The Geek In Review

For those who went to law school, do you remember that class we all took on creativity in the legal work environment? No? We don't remember it either. That's why Adam Tsao decided to write The Creativity Playbook for Lawyers: Strategies for the Business of Legal Practice . Adam sits down with us and discusses how he integrated creativity into his own legal education at Penn Law School, as well as...

For those of us in large law firms, we understand that Practice Group Leaders have the following responsibilities: Develop a strategy for the Practice Group (PG) Advance the business development of the PG Ensure equitable distribution of work among the more junior PG attorneys Identify attorneys within the practice who are struggling and find mentoring and coaching opportunities for them Practice...

For nearly the past twenty-five years, Jeroen Plink worked on the cutting edge of innovation in the legal market ranging from creating software to help with project management and process improvement, to being the CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions . His passion for looking at issues from unique perspectives, as well as his dislike for inefficient processes and waste, has led to a number of...

Karl Harris , CEO of Lex Machina , took an interesting path to legal analytics. Initially working on sonar systems taking streams and signals and converting those into data, then on to mobile application analytics, then on to law school. Pulling these three skills together, the idea of legal analytics came together. With Lex Machina becoming the fourth pillar of the Lexis+ platform, along with leg...

Attorney Sophia George has one strong suggestion for those looking to increase equity in the legal industry: Hire minority lawyers! In order to help individuals find diverse lawyers, Sophia joined in the project created by Jackson Walker Partner Chevazz Brown called DiversePro . The online database works to connect diverse lawyers with potential clients who are looking to find lawyers from communi...

Most of us in the legal industry did not think of the employment market as being anything close to stable in 2020. However, as we are witnessing from the AmLaw 100/200 firm revenue numbers being released, many firms had record revenue and profits. In fact, recent reports show that the industry actually added some 5,000 jobs recently. Geoff Zodda , Chief Solutions Officer of IT Search at PearlCare...

Law360 has long been an excellent resource in covering the news when it comes to legal issues. In January, they expanded to also begin looking internally at the legal industry and the business of law. Rachel Travers , Law360 Vice-President, and General Manager joins us to talk about the recent launch of Law360 Pulse . This news coverage of large and mid-sized law firms, in-house corporate counsel...

When it comes to what clients spend on legal services, there are savvy purchasers who look to manage their legal spin based on value and data-driven analytics. And there are those who simply just pay the invoice. Alex Kelly , co-founder, and COO of Brightflag talks with us about how they use AI and data analytics to help savvy corporate counsel and in-house legal teams make better decisions on how...

While lawyers probably hear every day how Artificial Intelligence is going to change the legal industry, many are still uncomfortable discussing it simply because they don't understand what exactly AI is, and if it is going to be a good thing or a bad thing for them personally. Kira Systems' Noah Waisberg and Dr. Alexander Hudek are releasing a book on February 3rd that addresses these issues. AI...

Nicole Morris is the Director of the TI:GER Program and Professor in Practice for Emory Law School in Atlanta, Georgia. She joins the podcast to discuss the upcoming TI:GER Innovation Conference on January 28, 2021. This free (yes FREE!) online conference on "Advancing Equity in Innovation" is focused on addressing the needs of women and people of color in technology. Not just legal technology, bu...

We conclude our discussion with Jennifer Bluestein , author of the book Stepping It Up: A Guide for Mid-Level Law Firm Associates , and talk about how associates mature into their roles as lawyers with law firms. As these second to sixth-year associates begin to take on more substantial legal roles, as well as leadership, mentorship, and allyship among their fellow lawyers, the stress of the job c...

Welcome to the 100th episode of The Geek in Review. We hope you've enjoyed listening to the podcast as much as we've had in making it. We talk with Jennifer Bluestein , Chief Talent and HR Officer for Perkins Coie in part one of a two-part interview. Jennifer's new book, Stepping It Up: A Guide for Mid-Level Law Firm Associates helps associates, partners, HR, and professional development personnel...

As we near the end of a very strange year, we thought we'd ask a couple of big thinkers to come on and have a no-holds-barred discussion on Legal Technology and Innovation. Kristin Hodgins is the Project Manager for Legal Innovation at Osler, Hoskins & Harcourt LLP in Toronto. Jason Wilson is a legal publisher and author who has worked at Thomson Reuters and O'Connor's Publishing for over 20 y...

A couple of months ago, we brought in Bob Taylor and Jeff Marple from Liberty Mutual, and Gabe Teninbaum from Suffolk Law School to discuss the Boston Legal Design Challenge being held online in November. Taylor and Marple are back to discuss how things went, and they brought with them one of the members of the championship team, Aubrie Souza . Souza is a 2L from Suffolk and her team triumphed ove...

Professionals in the legal market are known for focusing on high achievement levels within their careers, and not so much on how much joy they derive from working in the profession. Tracy LaLonde , author of The Joychiever Journey: Evade Burnout, Surpass Your Goals and Out-Happy Everyone , says that achievement and joy are not mutually exclusive and that we can live lives that allow us to achieve...

One of the modern realities of consumerism is the requirement of arbitration clauses. The idea is that consumers and businesses can settle their disagreements without going to court, and instead have an arbitrator negotiate a settlement between the parties. For many of us, it is viewed as a part of doing business, and that the arbitration process is weighted heavily in favor of the corporations. T...

We live in a society that cannot seem to come to an agreement on what is truth and what are lies. People are seeking out stories that back up their beliefs rather than seek out the truths which may undermine those beliefs. We particularly see this on social media, but there are other sites out there which pass themselves off as local news organization which is really just biased sources designed t...

We talked about Dr. Jacqueline Walsh's Initio Tech and Innovation Clinic in a previous Information Inspiration segment. We were so inspired by her work that we asked her to come on the show and tell us more. The Initio clinic is set up just like a law firm. In fact, it is actually recognized by the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society as a law firm. Dr. Walsh uses a combination of law students, articli...

A couple of episodes ago, we had Richard Hsu discuss the need to eventually bring as many of our lawyers back to a physical office in order to have a successful working environment. Stephen Embry of LegalTech Crossroads Blog reached out to us after listening and wanted to argue that while he understood Richard's argument that in order for there to be a level playing field for all lawyers in the fi...

For most of us, meetings are unavoidable, uninspiring, and an overall waste of everyone's time. But, they don't need to be. Douglas Ferguson , the founder of Voltage Control discusses how we think of meetings as passive ways to convey information when in reality, a meeting should be the place where we take action and get things done. The way Douglas and Voltage Control look at meetings is in much...

We all know that the hybrid workplace is coming to our law firms. That is, where some lawyers are working every day from their office spaces, while others continue to work remotely. Many believe that this will be the permanent workplace of the future, and there is a Pollyannish attitude from some in the industry who think that the past seven months prove that we can do as much remotely, as we can...

In order to measure what matters, it is important to have the data available to help. Sarah Lin is the Information Architect & Digital Librarian at RStudio, PBC , and is also a law librarian. RStudio wanted someone to help them manage their digital morass and to Marie Kondo their digital information. Is there anyone better than a law librarian with some tech skills to do just that? Sarah discu...

A few years ago, Robert Taylor and Jeff Marple of Liberty Mutual Insurance, along with Suffolk Law School's Gabriel Teninbaum sat down at Back Bay Harry's and hatched a genius plan over some truffle fries and sandwiches. The idea was to leverage Suffolk's law school technology training for students along with Liberty's desire for the law schools to help students actually learn how to address the i...

No matter what happens during this economic, political, health, and social crisis, Olga Mack reminds us that our skills are ours to keep. Olga is the CEO of Parley Pro , and brings her wisdom to the podcast on what lawyers and other legal professionals need to do to take care of themselves and thrive through the good times and the bad. Olga is the CEO of Parley Pro, a company that developed an inn...

Gender and diversity analysis is necessary to the success of law firms. In fact, diversity metrics are quite openly a common ask from law firm clients.   Firms may not often have this sort of information readily available, due to siloed information and custodial/privacy concerns.  We get the scoop from  Phil Flora from Leopard Solutions about their new searchable gender and diversity platform, how...