The Geek In Review

This is going to be something that all of you will find "interesting," but maybe not something that you will like. Last week on 3 Geeks, I posted a blog that talked about how to use AI to generate summaries of legal articles. This week, I wanted to expand on that project a little and see if I could turn the summaries into a podcast. The goal was to try to get it completely automated, and completel...

There is a lot of buzz around ChatGPT and GPT 3.5 , but is it really the next Tesla, or is it the next IBM Watson? We talk with HyperDraft's Tony Thai and Ashley Carlisle about OpenAI's popular tool and why, lawyers at least, shouldn't be ready to go all in on this specific technology. While there are great examples of how GPT 3.5 impressively handled things like Bar Exam questions, there are stil...

Mollie Nichols is the CEO of Redgrave Data, a company that uses data analytics and technology to assist the legal industry. After leaving Hogan Lovells, Mollie launched Redgrave Data in January of 2022 and has seen a strong demand for their services in data analytics, regulation, compliance, and internal investigations. Companies often seek the expert assistance of Redgrave Data in order to improv...

This week, we have a jam-packed episode featuring five of our colleagues from a 2022 American Association of Law Libraries panel on APIs.  Emily Rushing , Director of Competitive Intelligence, Haynes and Boone, LLP Pam Noyd , Information Resources Manager at Foley & Lardner LLP Erik Adams , Manager of Library Digital Initiatives Manager of Library Digital Initiatives at Sidley Austin LLP,...

We give you the true "3 Geeks" experience on this week's show as we are joined by an OG (original geek) Toby Brown . Toby, Marlene, and Greg talk with Litify's President and COO, Ari Treuhaft , and Pam Wickersham , the VP of Product and Engineer there at Litify. One of the taglines at Litify is that they #BreakLegalSilos. Treuhaft and Wickersham explain what that means, and how they focus on provi...

In a recent article from Legal IT Insider, Caroline Hill wrote about how "63% of all legal contracts are gender-biased" based on a report from Genie AI. We wanted to dive deeper into that topic, so we asked Caroline and Alex Denne, Genie AI's Growth Marketing Lead, to come on at talk with us. Genie AI is an Open-Source product with some 1,500 legal templates available in the UK currently and is lo...

Tim Parilla isn't just the Chief Legal Officer at LinkSquares … he's also a customer. That unique position of being the leader of the legal department of a company whose mission is to improve the workflow and efficiency of corporate legal departments, creates an exciting environment for Tim and his team. Juliette Kopecky is the Chief Marketing Officer at LinkSquares and is leading the company's DE...

This week we are joined by LexisNexis' Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer and Head of Global Talent Development, Ronda Bazley Moore . Ronda and a team of LexisNexis leadership in the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network & LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship tasked 18 Fellows from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) Law Schools with one very complex task: Uncover ho...

For the first time, Law360 and Major, Lindsey, and Africa team up to survey BigLaw partners in their 2022 Partner Compensation Survey . We are joined by Craig Savitzky , Senior Data Analyst at Law360 and Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader of the Law Firm Practice at Major Lindsey and Africa. With this being the first survey of law firm partners since most firms have made some effort to return to...

In a recent ALM Pacesetter survey , the report found "that innovators among professional services providers are grappling less with technology installation and more with process and culture reengineering." We sit down with one of the people behind that report, Tomek Jankowski ,  Director, ALM Intelligence Pacesetter Research, and dive into the ways law firms and in-house legal departments are...

Adam Curphey's new book, The Legal Team of the Future: Law+ Skills guides the reader through the need for less silos in legal practice and much more reliance upon teams and collaborative efforts. The idea of a "Law+" model for the profession brings in the essential processes of adding people, business, change, and technology to the law and creating legal teams to solve legal problems. Curphey...

Four speakers and a moderator were presenting at a conference.  That sounds like the beginning of a joke, but according to the 2022 ILTACon Conference Co-Chair, Martha Breil , that type of conference presentation just won't draw in the next generation of conference attendees. Workshops, hands-on experiences, and interactive presentations are needed for conferences to stay relevant as we emerg...

This week we have Debbie Reynolds , " The Data Diva ," join us to discuss the current state of data regulations, privacy, access, and what's on the horizon for data in the legal industry. Debbie is a 2022 ABA Women in Legal Tech Honoree and the host of The Data Diva Talks Privacy Podcast . According to Debbie, there is exponential growth going on in technology and the types of data that is being c...

This week's guest, HBR Consulting 's Axelle Flemming , stresses that "Intentional Leadership" creates leaders who "own their purpose." And a purpose is separate from a business "goal." Axelle's experience showed her that when a leader truly knew what their purpose was, the purpose they were trying to achieve, they went to that level of execution. In addition to being an Intentional Leader, that mu...

When it comes to the future of legal innovation, Olga Mack of Parley Pro at LexisNexis says that as the legal industry becomes more focused on being a 'service', legal technology will just become part of the overall design of products and services. It will not stand alone as a separate process, but rather legal innovation will be built into products such as HR tools that build in compliance proces...

For the first time ever, we have a guest co-host this week while Marlene wears her fancy sneakers around ILTACon seeking answers to our Crystal Ball question. Katie Brown , Associate Dean for Information Resources at Charleston School of Law is on a mission to increase the teaching of practical technology skills to law students. In her view, law professors "are required to educate people so that t...

As Laura Leopard 's team at Leopard Solutions was analyzing the 2021 law firm lateral movement data, a glaring statistic stood out. There were a lot of women attorneys leaving AmLaw200 firms, and were not coming back like their male counterparts were. As with any good data expert, Laura worked with her team to find out the reasoning behind this trend. The results of that study were released earlie...

Five years ago, Dr. Heidi Gardner , Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School and co-founder, Gardner & Co, wrote the book, " Smart Collaboration " where she laid out the "why" behind smart collaboration efforts. In her upcoming sequel, "Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work," Dr. Gardner explains the "who" and the "how" behind collaboration. Th...

This week, we talk about the experiences that law students and recent law grads have during their internships, summer associate positions, and their judicial clerkships. While most of us work very hard to make sure that these (traditionally young) associates and clerks enjoy and learn from their experiences, today's guests understands firsthand that not all of these experiences are positive. Aliza...

HyperDraft's Tony Thai knew he could produce a better method of practicing law and producing legal documents. He viewed processes more like an engineer than a lawyer and understood that there were more efficient ways to do the work, not for the sake of efficiency, but because like any good engineer, he was lazy. Or, as he describes himself, "aggressively lazy." Not lazy in the traditional sense, b...

Imagine working in a toxic workplace where you've recently laid off a third of your employees and the company is on the verge of bankruptcy. Then a few weeks later, that toxic leader pulls the rest of the leadership team into a conference room for a "all hands on deck" meeting, where he starts the meeting by stating that he loves this team and he cares about all of them. Sounds strange? Well, acco...

A few weeks back, we talked with Norton Rose Fulbright's Zack Barnes on how law firms can invest in their communities through local innovation hubs like Houston, Texas' Ion District. We wanted to dive deeper into that law firm/local innovation idea, so Zack is back with us and introduced us to Joey Sanchez , Senior Director of Ecosystems at The Ion Houston. With his weekly "Cup of Joey" innovation...

It has been almost three years since the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) held its last in-person conference in Washington, DC. Since that time, both the New Orleans (2020) and Cleveland (2021) Conferences were replace with an online event. Needless to say, many members are ready, albeit still with some concerns, to meet their colleagues in person once again. From July 16th through the...

[ Ed. Note: This week marks The Geek in Review's 4th Anniversary. We thank you all for listening, subscribing, and telling your colleagues about what you hear. We'd love to hear more from you on what your favorite episodes are or what topics you'd like us to cover. Tweet us at @gebauerm and @glambert with your thoughts. Thank You Listeners!! - GL/MG ] We all know the saying " High Risk, High Rewar...

While we are still struggling with COVID outbreaks this summer, the 2022 Summer Associate ranks are faring quite differently than their 2021 counterparts according to a recent survey conducted by Law360. Kerry Benn, Director of Series Surveys and Data at Law360 breaks down the results of the survey and explains how the struggles differ significantly this year. One of the biggest shifts from 2021 t...