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Welcome to charting change in legal.
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I'm Ari Kaplan, I'm an analyst that covers the legal industry and I'm here with my co-host.
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Caroline Hill, hi everyone!
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Caroline?
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Hello!
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Caroline?
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Yes, tell us who you are, forgive me.
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I'm the editor of legal anti-Insider.
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Well, I really like your hat.
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Thank you so much!
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It's great to talk to you.
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Very cold in New York, not as cold in the UK, but in Nieland and bringing some bright vibes with this bright pink hat.
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I know it's absolutely freezing where you are.
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Yes, and it's Groundhog Day.
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Apparently, some Groundhog somewhere saw that it's going to be six more weeks of winter, but apparently he's an unreliable Groundhog.
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We'll see how it goes.
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I think it warms up for you a little bit, it's like minus the Brazilian.
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Certainly, I have to say, on this Groundhog Day, we're not experiencing Groundhog Day in legal.
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There's not like a repeat of things, although in some respect, you're seeing a lot of similar conversations already start to the year, just in terms of technology or how people are right sizing their teams or ways that they are engaging new roles to support some activities.
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As always, I find it exciting. It's also a month or so before legal week, which is...
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Yeah, I've got my flight.
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I've got a way.
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There you go, and it's also at a new venue this year.
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So everyone is essentially going to legal week for the first time, which gives kind of a disadvantage to those of us who've been going for two decades or something.
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Although I think we needed something fresh.
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I think it's going to be something nice, but everybody to have a new venue at legal week and somewhere hopefully a bit more space, a bit more meeting space for those people who've been going for years.
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Legal week would be the first to say that they sort of outgrow that venue.
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So I think the exhibition hall is all on one floor, which is going to be awesome, because for people familiar with the conference in the Hilton, it's been divided by three floors.
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So people like me, with the really terrible sense of direction, are challenged right from the outset as to how to find people, particularly if you're having meetings.
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And you would always be running from place to place and up and down in the escalation.
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You'd see someone in the escalator, and so I agree.
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I think that they'll... I'm sure they'll do a great job, and I'm sure it's going to be a really fun event, but the idea of everyone starting at the same point is going to be fun.
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We'll all kind of be experiencing it for the first time together, which I look forward to also... I will miss running in Central Park, but to be honest, even as a New Yorker, I used to get lost.
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And I'm imagining that running along the West Side Highway will be much easier just out and back, so it'll be fun.
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It would be nice to see a new area, Hudson Yards.
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It's a beautiful part of the city.
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Yeah. Just wonderfully well-developed, and there are lots of restaurants and places, I think, for people to meet.
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And it's also fairly well-situated to mass transit.
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I think it'll be good. I think people will be excited.
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It's going to be fun. But going to your point about, is it moving faster? They knew, are they the same?
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I feel like the start of this year has been fascinating. There's been some really cool, really fast-moving, new stuff already, I think.
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Not brand new this year, but themes from last year, where it's moving faster.
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So I'll give you an example.
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I was just talking to Helter Santos, who is one of the very... it's Missinia heads of IT at Bird and Bird in the UK.
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And he was talking about vibe coding and how the firm is on my inside view podcast, which will come out shortly.
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But he was talking about vibe coding and handing over to... obviously there's governance around it and there's a process and all...
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There's approval and all this kind of stuff. But enabling fear in us particularly, who have had all this knowledge in their heads,
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we've usually had to potentially connect with a translator back in the day. We'd be like, "How on earth do you connect IT in the knowledge source?"
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But actually this takes that away, right? But then with that, and it's really cool.
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So they're using Betty Blox, their platform. They were one of the earliest look-or-er users and they're now expanding out the platform, what that looks like, and how to give real creative license to their fear
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and use that all of that knowledge in their head was creating this governance platform. And Helter was the first to say, "Actually, this is moving really quick."
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And he wasn't pretending to have all the answers, he's saying, "You know, you've just got to go with it because actually the clients are expecting you to move fast."
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Fien is going back to this conversation we've had a million times about, if you don't facilitate whatever the new thing is, then there's a risk, obviously, that they'll go and do it themselves somewhere else.
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But that's kind of cool. This is something brand new, I think. This idea of, we used to call it Shadow IT, really, probably, didn't we?
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But now it's creating rules around, it's not Shadow IT. But you know what I mean? This is a fun new thing. There are other areas we may come onto where I feel like this is just the same conversation, again and again.
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But this, I feel, like, is quite exciting. It's quite new.
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When I was practicing, I was lucky to work at a firm that gave you billable credit for business development activities. So if you went to a conference or if you were an article, you could build that time and actually it would be credited towards your bonus.
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And it was fairly unusual. Firms did that, but not a lot of them. And I felt lucky that I worked at a firm like that.
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And it will be very interesting to see what kind of credit you'll receive for these kinds of activities, because they will certainly elevate your practice.
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And the clients are expecting new ways of approaching legal work. And if a firm, and, you know, held as obviously a globally recognized leader and a visionary in terms of how you can transform legal practice.
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So it's not surprising to me that he's at the forefront of this, but it'll be interesting. I know that some firms offer some type of billable credit for innovation activities generally, but it would be interesting to see if you start developing things that empower team or enhance the client relationship.
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Is there something more that you would receive because time is really the issue, dedicating the time is an important element here.
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I wish we'd had this conversation before I spoke to him because I did not ask that.
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And then I'm like, I wish I had asked that. Yeah, it's a super good point.
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Yeah, I think that, I mean, this is my first, I know, five coding has been as a concept, just been around since the spring, I think it was of 25, but so it's actually really new.
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And this was my first law firm conversation about vibe, Cody. I don't know whether it's something that's come up for you, but it's really cool to speak to somebody who's doing it in practice.
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You know, my, my kind of focus, I should have asked that, and I will come back when we next week, because we're going to catch up again.
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But my focus was more on, you know, how, like basically how they're doing it, what, what, what kind of output there's already been.
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And a little bit about that whole new risk appetite that firms are having to get comfortable with and how you still put the governance in place, right?
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So you risk the blind teams are having to move with the times, right? And that doesn't mean to say I'm not suggesting for a second that they're throwing out their guard around.
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But it's like how do they manage all these new moving parts, right? And, and, and, and not just from a compliance perspective, but like, you know, you don't want to end up with a million different tools that actually the person who created it moves off and then, you know, we've had years of bivers is build and sometimes we build, you know, it becomes unruly and not maintained and actually.
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Well, there's so many interesting facets to it that that was kind of the real that I took well.
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Vibe coding actually came up at my legal technopheobreckfast in January and this bivers is build conversation also was part of it and the conversation.
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So, I'm focused on building up to a point so vibe coding to the point of developing a prototype and then sending it to more of an expert, the expert team at the organization or an external support system, but clearly that's important.
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I really, I still think that we have to somehow find a way to incentivize dedicating the time like self teaching in the same way that, you know, if you have a leaky pipe or you have a light that's out, you immediately go on to YouTube find that I have a leaky pipe and it sounds like this and it's dripping every other set.
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And then there's an oh, so it's a video on that so I was like, oh, use this special tape or tighten it with this particular tool and I think that the same is true if we could somehow figure out how to, you know, have a repository of these, you know, sort of lessons and then figure out, well, why don't you just try or I guess people are using their generative a I tool for that.
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Yeah, and I think they are doing that. I think there's an element of building a community around it. I think that's super important. And in order to share knowledge and also prevent too much overlap, you know, like, but yeah, I think you're right.
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Yeah, I think there's an excitement still around this, the fact that you just can do it and that perhaps, you know, the interesting thing I suppose literally just talking off the top of my head, like, I suppose at one point people would create a startup, right?
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Like we've seen the genesis of a million different startups from exactly this sort of thing. I've got something in my day to day life, which I can't solve for with existing technology.
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That's how half the startups that we know in legal tech have evolved. So what's quite interesting I suppose is that they're keeping people in house, but you're right. Then it comes to, what does that look like? How do you reward them? Because actually why not just go off and do your own thing?
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Well, also more there are more and more examples of law firms that have spun out technology that was built internally to solve a very specific problem. And so organizations, I'm confident are thinking about that as well. Maybe there is a real opportunity here, especially given the interest in legal tech.
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I would say that this concept of vibe coding as enthusiastic as the legal community seems to be this year about it. It differs between law firms and law departments. I just was lucky to host a dinner for senior leaders, senior in house council in Houston.
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And for a large number of law department leaders and though that conversation is not about vibe coding that conversation is not about some come out of some innovative way to create something that transforms the workflow. It's really about getting the work done figuring out how to do the work with fewer resources, figuring out how to navigate changing rate structures.
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Even some of the basics about using technology to do more of the work internally, but the idea of vibe coding is much more advanced for folks like hell there. And not necessarily for folks who are like really in the trenches trying to just manage the significant volume of work with fewer resources.
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It is so funny you should say that because when I said about those pockets where it's really not it's the same conversation. This is exactly where I was thinking. So I'm writing up about a conference and an in-house conference that actually there was a mixture of in-house and private practice, but you know the emphasis was on the client and solving the client problem.
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And actually a lot of them were not talking about technology, you know they were talking about this was a united Lex conference, which I have to confess I was really I'm really been slow to write up about but I had a chance to reflect back on it because I've been writing quite a lot about the in-house, you know in-house and you know some of the trends and perhaps work shifting more tools in house this year, which I think is going to happen.
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So I had a chance to revisit that conference and actually a lot of the conversations in the panels were about you know working in partnership that was the theme of the conference to be fair so it was kind of engineered a little bit towards that. But actually they then you're right then they're just trying to solve something to certainly send the same problem that they've always been trying to solve and there is a tech solution to it.
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But they you know and it's interesting because that you know we've seen HSBC, but a huge bank they recently caused a lot of interest on our site for starters amongst many by selecting Harvey. But actually you know a lot of teams are having to do what they can with existing tools, you know they're not necessarily being able to go out and get a big legal AI platform.
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It's the same all thing they're going to have to look at copilot on the you know they're using Microsoft they're having to use existing tools and work out how they can do the best that they can with that tool because for the time being for certain there are costs not a profit center it's the same thing that we've had for years that hasn't changed.
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And they are much more familiar with some of the basics and are sharing ideas for using gender of AI to create policies to identify IP infringement to understand the regulatory landscape.
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There are lots of new ways that these teams are leveraging it and in fact the enthusiasm and acceptance of it is dramatically different now than it was even just a few months ago and someone actually mentioned that AI is aging and dog years.
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So there's this accelerated development cycle where we think it's years but it's actually just months and the penetration is growing so rapidly you are correct many of the people that I'm speaking to are using some enterprise level tool like copilot rather than a law department specific tool which is not to say that that wouldn't be great it wouldn't be appropriate in this instance at this time they're still trying to get their hands around how to take advantage of the enterprise level tool.
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So I'm pretty sure it's a you know the budget is on the it side of the enterprise rather than legal so there's an you know there's an advantage to using it but the most important thing that I would say to our listener is that it's really essential to be in the room.
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Whatever that room is whether it's the room of law firm leaders law department leaders whoever your constituency is being the room and have this conversation and ask the questions listen and share because that seems to be the most potent way to drive your team forward to drive your own career forward and I was actually really honored to be in that room with those leaders because they were sharing.
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Important elements of their workflow that I could see their peers making notes because they were like we don't do that and that's a great idea I didn't even thought of that wow and then start asking each other questions and that's a really important way to learn and to drive your organization ahead.
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I mean that's so awesome and I think that community is going to be a big part of this year because things are moving so fast and.
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It's not even that we could have got used to it really you know it's just moving it quicker and quicker and I do think that there's going to be an emphasis this year on.
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It's been an emphasis for the last couple years on meeting and talking but I feel like well being this year and networking community you know entering into these types of conversations is more important than ever you know that community we're going to be trying we've got some plans in place to try and help build community around the things that we're doing and that there's a reason for that partly is self serving because we obviously want to promote what we're doing but a lot of it is also recognition that there's more need for people to come together even if it's not for a work thing.
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You know it's just to come together to talk probably for you know to share ideas but just actually to kind of support one another because I really do feel like already people are saying wow this is quick.
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Well it's also as you say from a personal standpoint there are peers in our space who are having to shift careers or jobs the.
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The growth and development of technology is not all positive for everyone there's definitely a point that needs to be acknowledged where in some instances is replacing certain tasks is replacing certain roles and obviously people are constantly talking about this idea oh technology is not going to replace people and they have all these reasons why it will not however it's starting to you're seeing this in the mainstream news just about large corporations reducing lots and lots of things.
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Lots and lots of team members because of technology or automation and the idea of gathering and being resources to one another is a again another really powerful way to build community especially at a moment where people need that connection.
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You won't comment on this area because just Switzerland but like for me I'm like who's in charge of this because it's not the regulator.
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These are hard decisions I'm not in any way you know one one of the things that some of the individuals that I've spoken to are talking about with respect to AI is using different tools to soften language to make conversations easier somehow and as a real aid to.
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Guide in these instances and I think that that's anything that can soften this process is is going to be better but also to provide resources to push people in the right direction but we can all do that you can find you find any time I hear of something I share it with people who I know are looking and try to make an introduction I think just that effort multiplied by each of us can can really make a difference.
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So what do you think before we wrap up what do you think the topics for I haven't actually you'll probably know already because you're organized but like the topics for legal week I reckon mcp will be a big focus if not in the sessions and in people's conversations that's something that keeps coming up time and time again like how people are going to use mcp to connect their platforms I've got a really cool podcast coming up with the head of innovation at or transformation at one of the really big corporates talking about the work that.
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They're doing around mcp and connecting their platforms which is going to be really fun.
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I think people are going to be doing a lot of reconnaissance of the physical space legal week I'm actually even toying with the idea of going there trying to figure where will I tell people to meet because I make all those arrangements in advance so from a tactical standpoint I don't actually know you say say we'll meet in the lobby of the health and a room eat on the first floor by the exhibit hall and I just I think that.
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People forget about the topics I think that the logistics of this experience are going to be pretty interesting so maybe that that'll be something I'll try to share I'll try to go there in advance and share that because I think that might be really helpful or someone helpful I hope in terms of topics I need to move away from that but I obviously I you know you're confident that it will be mostly AI all the time and even when you and I have these conversations.
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Let's move off the AI topic and let's try to go to there's always well AI is helping us do that and you really can't get away from it because it's now touching all these different aspects the ecosystem will be a topic in terms of what what are you what technology are you using are you finding deficiencies you're finding advantages is there something more that we should be using can we.
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Take advantage of an existing tool in a way that we aren't familiar with and those kinds of topics will be really interesting I think that you'll maybe start seeing more.
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Knowledge sharing about deployment of.
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Tools that for a multifaceted series of purposes I think that people are trying to figure out how to move away from a single tool for a single problem and figure out wow this is a pretty versatile tool how can we use that and how can we rapidly bring our teams up to speed so that they can.
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Apply it immediately to gain instant value and it will be interesting because it's still a lot of you discovery know legal weeks has been always probably will be.
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I remember being in the early days of gen AI if we can say that.
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And then it's so old.
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It was really you know there's some really interesting they've all the discovery they've always been a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of leveraging AI I'll be super interesting to see what product launches people save it for legal week you know I bet you there'll be like a heavy focus on.
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would be sort of unpicking what that really means and how developed it is.
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And as usual there will probably be some very cool developed products and
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there will be some that are more still conceptual, you know, like that is always the
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way, so that will be kind of fun to have a look at some of the announcement during the conference.
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And it'll be interesting to see which tools are not historically associated with
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e-discovery for example that are now being used. I mean I'm about to start my research
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for my annual e-discovery on filter report where I ask about a whole basket of
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vendors in the e-discovery sector, services providers and technology providers,
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and people have asked me this year for the first time to include legally eye
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tools or other non-historically e-discovery associated applications in this
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research to try to perform more of a competitive analysis and to try to, you know,
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just sort of gain some more feedback from buyers about where they're using which tools.
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So that crossover is probably going to be a bit of a conversation at Legal Week as well.
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Interesting. And obviously we'll be there like, you know, potentially having a
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roving microphone conversation which I can only remember my microphone and
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little microphone all meshed into one. Caroline Hill, it's always a privilege.
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I hope that the next time I see you neither of us is wearing a warm hat and that it's just
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beautiful weather and I can only imagine. So anyway, thank you so very much.
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Thanks, all right.
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Welcome to charting change in legal.
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I'm Ari Kaplan, I'm an analyst that covers the legal industry and I'm here with my co-host.
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Caroline Hill, hi everyone!
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Caroline?
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Hello!
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Caroline?
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Yes, tell us who you are, forgive me.
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I'm the editor of legal anti-Insider.
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Well, I really like your hat.
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Thank you so much!
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It's great to talk to you.
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Very cold in New York, not as cold in the UK, but in Nieland and bringing some bright vibes with this bright pink hat.
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I know it's absolutely freezing where you are.
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Yes, and it's Groundhog Day.
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Apparently, some Groundhog somewhere saw that it's going to be six more weeks of winter, but apparently he's an unreliable Groundhog.
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We'll see how it goes.
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I think it warms up for you a little bit, it's like minus the Brazilian.
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Certainly, I have to say, on this Groundhog Day, we're not experiencing Groundhog Day in legal.
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There's not like a repeat of things, although in some respect, you're seeing a lot of similar conversations already start to the year, just in terms of technology or how people are right sizing their teams or ways that they are engaging new roles to support some activities.
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As always, I find it exciting. It's also a month or so before legal week, which is...
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Yeah, I've got my flight.
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I've got a way.
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There you go, and it's also at a new venue this year.
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So everyone is essentially going to legal week for the first time, which gives kind of a disadvantage to those of us who've been going for two decades or something.
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Although I think we needed something fresh.
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I think it's going to be something nice, but everybody to have a new venue at legal week and somewhere hopefully a bit more space, a bit more meeting space for those people who've been going for years.
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Legal week would be the first to say that they sort of outgrow that venue.
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So I think the exhibition hall is all on one floor, which is going to be awesome, because for people familiar with the conference in the Hilton, it's been divided by three floors.
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So people like me, with the really terrible sense of direction, are challenged right from the outset as to how to find people, particularly if you're having meetings.
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And you would always be running from place to place and up and down in the escalation.
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You'd see someone in the escalator, and so I agree.
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I think that they'll... I'm sure they'll do a great job, and I'm sure it's going to be a really fun event, but the idea of everyone starting at the same point is going to be fun.
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We'll all kind of be experiencing it for the first time together, which I look forward to also... I will miss running in Central Park, but to be honest, even as a New Yorker, I used to get lost.
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And I'm imagining that running along the West Side Highway will be much easier just out and back, so it'll be fun.
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It would be nice to see a new area, Hudson Yards.
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It's a beautiful part of the city.
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Yeah. Just wonderfully well-developed, and there are lots of restaurants and places, I think, for people to meet.
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And it's also fairly well-situated to mass transit.
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I think it'll be good. I think people will be excited.
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It's going to be fun. But going to your point about, is it moving faster? They knew, are they the same?
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I feel like the start of this year has been fascinating. There's been some really cool, really fast-moving, new stuff already, I think.
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Not brand new this year, but themes from last year, where it's moving faster.
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So I'll give you an example.
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I was just talking to Helter Santos, who is one of the very... it's Missinia heads of IT at Bird and Bird in the UK.
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And he was talking about vibe coding and how the firm is on my inside view podcast, which will come out shortly.
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But he was talking about vibe coding and handing over to... obviously there's governance around it and there's a process and all...
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There's approval and all this kind of stuff. But enabling fear in us particularly, who have had all this knowledge in their heads,
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we've usually had to potentially connect with a translator back in the day. We'd be like, "How on earth do you connect IT in the knowledge source?"
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But actually this takes that away, right? But then with that, and it's really cool.
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So they're using Betty Blox, their platform. They were one of the earliest look-or-er users and they're now expanding out the platform, what that looks like, and how to give real creative license to their fear
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and use that all of that knowledge in their head was creating this governance platform. And Helter was the first to say, "Actually, this is moving really quick."
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And he wasn't pretending to have all the answers, he's saying, "You know, you've just got to go with it because actually the clients are expecting you to move fast."
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Fien is going back to this conversation we've had a million times about, if you don't facilitate whatever the new thing is, then there's a risk, obviously, that they'll go and do it themselves somewhere else.
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But that's kind of cool. This is something brand new, I think. This idea of, we used to call it Shadow IT, really, probably, didn't we?
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But now it's creating rules around, it's not Shadow IT. But you know what I mean? This is a fun new thing. There are other areas we may come onto where I feel like this is just the same conversation, again and again.
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But this, I feel, like, is quite exciting. It's quite new.
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When I was practicing, I was lucky to work at a firm that gave you billable credit for business development activities. So if you went to a conference or if you were an article, you could build that time and actually it would be credited towards your bonus.
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And it was fairly unusual. Firms did that, but not a lot of them. And I felt lucky that I worked at a firm like that.
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And it will be very interesting to see what kind of credit you'll receive for these kinds of activities, because they will certainly elevate your practice.
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And the clients are expecting new ways of approaching legal work. And if a firm, and, you know, held as obviously a globally recognized leader and a visionary in terms of how you can transform legal practice.
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So it's not surprising to me that he's at the forefront of this, but it'll be interesting. I know that some firms offer some type of billable credit for innovation activities generally, but it would be interesting to see if you start developing things that empower team or enhance the client relationship.
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Is there something more that you would receive because time is really the issue, dedicating the time is an important element here.
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I wish we'd had this conversation before I spoke to him because I did not ask that.
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And then I'm like, I wish I had asked that. Yeah, it's a super good point.
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Yeah, I think that, I mean, this is my first, I know, five coding has been as a concept, just been around since the spring, I think it was of 25, but so it's actually really new.
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And this was my first law firm conversation about vibe, Cody. I don't know whether it's something that's come up for you, but it's really cool to speak to somebody who's doing it in practice.
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You know, my, my kind of focus, I should have asked that, and I will come back when we next week, because we're going to catch up again.
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But my focus was more on, you know, how, like basically how they're doing it, what, what, what kind of output there's already been.
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And a little bit about that whole new risk appetite that firms are having to get comfortable with and how you still put the governance in place, right?
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So you risk the blind teams are having to move with the times, right? And that doesn't mean to say I'm not suggesting for a second that they're throwing out their guard around.
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But it's like how do they manage all these new moving parts, right? And, and, and, and not just from a compliance perspective, but like, you know, you don't want to end up with a million different tools that actually the person who created it moves off and then, you know, we've had years of bivers is build and sometimes we build, you know, it becomes unruly and not maintained and actually.
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Well, there's so many interesting facets to it that that was kind of the real that I took well.
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Vibe coding actually came up at my legal technopheobreckfast in January and this bivers is build conversation also was part of it and the conversation.
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So, I'm focused on building up to a point so vibe coding to the point of developing a prototype and then sending it to more of an expert, the expert team at the organization or an external support system, but clearly that's important.
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I really, I still think that we have to somehow find a way to incentivize dedicating the time like self teaching in the same way that, you know, if you have a leaky pipe or you have a light that's out, you immediately go on to YouTube find that I have a leaky pipe and it sounds like this and it's dripping every other set.
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And then there's an oh, so it's a video on that so I was like, oh, use this special tape or tighten it with this particular tool and I think that the same is true if we could somehow figure out how to, you know, have a repository of these, you know, sort of lessons and then figure out, well, why don't you just try or I guess people are using their generative a I tool for that.
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Yeah, and I think they are doing that. I think there's an element of building a community around it. I think that's super important. And in order to share knowledge and also prevent too much overlap, you know, like, but yeah, I think you're right.
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Yeah, I think there's an excitement still around this, the fact that you just can do it and that perhaps, you know, the interesting thing I suppose literally just talking off the top of my head, like, I suppose at one point people would create a startup, right?
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Like we've seen the genesis of a million different startups from exactly this sort of thing. I've got something in my day to day life, which I can't solve for with existing technology.
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That's how half the startups that we know in legal tech have evolved. So what's quite interesting I suppose is that they're keeping people in house, but you're right. Then it comes to, what does that look like? How do you reward them? Because actually why not just go off and do your own thing?
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Well, also more there are more and more examples of law firms that have spun out technology that was built internally to solve a very specific problem. And so organizations, I'm confident are thinking about that as well. Maybe there is a real opportunity here, especially given the interest in legal tech.
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I would say that this concept of vibe coding as enthusiastic as the legal community seems to be this year about it. It differs between law firms and law departments. I just was lucky to host a dinner for senior leaders, senior in house council in Houston.
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And for a large number of law department leaders and though that conversation is not about vibe coding that conversation is not about some come out of some innovative way to create something that transforms the workflow. It's really about getting the work done figuring out how to do the work with fewer resources, figuring out how to navigate changing rate structures.
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Even some of the basics about using technology to do more of the work internally, but the idea of vibe coding is much more advanced for folks like hell there. And not necessarily for folks who are like really in the trenches trying to just manage the significant volume of work with fewer resources.
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It is so funny you should say that because when I said about those pockets where it's really not it's the same conversation. This is exactly where I was thinking. So I'm writing up about a conference and an in-house conference that actually there was a mixture of in-house and private practice, but you know the emphasis was on the client and solving the client problem.
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And actually a lot of them were not talking about technology, you know they were talking about this was a united Lex conference, which I have to confess I was really I'm really been slow to write up about but I had a chance to reflect back on it because I've been writing quite a lot about the in-house, you know in-house and you know some of the trends and perhaps work shifting more tools in house this year, which I think is going to happen.
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So I had a chance to revisit that conference and actually a lot of the conversations in the panels were about you know working in partnership that was the theme of the conference to be fair so it was kind of engineered a little bit towards that. But actually they then you're right then they're just trying to solve something to certainly send the same problem that they've always been trying to solve and there is a tech solution to it.
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But they you know and it's interesting because that you know we've seen HSBC, but a huge bank they recently caused a lot of interest on our site for starters amongst many by selecting Harvey. But actually you know a lot of teams are having to do what they can with existing tools, you know they're not necessarily being able to go out and get a big legal AI platform.
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It's the same all thing they're going to have to look at copilot on the you know they're using Microsoft they're having to use existing tools and work out how they can do the best that they can with that tool because for the time being for certain there are costs not a profit center it's the same thing that we've had for years that hasn't changed.
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And they are much more familiar with some of the basics and are sharing ideas for using gender of AI to create policies to identify IP infringement to understand the regulatory landscape.
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There are lots of new ways that these teams are leveraging it and in fact the enthusiasm and acceptance of it is dramatically different now than it was even just a few months ago and someone actually mentioned that AI is aging and dog years.
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So there's this accelerated development cycle where we think it's years but it's actually just months and the penetration is growing so rapidly you are correct many of the people that I'm speaking to are using some enterprise level tool like copilot rather than a law department specific tool which is not to say that that wouldn't be great it wouldn't be appropriate in this instance at this time they're still trying to get their hands around how to take advantage of the enterprise level tool.
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So I'm pretty sure it's a you know the budget is on the it side of the enterprise rather than legal so there's an you know there's an advantage to using it but the most important thing that I would say to our listener is that it's really essential to be in the room.
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Whatever that room is whether it's the room of law firm leaders law department leaders whoever your constituency is being the room and have this conversation and ask the questions listen and share because that seems to be the most potent way to drive your team forward to drive your own career forward and I was actually really honored to be in that room with those leaders because they were sharing.
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Important elements of their workflow that I could see their peers making notes because they were like we don't do that and that's a great idea I didn't even thought of that wow and then start asking each other questions and that's a really important way to learn and to drive your organization ahead.
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I mean that's so awesome and I think that community is going to be a big part of this year because things are moving so fast and.
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It's not even that we could have got used to it really you know it's just moving it quicker and quicker and I do think that there's going to be an emphasis this year on.
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It's been an emphasis for the last couple years on meeting and talking but I feel like well being this year and networking community you know entering into these types of conversations is more important than ever you know that community we're going to be trying we've got some plans in place to try and help build community around the things that we're doing and that there's a reason for that partly is self serving because we obviously want to promote what we're doing but a lot of it is also recognition that there's more need for people to come together even if it's not for a work thing.
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You know it's just to come together to talk probably for you know to share ideas but just actually to kind of support one another because I really do feel like already people are saying wow this is quick.
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Well it's also as you say from a personal standpoint there are peers in our space who are having to shift careers or jobs the.
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The growth and development of technology is not all positive for everyone there's definitely a point that needs to be acknowledged where in some instances is replacing certain tasks is replacing certain roles and obviously people are constantly talking about this idea oh technology is not going to replace people and they have all these reasons why it will not however it's starting to you're seeing this in the mainstream news just about large corporations reducing lots and lots of things.
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Lots and lots of team members because of technology or automation and the idea of gathering and being resources to one another is a again another really powerful way to build community especially at a moment where people need that connection.
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You won't comment on this area because just Switzerland but like for me I'm like who's in charge of this because it's not the regulator.
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These are hard decisions I'm not in any way you know one one of the things that some of the individuals that I've spoken to are talking about with respect to AI is using different tools to soften language to make conversations easier somehow and as a real aid to.
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Guide in these instances and I think that that's anything that can soften this process is is going to be better but also to provide resources to push people in the right direction but we can all do that you can find you find any time I hear of something I share it with people who I know are looking and try to make an introduction I think just that effort multiplied by each of us can can really make a difference.
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So what do you think before we wrap up what do you think the topics for I haven't actually you'll probably know already because you're organized but like the topics for legal week I reckon mcp will be a big focus if not in the sessions and in people's conversations that's something that keeps coming up time and time again like how people are going to use mcp to connect their platforms I've got a really cool podcast coming up with the head of innovation at or transformation at one of the really big corporates talking about the work that.
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They're doing around mcp and connecting their platforms which is going to be really fun.
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I think people are going to be doing a lot of reconnaissance of the physical space legal week I'm actually even toying with the idea of going there trying to figure where will I tell people to meet because I make all those arrangements in advance so from a tactical standpoint I don't actually know you say say we'll meet in the lobby of the health and a room eat on the first floor by the exhibit hall and I just I think that.
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People forget about the topics I think that the logistics of this experience are going to be pretty interesting so maybe that that'll be something I'll try to share I'll try to go there in advance and share that because I think that might be really helpful or someone helpful I hope in terms of topics I need to move away from that but I obviously I you know you're confident that it will be mostly AI all the time and even when you and I have these conversations.
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Let's move off the AI topic and let's try to go to there's always well AI is helping us do that and you really can't get away from it because it's now touching all these different aspects the ecosystem will be a topic in terms of what what are you what technology are you using are you finding deficiencies you're finding advantages is there something more that we should be using can we.
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Take advantage of an existing tool in a way that we aren't familiar with and those kinds of topics will be really interesting I think that you'll maybe start seeing more.
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Knowledge sharing about deployment of.
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Tools that for a multifaceted series of purposes I think that people are trying to figure out how to move away from a single tool for a single problem and figure out wow this is a pretty versatile tool how can we use that and how can we rapidly bring our teams up to speed so that they can.
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Apply it immediately to gain instant value and it will be interesting because it's still a lot of you discovery know legal weeks has been always probably will be.
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I remember being in the early days of gen AI if we can say that.
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And then it's so old.
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It was really you know there's some really interesting they've all the discovery they've always been a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of leveraging AI I'll be super interesting to see what product launches people save it for legal week you know I bet you there'll be like a heavy focus on.
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would be sort of unpicking what that really means and how developed it is.
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And as usual there will probably be some very cool developed products and
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there will be some that are more still conceptual, you know, like that is always the
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way, so that will be kind of fun to have a look at some of the announcement during the conference.
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And it'll be interesting to see which tools are not historically associated with
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e-discovery for example that are now being used. I mean I'm about to start my research
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for my annual e-discovery on filter report where I ask about a whole basket of
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vendors in the e-discovery sector, services providers and technology providers,
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and people have asked me this year for the first time to include legally eye
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tools or other non-historically e-discovery associated applications in this
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research to try to perform more of a competitive analysis and to try to, you know,
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just sort of gain some more feedback from buyers about where they're using which tools.
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So that crossover is probably going to be a bit of a conversation at Legal Week as well.
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Interesting. And obviously we'll be there like, you know, potentially having a
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roving microphone conversation which I can only remember my microphone and
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little microphone all meshed into one. Caroline Hill, it's always a privilege.
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I hope that the next time I see you neither of us is wearing a warm hat and that it's just
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beautiful weather and I can only imagine. So anyway, thank you so very much.
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Thanks, all right.
