ILTACON 2025 Mixtape

 I was fortunate to speak with the following leaders at the 2025 International Legal Technology Association Conference for my mixtape of their perspectives on trends and opportunities in the current market:   Dan Arntsen, Strategic Relationship Manager, Affinity Consulting Group Melissa Ballesteros, Manager of AI and Legal Technology Adoption, Holland & Knight (Miami) Kevin Blomberg, Senior Public Relations Manager, Disco Ryan Cagnoni, Chief of Staff, Elite Technology Nnamdi Emelifeonwu, CEO of Definely Kyle Gribben, Head of Digital Services, Matheson John Haddock, Chief Business Officer,  Harvey David Horrigan, Discovery Counsel and Legal Education Director, Relativity Matt Mahon, VP of Customer Experience, Level Legal Anthony Muljadi, General Manager of Large Law, LexisNexis Beau Wysong, SVP of Global Marketing, Opus 2 Ozan Yalti, Co-Founder, Draftwise

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(upbeat music)

(00:01):
- This is Ari Kaplan at Iltecon 2025.
- Oh, why song?
The SBP Global Marketing at Opus 2.
- I'm Tony Mojati.
I'm the general manager of large law in the US
for a licensed access to the Golden Fresher.
- I'm Dan Ernstson, strategic relationship manager
with Affinity Consulting Group.
- David Horrigan, Discovery Council and Legal Education

(00:23):
Director of Relativity.
- John Hattick, Harvey, Chief Business Officer.
- Kevin Blomberg, I am Senior Public Relations Manager
at Cisco.
- My name is Kai DeGreben.
I am the Head of Digital Services at Matheson.
- Matt Mann, VP of Customer Experience at Level Legal.
- Melissa Bellis-Theros.
I am the Manager of AI and Legal Technology Adoption

(00:44):
for Holen and Night in the Miami office.
- I'm Dan Miley-Fundui.
I'm the CEO of the Finely.
- Ozay Al, take call fund of Drop Fies.
- My name is Ryan Tegnoony,
and I am the Chief of Staff at Elite Technology.
- What topics are people most interested
at this year's El-Tacon?
- What are the top themes you're gonna take away
from El-Tacon 2025?

(01:05):
- What questions are you hearing
from attendees at this year's El-Tacon conference?
- You're well known for hosting your e-discovery
and litigation support roundtable as a tradition here
at El-Tacon.
What are the themes that resonated this year?
So this is your first time at El-Tacon,
what's your impression?

(01:26):
Why do you come to El-Tacon?
- What's been most interesting for you at El-Tacon this year?
What's the connection between art and innovation?
What's different about this year's El-Tacon conference?
- How would you gauge the interest in agentic AI in legal?
What is your objective at El-Tacon this year?
- A lot of our discussions this year

(01:46):
have been around case strategy,
and in addition to our traditional case preparation
and case management that we had in the market
to really help law firms organize and process their cases.
This year we released case strategy.
It's really an effort to point the obos to platform more
to the lawyers and the partners and help them
with pre-case assessment all the way through to trial.

(02:08):
It seems like AI is everywhere at this point
in our platform and our clients are using it,
but for us it's really about staying core to who we are
in focusing on the case,
both the strategy and the mechanics of the case,
and then using AI when appropriate to help augment
and increase efficiency and effectiveness of the platform.
- I heard three main messages across many of the vendors

(02:30):
and will talk at the conference.
The first being the importance of legal content,
having authoritative sources to guide AI,
guide decision making in any firm.
The second thing I heard was around the state importance
of security, is you guys with AI,
you wanna make sure that you understand

(02:52):
whether models are being trained, where the data is capped.
The third thing I heard was around trust in relationships,
so even though AI is a technology,
you wanna trust the company that's providing it
and being on Lexus, Texas,
there's a lot of the same messages
that we're trying to drive in the market
around the continuing importance of content,

(03:13):
the clear ports of security,
and then finally, the continued ports of
the relationships of Bill and Trust.
It's very heavy on AI and what it can do and the restraints,
so we've been listening to different questions
that coming up around, how do I pick up product,
what are the solutions out there,

(03:35):
and how can we get to it?
And then, what are the restrictions behind it?
You can be very overwhelming,
'cause there are so many different options out there,
and in the end we have a new product
about how to get ready for AI and how to navigate
the solutions that are out there,
and so, sit down and try to figure out,

(03:58):
what are you trying to solve with AI,
and then we can help figure out where you gotta go from now.
- We always pick topic each year.
We've had the International Edition,
and this year it was from TAR to Generative AI,
where we had a great panel discussing their experiences,
with technology of the past 25 years.
We have Scott Milner from Morgan Moose,

(04:19):
Janice Chessen from Militopsa, Phil Weldon from Heckerfink,
and Melissa Weperman from Ardell and Corgar.
And what we try to do here is have a combination of lawyers
who are running e-discovery practices,
as well as litigation support professionals
who have really been in the trenches
in e-discovery and in litigation score.

(04:40):
And of course, with the roundtable,
one of the things is to get the audience involved,
and we had great audience participation this year.
We did some polling and got some interesting data
on what people were doing with Generative AI.
One of the most impressive things we had was that people
are using legal specific Generative AI from legal tasks.
Overhast people in the audience were using that.

(05:02):
And why this so important is you've seen
all the hallucination cases.
And what's really a theme is when legal teams
get in trouble over the use of Generative AI,
it's not the technology, it's how the users are using it.
Coming from relativity really does matter
that you've got a tool that is specifically designed
for legal purposes.
And for lawyers and paralegals and legal teams,

(05:24):
always trick your citations before f*ckling them.
First time, it's amazing.
Having many leaders, innovators, C-C-I-N-O's in the room
is great learning opt-in.
Everyone is on the journey in AI,
and they're trying to figure out where they're able
to create impact for their clients,
how to customize for their firms,
and for us, a big beings customization.
So it's great to see how firms think of AI as a differentiator.

(05:48):
AI has been a conversation floating in the ether for a few years now.
Some of those barriers through adoption that are being lifted,
and we're seeing maturing conversations
around defensible solutions, being able to work with vendors
to develop responsible AI frameworks and policies.
I'm seeing a lot of that come across in sessions
where vendors like ourselves are being looped into the process

(06:10):
and helping firms develop their guidelines
and policies around effective usage
and how to train their employees.
The conversations are starting to really mature
as far as outcome oriented,
and what the value of these tools can do for your firm.
One of the reasons that I come to Ilta Khan is because,
although it appears as though there is a pretty convergence

(06:32):
in the little technology market,
actually I feel there are all kinds of interesting approaches
being taken across the world,
and what we want to see when we live in little technology
is not just the technology itself,
but the way in which different firms and different jurisdictions
are applying that technology.
I'm here to go in the boat doing what they do
to deliver for the workflows and the lawyers that they work for.

(06:53):
Just listening to people have to say about their adoption
of Gen AI, but other technologies as well.
We're having success using it,
we're having challenges using it, and learning.
That's what we're going to do,
so we can provide more value to our customers.
It takes the human expertise and wind
to properly leverage the right technology,
and that's why we have to continue to learn and grow.
The fact that art forces you in a way to come up with something new.

(07:15):
Even if you are copying something,
it's got to be your version of that,
because it's never going to have the same color,
it's never going to have the same strokes,
in every piece of artist unique.
AI will give you a generic thing,
but yours is a unique piece.
So when you create, you're innovating,
you are adding, removing, mixing colors,

(07:36):
whatever it is you do is you need to.
When we first came to Ailscom,
we were a very young company,
and there's only a few people in the company,
and we now grow into a team of 100,
and so the conversations we're having
has just been a lot more insightful, a lot more in depth.
We know a lot more people,
where we feel like we're,
even though we're a British company,
we do have people in the US,

(07:57):
and we feel a lot more involved with the US community.
So it's just having all of the people,
the attendees, all of law firms and lawyers,
and also deal with the vendors,
as well, just that community being part of that,
is just really special.
The reception has been great,
and one concept that's very important about Agente AI
is that it can be the super user

(08:17):
of all the capabilities you have in your tools.
And the option is a big hurdle for law firms or lawyers.
So Agente AI can make that really effective,
and easy for lawyers to use the tool.
So we have seen a very high daily
and weekly active users.
Iltacon, we announced the Agente AI capabilities
that we have, and that's gonna be generally available

(08:38):
to have a P3, or you're seeing high interest,
so I think it's gonna get better and better.
- This year Iltac, it's really energizing
to see the number of new and exciting technology companies
here that are serving the world's largest law firms.
There's so many fascinating people
and hearing their stories of why they're building

(08:58):
a software that they are,
to meet the needs of their customers,
right where they're at.
It's very exciting to see the innovation
in the pace of innovation that's happening
across legal technology, where it is very significant.
Infliction point, as firms start to adopt AI,
and really start to think about how they can augment
their firms business operations

(09:20):
and their practice of law by leveraging technology.
The objective for Elite at Iltac this year
is really to get in front of our customers.
It's meeting with the business decisions they call theirs.
It's showcasing what we're doing as a company
and the innovative technology
that we're bringing to market with them.

(09:41):
- Bo, thank you.
- Thank you, it's a pleasure.
- Tony, thank you.
- Absolutely, it's great to meet you.
You're welcome.
- Jim, thank you.
- Thank you.
- David, thank you.
- Thank you, Ari, always great to see you.
- John, thank you.
- Thank you.
- Kevin, thank you.
- Of course.
- Kyle, thank you.
- Thanks, Thomas.
- Matt, thank you.
- Thank you.
- Melissa, thank you.
- My pleasure.
- Nambi, thank you.
- Thank you very much.

(10:01):
- Ozon, thank you.
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
- Thanks, Ari, it's great to chat with you today.
(gentle music)
(gentle music)
[Music]