The Future Law Podcast

Dan Hunter chats with University of Manchester students, Cian Heeley, Mandeep Hayer and Wunmi Akanji who were lucky enough to spend two weeks working with the geniuses at DWF on a legal design/innovation project with a very well-known sporting club in Manchester. Inspiring insights into the way that this sort of program changes how students think about the possibilities of law. [This episode was p...

Dan Hunter talks legal innovation and the future of law practice from the client’s perspective with  Carl White, founder and now Director and Chief Experience Officer with CXINLAW . CXINLAW partners with law firms in Australasia and the UK for training and education on excellence in client service. [This episode was published originally on July 14, 2019.]

After diagnosing the state of US legal education a few months ago, in this episode the terrific trio talk about the nature of Australian law schools and discuss some of the challenges that they face in the years to come. With insights from guests Prof George Williams AO (UNSW), Prof Nick James (Bond) and Prof Lesley Hitchens (UTS), this is the first podcast from Dan in his new role of Executive De...

“The name’s Bond, Professor Nick James from Bond.” Seriously, I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited to use that joke. In this interview, Dan (that’s me) interviews Nick James, the dean of Bond Law. We chat about his take on the future of legal education in Australia, and what Bond are doing to push the boundaries. Nick is an amazing scholar and teacher, and Bond has the best ratings in the country...

We chat with Prof George Williams AO, dean of UNSW Law School. George has thought a great deal about what the future of law should look like, and when he took over the law school he conducted a listening tour with a huge range of stakeholders of his school. We talked with him about the challenges facing legal education, and how one of the most prestigious schools in the country is addressing the o...

Dean Dan has been chatting with a lot of deans of late, and in this interview he talks with Dean Lesley Hitchens of the University of Technology, Sydney. In 2018 Professor Hitchens received the Financial Times Australian Legal Innovator Award, and her law school has pioneered a Legal Futures and Technology major. Listen as we chat about the kind of skills, knowledge, and attributes that law grads...

We talk about the way that law firms have responded to the new technology world in different ways. This episode’s title comes from an observation we heard from the CEO of a legaltech firm who said that “every law firm is a tech firm.” What he meant was that every firm has an IT department, which isn’t that interesting a thought. But we realized that lots of firms do technology in interesting ways,...

We chat with Deepak Pillai, a data analyst who works at the blue chip Australian law firm Clayton Utz. The firm took the unusual step of building a separate data analytics practice to complement its traditional legal practice. Deepak talks about why law firms might do this, how their clients respond to this type of offering, and how a data scientist from a social media marketing background came to...

Dan Hunter talks with Michelle Mahoney, the head of innovation at King & Wood Mallesons. She discusses the layered approach to technology and innovation that this elite, multinational firm provides, and divides up the task into four useful categories. [This episode was published originally on October 20, 2019.]

Dean Dan chats with Jonathan Patterson, the Managing Director & Head of Development of DWF Ventures in Manchester, England. DWF is a fascinating example of a law firm that has embraced managed legal operations, legaltech, and design thinking. The firm’s incredibly successful listing this year on the London Stock Exchange was driven in large part by its ability to rethink how legal services are...

Lisa Leong, Dean Dan Hunter, and Mike Madison take apart the challenges of modern law practice: clients increasingly want multi-functional capabilities from their lawyers and firms. The profession is full of talk of “T-shaped” lawyers, who combine deep legal knowledge and broad business and organizational skills. How can firms find, train, and keep these “T-shaped” professionals happy and producti...

Lisa Leong and her business partner, Tristan Forrester, escape Melbourne and travel to San Francisco, to record this special Future Law Podcast bonus episode. They track down Richard Hsu – the Managing Director of the Partner Practice Group of recruitment firm Major Lindsey & Africa. Richard is the host and producer of an ABA award winning podcast HsuUntied  – and author of the  LMA award  win...

Dean Dan chats with his friend Simon Quirk, recovering lawyer, professional services consultant, and long-time serial entrepreneur. The discussion ranges over the nature of legal practice, how to do innovation in law firms, and what we should think about the new point solutions in legal tech and regtech. [This episode was published originally on September 15, 2019.]

Lisa Damon and Stephen Poor, innovators and leaders at the global law firm Seyfarth Shaw, talk with Mike Madison and Dean Dan Hunter about developing Seyfarth Lean, the name the firm gives to its widely-recognized applied innovation strategies: data-driven process improvements, project management techniques, and legal technology R&D that have changed the firm’s DNA. [This episode was published...

US law schools today face a double shot of post-2008 challenges. They face changing demand for legal services and legal education, plus changing demographics of prospective students. Law faculty are just now starting to accept that those factors point to large scale disruption of the traditional law school. Lisa, Dan, and Mike take an inventory of how US law schools got where they are, look at the...

Professor Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law School is our guest. Professor Tushnet talks with Dan Hunter about the changes that he’s seen in US legal education over his long and illustrious career, and offers some suggestions regarding how US law schools need to change to respond to the challenges ahead. [This episode was published originally on August 4, 2019.]

Professor Michele Pistone from the Charles Widger School of Law at Villanova University in Philadelphia talks with Dan Hunter and Mike Madison about disruption in law practice and legal education, about change management in higher education, and about working across the university to build new, cross-disciplinary training for law. [This episode was published originally on August 11, 2019.]

Professor Deborah Merritt of the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University talks with Dan Hunter and Mike Madison about the sources of critical challenge in US law schools today and describes paths to re-invention, including a new focus on clients, for herself, for current students, and for law faculties. [This episode was published originally on August 18, 2019.]

Dean Dan and Mike Madison talk about whether the future has caught up with law schools. They catch up with Professor Ray Campbell, from Peking University-School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China, who suggests that the future of legal education doesn’t look like the way that we’ve always done things. [This episode was published originally on May 31, 2019.]

Dean Dan talks with  Professor Ray Campbell , from Peking University-School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China. Before becoming a law professor, Ray clerked for U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger of the United States Supreme Court, and was a partner in the multinational law firms of Kirkland & Ellis and Jenner & Block. Listen to his fascinating take on the future of law and the future o...

Lisa Leong, Dean Dan, and Mike Madison take a tour through strategies for initiating innovation and change, for people who don’t have “innovating” in their professional portfolios – and who may not have budgets. They have case studies to share, from their own experiences in law firms, companies, and law schools. Anyone can put themselves in a position to innovate. Here’s how to get started. [This...

Dan and Mike talk with Gordon Smith, Dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University (BYU) about emerging challenges and opportunities for US law schools. Gordon’s research and teaching background is in business law and entrepreneurship. In this interview, he talks about bringing his expertise to bear on innovation and entrepreneurship inside a law school. [This episode was publ...

Dean Dan has broken out of our ivory tower and gone to speak with a third party! Mick Sheehy was formerly a GC at Telstra – and is now a Partner of New Law @ PwC. We speak about CLOC, Legal Operations and Tech Platforms. [This episode was published originally on December 18, 2018.]

Mick Sheehy is a partner at PWC and was formerly a general council at Telstra. He is the founder of CLOC in Australia and joins Dan Hunter to talk about legal ops, managed services, and why law firms should be worried about how the Big 4 are moving into NewLaw. [This episode was published originally on April 14, 2019.]

Lisa Leong introduces us to her friend Professor Dan Klein from Stanford University aka “Dan the Improv Man”. In this episode our three co-hosts, Dean Dan, Lethal Lisa and Most Interesting Mike explore how improvisation exercises can help lawyers develop an innovation mindset. [This episode was published originally on April 30, 2019.]