The growing use of legal analytics is rapidly transforming the practice of law. Within law firms, analytics drive litigation strategy, business development efforts, and hiring decisions. Within corporate legal departments, analytics drive outside counsel hiring and internal business operations.  In a special episode of LawNext recorded live during Legalweek 2020 in New York City, we bring together a super session of leading experts to discuss this new world of data-driven law.  Joining host Bob Ambrogi for this special episode are: Eric M. Falkenberry, litigation partner at DLA Piper, where he specializes in the assessment, quantification and transfer of litigation risk through data mining, litigation analytics, and predictive modeling. Peter A. Geovanes, head of data strategy, AI and analytics at the law firm Winston & Strawn, where he is responsible for achieving innovation in the areas of enterprise-wide data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence/machine learning. Karl Harris, CEO at legal analytics company Lex Machina, where he leads strategy and operations and, prior to the company’s acquisition by LexisNexis, he led all product development. Mark A. Smolik, chief legal and compliance officer at DHL Supply Chain Americas, where he serves as global chair of the organization's supply chain legal practice group. Listen to this episode to learn how data analytics are enabling lawyers to make more informed and strategic decisions about all facets of their practices, and hear the panelists’ predictions for how this field will evolve in coming years.   Special thanks to Valerie Chan, founder of Plat4orm PR, for her assiduous assistance in organizing this panel. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our sponsor, MyCase, and to John E. Grant and Agile Attorney Consulting for being a lead Patreon supporter of our show.

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Episode 63: Legal Analytics Super Session

As corporate legal departments seek to control costs and drive innovation, how can better use of data, metrics and analytics help? How are corporate counsel using analytics to measure and improve performance internally and among outside counsel? These questions were the topic of a special episode of LawNext, recorded live during Legalweek 2020 in New York City with a panel of four corporate counsel and executives who are leaders in law department innovation. My guests for this special episode were: Jason Barnwell, assistant general counsel-modern legal at Microsoft, where he leads a team tasked with driving legal department innovation. Laurie Ehrlich, associate general counsel and head of legal operations at Cognizant, where she manages the finances, technology and knowledge management for its 200-plus person legal department. Jeff Reihl, executive vice president and chief technology officer at LexisNexis, where he is responsible for driving technology transformation, with a focus on data analytics and artificial intelligence. Mark A. Smolik, chief legal and compliance officer at DHL Supply Chain Americas, where he serves as global chair of the organization's supply chain legal practice group. Listen to hear their insights and experiences using data analytics to improve legal department operations and drive efficiencies both internally and externally. Special thanks to Valerie Chan, founder of Plat4orm PR, for her assiduous assistance in organizing this panel. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to our sponsor, MyCase, and to John E. Grant and Agile Attorney Consulting for being a lead Patreon supporter of our show.

Episode 62: Corporate Counsel Roundtable on Data-Driven Innovation

In the legal industry, the concept of design thinking has become synonymous with the name Margaret Hagan. Director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession, she is also a lecturer at the Stanford d.school, a ubiquitous speaker at legal conferences worldwide, and a leading advocate for making the law more accessible. After graduating from Stanford Law in 2013, she became a fellow at the d.school, where she launched the Program for Legal Tech & Design, experimenting in how design can make legal services more usable, useful and engaging. She also started the blog Open Law Lab to document legal innovation and design work.  Now, she teaches a series of project-based classes, with interdisciplinary student groups tackling legal challenges through user-focused research and design of new legal products and services. She also leads workshops to train legal professionals in the design process, to produce client-focused innovation. During the past year, Hagan has played a leading role in helping Utah launch an ambitious experiment in legal regulatory reform.   At the recent Innovations in Technology Conference presented by the Legal Services Corporation, Hagan sat down with LawNext host Bob Ambrogi to record a live conversation  about design thinking in law and how it can enhance access to justice. NEW: Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com. We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Thank you to Agile Attorney Consulting for supporting our show, and to our sponsor, MyCase.

Episode 61: Designing for Justice, with Stanford’s Margaret Hagan

In multiple ways, Stacy Butler is immersed in seeking to innovate the justice system and the delivery of legal services.  As director of the Innovation for Justice program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, she leads students in thinking critically about the power of technology and innovation to close the justice gap. As president of the board of Step Up To Justice, she is helping to rethink the provision of free legal services. As a member of the Arizona Task Force on the Delivery of Legal Services, she is helping to reshape the regulatory rules that inhibit innovation. Among the projects she has helped spearhead are a new tier of civil legal professional in Arizona, a free tool for helping tenants and landlords communicate, a toolkit for advocates of human trafficking survivors, and an ambitious tenant-education program to reduce evictions. She has 20 years of experience in community advocacy work related to pro bono legal services, and was named three times as one of the Top 50 Pro Bono Attorneys in Arizona. At the recent Innovations in Technology Conference presented by the Legal Services Corporation, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi sat down with Butler for a face-to-face conversation about her work and her broader thoughts regarding innovation in legal services.  NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Episode 60: Stacy Butler on Innovation for Justice

It was an epiphany, of sorts, for Greg Garman. In 2015, after 18 years at the same firm, including several as managing partner, he came to believe that most firms operated under a broken business model. Within weeks, he and several colleagues left the firm to start a smaller, more innovative practice, and he began to develop the concept for LawClerk, a marketplace where solos and small firms can hire freelance lawyers to assist them with specific projects.  Now CEO of LawClerk, Garman -- who started the company together with his law partners Talitha Gray Kozlowski and Kristin Tyler -- has a vision for someday building it into the largest backbone provider of legal services in the United States. More importantly, he believes LawClerk will disrupt how small firms hire and how freelance lawyers get work -- providing both firms and freelancers greater profitability and flexibility.  In this episode of LawNext, Garman joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss why he believes LawClerk provides small firms with a better option for staffing their firms, one that he says will enable them to be more profitable while charging their clients less. He also shares his thoughts about the business of law more broadly and how he sees the industry evolving. NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to support the show, be able to access show transcripts, and more. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Episode 59: LawClerk Cofounder Greg Garman on Changing-Up the Model for Small Firms

 Jim Sandman may be one of the most impassioned advocates in the United States for ensuring access to justice for all. As president of the Legal Services Corporation since 2011, he oversees an organization that funds free civil legal services to more than 130 legal aid programs throughout the country. As a frequent speaker and advocate, he forcefully makes the case for equal access to justice.  In this episode of LawNext, Sandman joins host Bob Ambrogi for a frank and thoughtful discussion about the justice gap in the U.S. and his ideas for how to bridge it, from increasing funding for legal aid to loosening restrictions on legal practice. They also discuss the role of technology and the 2013 report that Sandman spearheaded, Report of The Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice.  Before joining the LSC, Sandman spent 30 years as a lawyer with the firm Arnold & Porter, including 10 years as the firm’s managing partner. Wanting to spend more time in public service, he became general counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he stayed until the opportunity arose to join the LSC. He is a past president of the 100,000-member District of Columbia Bar.  NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Episode 58: Jim Sandman, President of the Legal Services Corporation

Jeroen Plink was named in 2018 as CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions, a subsidiary of the international law firm Clifford Chance that designs and develops software to address clients’ business challenges. He is responsible for product development and go-to-market strategy for all its products, including CC Dr@ft, a legal document automation platform.  Plink is a legal technology veteran who, in 2007, moved to the United States to set up Practical Law Company US. Within five years, he successfully grew the business from two employees to 250, and had 80% of the AmLaw 200 and thousands of in-house departments as customers. In 2013, Practical Law Company was acquired by Thomson Reuters. After leaving Practical Law, Plink focused on providing strategic guidance as a board member and senior advisor to legal tech startups. He is currently on the board of the legal research startup Casetext and he has also served on the boards of Compliance.ai, a regulatory data and predictive analytics company, and Kira Inc., which uses AI to analyze and review complex documents.  Plink started his career at Clifford Chance's Amsterdam office in 1996 as a private equity associate. He left the firm in 2000 to cofound a company that developed software for due diligence in the M&A transactions. In 2002, he sold that company to Practical Law Company, where he led application development in London before launching its U.S. operation.  NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Episode 57: Jeroen Plink, CEO, Clifford Chance Applied Solutions

As executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, Jayne Reardon oversees programs and initiatives to increase the civility and professionalism of attorneys and judges, create inclusiveness in the profession, and promote increased service to the public. In this special edition of LawNext recorded live at the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, Reardon joined host Bob Ambrogi. They discussed Reardon’s thoughts on recent initiatives in several states to loosen professional-conduct rules. They also talk about Reardon’s work to promote civility and what it means for legal professionals.  A frequent writer and speaker on topics involving the changing practice of law, Reardon believes that embracing inclusiveness and innovation will ensure that the profession remains relevant and impactful in the future. Her prior experience includes many years of practice as a trial lawyer, committee work on diversity and recruiting issues, and handling attorney discipline cases as counsel to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission Review Board.

Special Report - Jayne Reardon, Director of 2Civility, at the Clio Cloud Conference

In one of a series of special reports recorded live at the recent Clio Cloud Conference, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi is joined by Nehal Madhani, an attorney and the founder and CEO of the cloud-based IP filing software Alt Legal. Before starting Alt Legal, Madhani practiced as an attorney at Kirkland & Ellis. He is a Python/Django developer and serves on the board of Django-NYC, a nonprofit organization with nearly 2,500 software developers as members. He is also a CodeX fellow at Stanford Law School. Madhani speaks and writes regularly about the intersection of legal practice and technology. He has also co-authored several publications about the challenges of applying antitrust law to online business models, which have appeared in the Huffington Post and in the Journal of Management and Information Systems. He was selected for the 2016 Fastcase 50 – an award that “recognizes 50 of the smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the law.”

Special Report - Alt Legal CEO Nehal Madhani at the Clio Cloud Conference

In another of a series of special reports recorded live at the Clio Cloud Conference, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi interviews Ed Walters, CEO and cofounder of the online legal research company Fastcase.  Under Ed’s leadership, Fastcase has grown to become one of the world’s largest legal publishers, currently serving more than 800,000 subscribers from around the world. He is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and at Cornell Tech, where he teaches The Law of Robots, a class about the frontiers of law and technology. Before founding Fastcase, Ed worked at Covington & Burling, in Washington D.C. and Brussels, where he advised Microsoft, Merck, SmithKline, the Business Software Alliance, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. His practice focused on corporate advisory work for software companies and sports leagues, and intellectual property litigation. See also: LawNext Episode 45: As Fastcase Turns 20, Founders Recount Its History and Predict Its Future. Bonus Content Alert for our Patreon Supporters: Listen to Bob and Ed's conversation about skipping class in law school during our sound check on our Patreon page or using the custom RSS feed we provided!

LawNext Special Report - Fastcase CEO Ed Walters at the Clio Cloud Conference

After 10 years as a lawyer at two leading transactional law firms, Haley Altman decided there should be a better way to structure the workflow around the many deals in which she was involved. So in 2016, she left law practice to found Doxly, a technology platform designed to transform the archaic and chaotic process of managing transactions into one that is streamlined and efficient.  Last August, Altman sold Doxly to the document technology company Litera Microsystems. That acquisition came just a month after Litera acquired U.K. company Workshare, which had its own transaction platform, Workshare Transact. Within a month, that meant, Litera went from having no transaction-management technology to owning two of the leading platforms -- platforms that spanned both the U.S. and European markets.  At the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, Altman, who is now general manager of transaction management at Litera, sat down with LawNext for a conversation with host Bob Ambrogi. In their conversation, she provides updates on the acquisition and shares her thoughts on the state of legal technology more broadly.

LawNext Special Report - Doxly Founder Haley Altman at the Clio Cloud Conference

In 2018, Mark Britton left Avvo, the often-controversial company he founded in 2006 and led as CEO until he sold it early last year to web behemoth Internet Brands. Soon after, he joined us here on LawNext in Episode 11 for an insightful conversation about why he started the company, why he sold it, and why he left.  At the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi had the opportunity to sit down again with Britton to record a live special edition of LawNext. Britton was attending the conference following Clio's announcement in September that he had joined its board of directors and become an investor. In this interview, Britton explains why he decided to become involved with Clio, how he sees its mission as similar to Avvo’s, and what he believes its future will hold. _________________ Become a supporter of LawNext by joining our Patreon membership!

Special Report - Avvo Founder Mark Britton at the Clio Cloud Conference

George Psiharis was employee number six at Clio, which he joined shortly after the practice management company was founded in 2008. Now, he is COO of an enterprise with more than 400 employees and growing, responsible for customer success, business development and data operations.  Psiharis also oversees Clio’s annual Legal Trends Report, the fourth of which was released at the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego. This year’s report included a unique feature, a study that Clio said was the largest nationwide assessment of client services among law firms.  Psiharis joined host Bob Ambrogi for a special edition recorded live at the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, where he discussed some of the surprising and notable findings of the Legal Trends Report. He also discusses the growth he has overseen during a decade at Clio and how his role has evolved.   Support us on Patreon!

Special Report - Clio COO George Psiharis at the Clio Cloud Conference

Nineteen years ago, Mark Harris and Alec Guettel founded Axiom, a pioneering service to provide on-demand legal talent to corporate legal departments, growing it into a company with a roster of more than 2,000 lawyers that works with over half of the Fortune 100, while also developing technology and managed services arms.   Last February, gearing up for a possible IPO, Axiom spun off its technology and managed services entities into two new companies: Knowable, which uses machine-learning technology to help companies better understand their contracts, and Axiom Managed Services (AMS), which offers people, processes and technology to provide outsourced legal help to companies. With the spin-off, Harris and Guettel moved to Knowable, with Harris as CEO and Guettel as CTO. In July, Knowable announced that it had entered into a joint venture agreement with LexisNexis Legal & Professional, allowing Knowable to continue to operate independently, but with the benefit of LexisNexis’s resources and infrastructure.  On this episode of LawNext, Harris joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss his new “contract intelligence” company, which aims to help companies get a global view of their risks, obligations and entitlements. He also recounts his 19 years starting and growing Axiom.  NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Episode 56: Mark Harris, Axiom Founder and Now Knowable CEO

The seventh-annual Clio Cloud Conference recently wrapped up in San Diego. In this special edition of LawNext, host Bob Ambrogi sat down at the conference for a conversation with Jack Newton, cofounder and CEO of Clio, to talk about the conference and the company.  With Clio having recently announced a $250 million funding round — one of the largest ever for a legal technology company — there was a lot to talk about. In addition, at the conference, Newton announced the forthcoming release of his book, The Client-Centered Law Firm: How to Succeed In An Experience-Driven World, in which he lays out his blueprint for law firm success.  Newton talks about his vision for Clio to become the “operating system of law” and to help lawyers close the gap in access to justice. He also lays out his ideas for how lawyers can achieve greater success by building a client-centered law firm.

Special Report - Clio CEO Jack Newton at the Clio Cloud Conference

LawNext is a weekly podcast hosted by Bob Ambrogi, who is internationally known for his writing and speaking on legal technology and innovation. Each week, Bob interviews the innovators and entrepreneurs who are driving what’s next in the legal industry. From legal technology startups to new law firm business models to enhancing access to justice, Bob and his guests explore the future of law and legal practice.

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