In this 39th episode of Charting Change in Legal, Caroline Hill, Editor and Publisher of Legal IT Insider, and I discussed Legalweek 2025, Skills.Law, generative AI use cases, and accelerating innovation in legal.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to charting change in legal our post legal week recap edition. I'm Ari
(00:10):
Kaplan and analyst that covers the legal industry and I'm here with my co-host.
Caroline Hill, hi everyone, it's great to be here. Hi Ari. Hi Carol. I should say I'm the
editor of legal IT insider. Yeah, that would be relevant, right? And off the rails in 14 seconds.
Well done. Well done for both of us. Yes, Caroline, so nice to see you. It was fantastic to see you
(00:34):
in New York, notwithstanding what a whirlwind and good weather, just great legal week. And also
there was some nostalgia among a lot of the attendees because it's the last one that will be
at that location and that's become iconic in the legal tech world. So I look forward to, you know,
(00:57):
what what comes, but I'm grateful for what we had for so many years. It's so I mean, it's so long
and actually I think we should maybe try and reach out and get people to share some memories of
those early years. It's been going such a long time, you know, so much has changed and the
conference has really outgrown the hill to and I think that's fair to say and I think people
(01:18):
have had enough of that venue. I don't think that there's any sadness that it's moving from
there, but at the same time when you think about the changes that the industry is currently going
through and how much has changed in the years since it's been at the hill, and it's quite astonishing.
Although I feel like I've just figured out all the hacks. I use the executive lounge in the lobby.
(01:39):
I stay there. I know where the run that goes through Central Park is. I know where people can walk.
I have some favorite coffee places that just when you figure it out, I actually I've
sure I've told you this, but I read a book. I listened to an audiobook years ago by a gentleman named
Jerry Wine Tribe who was a famous Hollywood producer. He did "Ocean's Eleven". All those movies did
(02:00):
the karate kid movies. He was a pretty sweet reference to "Natra" and he had this, he does this great
audiobook. It's called "When I Stop Talking" you'll know I'm dead. And it's really great. And he
talks about all of his life experiences and just guys had an extraordinary, had, he has since passed away
but he had an extraordinary life. And he talked about this concept of every five years or so. A giant
(02:23):
hand comes across and sweeps all the dishes off the table. And you just start again. And it was powerful.
The image is very powerful, especially in an audiobook. And I get the sense we we're going to do that.
And I think there's a sort of refreshing characteristic to it and it'll add parity. There won't be any
(02:48):
advantages in some ways because everybody is going to start fresh and new next year. But I look
forward to it. I wish the best of luck to my peers at LLM and they're a newly merged company to
produce the event. So we'll see what happens next year. Yeah, that's right. It came out as much as
Monday. It came out like the day right before. And we'll see. I have an
(03:10):
new sense but I have many colleagues there and have been lucky to work with them over the years.
In fact, I think that was one of the first places I'd ever gotten anything published in the late 90s.
No business for such. Yeah, no, I'll just the New York Law Journal or the National Law Journal
any of those LM. Well, tell me, what did you think of the event? Substitibly. So it was great. So we did a
(03:36):
lot of recording. Well, I did some box pop videos which were quite fun. So it was a good way to capture
the moment and talk to people about what they've released. There were obviously some new Gen AI
products. It's quite an e-discovery, heavy conference. And so a lot of the news came for me
(03:57):
discovery vendors. And so I spoke to the likes of Everlore and Epic and some of the some of the content
I still haven't produced and what's great about doing those little box pop videos is that they're
instant. I've now I'm lucky enough to now have help with production. So it was great. Just send it
over the pond and then get people to produce it and share it during the conference which I think
(04:20):
added a bit of fun as well. People like to sort of see themselves on camera. So so that was new
and that was pretty fun. How about you? And then I did my own event which will come on to you,
which was super cool. But what about you with the conference? I think people were generally excited.
And of course, there's a lot of there are sort of moments that are occurring now where the excitement,
(04:43):
enthusiasm, concern, uncertainty is sort of ebbing and flowing almost day to day. And so I think
at that moment when we were at League of Week people were excited. They felt like it seemed they
felt grateful for being able to get together there and you know I was happy to have a lot of those
(05:03):
conversations. It was great to see people I had not seen and also to just reconnect. I posted a video
there's a great Yankees video produced I think by Nike when Derek Geter, who you may recall is a
famous All Star from the New York Yankees, just a Hall of Famer I should say, who is actually the
(05:28):
keynote speaker at my son's graduation. So I'm very excited about that in addition to seeing my
son graduate. But there's a video and they gave this tribute video and the video is merely this
man and then all and he always sort of like tipped his cap and moved his cap and so he had all these
famous people tipping their cap to this All Star famous baseball player as a nod to his retirement.
(05:52):
And I felt like whenever I'd see people I was always sort of giving them the hat tip of like
great to see you even though we'll not have a conversation because we're racing past each other.
And I think there's that feeling there like and everyone seems to be focused in the same direction.
There's a lot of excitement, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of investment of time and money in moving the
profession forward and everyone's in a while you just step back and think oh, we're all kind of
(06:18):
growing in that same direction and I think we're moving something. So I'm optimistic.
Yeah, I think I heard mixed voices in terms of so there was a little more focus or there's a
more attempt at showing use cases. So on the very first day there was a session where the likes of
Hogan levels and others, clearly I think was on a couple of sessions. They were talking about
(06:43):
specific Gen.A.I. use cases. I think those sort of sessions are really key. I saw Rob Curve from
Winston on another panel I'm talking about the observations and use cases. I think that's really
important. I think there was a perception amongst some people I spoke to that there's still
(07:03):
some of this stuff is still too high level. I think that's always going to be the case with this sort of
conference. But in the session that I ran which actually was at Winston with Rob, it was behind
closed doors. I did share some agreed findings from the session but a lot of it was just Chatham House.
(07:24):
We wasn't Chatham House but you know what I mean? We agreed that we would sort of agree what was
shared to enable open conversation. And I think that was felt to be super valuable just being able to
or be on a journalist. But we have that trust right? Like so they know that things that we discuss
are going to just help my knowledge and learning and won't be shared beyond what we agree in terms
(07:48):
of specifics. But I think that's kind of really that was really helpful for me to gauge where people
are out in terms of the types of things that they're doing and the kind of conversations that they're
having. And a lot of the main thing that we fixed on was adoption. So and also a lot of
a lot of it was tech but a lot of it was culture. And some of the challenges that are still coming up
(08:13):
for them in terms of things like is the tech up to scratch? That was something that was raised
and Rob Kerr said he thinks actually it is up to scratch perhaps we're just it's interesting that he's
creating what you might think of as a playground you know for people to use agreed Gen A idols
(08:34):
and find different use cases and that's something else that the Conan Hines from Fried Frank picked
up on. He liked this sort of concept of this this sort of playground type theme coming up where
people are the use cases that people are coming up with are sometimes the most unexpected
so I think that was kind of that was kind of fascinating but then you you've got the
(08:56):
perennial challenges around billable hour which I know that you've spent a lot of time talking about
and whether that's going to change I had Mike Haven from Metta who was if you read a wrote a piece
about this and he he says that he was really you know happy to see the level of enthusiasm and
(09:18):
an engagement across the firms that are clearly sort of really trying to build this into their practices
and he you know it's interesting it'll be interesting from a client perspective as to
you know what this will mean in terms of AFA's etc but yeah it was fascinating for me that was
(09:39):
I would say this because it's my thing that was one of my favorite parts of the conference
and I know you didn't turn as well well somebody approached me I had wonderfully I thought in
insightful conversations and a group of lawyers approached me and we're struggling with some of
the challenges associated with the array of tools that are now available to them and they said
(09:59):
couldn't you just tell us what tool to buy and I said you've completely missed the question
and you know what is the problem you're trying to solve and one of the emerging trends has been
interestingly that as people ask that question they realize it's something else some other
(10:19):
piece of technology automation for example as opposed to generative AI and there were conversations
about that or to harness your knowledge in some more effective unique holistic way I was very lucky
to collaborate on a dinner with the team of clear people and we hosted a really a who's who of
(10:43):
knowledge management and innovation leaders in the room and they were very generous and
sort of sharing their perspectives on what this landscape looks like and it you always see them
they're the celebrities now of legal because they're they've been doing this for so long that they
know all the nuances all the foundational activities that need to happen before anything of even
(11:07):
remotely resembling success is going to take place and you want to listen to those people and
if I can get in a room like as as you were and have a conversation I feel very lucky I even was
of the co-facilitator of a discussion at the invitation only skills event I was a co-facilitator
(11:28):
with O's bin Amram on the what's hot and they've done some interesting research that I'll be publishing
about on you know where people are using tools what what their use cases are how they feel about it
so you know directly from the people who are buying deploying and trying to implement some of these
(11:49):
activities so you you couldn't have had a more substantive practical set of discussions then at
legal week this year that was my sense that's awesome that's awesome yeah the O's session is always great
I actually went to the afternoon session with Christian Lang because so it's a slightly different
so O's bin Amram obviously host skills and directed at the KM community so then in the afternoon
(12:15):
Christian Lang hosted with those in the same venue I think creator codden which is based on his
platform lega AI which is a gen AI platform where you can start to experiment with all different models
I actually I stayed a couple of hours and then I had to go to the airport but so it was enough time to
(12:35):
sort of you know be part of the whole the pink t-shirt brigade first start he had everyone wearing colored
color coordinated t-shirts but like using teaching people how to create prompts and then giving them
specific tasks like so so you had like different tasks and different legal tasks that you had to
completely and then you could use different models and it was it was very cool it's very practical
(12:57):
which I think is exactly what people what people need yeah I know you know there's been this this
interesting challenge and evolution of the perception because there were several people in my
conversations who highlighted that initially the clients might have said you know we don't want
(13:21):
you using this we don't want you using our data to train and they said well if we can't if we
you don't want us to use this when when should we use it and how then how will you get the benefit
of us using it if you're telling us that we can't use it and then when those conversations are
happening they thought wait I wasn't sure we were telling you you couldn't totally use it just
partially use it so there's this sort of schizophrenic policymaking that has taken place and that's
(13:47):
starting to harmonize the clients and the on the law firms are starting to come to a place where
they can understand how they would want to use it where it would best benefit them and the other
party could learn well okay this is the kind of stuff we would be okay with you using this and
and that will probably accelerate this process once people have a better understanding of the
(14:07):
security some of the operational aspects of it and who's okay with what use case seems like we will
go quickly will sort of have open road in some respect and be able to you know press the gas pedal
a little bit that's my sense so that we'll be able to gauge this maybe not as soon as clock because
that's in a month but probably within a few months at Ulticon we will probably have a different
(14:31):
perspective I'm actually also lucky to be attending Evolve for a day to moderate the discussion they're
having about use cases of generative AI in law firms so it'll be it'll be a good opportunity to
just benchmark a little bit about was there progress or maybe there will be some different
perspectives that can share the evolution of this very rapidly moving issue I think it's still
(14:56):
a bit schizophrenic on the client side it reminds me of uses analogy a couple of times it it reminds
me of the early to then not so early days of cloud you know where people clients would be saying we don't
want each use a cloud but they'd be using cloud themselves right do you remember those days and
like but there was like I'm still even fairly long into the process there were contradictions and
(15:20):
they're still from speaking to law from contradictions you know in terms of what clients are asking
and expecting and there's sometimes the funniest one is we want you to be using it but just not with
our data right we want you to be learning and we want you to be experimenting but just not
anything to do with us which is really quite funny and obviously you can you know you can find
(15:41):
ways to do that of course right like just you can create for the stuff that Christians doing with
Lecker is is a perfect example of you know how you can sort of start to experiment and use
Gen AI and and I've mentioned Sean Coronet Jailo he's obviously doing something similar in the UK
but his clients are global you know you can you can start to experiment but but they're I for me
(16:04):
it's interesting there's going to be for a period of time longer quite a lot of contradictions I think
in terms of and it probably depends on the sophistication or even just the you know individuality
you know each individual client there'll be something different well you know you highlight a very
interesting point that when the cloud was emerging companies were using this long before they were
(16:28):
giving permission and often these tools require tremendous infrastructure investment those investments
are controlled at the enterprise level by IT or you know some other group and so the I think the
same was true lots of these giant enterprises have been deploying a generative AI application and
really investing heavily in it for some time and sort of trickling it down to the different groups
(16:51):
including legal and so there's a little bit of a disconnect in terms of the company you know
in all my GC research for years I've been asking now general counsel about the investment in
generative AI and it's been an interesting split just because they recognize that their company
at a global level has been making investments in this since it made sense to do so but at legal
(17:15):
not quite yet my I do think that that's that's shifting quickly just because there's a the question
will be and you raised the bill blower for a second but the question will be what are the benefits
and and how do we value the work and I think that is an open question that will remain challenging
(17:35):
because it goes to the fundamental core of the business model in legal and that itself will take
a lot more time and it won't just be resolved in a few months but it's it's starting to happen and I
feel optimistic we'll see how things move. It's funny because at my event we had um is he is it
or occur from um stepton Johnson the CIO and he said he was interested there's a difference in
(18:03):
the excuse me in the UK and the US you know in terms of me moving away from the bill blower slightly
probably like but he said he was interested in um the level already of the conversations around
moving away from traditional billing models you know like amongst amongst people's that
that it's already very much happening it's in the UK I'd say there's a big chunk of law firm
(18:30):
working for certain firms that is very much not done on the bill of allow already right like there's
already been a move away from the bill of allow for a lot of I remember doing a panel years ago
with Alex Hamilton from Radiant Law and I always refer to Radiant Law because they were set up on
the basis of valley base billing absolutely Alex is starring the space for sure yeah so I always
(18:50):
refer and he and I years ago did a panel um and we were we were going oh you know bill of allow one
day it's going to die and people are valley base willing and then a whole bunch of people in the
audience who were from the real estate sector came to us and they were like we've not we've not used
the bill of allow for years you know I think they were like you know hoping for a little bit more nuanced
(19:11):
conversation to be frank they didn't say that but that's kind of the I felt that um so I think you
know it's it's interesting it's important not to to be sort of accurate perhaps in in our understanding
of of how far we've come and perhaps the geographical differences as well like but um yeah I think
I think that there's that sense very much that um that in order to get the to treat this is exciting
(19:39):
and to get the full potential that if you're competing against yourself almost by having a bill of
allow or then that is going to be something that's going to make life a lot more difficult so
wherever possible maybe there'll be some parts high valley stuff will always be done by the bill
by the hour but whether sort of like tranches or repeat work or whatever if there's a way of doing a
(20:02):
fixed fee you know that and when technology can really start to create and drive efficiencies I
think that's where you know firms are going to start going oh hey that's a bit of a no-brainer
there are a couple of I feel like there are a couple of headwinds here one of which was was
highlighted at my dinner which was that law firm leaders are under pressure from so many different
directions that how they invest and focus on innovation initiatives in an environment where so many
(20:33):
issues are consuming their time is an open question and I think it's a fair one I do also get the
sense that the young the oldest millennials are now becoming partner the some of the even older
the oldest millennials are emerging toward equity if that's if that's an option at their organizations
(20:54):
and once this starts to happen I was at a law school last week speaking delivering a presentation
called a legal profession at the Crossroads like at a Crossroads just trying to give them a sense
both the students and faculty just a sense of where we've been where we are where we're headed
it as a profession based on lots of research that I've been lucky to do recently and
(21:16):
I asked the audience if anybody had a two-else summer position at a firm and someone
to several people raised their hand and I just pointed to someone and I said were you part of the
group who was responsible for evaluating the new generative AI thing whatever that thing is I
didn't mention any brand names or anything and he's like how did you know that's amazing yeah I was
(21:40):
involved in the pilot and I was like I know they're giving this responsibility to the newest people
because they're being raised with this technology so foundationally that will be just sort of the
fabric of their practice experience and so I feel like there's this convergence happening so from
from the beginning the newest the summers even are tasked with telling them you know how do you like
(22:04):
working with this they'll they'll need that dough through that year and then when they come back
they'll be this fully formulated and then you'll have this these other people as a bookend
who are still fairly young and still fairly part of this this community of people that have grown up
technologically centric but older and having had their foot in both worlds and so once that happens
(22:27):
I just feel like that convergence will drive a change in the in the value proposition but
still going to take a little while so so just really quickly on that so that's fascinating because
again Rob Kerr at Winston he did a panel and he was talking about and actually he said this in the
in my session as well that that deep so so people are bringing in brand new fresh phases because
(22:54):
they want creative blue sky thinking so so so Rob Winston is hiring adoption specialists that
aren't necessarily from the legal sector and if you look in the press so deep seek have said quite
famously now that they are hiring people who are brand new developers because they want that
complete blue sky thinking you know this is an age where I feel like the rules are changing you we
(23:17):
talk about you need to find a problem and then you need to find a solution to it I feel like
obviously that is still the case but there is an element of this all being put in the washing
machine and and the people just going we're just going to have to see what happens we're going to
have to try new things you know I feel like that there's a there's a sense of you can do it that
the way but you also have to do some things a brand new way well as we close someone mentioned to
(23:40):
me during legal week that the job of it has historically been to make sure that the trains keep
running that we never go off track and the job of the innovators at the firm is to build a
completely new train and you know there you know there was all this discussion there were several
themes there they were sort of you know the job of certain leaders at the firms to make sure
(24:05):
nothing breaks and the job of the innovators is to break them and so that's sort of where we are
and yet we're all moving in that same direction but maybe on parallel paths or maybe they're sort
of like a sandbox lane and you know we'll see where it goes but it was wonderful to see you it was
wonderful to be there I was so grateful to all the people I look forward to your videos and my mix
(24:28):
tapes once I I don't have the luxury of as much support but I will get it done and I'm looking for
to sharing it and I'm excited for our next conversation Carol Hill always a privilege.
I'll recap and thank you so much. Thank you all for listening to this week's edition of charting
change in legal. Bye everyone.
Welcome to charting change in legal our post legal week recap edition. I'm Ari
(00:10):
Kaplan and analyst that covers the legal industry and I'm here with my co-host.
Caroline Hill, hi everyone, it's great to be here. Hi Ari. Hi Carol. I should say I'm the
editor of legal IT insider. Yeah, that would be relevant, right? And off the rails in 14 seconds.
Well done. Well done for both of us. Yes, Caroline, so nice to see you. It was fantastic to see you
(00:34):
in New York, notwithstanding what a whirlwind and good weather, just great legal week. And also
there was some nostalgia among a lot of the attendees because it's the last one that will be
at that location and that's become iconic in the legal tech world. So I look forward to, you know,
(00:57):
what what comes, but I'm grateful for what we had for so many years. It's so I mean, it's so long
and actually I think we should maybe try and reach out and get people to share some memories of
those early years. It's been going such a long time, you know, so much has changed and the
conference has really outgrown the hill to and I think that's fair to say and I think people
(01:18):
have had enough of that venue. I don't think that there's any sadness that it's moving from
there, but at the same time when you think about the changes that the industry is currently going
through and how much has changed in the years since it's been at the hill, and it's quite astonishing.
Although I feel like I've just figured out all the hacks. I use the executive lounge in the lobby.
(01:39):
I stay there. I know where the run that goes through Central Park is. I know where people can walk.
I have some favorite coffee places that just when you figure it out, I actually I've
sure I've told you this, but I read a book. I listened to an audiobook years ago by a gentleman named
Jerry Wine Tribe who was a famous Hollywood producer. He did "Ocean's Eleven". All those movies did
(02:00):
the karate kid movies. He was a pretty sweet reference to "Natra" and he had this, he does this great
audiobook. It's called "When I Stop Talking" you'll know I'm dead. And it's really great. And he
talks about all of his life experiences and just guys had an extraordinary, had, he has since passed away
but he had an extraordinary life. And he talked about this concept of every five years or so. A giant
(02:23):
hand comes across and sweeps all the dishes off the table. And you just start again. And it was powerful.
The image is very powerful, especially in an audiobook. And I get the sense we we're going to do that.
And I think there's a sort of refreshing characteristic to it and it'll add parity. There won't be any
(02:48):
advantages in some ways because everybody is going to start fresh and new next year. But I look
forward to it. I wish the best of luck to my peers at LLM and they're a newly merged company to
produce the event. So we'll see what happens next year. Yeah, that's right. It came out as much as
Monday. It came out like the day right before. And we'll see. I have an
(03:10):
new sense but I have many colleagues there and have been lucky to work with them over the years.
In fact, I think that was one of the first places I'd ever gotten anything published in the late 90s.
No business for such. Yeah, no, I'll just the New York Law Journal or the National Law Journal
any of those LM. Well, tell me, what did you think of the event? Substitibly. So it was great. So we did a
(03:36):
lot of recording. Well, I did some box pop videos which were quite fun. So it was a good way to capture
the moment and talk to people about what they've released. There were obviously some new Gen AI
products. It's quite an e-discovery, heavy conference. And so a lot of the news came for me
(03:57):
discovery vendors. And so I spoke to the likes of Everlore and Epic and some of the some of the content
I still haven't produced and what's great about doing those little box pop videos is that they're
instant. I've now I'm lucky enough to now have help with production. So it was great. Just send it
over the pond and then get people to produce it and share it during the conference which I think
(04:20):
added a bit of fun as well. People like to sort of see themselves on camera. So so that was new
and that was pretty fun. How about you? And then I did my own event which will come on to you,
which was super cool. But what about you with the conference? I think people were generally excited.
And of course, there's a lot of there are sort of moments that are occurring now where the excitement,
(04:43):
enthusiasm, concern, uncertainty is sort of ebbing and flowing almost day to day. And so I think
at that moment when we were at League of Week people were excited. They felt like it seemed they
felt grateful for being able to get together there and you know I was happy to have a lot of those
(05:03):
conversations. It was great to see people I had not seen and also to just reconnect. I posted a video
there's a great Yankees video produced I think by Nike when Derek Geter, who you may recall is a
famous All Star from the New York Yankees, just a Hall of Famer I should say, who is actually the
(05:28):
keynote speaker at my son's graduation. So I'm very excited about that in addition to seeing my
son graduate. But there's a video and they gave this tribute video and the video is merely this
man and then all and he always sort of like tipped his cap and moved his cap and so he had all these
famous people tipping their cap to this All Star famous baseball player as a nod to his retirement.
(05:52):
And I felt like whenever I'd see people I was always sort of giving them the hat tip of like
great to see you even though we'll not have a conversation because we're racing past each other.
And I think there's that feeling there like and everyone seems to be focused in the same direction.
There's a lot of excitement, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of investment of time and money in moving the
profession forward and everyone's in a while you just step back and think oh, we're all kind of
(06:18):
growing in that same direction and I think we're moving something. So I'm optimistic.
Yeah, I think I heard mixed voices in terms of so there was a little more focus or there's a
more attempt at showing use cases. So on the very first day there was a session where the likes of
Hogan levels and others, clearly I think was on a couple of sessions. They were talking about
(06:43):
specific Gen.A.I. use cases. I think those sort of sessions are really key. I saw Rob Curve from
Winston on another panel I'm talking about the observations and use cases. I think that's really
important. I think there was a perception amongst some people I spoke to that there's still
(07:03):
some of this stuff is still too high level. I think that's always going to be the case with this sort of
conference. But in the session that I ran which actually was at Winston with Rob, it was behind
closed doors. I did share some agreed findings from the session but a lot of it was just Chatham House.
(07:24):
We wasn't Chatham House but you know what I mean? We agreed that we would sort of agree what was
shared to enable open conversation. And I think that was felt to be super valuable just being able to
or be on a journalist. But we have that trust right? Like so they know that things that we discuss
are going to just help my knowledge and learning and won't be shared beyond what we agree in terms
(07:48):
of specifics. But I think that's kind of really that was really helpful for me to gauge where people
are out in terms of the types of things that they're doing and the kind of conversations that they're
having. And a lot of the main thing that we fixed on was adoption. So and also a lot of
a lot of it was tech but a lot of it was culture. And some of the challenges that are still coming up
(08:13):
for them in terms of things like is the tech up to scratch? That was something that was raised
and Rob Kerr said he thinks actually it is up to scratch perhaps we're just it's interesting that he's
creating what you might think of as a playground you know for people to use agreed Gen A idols
(08:34):
and find different use cases and that's something else that the Conan Hines from Fried Frank picked
up on. He liked this sort of concept of this this sort of playground type theme coming up where
people are the use cases that people are coming up with are sometimes the most unexpected
so I think that was kind of that was kind of fascinating but then you you've got the
(08:56):
perennial challenges around billable hour which I know that you've spent a lot of time talking about
and whether that's going to change I had Mike Haven from Metta who was if you read a wrote a piece
about this and he he says that he was really you know happy to see the level of enthusiasm and
(09:18):
an engagement across the firms that are clearly sort of really trying to build this into their practices
and he you know it's interesting it'll be interesting from a client perspective as to
you know what this will mean in terms of AFA's etc but yeah it was fascinating for me that was
(09:39):
I would say this because it's my thing that was one of my favorite parts of the conference
and I know you didn't turn as well well somebody approached me I had wonderfully I thought in
insightful conversations and a group of lawyers approached me and we're struggling with some of
the challenges associated with the array of tools that are now available to them and they said
(09:59):
couldn't you just tell us what tool to buy and I said you've completely missed the question
and you know what is the problem you're trying to solve and one of the emerging trends has been
interestingly that as people ask that question they realize it's something else some other
(10:19):
piece of technology automation for example as opposed to generative AI and there were conversations
about that or to harness your knowledge in some more effective unique holistic way I was very lucky
to collaborate on a dinner with the team of clear people and we hosted a really a who's who of
(10:43):
knowledge management and innovation leaders in the room and they were very generous and
sort of sharing their perspectives on what this landscape looks like and it you always see them
they're the celebrities now of legal because they're they've been doing this for so long that they
know all the nuances all the foundational activities that need to happen before anything of even
(11:07):
remotely resembling success is going to take place and you want to listen to those people and
if I can get in a room like as as you were and have a conversation I feel very lucky I even was
of the co-facilitator of a discussion at the invitation only skills event I was a co-facilitator
(11:28):
with O's bin Amram on the what's hot and they've done some interesting research that I'll be publishing
about on you know where people are using tools what what their use cases are how they feel about it
so you know directly from the people who are buying deploying and trying to implement some of these
(11:49):
activities so you you couldn't have had a more substantive practical set of discussions then at
legal week this year that was my sense that's awesome that's awesome yeah the O's session is always great
I actually went to the afternoon session with Christian Lang because so it's a slightly different
so O's bin Amram obviously host skills and directed at the KM community so then in the afternoon
(12:15):
Christian Lang hosted with those in the same venue I think creator codden which is based on his
platform lega AI which is a gen AI platform where you can start to experiment with all different models
I actually I stayed a couple of hours and then I had to go to the airport but so it was enough time to
(12:35):
sort of you know be part of the whole the pink t-shirt brigade first start he had everyone wearing colored
color coordinated t-shirts but like using teaching people how to create prompts and then giving them
specific tasks like so so you had like different tasks and different legal tasks that you had to
completely and then you could use different models and it was it was very cool it's very practical
(12:57):
which I think is exactly what people what people need yeah I know you know there's been this this
interesting challenge and evolution of the perception because there were several people in my
conversations who highlighted that initially the clients might have said you know we don't want
(13:21):
you using this we don't want you using our data to train and they said well if we can't if we
you don't want us to use this when when should we use it and how then how will you get the benefit
of us using it if you're telling us that we can't use it and then when those conversations are
happening they thought wait I wasn't sure we were telling you you couldn't totally use it just
partially use it so there's this sort of schizophrenic policymaking that has taken place and that's
(13:47):
starting to harmonize the clients and the on the law firms are starting to come to a place where
they can understand how they would want to use it where it would best benefit them and the other
party could learn well okay this is the kind of stuff we would be okay with you using this and
and that will probably accelerate this process once people have a better understanding of the
(14:07):
security some of the operational aspects of it and who's okay with what use case seems like we will
go quickly will sort of have open road in some respect and be able to you know press the gas pedal
a little bit that's my sense so that we'll be able to gauge this maybe not as soon as clock because
that's in a month but probably within a few months at Ulticon we will probably have a different
(14:31):
perspective I'm actually also lucky to be attending Evolve for a day to moderate the discussion they're
having about use cases of generative AI in law firms so it'll be it'll be a good opportunity to
just benchmark a little bit about was there progress or maybe there will be some different
perspectives that can share the evolution of this very rapidly moving issue I think it's still
(14:56):
a bit schizophrenic on the client side it reminds me of uses analogy a couple of times it it reminds
me of the early to then not so early days of cloud you know where people clients would be saying we don't
want each use a cloud but they'd be using cloud themselves right do you remember those days and
like but there was like I'm still even fairly long into the process there were contradictions and
(15:20):
they're still from speaking to law from contradictions you know in terms of what clients are asking
and expecting and there's sometimes the funniest one is we want you to be using it but just not with
our data right we want you to be learning and we want you to be experimenting but just not
anything to do with us which is really quite funny and obviously you can you know you can find
(15:41):
ways to do that of course right like just you can create for the stuff that Christians doing with
Lecker is is a perfect example of you know how you can sort of start to experiment and use
Gen AI and and I've mentioned Sean Coronet Jailo he's obviously doing something similar in the UK
but his clients are global you know you can you can start to experiment but but they're I for me
(16:04):
it's interesting there's going to be for a period of time longer quite a lot of contradictions I think
in terms of and it probably depends on the sophistication or even just the you know individuality
you know each individual client there'll be something different well you know you highlight a very
interesting point that when the cloud was emerging companies were using this long before they were
(16:28):
giving permission and often these tools require tremendous infrastructure investment those investments
are controlled at the enterprise level by IT or you know some other group and so the I think the
same was true lots of these giant enterprises have been deploying a generative AI application and
really investing heavily in it for some time and sort of trickling it down to the different groups
(16:51):
including legal and so there's a little bit of a disconnect in terms of the company you know
in all my GC research for years I've been asking now general counsel about the investment in
generative AI and it's been an interesting split just because they recognize that their company
at a global level has been making investments in this since it made sense to do so but at legal
(17:15):
not quite yet my I do think that that's that's shifting quickly just because there's a the question
will be and you raised the bill blower for a second but the question will be what are the benefits
and and how do we value the work and I think that is an open question that will remain challenging
(17:35):
because it goes to the fundamental core of the business model in legal and that itself will take
a lot more time and it won't just be resolved in a few months but it's it's starting to happen and I
feel optimistic we'll see how things move. It's funny because at my event we had um is he is it
or occur from um stepton Johnson the CIO and he said he was interested there's a difference in
(18:03):
the excuse me in the UK and the US you know in terms of me moving away from the bill blower slightly
probably like but he said he was interested in um the level already of the conversations around
moving away from traditional billing models you know like amongst amongst people's that
that it's already very much happening it's in the UK I'd say there's a big chunk of law firm
(18:30):
working for certain firms that is very much not done on the bill of allow already right like there's
already been a move away from the bill of allow for a lot of I remember doing a panel years ago
with Alex Hamilton from Radiant Law and I always refer to Radiant Law because they were set up on
the basis of valley base billing absolutely Alex is starring the space for sure yeah so I always
(18:50):
refer and he and I years ago did a panel um and we were we were going oh you know bill of allow one
day it's going to die and people are valley base willing and then a whole bunch of people in the
audience who were from the real estate sector came to us and they were like we've not we've not used
the bill of allow for years you know I think they were like you know hoping for a little bit more nuanced
(19:11):
conversation to be frank they didn't say that but that's kind of the I felt that um so I think you
know it's it's interesting it's important not to to be sort of accurate perhaps in in our understanding
of of how far we've come and perhaps the geographical differences as well like but um yeah I think
I think that there's that sense very much that um that in order to get the to treat this is exciting
(19:39):
and to get the full potential that if you're competing against yourself almost by having a bill of
allow or then that is going to be something that's going to make life a lot more difficult so
wherever possible maybe there'll be some parts high valley stuff will always be done by the bill
by the hour but whether sort of like tranches or repeat work or whatever if there's a way of doing a
(20:02):
fixed fee you know that and when technology can really start to create and drive efficiencies I
think that's where you know firms are going to start going oh hey that's a bit of a no-brainer
there are a couple of I feel like there are a couple of headwinds here one of which was was
highlighted at my dinner which was that law firm leaders are under pressure from so many different
directions that how they invest and focus on innovation initiatives in an environment where so many
(20:33):
issues are consuming their time is an open question and I think it's a fair one I do also get the
sense that the young the oldest millennials are now becoming partner the some of the even older
the oldest millennials are emerging toward equity if that's if that's an option at their organizations
(20:54):
and once this starts to happen I was at a law school last week speaking delivering a presentation
called a legal profession at the Crossroads like at a Crossroads just trying to give them a sense
both the students and faculty just a sense of where we've been where we are where we're headed
it as a profession based on lots of research that I've been lucky to do recently and
(21:16):
I asked the audience if anybody had a two-else summer position at a firm and someone
to several people raised their hand and I just pointed to someone and I said were you part of the
group who was responsible for evaluating the new generative AI thing whatever that thing is I
didn't mention any brand names or anything and he's like how did you know that's amazing yeah I was
(21:40):
involved in the pilot and I was like I know they're giving this responsibility to the newest people
because they're being raised with this technology so foundationally that will be just sort of the
fabric of their practice experience and so I feel like there's this convergence happening so from
from the beginning the newest the summers even are tasked with telling them you know how do you like
(22:04):
working with this they'll they'll need that dough through that year and then when they come back
they'll be this fully formulated and then you'll have this these other people as a bookend
who are still fairly young and still fairly part of this this community of people that have grown up
technologically centric but older and having had their foot in both worlds and so once that happens
(22:27):
I just feel like that convergence will drive a change in the in the value proposition but
still going to take a little while so so just really quickly on that so that's fascinating because
again Rob Kerr at Winston he did a panel and he was talking about and actually he said this in the
in my session as well that that deep so so people are bringing in brand new fresh phases because
(22:54):
they want creative blue sky thinking so so so Rob Winston is hiring adoption specialists that
aren't necessarily from the legal sector and if you look in the press so deep seek have said quite
famously now that they are hiring people who are brand new developers because they want that
complete blue sky thinking you know this is an age where I feel like the rules are changing you we
(23:17):
talk about you need to find a problem and then you need to find a solution to it I feel like
obviously that is still the case but there is an element of this all being put in the washing
machine and and the people just going we're just going to have to see what happens we're going to
have to try new things you know I feel like that there's a there's a sense of you can do it that
the way but you also have to do some things a brand new way well as we close someone mentioned to
(23:40):
me during legal week that the job of it has historically been to make sure that the trains keep
running that we never go off track and the job of the innovators at the firm is to build a
completely new train and you know there you know there was all this discussion there were several
themes there they were sort of you know the job of certain leaders at the firms to make sure
(24:05):
nothing breaks and the job of the innovators is to break them and so that's sort of where we are
and yet we're all moving in that same direction but maybe on parallel paths or maybe they're sort
of like a sandbox lane and you know we'll see where it goes but it was wonderful to see you it was
wonderful to be there I was so grateful to all the people I look forward to your videos and my mix
(24:28):
tapes once I I don't have the luxury of as much support but I will get it done and I'm looking for
to sharing it and I'm excited for our next conversation Carol Hill always a privilege.
I'll recap and thank you so much. Thank you all for listening to this week's edition of charting
change in legal. Bye everyone.
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