June 17, 2024 • 29 mins
John Craske, the director of innovation at CMS, discusses the firm's AI strategy and the role of innovation in the legal industry. He emphasizes the importance of fostering a culture of curiosity and experimentation. The firm has implemented an innovation department and introduced innovation hours to encourage employees to pursue their ideas. Craske believes that AI can enhance the efficiency of legal work and sees opportunities for collaboration between humans and machines. He also highlights the need for foundational legal skills and human skills like empathy and creativity.
Takeaways
-
Fostering a culture of curiosity and experimentation is crucial for innovation in the legal industry.
-
Implementing an innovation department and introducing innovation hours can encourage employees to pursue their ideas.
-
AI can enhance the efficiency of legal work, but collaboration between humans and machines is essential.
-
Foundational legal skills and human skills like empathy and creativity are still valuable in the age of AI.
Sound Bites
-
"We're using our computers more like electronic typewriters for many years."
-
"Innovation hours are like seed funding for ideas."
-
"AI has captured the imagination of people in a way that lots of other technology has never had."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to John Craske and his role at CMS
03:04 The Development of Innovation Departments in Law Firms
06:44 Overcoming the Tension between Billable Hours and Innovation
09:26 Building a Team and Aligning Innovation with Firm Strategy
12:08 The Opportunities and Challenges of AI in the Legal Industry
15:23 The Importance of Human Skills in the Age of AI
27:23 Final Quickfire Questions
Bio
John Craske is responsible for the innovation and knowledge functions at CMS, with the aim of helping their clients and business to work smarter: to find the right balance between client satisfaction, cost effectiveness, profitability and opportunities for our people. He leads their dynamic Legal Innovation, Legal Operations and Project Management, Legal Tech, Managed Legal Services and Knowledge teams. He's passionate about fostering a culture of innovation and encouraging people to be curious, ask questions and experiment. John is currently leading our firmwide AI strategy as tjeu look to use AI to supercharge our digital transformation programme. He regularly works with clients (and others in the legal industry) to help design / implement practical (and innovative) solutions to their challenges.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
John Craske is the director of innovationat CMS, an international law firm with
offices in over 40 countries.
He is responsible for innovation andknowledge functions at CMS with the aim of
helping their clients and businesses towork smarter and to find the right balance
between client satisfaction, costeffectiveness, profitability, and
opportunities for their people.
John leads CMS's dynamic legal innovation,legal operations and project management,
(00:32):
legal tech, managed legal services, andknowledge teams.
He's passionate about fostering a cultureof innovation and encouraging people to be
curious, ask questions and experiment.
Currently, he's leading the firm -wide AIstrategy at CMS as they look at AI to
supercharge their digital transformationprogram.
In his role, John regularly works withclients and others in the legal industry
(00:54):
to help design, implement practical andinnovative solutions to their challenges.
He loves hearing about specific legal andbusiness challenges.
that clients have and then trying to solvethem.
And John, welcome to the SuperCreativityPodcast.
Thanks James, lovely to be here.
So share with us what's going on in yourworld just now, what currently has your
focus.
(01:15):
Well, thanks for the intro.
Yeah.
I think the focus at the moment is workinghard on our AI strategy roadmap.
But secretly, I think we're using that tohelp kickstart the digital transformation
innovation journey for all of our lawyers.
That's been quite hard in a law firm whenI think probably if I'm being unkind, I
(01:37):
would say we've been using our computersmore like electronic typewriters for many
years.
So it's great to sort of be secretly usingthat to help drive it.
Well, we're definitely gonna get into theAI piece, we're gonna get into the genesis
of AI piece as it affects the legalindustry.
Just let everyone know, my wife is alawyer and a solicitor, so I've been
getting a kind of a bit of a seat to seehow that world is transforming with some
(01:59):
of my legal clients as well.
But let's just take you back, how did youget into this work you do?
Did you come from the legal professionbefore that or from the technology
background?
Yes, so I'm a qualified lawyer.
I'm actually a Scottish Solicitor, eventhough being English, so I live up in
Scotland.
I know you do too, James.
And I've always been interested in thatsort of junction between the practice of
(02:23):
law and the business of law.
But a long time ago, my wife told me Ineed to do something a bit more creative
and she didn't mean painting or music,although I do love music.
And then I think it was a series of...
lucky accidents maybe that everyone'scareers a bit like that so you know I had
a boss I didn't get on with so well we dida merger with Anderson Legal and then a de
(02:47):
-merger with Anderson Legal when the EnronScramble happened and then another things
like that and so I've just kind of takenthe opportunities when there's been
moments of change to get into that why arewe doing things the way we're doing it and
I'm also always been that person in theroom who asks the stupid questions and
why are we doing it like this?
And that's kind of led me down the paththat I've gone down.
(03:10):
Now, a lot of my legal clients haveinnovation departments, innovation labs.
I was speaking the other week for a lawfirm.
They had an innovation week to help theirpartners and their associates and their
administrators kind of focus around legaltech and innovation.
Tell us about the development of theinnovation department within your
(03:35):
business.
How did that get started?
How did it start to develop over time?
Sure, so I think we started probably agood long time ago.
I mean, we've always been interested inusing technology to help us be as
efficient as we can be, both for ourclients benefit, but also because the more
(03:59):
efficient we are, then obviously the moreprofitable we can be like every other
business.
So for both of those reasons.
But...
think the lawyers find it quite difficultto get involved and think about how they
can use technology themselves.
It's almost like they would want somebodyelse to do it for them or provide it for
(04:20):
them or innovate to them and then maybethat's something we can come back to a bit
later.
So we started off quite gently.
We did lots of work around legal projectmanagement and helping people think about
how they might structure their work in asort of more innovative way.
But then we realized we had a sort ofmissing gap and we were talking to all of
(04:41):
the practice groups about innovation andwhat does the future of their work look
like and how they're gonna develop in thefuture.
And actually they almost universally thensaid, that's great John, but what tech
have we got?
And...
and so we were like okay no we're notreally here to talk about technology that
(05:01):
might well be a way that you can use youcan use technology to help you innovate
but that's not what we're here to talkabout and they're like yeah well we'll get
to that our clients are demanding to knowwhat technology we use so what tech have
we got so that's when we built out ourlegal tech capabilities and built our
portfolio of tools that we've got and thenmoved on from there and actually we've
(05:23):
always whilst we've always been sort ofnudging away at the
core innovation piece, it's onlyrelatively recently when we've been able
to go back and say, okay, well we're backto talk to you about innovation.
And still they say often, well what techhave you got?
And we're like, okay, well we've got agood answer to that now, we've got a team
that can help you and we've got lots oftools.
We really want to help you think aboutwhat ideas you've got for the way you
(05:46):
deliver your work, what services youdeliver and stuff.
So we've incrementally grown the team outand it's been a bit like a guerrilla war
as well.
So.
messages from the top and infiltratingfrom the bottom as well.
Now there's this tension that often existsin legal firms and accountancy firms,
audit firms, where as a lawyer, you'reoften thought to, you think in billable
(06:08):
hours or five, 10 minute chunks.
You're always having to do your, I knowlawyers have to do their time sheets and
they're thinking about that and the filesand everything as well.
And innovation obviously doesn't work inthat way.
It kind of works in a slightly differentway where we sometimes have to step away
from the problem, kind of think fromdifferent perspectives, do a lot of
research.
(06:28):
That takes time, that takes resources todo that as well.
So how have you worked with the peoplewithin the business in order to get them
to think about really innovation and thevalue of innovation as a concept and
something that they should do, rather thanit's like, well, this is a compliance
thing or you think about innovation fromthat perspective.
(06:50):
Yeah, sure.
It's actually, funnily enough, it's everysix minutes.
Well, most law firms, it's every sixminutes rather than five or 10 because
it's a neat divider for the hour becauseyou get 10 of them in an hour, right?
But you're absolutely right.
It's one of the key drivers in the lawfirm is this sort of need to record every
six minutes of your day.
(07:11):
And actually, most lawyers, certainly inprivate practice, will have targets around
the number of...
billable hours or billed hours that theyhave to achieve in a year and if they
don't achieve those targets then theydon't get their bonus.
So you know, we all know you get what youmeasure and so that's what the lawyers do
(07:34):
of course is that's why they were driving.
So we've done a number of things.
The first thing is we've started at thebottom and we've made sure that innovation
is in everybody's competencies and thatthe people understand it's part of their
job.
Now, that's only a beginning.
We also try and do some training aroundthings like creativity.
(07:55):
I actually heard somebody once say to me,I'm sure you'll disagree with this, but I
heard someone say to me that, you can'ttrain creativity.
But I don't think that's true at all.
I think you absolutely can.
But probably the, you know, one of themost interesting thing we did was
introduce this concept called innovationhours.
And I managed to convince the managementteam that.
(08:17):
This would be a valuable way ofdemonstrating to both the firm and to our
clients that we took innovation seriously.
So the way they work is if someone's gotan idea, think of it like seed funding for
ideas and if they've got an interestingidea that they want to pursue then they
can say, hey I've got this idea, this iswhat it's about and can I have a budget of
(08:39):
hours?
And so then they kind of get a budget forhours the same way they would get a budget
of hours if they were working on a clientjob.
So...
and then we would support them with eitherhelp accessing tech if they need to do
that or with the creative process if theyneed that or connecting them with other
people around the firm or externally totry and experiment with their idea.
(09:02):
Importantly I guess that the hours aren'tcontingent on whatever it is being
successful, it doesn't matter, it's moreabout them getting into the zone of trying
some things out.
So over the years we've had an increasingnumber of
innovation hours projects.
And as I said, it's partly symbolic.
Of course, it's partly practical becauseit gives people hours that count towards
(09:25):
their target, but it's also partlysymbolic because it shows the way that
that's important for the firm.
And how do you link that in terms of thestrategy of the firm as well?
So let's say you have a partner orassociates or people within the marketing
functions of a law firm and they want to,they have maybe an idea of a problem they
want to try and solve or an opportunityyou want to look at.
(09:47):
So they need to think in an innovativeway.
How do you then basically maybe build ateam around this?
How do you ensure that it is in alignmentwith what you're trying to do as a firm?
So it's maybe has wider.
applications across the firm, so it hasmaybe a bigger impact.
And then how do you go to that next stagewhere maybe you're going from say a
(10:09):
prototype of an idea to actually it beingreviewed and saying actually this is
something that we can give more additionalresources to.
I think we try and start early and justhelp and the short version is and then
just iterate around it to try and improveit, make it better, improve it, make it
better.
Each of the practice groups, so the legaldepartments in the firm has got a partner
(10:33):
who's responsible for innovation and theytend to have a group around them of
lawyers who are interested in it and so wetry and cultivate that and often...
the ideas for innovation project will comeout of those groups not exclusively
sometimes they come from someone who justgot you know and and and idea to help
solve the real pain point for them or fortheir clients and but we really trying
(10:56):
support each person as they come throughbut we don't try and do it for them i
think that's been quite an interestingjourney that we've been on in and it in as
i said earlier we quite often get thelawyers wanting us to innovate for the
more to them and actually
that may be a bit like parenting.
You can't do that for them.
You have to kind of do enough to supportthem and help them along the way, but you
(11:19):
can't do it for them.
They need to learn themselves.
And then, depending on what the idea is,we will either extend the project or
iterate again around it.
And then there's been a few of them whichhave ended up being sort of market -facing
things that we've launched, or just asmany which are internal things about
efficiencies or improving things forteams.
(11:42):
Now, whenever you start talking withlawyers about innovation, the first term
that usually comes up is artificialintelligence.
How are we going to implement AI and whatwe're going to do?
How is it going to make us moreproductive?
Is that a threat?
Are we going to get rid of all theseparalegals that we have in our law firms
just now?
So tell me, in terms of your personalapproach to artificial intelligence, where
(12:04):
do you see the biggest opportunities inthe short term for firms like yours?
And then maybe what are you a bit moreexcited about?
in the medium to longer term around AI.
Yeah, so I mean, I think it's captured theimagination of people in a way that lots
of other technology has never had, hasbefore, at least I'm starting to sound
like a beer advert if I say it quite likethat.
(12:26):
But the, yeah, and I think that's beenbrilliant because we've, for one of the
first, which is why we're using it as alever to help drive the digital
transformation, because for the first timepeople are coming to us and saying, hey,
how could I use this?
Or what can I do with this?
Which is really exciting.
I think there's loads of opportunities towork with the technology to improve the
(12:51):
way that we work.
I think it's really, really actuallyfascinating because people do say, well,
what's going to happen with ourparticularly junior resource and whether
that's paralegals or junior lawyers.
And actually, I think...
The key, and people at work who are boredof me hearing me say this now, I think the
(13:13):
key is to think about this sort of humanplus machine.
And I know from watching some of yourstuff, James, that this idea of working on
the human bits is something that you'repassionate about as well.
But I think what we need to be doing is weneed to be thinking about the future.
So right now we can be using AI in what wedo.
(13:35):
And that can improve the efficiency ofwhat we do.
And we're doing lots of experiments withAI.
things and we're trying out a bit of aportfolio approach on lots of tools.
So we can do that now, but we need to bethinking also about the longer term, about
how are people going to be working in thefuture and what skills will they need to
work with the machine, so the plus bit,but also what are the human skills that
(13:57):
they're going to need to make the best, dothe best job.
There's also a bit of a thing aroundfoundational skills.
And this is not just law, but if machinesare going to be doing
what our junior people are going to bedoing.
We still need senior people.
We still need senior doctors, chefs,lawyers, whatever it is that, you know,
(14:20):
where some of the stuff might be beingdone by machines.
But how do you get to be a senior personif you've not been the apprentice, if
you've not learned the basic skills?
So we're still going to, so those peopleare still going to be needed in the
system.
So I'm not worried about, you know, majorlike losses of jobs in the legal industry.
I think there is going to be major changein the legal industry though in terms of
(14:41):
the tasks that people do.
But I think that people will, so we'regoing to need to think very carefully
about how we build those foundationalskills, legal skills in our case, into
people and all the way through fromuniversity through to when they're
training in a law firm and then gettingexperience on jobs.
But I think we're also going to have tothink about those human skills.
(15:03):
So human skills, things like empathy andemotional intelligence and creativity and
curiosity.
and those things that make usfundamentally human.
I think actually we're going toparadoxically we're going to need those
things even more in the relatively mediumto medium to longer term, maybe not
immediately.
And that's going to be an interestingthing, as I think as a, you know, for law
(15:25):
firms, for industry, for humans, I thinkit's really fascinating.
a few years ago in California, I used tolive in California and there was a young
gentleman called Robert Huang and Roberttrained as a computer scientist first of
all learning about AI and then he went andtrained as a lawyer.
I'm not quite sure why you would go frombeing a software engineer to a lawyer,
(15:47):
it's kind of unusual, I can see you maybegoing the other way but so he went trained
as a lawyer and his early years as anassociate he realized how mind -numbingly
boring a lot of legal
work is, especially if you're doing duediligence and certain things, and he said
there must be a better way of doing this.
So what he would do is, during the day hewould do his legal work, and at night he
went home and he basically programmed andworked on AI programs to replace himself.
(16:13):
That's really what he was doing, and bythe end of the year he'd essentially
replaced himself by building out differenttools and functions to do that, and then
being entrepreneurial he went and starteda new type of law firm called, I think it
was called Robot, Robot and Huang.
and there were three partners.
Two of the partners were AIs and one ofthe partner was him as the human.
And one, I think Darya, she specializes inAI, but specialized in litigation.
(16:36):
And the other one specialized in mergersand acquisitions, I seem to remember.
And what I find interesting about that iswhat then the human, what he was doing in
his role.
And it was exactly what you were speakingabout there.
It was the, the creator work, the curiouswork, the strategizing, empathy, building,
building that relationship with clients.
so much of the kind of softer things thatwe don't think, while the machine was able
(16:57):
to do what is better doing at a tacticallevel as well.
And certainly a lot of my clients, that'swhat I'm seeing a lot of them using that
for the first level is amazing fordiscovery, amazing for being able to send
an algorithm across all of your legalagreements to say, hey, there's this new
Brexit has just happened or something hasjust happened.
(17:18):
What is the risk factors to all of ourlegal agreements that we have with our
clients just now?
and it pulls up that.
So there's obviously great things there aswell.
And I don't know whether you're seeingthis in some of my clients, I'm seeing
what traditionally was, let's say, a 30page contract, because some of these firms
are using AI now, and on both sides areusing AI, we're now seeing 100 page
(17:40):
contracts, because the AIs are kind ofadding things that maybe the human
wouldn't necessarily have thought aboutadding before.
Well, I think we've seen the trend ofcontracts getting longer and longer for a
good while actually.
And I'm not sure it's AI that's drivingthat.
It's a mix of the world just being moreregulation, more uncertainty, more
(18:01):
volatility, all sorts of things andcomplexity that's going on in the world.
But you're right.
And I do wonder whether actually they willgo over a peak and then they'll start
getting shorter again because they'll onlyput in the contract the things that you
really need.
Who knows?
But yeah, absolutely.
We're...
when we're seeing AI helpers, you know,summarize meetings and actions, coach you
(18:25):
in your email with your drafting withyour, you know, like your sidekick.
But it is really interesting to thinkabout the mode in which people are using
it because actually quite a lot of lawyersare good at delegating.
So delegating to a more junior lawyer todo that or paralegal to do a task, but not
(18:46):
so good at sort of
co -creating and working with and a lot ofthe interesting challenges around AI
especially around the sort of edge ofwhere AI is capable today and of course
that edge is moving out all the time.
It's not universally good at every taskand one tool isn't universally good at
every task so but so when you're on theedge of the capabilities you need to be
(19:08):
working with it not delegating to it.
So if something is very capable then youcan delegate to it but if something you
know and
and there's a lot of noise in the worldaround hallucinations of generative AI but
if you're working with something thenactually a lot of those risks around
hallucinations go away because you'reusing it, you're working directly with it
to help you in your work process, whateverthat is.
(19:32):
So yeah, I think that's going to be reallyinteresting to watch.
I know within the world of managementconsulting, there was a study done the
other day by Harvard University and BostonConsulting Group, where they gave a bunch
of their consultants access to agenerative AI.
And it was interesting just seeing how, Ithink it increased productivity by 40%,
the task was judged to be, I think, 12 %better in terms of quality.
(19:54):
But what I thought was interesting aboutit was that you had these two groups in
particular that really excelled, and theywere called Cyborgs and Centaurs.
So, yeah.
to.
Yeah, so the Centaurs were what you werekind of talking about a little bit there,
where you would look at a project or atask and you would say, okay, these are
the things that the AI, I'm going to giveto this AI to do this particular task, and
(20:15):
these are the things that I'm going toreserve as humans.
Whereas the cyborgs, and they were almostintertwining everything that they were
doing with AI.
It became like a guitar player would havea guitar, or, you know, it just became an
extension of themselves.
And that is the kind of more that, thatkind of co -pilot thing kind of going on.
It's more collaborative in nature.
i think that's exactly right and that'sthe same study of referring to them to
(20:39):
read if any of the listeners are wantingto get that it's called the navigating the
jagged edge of a i a that's a harvardbusiness review article and within that
they they collaborated with bostonconsulting group is worth reading the
whole thing but actually that nothingcyborgs and sent or this is like almost
like a a footnote in appendix seven orsomething is right at the very end and but
(21:00):
i think it's one of the most interestingnuggets in the whole thing and
If I've got time, my daughter, if she everlistens to this, will be embarrassed about
me telling you this story.
So I read that and I didn't really absorbit.
And then just over Christmas time, she wasdoing some homework, or before Christmas,
she was doing some homework at the kitchentable and I was cooking.
(21:21):
And she was writing an essay, a criticalessay on a book they'd been reading in
class, which is, it's another twist in thetale.
It's a book about female empowerment,about...
Oliver Twist's sister that you've neverheard about before and and and she had
chat GPT open and she had a word processoropen and she was Working with it in the
(21:42):
way you described like playing a guitar Soshe didn't go chatgy page chatgy PT write
me an essay about this book You know theway that we're all worried about people
cheating on exams or whatever withgenerative AI She just didn't do that.
She was like she's the right route a bitand she went.
I'm not sure about some words
Hey, can you give me some words that meanthis or describe that?
And then she wrote a bit more and then shesaid, not sure about that paragraph,
(22:04):
copied that paragraph into chat.
Can you help me rewrite this?
And she was backwards and forwards all theway through.
And so she produced something which wasprobably, she produced something quicker
and probably better than had she writtenit herself, but she didn't just delegate
the task to the AI.
And I think that was for me a real, a reallight bulb moment about how we should be.
(22:27):
talking to our people about how theyshould be using AI at the moment,
especially at that jagged edge of AI whereit's not universally capable at that
thing.
So forgive me for the story, James.
I think it's great as well.
I mean, obviously that generation iscoming through now.
A friend of mine, Mark Prensky coined theterm digital natives and you know, very
(22:47):
much.
And actually her generation is way beyondthat.
They're AI natives.
You know, they're using these tools inslightly different ways.
My wife who's been in law for a long time,she hadn't really been using many of these
tools.
And I just kind of sat down with her oneday and she was having to...
review a new piece of legislation that'scurrently going through the courts, going
(23:09):
through the Scottish Parliament aroundfood.
I think it's called the Good Food Bill orsomething around food.
And it was amazing because what she wasable to do was to pull in all these
different studies from different places,feed it in, and then it was about the
quality of the questions that she wasasking, in this case, to chat GBT, to help
(23:30):
her think about how to term something, howto kind of use the language, in this case,
of the...
the Scottish government to kind of referback to what she was wanting to do, her
target, her goal with this particularthing.
And it was like that, I was saying, andyou could see her, it was the first time
I'd really seen her eyes kind of gosparkle because she'd, I didn't realize I
could use it in this way.
(23:50):
I just thought, I didn't realize I coulduse it as that type of collaborator.
So it's not too late for everyone.
If you're kind of coming to this a littlebit later in life and you're not a
youngster, then there's lots ofopportunities here.
Yeah, totally.
And that's why I talk about human plusmachine.
Because so you're now, that sort ofprompting skills we're talking about is
(24:12):
that plus bit, right?
So you have to work how to work with it aswell.
But you still need the human questions andthings.
So you need to be able to ask them.
So yeah, I think it's lovely when we startto see that, whether it's at home or at
work and people exploring it.
I think it's great.
And then your own journey as a lawyerworking within innovation as well, was
(24:36):
there a key insight or a light bulb momentin your life and you work your own
creative journey?
I think when I realized, I mean I'vealways been interested in this junction
between the practice of law and businessand law, but when you described doing due
(24:58):
diligence as really boring, I was a realestate lawyer so I was just doing lots of
occupational leases, which for those ofyou if you're not a lawyer means...
if you ever get a shopping center and allof the units in their elect every one of
those got a leak behind it and the wholeframework documents of such a doing those
all day and there's only so manyoccupational leases i think i could could
do and and so i'd and that my wife andsaying to me that i needed to do something
(25:22):
more creative is probably the real sparkleand what led me down this that this path i
think this many light bulb moments all ofthe all the time though i think it's
you know so i i'd wanted home just acouple weeks ago and i bought myself a new
saxophone because i've never i've alwayswanted one i can't play the saxophone it's
(25:43):
not very well yet but i have played theclarinet for ages and the guy in the music
shop he was like olivander honestlymatching instruments and things to people
but i've been playing my clarinet with thesame mouthpiece i'm fifty one now so it
must have been for forty years with thesame mouthpiece and he went
you're on beginners mouthpiece what youwant is one of these and so he sold me a
(26:03):
new mouthpiece a bit of plastic only atyou know 100 pounds or whatever it was and
you think 100 pounds for a mouthpiece andI played it and it was like it was like
the clouds parted and the sun came out soyou know so that idea of having the right
kit and knowing your as part of knowingyour craft and things because you know
people always say that it's about the kitbut of course it's not it's this join
(26:26):
between the person the human and the
kit and knowing how to use it whateveryou're doing so yeah there's a there's a
personal one and a work one.
Yeah, that reminds me a little, we had aguest on the show a little while ago,
Professor Roger Neybone, who's the world'sleading expert on experts.
He wrote a book all about experts and he'sa surgeon originally.
And he talks about this idea of a mise enplace in French, you know, if you're a
(26:51):
chef, you have certain tools closer bybecause these are the ones you're using
all the time.
Well, you might have other ones a littlebit kind of further out of reach because
you're not using those so often.
It's that distinction of being able toknow which tool to use in the right way,
in the right order for the right
right thing and that adds, you know, thatadds a little bit of distinction from
(27:11):
someone that's just an amateur in whatthey're doing to actually someone who's a
professional and more skilled and moreexpert at it as well.
Let's get into some final quickfirequestions before we finish up here.
First of all, is there a quote that youlive by that kind of a guiding light for
you in your life?
I don't think I'm a big one for quotes orsound bites, but I do firmly believe that
(27:33):
you get out what you put in.
And I remind myself to try and lead withkindness.
Beautiful.
And is there an online resource?
We've been talking a lot about tools andtechnology today, but is there an online
resource or a tool, like Gmail orEvernote, that you find very useful in
your work?
I like finding new tools and things, but Ithink I'm going to give you a bit of a
(27:55):
different answer.
I love Spotify.
It's always got something to listen to,whether that's new music, trying to take
you away or focus on something or podcastsor audiobooks.
I consume new music all of the time,almost all genres, so I love Spotify.
Great talk, great talk.
And if you could only recommend one bookto our listeners, what would that book be?
We've been talking about AI today, so Ithink everybody should listen to or read
(28:19):
The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman.
Great, wonderful book.
And as we finish up here, Sher, what isthe best way if people want to connect
with you?
Maybe we've got a lot of lawyers thatlisten to the show.
We've got a lot of people within legalprofession, a lot of people within
innovation labs as well.
If we want to connect with you, learn moreabout the work you do, learn about your
(28:39):
firm, what's the best way for them to goand do that?
Probably just message me on LinkedIn,that's the best way to get in touch.
We'll put all these links on the shownotes.
People go to the SuperCreativity Podcast,go to jamestaylor.me, just look for the
SuperCreativity Podcast.
We'll have all the links for thisparticular episode and all the other
things we'll be talking about on the showtoday.
John Craske, thank you so much for being aguest on the SuperCreativity Podcast.
John Craske is the director of innovationat CMS, an international law firm with
offices in over 40 countries.
He is responsible for innovation andknowledge functions at CMS with the aim of
helping their clients and businesses towork smarter and to find the right balance
between client satisfaction, costeffectiveness, profitability, and
opportunities for their people.
John leads CMS's dynamic legal innovation,legal operations and project management,
(00:32):
legal tech, managed legal services, andknowledge teams.
He's passionate about fostering a cultureof innovation and encouraging people to be
curious, ask questions and experiment.
Currently, he's leading the firm -wide AIstrategy at CMS as they look at AI to
supercharge their digital transformationprogram.
In his role, John regularly works withclients and others in the legal industry
(00:54):
to help design, implement practical andinnovative solutions to their challenges.
He loves hearing about specific legal andbusiness challenges.
that clients have and then trying to solvethem.
And John, welcome to the SuperCreativityPodcast.
Thanks James, lovely to be here.
So share with us what's going on in yourworld just now, what currently has your
focus.
(01:15):
Well, thanks for the intro.
Yeah.
I think the focus at the moment is workinghard on our AI strategy roadmap.
But secretly, I think we're using that tohelp kickstart the digital transformation
innovation journey for all of our lawyers.
That's been quite hard in a law firm whenI think probably if I'm being unkind, I
(01:37):
would say we've been using our computersmore like electronic typewriters for many
years.
So it's great to sort of be secretly usingthat to help drive it.
Well, we're definitely gonna get into theAI piece, we're gonna get into the genesis
of AI piece as it affects the legalindustry.
Just let everyone know, my wife is alawyer and a solicitor, so I've been
getting a kind of a bit of a seat to seehow that world is transforming with some
(01:59):
of my legal clients as well.
But let's just take you back, how did youget into this work you do?
Did you come from the legal professionbefore that or from the technology
background?
Yes, so I'm a qualified lawyer.
I'm actually a Scottish Solicitor, eventhough being English, so I live up in
Scotland.
I know you do too, James.
And I've always been interested in thatsort of junction between the practice of
(02:23):
law and the business of law.
But a long time ago, my wife told me Ineed to do something a bit more creative
and she didn't mean painting or music,although I do love music.
And then I think it was a series of...
lucky accidents maybe that everyone'scareers a bit like that so you know I had
a boss I didn't get on with so well we dida merger with Anderson Legal and then a de
(02:47):
-merger with Anderson Legal when the EnronScramble happened and then another things
like that and so I've just kind of takenthe opportunities when there's been
moments of change to get into that why arewe doing things the way we're doing it and
I'm also always been that person in theroom who asks the stupid questions and
why are we doing it like this?
And that's kind of led me down the paththat I've gone down.
(03:10):
Now, a lot of my legal clients haveinnovation departments, innovation labs.
I was speaking the other week for a lawfirm.
They had an innovation week to help theirpartners and their associates and their
administrators kind of focus around legaltech and innovation.
Tell us about the development of theinnovation department within your
(03:35):
business.
How did that get started?
How did it start to develop over time?
Sure, so I think we started probably agood long time ago.
I mean, we've always been interested inusing technology to help us be as
efficient as we can be, both for ourclients benefit, but also because the more
(03:59):
efficient we are, then obviously the moreprofitable we can be like every other
business.
So for both of those reasons.
But...
think the lawyers find it quite difficultto get involved and think about how they
can use technology themselves.
It's almost like they would want somebodyelse to do it for them or provide it for
(04:20):
them or innovate to them and then maybethat's something we can come back to a bit
later.
So we started off quite gently.
We did lots of work around legal projectmanagement and helping people think about
how they might structure their work in asort of more innovative way.
But then we realized we had a sort ofmissing gap and we were talking to all of
(04:41):
the practice groups about innovation andwhat does the future of their work look
like and how they're gonna develop in thefuture.
And actually they almost universally thensaid, that's great John, but what tech
have we got?
And...
and so we were like okay no we're notreally here to talk about technology that
(05:01):
might well be a way that you can use youcan use technology to help you innovate
but that's not what we're here to talkabout and they're like yeah well we'll get
to that our clients are demanding to knowwhat technology we use so what tech have
we got so that's when we built out ourlegal tech capabilities and built our
portfolio of tools that we've got and thenmoved on from there and actually we've
(05:23):
always whilst we've always been sort ofnudging away at the
core innovation piece, it's onlyrelatively recently when we've been able
to go back and say, okay, well we're backto talk to you about innovation.
And still they say often, well what techhave you got?
And we're like, okay, well we've got agood answer to that now, we've got a team
that can help you and we've got lots oftools.
We really want to help you think aboutwhat ideas you've got for the way you
(05:46):
deliver your work, what services youdeliver and stuff.
So we've incrementally grown the team outand it's been a bit like a guerrilla war
as well.
So.
messages from the top and infiltratingfrom the bottom as well.
Now there's this tension that often existsin legal firms and accountancy firms,
audit firms, where as a lawyer, you'reoften thought to, you think in billable
(06:08):
hours or five, 10 minute chunks.
You're always having to do your, I knowlawyers have to do their time sheets and
they're thinking about that and the filesand everything as well.
And innovation obviously doesn't work inthat way.
It kind of works in a slightly differentway where we sometimes have to step away
from the problem, kind of think fromdifferent perspectives, do a lot of
research.
(06:28):
That takes time, that takes resources todo that as well.
So how have you worked with the peoplewithin the business in order to get them
to think about really innovation and thevalue of innovation as a concept and
something that they should do, rather thanit's like, well, this is a compliance
thing or you think about innovation fromthat perspective.
(06:50):
Yeah, sure.
It's actually, funnily enough, it's everysix minutes.
Well, most law firms, it's every sixminutes rather than five or 10 because
it's a neat divider for the hour becauseyou get 10 of them in an hour, right?
But you're absolutely right.
It's one of the key drivers in the lawfirm is this sort of need to record every
six minutes of your day.
(07:11):
And actually, most lawyers, certainly inprivate practice, will have targets around
the number of...
billable hours or billed hours that theyhave to achieve in a year and if they
don't achieve those targets then theydon't get their bonus.
So you know, we all know you get what youmeasure and so that's what the lawyers do
(07:34):
of course is that's why they were driving.
So we've done a number of things.
The first thing is we've started at thebottom and we've made sure that innovation
is in everybody's competencies and thatthe people understand it's part of their
job.
Now, that's only a beginning.
We also try and do some training aroundthings like creativity.
(07:55):
I actually heard somebody once say to me,I'm sure you'll disagree with this, but I
heard someone say to me that, you can'ttrain creativity.
But I don't think that's true at all.
I think you absolutely can.
But probably the, you know, one of themost interesting thing we did was
introduce this concept called innovationhours.
And I managed to convince the managementteam that.
(08:17):
This would be a valuable way ofdemonstrating to both the firm and to our
clients that we took innovation seriously.
So the way they work is if someone's gotan idea, think of it like seed funding for
ideas and if they've got an interestingidea that they want to pursue then they
can say, hey I've got this idea, this iswhat it's about and can I have a budget of
(08:39):
hours?
And so then they kind of get a budget forhours the same way they would get a budget
of hours if they were working on a clientjob.
So...
and then we would support them with eitherhelp accessing tech if they need to do
that or with the creative process if theyneed that or connecting them with other
people around the firm or externally totry and experiment with their idea.
(09:02):
Importantly I guess that the hours aren'tcontingent on whatever it is being
successful, it doesn't matter, it's moreabout them getting into the zone of trying
some things out.
So over the years we've had an increasingnumber of
innovation hours projects.
And as I said, it's partly symbolic.
Of course, it's partly practical becauseit gives people hours that count towards
(09:25):
their target, but it's also partlysymbolic because it shows the way that
that's important for the firm.
And how do you link that in terms of thestrategy of the firm as well?
So let's say you have a partner orassociates or people within the marketing
functions of a law firm and they want to,they have maybe an idea of a problem they
want to try and solve or an opportunityyou want to look at.
(09:47):
So they need to think in an innovativeway.
How do you then basically maybe build ateam around this?
How do you ensure that it is in alignmentwith what you're trying to do as a firm?
So it's maybe has wider.
applications across the firm, so it hasmaybe a bigger impact.
And then how do you go to that next stagewhere maybe you're going from say a
(10:09):
prototype of an idea to actually it beingreviewed and saying actually this is
something that we can give more additionalresources to.
I think we try and start early and justhelp and the short version is and then
just iterate around it to try and improveit, make it better, improve it, make it
better.
Each of the practice groups, so the legaldepartments in the firm has got a partner
(10:33):
who's responsible for innovation and theytend to have a group around them of
lawyers who are interested in it and so wetry and cultivate that and often...
the ideas for innovation project will comeout of those groups not exclusively
sometimes they come from someone who justgot you know and and and idea to help
solve the real pain point for them or fortheir clients and but we really trying
(10:56):
support each person as they come throughbut we don't try and do it for them i
think that's been quite an interestingjourney that we've been on in and it in as
i said earlier we quite often get thelawyers wanting us to innovate for the
more to them and actually
that may be a bit like parenting.
You can't do that for them.
You have to kind of do enough to supportthem and help them along the way, but you
(11:19):
can't do it for them.
They need to learn themselves.
And then, depending on what the idea is,we will either extend the project or
iterate again around it.
And then there's been a few of them whichhave ended up being sort of market -facing
things that we've launched, or just asmany which are internal things about
efficiencies or improving things forteams.
(11:42):
Now, whenever you start talking withlawyers about innovation, the first term
that usually comes up is artificialintelligence.
How are we going to implement AI and whatwe're going to do?
How is it going to make us moreproductive?
Is that a threat?
Are we going to get rid of all theseparalegals that we have in our law firms
just now?
So tell me, in terms of your personalapproach to artificial intelligence, where
(12:04):
do you see the biggest opportunities inthe short term for firms like yours?
And then maybe what are you a bit moreexcited about?
in the medium to longer term around AI.
Yeah, so I mean, I think it's captured theimagination of people in a way that lots
of other technology has never had, hasbefore, at least I'm starting to sound
like a beer advert if I say it quite likethat.
(12:26):
But the, yeah, and I think that's beenbrilliant because we've, for one of the
first, which is why we're using it as alever to help drive the digital
transformation, because for the first timepeople are coming to us and saying, hey,
how could I use this?
Or what can I do with this?
Which is really exciting.
I think there's loads of opportunities towork with the technology to improve the
(12:51):
way that we work.
I think it's really, really actuallyfascinating because people do say, well,
what's going to happen with ourparticularly junior resource and whether
that's paralegals or junior lawyers.
And actually, I think...
The key, and people at work who are boredof me hearing me say this now, I think the
(13:13):
key is to think about this sort of humanplus machine.
And I know from watching some of yourstuff, James, that this idea of working on
the human bits is something that you'repassionate about as well.
But I think what we need to be doing is weneed to be thinking about the future.
So right now we can be using AI in what wedo.
(13:35):
And that can improve the efficiency ofwhat we do.
And we're doing lots of experiments withAI.
things and we're trying out a bit of aportfolio approach on lots of tools.
So we can do that now, but we need to bethinking also about the longer term, about
how are people going to be working in thefuture and what skills will they need to
work with the machine, so the plus bit,but also what are the human skills that
(13:57):
they're going to need to make the best, dothe best job.
There's also a bit of a thing aroundfoundational skills.
And this is not just law, but if machinesare going to be doing
what our junior people are going to bedoing.
We still need senior people.
We still need senior doctors, chefs,lawyers, whatever it is that, you know,
(14:20):
where some of the stuff might be beingdone by machines.
But how do you get to be a senior personif you've not been the apprentice, if
you've not learned the basic skills?
So we're still going to, so those peopleare still going to be needed in the
system.
So I'm not worried about, you know, majorlike losses of jobs in the legal industry.
I think there is going to be major changein the legal industry though in terms of
(14:41):
the tasks that people do.
But I think that people will, so we'regoing to need to think very carefully
about how we build those foundationalskills, legal skills in our case, into
people and all the way through fromuniversity through to when they're
training in a law firm and then gettingexperience on jobs.
But I think we're also going to have tothink about those human skills.
(15:03):
So human skills, things like empathy andemotional intelligence and creativity and
curiosity.
and those things that make usfundamentally human.
I think actually we're going toparadoxically we're going to need those
things even more in the relatively mediumto medium to longer term, maybe not
immediately.
And that's going to be an interestingthing, as I think as a, you know, for law
(15:25):
firms, for industry, for humans, I thinkit's really fascinating.
a few years ago in California, I used tolive in California and there was a young
gentleman called Robert Huang and Roberttrained as a computer scientist first of
all learning about AI and then he went andtrained as a lawyer.
I'm not quite sure why you would go frombeing a software engineer to a lawyer,
(15:47):
it's kind of unusual, I can see you maybegoing the other way but so he went trained
as a lawyer and his early years as anassociate he realized how mind -numbingly
boring a lot of legal
work is, especially if you're doing duediligence and certain things, and he said
there must be a better way of doing this.
So what he would do is, during the day hewould do his legal work, and at night he
went home and he basically programmed andworked on AI programs to replace himself.
(16:13):
That's really what he was doing, and bythe end of the year he'd essentially
replaced himself by building out differenttools and functions to do that, and then
being entrepreneurial he went and starteda new type of law firm called, I think it
was called Robot, Robot and Huang.
and there were three partners.
Two of the partners were AIs and one ofthe partner was him as the human.
And one, I think Darya, she specializes inAI, but specialized in litigation.
(16:36):
And the other one specialized in mergersand acquisitions, I seem to remember.
And what I find interesting about that iswhat then the human, what he was doing in
his role.
And it was exactly what you were speakingabout there.
It was the, the creator work, the curiouswork, the strategizing, empathy, building,
building that relationship with clients.
so much of the kind of softer things thatwe don't think, while the machine was able
(16:57):
to do what is better doing at a tacticallevel as well.
And certainly a lot of my clients, that'swhat I'm seeing a lot of them using that
for the first level is amazing fordiscovery, amazing for being able to send
an algorithm across all of your legalagreements to say, hey, there's this new
Brexit has just happened or something hasjust happened.
(17:18):
What is the risk factors to all of ourlegal agreements that we have with our
clients just now?
and it pulls up that.
So there's obviously great things there aswell.
And I don't know whether you're seeingthis in some of my clients, I'm seeing
what traditionally was, let's say, a 30page contract, because some of these firms
are using AI now, and on both sides areusing AI, we're now seeing 100 page
(17:40):
contracts, because the AIs are kind ofadding things that maybe the human
wouldn't necessarily have thought aboutadding before.
Well, I think we've seen the trend ofcontracts getting longer and longer for a
good while actually.
And I'm not sure it's AI that's drivingthat.
It's a mix of the world just being moreregulation, more uncertainty, more
(18:01):
volatility, all sorts of things andcomplexity that's going on in the world.
But you're right.
And I do wonder whether actually they willgo over a peak and then they'll start
getting shorter again because they'll onlyput in the contract the things that you
really need.
Who knows?
But yeah, absolutely.
We're...
when we're seeing AI helpers, you know,summarize meetings and actions, coach you
(18:25):
in your email with your drafting withyour, you know, like your sidekick.
But it is really interesting to thinkabout the mode in which people are using
it because actually quite a lot of lawyersare good at delegating.
So delegating to a more junior lawyer todo that or paralegal to do a task, but not
(18:46):
so good at sort of
co -creating and working with and a lot ofthe interesting challenges around AI
especially around the sort of edge ofwhere AI is capable today and of course
that edge is moving out all the time.
It's not universally good at every taskand one tool isn't universally good at
every task so but so when you're on theedge of the capabilities you need to be
(19:08):
working with it not delegating to it.
So if something is very capable then youcan delegate to it but if something you
know and
and there's a lot of noise in the worldaround hallucinations of generative AI but
if you're working with something thenactually a lot of those risks around
hallucinations go away because you'reusing it, you're working directly with it
to help you in your work process, whateverthat is.
(19:32):
So yeah, I think that's going to be reallyinteresting to watch.
I know within the world of managementconsulting, there was a study done the
other day by Harvard University and BostonConsulting Group, where they gave a bunch
of their consultants access to agenerative AI.
And it was interesting just seeing how, Ithink it increased productivity by 40%,
the task was judged to be, I think, 12 %better in terms of quality.
(19:54):
But what I thought was interesting aboutit was that you had these two groups in
particular that really excelled, and theywere called Cyborgs and Centaurs.
So, yeah.
to.
Yeah, so the Centaurs were what you werekind of talking about a little bit there,
where you would look at a project or atask and you would say, okay, these are
the things that the AI, I'm going to giveto this AI to do this particular task, and
(20:15):
these are the things that I'm going toreserve as humans.
Whereas the cyborgs, and they were almostintertwining everything that they were
doing with AI.
It became like a guitar player would havea guitar, or, you know, it just became an
extension of themselves.
And that is the kind of more that, thatkind of co -pilot thing kind of going on.
It's more collaborative in nature.
i think that's exactly right and that'sthe same study of referring to them to
(20:39):
read if any of the listeners are wantingto get that it's called the navigating the
jagged edge of a i a that's a harvardbusiness review article and within that
they they collaborated with bostonconsulting group is worth reading the
whole thing but actually that nothingcyborgs and sent or this is like almost
like a a footnote in appendix seven orsomething is right at the very end and but
(21:00):
i think it's one of the most interestingnuggets in the whole thing and
If I've got time, my daughter, if she everlistens to this, will be embarrassed about
me telling you this story.
So I read that and I didn't really absorbit.
And then just over Christmas time, she wasdoing some homework, or before Christmas,
she was doing some homework at the kitchentable and I was cooking.
(21:21):
And she was writing an essay, a criticalessay on a book they'd been reading in
class, which is, it's another twist in thetale.
It's a book about female empowerment,about...
Oliver Twist's sister that you've neverheard about before and and and she had
chat GPT open and she had a word processoropen and she was Working with it in the
(21:42):
way you described like playing a guitar Soshe didn't go chatgy page chatgy PT write
me an essay about this book You know theway that we're all worried about people
cheating on exams or whatever withgenerative AI She just didn't do that.
She was like she's the right route a bitand she went.
I'm not sure about some words
Hey, can you give me some words that meanthis or describe that?
And then she wrote a bit more and then shesaid, not sure about that paragraph,
(22:04):
copied that paragraph into chat.
Can you help me rewrite this?
And she was backwards and forwards all theway through.
And so she produced something which wasprobably, she produced something quicker
and probably better than had she writtenit herself, but she didn't just delegate
the task to the AI.
And I think that was for me a real, a reallight bulb moment about how we should be.
(22:27):
talking to our people about how theyshould be using AI at the moment,
especially at that jagged edge of AI whereit's not universally capable at that
thing.
So forgive me for the story, James.
I think it's great as well.
I mean, obviously that generation iscoming through now.
A friend of mine, Mark Prensky coined theterm digital natives and you know, very
(22:47):
much.
And actually her generation is way beyondthat.
They're AI natives.
You know, they're using these tools inslightly different ways.
My wife who's been in law for a long time,she hadn't really been using many of these
tools.
And I just kind of sat down with her oneday and she was having to...
review a new piece of legislation that'scurrently going through the courts, going
(23:09):
through the Scottish Parliament aroundfood.
I think it's called the Good Food Bill orsomething around food.
And it was amazing because what she wasable to do was to pull in all these
different studies from different places,feed it in, and then it was about the
quality of the questions that she wasasking, in this case, to chat GBT, to help
(23:30):
her think about how to term something, howto kind of use the language, in this case,
of the...
the Scottish government to kind of referback to what she was wanting to do, her
target, her goal with this particularthing.
And it was like that, I was saying, andyou could see her, it was the first time
I'd really seen her eyes kind of gosparkle because she'd, I didn't realize I
could use it in this way.
(23:50):
I just thought, I didn't realize I coulduse it as that type of collaborator.
So it's not too late for everyone.
If you're kind of coming to this a littlebit later in life and you're not a
youngster, then there's lots ofopportunities here.
Yeah, totally.
And that's why I talk about human plusmachine.
Because so you're now, that sort ofprompting skills we're talking about is
(24:12):
that plus bit, right?
So you have to work how to work with it aswell.
But you still need the human questions andthings.
So you need to be able to ask them.
So yeah, I think it's lovely when we startto see that, whether it's at home or at
work and people exploring it.
I think it's great.
And then your own journey as a lawyerworking within innovation as well, was
(24:36):
there a key insight or a light bulb momentin your life and you work your own
creative journey?
I think when I realized, I mean I'vealways been interested in this junction
between the practice of law and businessand law, but when you described doing due
(24:58):
diligence as really boring, I was a realestate lawyer so I was just doing lots of
occupational leases, which for those ofyou if you're not a lawyer means...
if you ever get a shopping center and allof the units in their elect every one of
those got a leak behind it and the wholeframework documents of such a doing those
all day and there's only so manyoccupational leases i think i could could
do and and so i'd and that my wife andsaying to me that i needed to do something
(25:22):
more creative is probably the real sparkleand what led me down this that this path i
think this many light bulb moments all ofthe all the time though i think it's
you know so i i'd wanted home just acouple weeks ago and i bought myself a new
saxophone because i've never i've alwayswanted one i can't play the saxophone it's
(25:43):
not very well yet but i have played theclarinet for ages and the guy in the music
shop he was like olivander honestlymatching instruments and things to people
but i've been playing my clarinet with thesame mouthpiece i'm fifty one now so it
must have been for forty years with thesame mouthpiece and he went
you're on beginners mouthpiece what youwant is one of these and so he sold me a
(26:03):
new mouthpiece a bit of plastic only atyou know 100 pounds or whatever it was and
you think 100 pounds for a mouthpiece andI played it and it was like it was like
the clouds parted and the sun came out soyou know so that idea of having the right
kit and knowing your as part of knowingyour craft and things because you know
people always say that it's about the kitbut of course it's not it's this join
(26:26):
between the person the human and the
kit and knowing how to use it whateveryou're doing so yeah there's a there's a
personal one and a work one.
Yeah, that reminds me a little, we had aguest on the show a little while ago,
Professor Roger Neybone, who's the world'sleading expert on experts.
He wrote a book all about experts and he'sa surgeon originally.
And he talks about this idea of a mise enplace in French, you know, if you're a
(26:51):
chef, you have certain tools closer bybecause these are the ones you're using
all the time.
Well, you might have other ones a littlebit kind of further out of reach because
you're not using those so often.
It's that distinction of being able toknow which tool to use in the right way,
in the right order for the right
right thing and that adds, you know, thatadds a little bit of distinction from
(27:11):
someone that's just an amateur in whatthey're doing to actually someone who's a
professional and more skilled and moreexpert at it as well.
Let's get into some final quickfirequestions before we finish up here.
First of all, is there a quote that youlive by that kind of a guiding light for
you in your life?
I don't think I'm a big one for quotes orsound bites, but I do firmly believe that
(27:33):
you get out what you put in.
And I remind myself to try and lead withkindness.
Beautiful.
And is there an online resource?
We've been talking a lot about tools andtechnology today, but is there an online
resource or a tool, like Gmail orEvernote, that you find very useful in
your work?
I like finding new tools and things, but Ithink I'm going to give you a bit of a
(27:55):
different answer.
I love Spotify.
It's always got something to listen to,whether that's new music, trying to take
you away or focus on something or podcastsor audiobooks.
I consume new music all of the time,almost all genres, so I love Spotify.
Great talk, great talk.
And if you could only recommend one bookto our listeners, what would that book be?
We've been talking about AI today, so Ithink everybody should listen to or read
(28:19):
The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman.
Great, wonderful book.
And as we finish up here, Sher, what isthe best way if people want to connect
with you?
Maybe we've got a lot of lawyers thatlisten to the show.
We've got a lot of people within legalprofession, a lot of people within
innovation labs as well.
If we want to connect with you, learn moreabout the work you do, learn about your
(28:39):
firm, what's the best way for them to goand do that?
Probably just message me on LinkedIn,that's the best way to get in touch.
We'll put all these links on the shownotes.
People go to the SuperCreativity Podcast,go to jamestaylor.me, just look for the
SuperCreativity Podcast.
We'll have all the links for thisparticular episode and all the other
things we'll be talking about on the showtoday.
John Craske, thank you so much for being aguest on the SuperCreativity Podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!