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One of the central themes of the recent Clio user conference held in Austin was the anticipated death of the billable hour. Jack Newton talked a lot about this in his keynote, as did other Clio executives in presentations and their talks with me.

The idea is based on one of the more startling findings announced by Clio at their 2024 annual Conference that just concluded. According to Clio’s Annual Legal Trends Report,  AI can automate up to 75% of the work for which legal professionals currently bill. That’s a startling finding and should put fear into the hearts of managing partners. This billed time percentage is significantly higher than that reported by Goldman Sachs in March of 2023. At that time, Goldman Sachs believed 44% of legal tasks could soon be automated.

Continue Reading Clio’s Legal Trends Report 2024: AI, Automation and the Death of the Billable Hour?

This week I’m attending the annual extravaganza put on by Clio, the cloud based practice management provider. ClioCon never disappoints. In addition to offering sessions devoted to its products, it also provides presentations that make you think about broader issues that impact the profession. One of these session was the Tuesday Keynote by Nita Farahany. Farahany is the author of The Battle for Your Brain: Defending The Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology.

The thrust of Farahany’s talk was that technology can detect brain activity that reveal things like your mood, what you find appealing and not, and your memories. All of these can result in the creation of data. All that data is the world of GenAI can be used for tremendous good in the treatment of things like mental illness, epilepsy, and other neurological diseases. It can be used to detect fatigue in workers or the attention of students. But unchecked, it can be used for a lot of bad as well.

Continue Reading Neurotechnology in Litigation: The End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End?

I am thrilled to post this insightful article from my good friend, Tara Cheever. Tara is a co-founder of LitSoftware. LitSoftware suite of products, including TrialPad and TranscriptPad, among others, revolutionized how litigators practice their cases. Thanks Tara!

A cultural clash has been brewing within law firms for years. On one side are midlevel associates who grew up immersed in the sleek, intuitive world of Apple products. On the other side, legacy IT teams prefer entrenched Microsoft-based infrastructure, and are often dismissive of Apple altogether. As this clash reaches a boiling point, law firms may soon face an existential choice: stick with what’s comfortable for their IT departments, or embrace the future of technology that a growing number of associates not only prefer but demand.

Continue Reading Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Apple: Is Your IT Team Holding You Back?

As many of you know, I regularly participate in Bob Ambrogi’s LegalTech Week journalist roundtable on Fridays. This past week, we actually did the roundtable live and in person at Relativity Fest. I raised two articles/developments during the roundtable. The first one had to do with the settlement by DoNotPay with the FTC, which Richard Tromans of Artificial Lawyer analyzed in a recent article. DoNotPay was fined for alleging offering legal services to consumers that they could not deliver. (Josh Browder,the owner of DoNotPay was not named as a defendant in the action).

The second was the announcement that Rocket Lawyer had been granted approval by the Arizona Supreme Court to operate as an alternative business structure. This approval paves the way for nonlawyer law firm ownership. Rocket Lawyer has previously secured similar permissions in Utah and the UK. I usually don’t post what I talk about during the roundtable since that would be a little redundant But the two articles raise some access to justice (A2J) issues that merit additional consideration and thought.

Continue Reading Access to Justice: Perfection Can’t Be the Enemy of Progress

I’m attending Relativity Fest this week in Chicago. Relativity Fest is put on by the e-discovery software provider Relativity. Relativity is one of the largest discovery software providers. Relativity Fest is its extravagant user conference. According to Relativity, there are a record 2000 attendees at this year’s show, the 15th annual one.

I attended a panel discussion early in the conference on the findings of an annual in-house counsel Survey conducted jointly by the consulting firm FTI and Relativity. On the panel were Ari Kaplan, the principal investigator for the Survey, Adam Weiss, Relativity’s Chief Legal Officer; Wendy King, Senior FTI Director; and Celia Perez, in-house counsel at FreightCar America.

This was the sixth such Survey. Kaplan talked to some 34 in-house counsel in 11 countries.

Continue Reading Relativity Fest 2024: E-Discovery Providers Like Relativity Pave The Way for Legal Embrace of GenAI

I recently chatted with Noah Waisberg, co-founder and CEO of Zuva, an M&A contract analysis firm. Noah was kind enough to give me a copy of the book he and Dr. Alexander Hudek recently authored AI For Lawyers, which is an excellent read.

In his book, Waisberg and Hudek talks about something called the Jevons Paradox. The Jevons Paradox is that generally speaking, when the price of a good or service comes down, consumption of it will typically go up. Waisberg and Hudek postulate that the same should be true for legal. As automation, AI, and Gen AI reduce the cost of legal services, there should be more cases brought. 

In my view, that means greater demand for legal services. More demand should mean more revenue and profit for the providers of legal services.

Continue Reading Unlocking Potential: Can AI and Gen AI Can Transform Insurance Defense and Carrier Relationships?

I recently attended LexSummit2024, the Filevine user conference. Filevine is a case management software provider. I also got a demo of vLex’s enhancement of its AI tool, Vincent from its Chief Strategy Officer, Ed Walters. VLex has historically been thought of as a legal research provider although now we its expansion, Walters describes vLex as a “legal intelligence company.” Lots of cool stuff, most of which is already out there in the marketplace. What struck me the most about these and other tools? Litigation is about to be completely disrupted across the board.

Continue Reading A New Day For Litigation: AI Tools Are Redefining the Future

The Filevine user conference, LEXSummit2024 kicked off recently in Salt Lake City with a keynote presentation by its CEO, Ryan Anderson. Anderson offered up his view of where the company in specific, and perhaps legal tech, in general, should be going.

Anderson called to mind Steve Jobs and the iPhone introduction in 2007 as a map for the future. Anderson played a video of Job’s introduction of the iPhone. As most of you may remember, Jobs described iPhone as a device that combined three things—the iPod, a cell phone, and an internet communicator—into one. The genius of Jobs and the iPhone, said Anderson, was not that Apple created something entirely new. The genius was seeing the synergy of having a device do three things that three different devices previously did. This combination opened up the potential for innumerable new and different things because it gave customers something they needed and wanted. Given where we are today with the iPhone, the value of that insight seems pretty clear.

Continue Reading Ryan Anderson Lays Out Future of Filevine

I recently returned from the annual Conference of the International Legal Technology Association or, as it is usually referred to, ILTA. Over 4000 registrants from 32 countries. Over 200 exhibitors. Almost 350 speakers. To say this is a really big show would be an understatement. It’s certainly one of the biggest if not the biggest legal tech conferences. I have written about some particular observations from this year here and here.

So what did I learn about legal tech and the state of the “ecosystem”? Here are my top ten things:

Continue Reading The Top Ten Things I Learned at ILTACon This Year

Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.

Robert Kennedy

The ILTA Conference I am attending this week is great for seeing where the legal tech industry is going. This is true especially for Big Law and large corporations. One trend is clear: we are witnessing the second wave of Gen AI in this legal market segment. In a word: its consolidation.

Continue Reading Gen AI’s Second Wave: The Rise of Consolidation in Legal Tech