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One of my favorite legal tech Conferences is put on by the American Association of Law Librarians, better known as AALL. I attend every year and write about what I observe. My articles on previous shows can be found here, here, here and here.

This year’s Show was July 15 through 18. Unfortunately, it was sandwiched in the middle of my lengthy travel schedule. I have had numerous ABA leadership responsibilities and spoke at an industry conference, all of which kept me on the road more than usual. I had to miss the opening Sunday night session and reception. Because of all this, I haven’t gotten around to providing my thoughts on this show. Under the maxim, better late than never, here goes.…

Continue Reading Navigating the Evolving Legal Landscape: The 2023 AALL Conference and the Brave New World

Trellis’ new state court analytics tools provide much needed insights into litigators and their law firms which will lead to better strategic decisions. But the real value of the tools may be to firm management, especially for large firms with offices in multiple locations. 

Lost in the hoopla recently from the announcements of big players in legal tech of their generative AI offerings (as impressive as they were) was an announcement by Trellis of an important new set of analytic tools. 

Trellis is a state court legal research and analytics platform. I have written before about Trellis’ laser focus on state court analytics. While other bigger players focus on federal court—where the data picking is easier—or offer state court analytics as another product line, Trellis understands the state court game better than anyone. …

Continue Reading Trellis New State Court Analytics Tools: Improved Litigation Decisions and Better Firm Management

Back in the day, there was a professional fireman named Red Adair. But Red was not just an ordinary fireman. He became famous for his knowledge and expertise in fighting oil well fires. Even more than that, he was known internationally as an innovator in a highly specialized and hazardous business: extinguishing and capping oil well blowouts. These blowouts were huge, expensive and happened both on land and offshore. These fires were challenging and required unique and far-reaching expertise.

As a lawyer, I modeled my mass tort marketing on Red’s pitch. We held ourselves out as only doing big complex cases. These cases are multi-faceted with constantly moving parts. Successfully handling them requires not only litigation savvy but media relations skills, precise risk assessment, and the ability to develop unique workflows to handle the litigation, often in multiple jurisdictions. Like Red, we touted ourselves as having abilities and the experience to handle these kinds of “fires” (and they often involved actually fires) that few others could match.…

Continue Reading Tackling Mass Tort and Complex Case Challenges with Redgrave Data’s Innovations

A few years ago, when contemplating whether to continue working full time in my law firm, perhaps as a CIO, or start my blog, I talked to Aaron Street, co-founder of The Lawyerist. Aaron told me, “There are firms that want to be innovative, and then there are firms that just want to say they are innovative.”

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Continue Reading Law Firms and Digital Strategic Planning: Talking the Talk But Not Walking the Talk?

Like many of you, I watched and listened to the Keynote that kicked off Apple’s World Wide Development Conference on June 5.

Frankly, I was blown away by the introduction of the Apple Vision Pro device. It undoubtedly has some great attributes as a consumer product (gaming, photos, movies, and sports viewing). But in the long run, it also has the potential power to disrupt the business and legal community in perhaps profound ways.

I know; I have heard all the naysayers. People won’t want it. It’s too immersive; it won’t work. It’s just an expensive gadget to supplement what other Apple products— like desktop computers, laptops, and iPads—already to some extent do. And the price ($3599) is just too damn high for a toy to watch movies on.…

Continue Reading Vision Pro May Change The Way We Work. Lawyers Too

“It’s a game changer when the game has changed.”

Richard Tromans.

There has been a lot of speculation lately about the significant impact large language models (LLM) will have on the future of law practice. The theory goes that these models will tremendously reduce the time lawyers spend on many tasks. This reduction, in turn, will force lawyers and law firms to rethink the financial business models upon which the firms have primarily been built. Law firms will be forced to change what they do, especially when clients demand it. And many pundits think this sea change will happen quickly.

Richard Tromans, a thought leader in the industry, writer of the blog artificiallawyer and the force behind the well-known and ground breaking Legal Innovators conferences, reccenlyt weighed in on these theories. 

In a recent podcast interview and an excellent subsequent article, he analyzes change in the legal industry and what has to happen for real change to occur. Tromans concludes that change in legal will not come easily. Or quickly. (Tromans is hosting the U.S. version of Legal Innovators conference in San Francisco on June 7-8, at which the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and LLMs on the legal industry will no doubt be a topic of substantial discussion.)…

Continue Reading Generative AI and Legal: Its Not a Game Changer Until the Game Has Changed

Today, Thomson Reuters joined the race to announce its entry into the Large Language Model (LLM) marketplace and what it generally plans to develop in the future. The Company also shared its vision for the future through generative artificial intelligence. Finally, the Company announced a partnership and new plugin with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft’s AI offering. Thomson Reuters states, “This integration will bolster efforts for redefined professional work starting with legal research, drafting, and client collaboration.”

The Thomson Reuters announcement comes on the heels of LexisNexis’ recent announcement of its plans in the space. Other legal vendors like Casetext, LiquidText, and others have also jumped in recently.…

Continue Reading Big Legal Tech Embraces LLMs and Generative AI: Three Big Take Aways

NOTE: Last week, I posted on the culture at Casepoint and about its legal hold product. After posting that article, I discovered there were a couple of inaccuracies that needed correcting. The inaccuracies didn’t change my fundamental conclusions about the culture at Casepoint—it’s still alive and well, just like always. I have corrected the inaccuracies in the post below.

Casepoint today announced yet another new product called ChatViewer which I think further reinforces my conclusions. According to Casepoint, ChatViewer, is product upgrade that significantly eases the review process for chat messages, including those from cell phone conversation apps and enterprise collection tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. Using ChatViewer, legal professionals can view, search, sort, and manage chat data more easily than ever — allowing them to reduce review time and discovery-related costs.

Mobile data poses lots of headaches and challenges for eDiscovery and legal professionals and is exploding in volume and complexity. Once again, Casepoint saw a pain point of its clients and came up with a tool to make their work better. I will offer more info on ChatViewer in the near future. But for now Kudos once again to Casepoint.

I recently had a chance to catch up with Matt Hamilton, Senior Director of Sales Engineering, and Amit Dungarani, VP Partnerships & Strategic Initiatives at Casepoint. Casepoint is an e-discovery cloud based provider that claims to offer data-based intelligence and full-spectrum eDiscovery. It includes cloud collection, data processing, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence tools. The platform enables review and customizable productions.…

Continue Reading Casepoint Culture Seems Alive and Well

Photo by Stone Hood on Unsplash

Every year about this time, I participate as a faculty member in a training workshop. The workshop designed to teach lawyers how to better use technology in the courtroom, in mediation, or in any setting where they seek to persuade others. We show lawyers of various levels of experience how to use tech to enhance what they are trying to communicate. We limit attendance at the workshop to about 25 people. It’s a 2 ½ day session of intensive training on technology tools. This is followed by the opportunity for each person to give a presentation to the group using the tools about which they have learned.…

Continue Reading Technology and Persuasion: It’s All About The Story

Lots of questions and unease surround the use of ChatGPT in the classroom and education. The issue may be particularly acute for law schools and professors. Law schools are charged with teaching core legal concepts that (should) equip students to practice law. 

Many law school professors reportedly question how they can do that if students can have the concepts laid out for them by ChatGPT. Even ChatGPT questions how this can be done if students can use ChatGPT on such things as exams. …

Continue Reading Should ChatGPT Be In Law School?