketing and business development at law firms, she founded the Legal Sales and Service Organizat...

Today’s guest is Kunoor Chopra, a true pioneer in the legal industry and vice president of Legal Services at Elevate, a law company providing software and services for the intersection of business and law. A litigator by training at Am Law 50 firms, she made the transition into legal services outsourcing when she founded LawScribe, one of the pioneer alternative legal service providers in the indu...

Toby Brown is the CEO and founder of DV8 Legal Strategies and a true pioneer in pricing and project management in the legal industry. Toby got his start in law firm administration, and then became director of the Utah State Bar. His move to head of knowledge management at Fulbright & Jaworski marked the start of his business of law innovation journey, which has since led to a number of roles at Am...

Today's guest is Dr. Sonja Ebron, a PhD of electrical engineering and an entrepreneur with a background in AI. She co-founded Courtroom5 with her wife, Dr. Debra Slone, PhD, a former librarian, school professor, and qualitative data and analysis expert. Motivated by their own difficult experiences navigating the judicial system, they decided to help others in similar situations. Courtroom5 provide...

To close out this year, we are delighted to welcome back an old friend, Jae Um. Jae is one of the most sought-after strategy executives in the legal industry. She is the founder and executive director of Six Parsecs, an insights firm for the legal vertical. In addition to strategic consulting for law firm leadership, Jae serves on advisory boards for emerging legal tech companies, including LegalM...

We have had numerous guests on the podcast focused on legal tech, but in today’s conversation, we talk about practical governance strategies for AI and other frontier technologies with Karen Silverman, the CEO and founder of The Cantellus Group. Karen advises Fortune 50 companies, startups, consortia, and governments on how to govern cutting-edge technologies in a rapidly changing policy environme...

Today's guest is Haley Altman. She is a corporate attorney, founder, and a friend to many of us in the legal technology innovation space. Haley has had a fascinating career, where she moved from attorney for buyers and sellers, to founding and selling her own company, and eventually landing on the buy side with Litera. She began her career in Big Law, first as an associate and then partner, moving...

Today’s guest is Carmin Ballou, vice president of Data Analytics and Innovation at Attorneys' Liability Assurance Society, also known as ALAS. ALAS is the country’s largest lawyer-owned mutual, insuring 223 law firms—including 89 of the Am Law 200—with more than 74,000 lawyers located around the world. A lawyer with a Master of Science in Analytics degree from the University of Chicago Graham Scho...

Today we welcome back our premiere guest, Dr. Heidi K. Gardner. An economist by training, she is a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession and chair of the school’s Smarter Collaboration Master Class and Sector Leadership Master Class. In addition to these roles, she founded and runs her own consultancy, Gardner & Co. In our first conversation, we talked about h...

Today’s guest is Alex Smith, Global Product Management Lead for iManage RAVN. He got his start at legal publishing giant LexisNexis, where he began in online editorial work and eventually evolved his role to product management and platform innovation. An interest in new roles in law firms led to his time as innovation manager at Reed Smith, a global firm where he oversaw the firm’s Innovation Hub...

Contracts are a hot topic in education, technology innovation, and practice in the legal industry. In fact, we've had several guests on the show focused on those aspects of contract management, but today's guest focuses on contract formation. She asks a simple, but important question: Can we learn to do a better job of negotiating and drafting better contracts? Laura Frederick is the founder and C...

Mishcon de Reya is one of the most unique and fascinating law firms in the world. Today’s guest, Elliot Moss, is the mind behind Mishcon’s brand. Elliot is chief brand officer and a partner at Mishcon, a 600 fee-earner firm headquartered in London. This unique combination of roles is made possible by the Legal Services Act 2007 in the UK. Elliot has overall responsibility for brand, marketing, com...

It's always a delight to talk to people who are passionate about what they do. Dr. Silvia Hodges Silverstein is such a person. She researches, teaches, and speaks on purchasing decisions and change in the legal industry. Silvia is the CEO of Buying Legal Council, which supports professionals tasked with sourcing legal services and legal tech through education, research, and advocacy. Their mission...

Jennifer Leonard is the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School's chief innovation officer and the executive director of the Future of the Profession Initiative. As chief innovation officer, Jennifer advances projects that evolve our understanding of the skills and knowledge lawyers need to thrive in a rapidly changing professional landscape. She and her colleagues also develop multidisciplina...

Zach Posner is a three-time entrepreneur turned investor. He is working to find ways that artificial intelligence can be used to positively affect the world. To that end, Zach is the co-founder and managing partner at The LegalTech Fund, which is the first venture capital fund to focus exclusively on legal tech. Founded in 2020 post-pandemic, the Fund recently closed to $28.5 million, exceeding it...

The past few years have seen a rise in heads of innovation at Big Law firms. One of the leading voices in this space is David Wang, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s chief innovation officer. David is responsible for overseeing the firm's innovation strategy, the development and implementation of legal technology programs, and supporting and advising both internal and client teams on the legal an...

JusticeText, an MIT- and Google-backed startup, is building technology to improve criminal justice outcomes for low-income Americans. Today's guest is Devshi Mehrotra, JusticeText CEO and co-founder. She started this work when she was a computer science undergraduate at the University of Chicago, while the city was reeling from the death of Laquan McDonald. Devshi and co-founder Leslie Jones-Dove...

Tony Thai is an attorney, entrepreneur, and software engineer. He founded and serves as CEO and chief engineer of HyperDraft, a company which builds bespoke document automation software for law firms and legal departments. Prior to his legal career, Tony worked as an enterprise software engineer. An M&A venture capital attorney by training, his goal was always to build tech to disrupt the professi...

We've had a number of guests on the show focused on the A2J gap, as well as issues of social justice, but today's guest, Jazz Hampton, combines both. Jazz is CEO and general counsel at TurnSignl, a Minnesota-based tech company that he co-founded in the wake of the deaths of Philando Castile and George Floyd. TurnSignl is a mobile app where the user, if stopped for a traffic violation or involved i...

We're joined today by Olga V. Mack. Olga is vice president and CEO of Parley Pro at LexisNexis. Parley Pro is a contract life cycle management platform that is pioneering online negotiation technology. Olga has dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She believes that by embracing technology, the legal profession will become stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive. Ol...