Careers and the Business of Law

Hosted by David Cowen | Presented by Steno

Live from the floor at ILTACON 2025, this episode dives into the real transformation happening inside law firms and what GenAI has to do with it. Julie Brown, Director of Practice Technology at Vorys, shares why attorneys are finally asking for AI, what it means to build digital agents, and how legal tech professionals have evolved from taskmasters to strategic leaders.

From workflow automation to workforce evolution, Julie breaks down what's changing, what's coming next, and how to stay ahead in a profession that's reinventing itself in real time.

Key Topics Covered:

• How GenAI has flipped the script on legal tech adoption
• Why attorneys are now driving the demand for innovation
• The shift from eDiscovery silos to full-firm strategic impact
• What the rise of digital agents means for tomorrow's workforce
• How legal ops teams are becoming drivers of business value
• Julie's "second career" in agent design, automation, and workflow strategy
• Why human-in-the-loop AI still matters and always will

This Episode is presented by Steno: Smarter transcripts. Faster delivery. Built for modern legal teams.

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/

Never eat alone!

What if one judge kills GenAI in court? Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck says it could set legal innovation back a decade.

In this episode, David Cowen and co-host Nicole Giantonio go inside the mind of the "Godfather of eDiscovery" to unpack the real risks, courtroom landmines, and what every lawyer needs to know before using AI in a case. This isn't theory. It's already happening.

What You'll Learn:

• Why one bad GenAI ruling could halt progress for 10 years
• How "hallucinated" case law is already damaging court credibility
• The question no one can agree on: Are AI prompts discoverable?
• What smart firms are doing right now to stay defensible
• Why your judge's tech IQ might matter more than your case facts
• The #1 safeguard Judge Peck says you must have in place today
• What DLA Piper is doing that most law firms still haven't figured out

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

Hosted by David Cowen | Presented by Steno

Live from the floor at ILTACON 2025, this episode cuts through the hype and gets into the real AI tools and workflows legal professionals are using right now. Stephanie Clerkin breaks down how GenAI is supercharging court reporting, unlocking billable time, and why "context engineering" may be the most important skill of your career. If you're curious, overloaded, or looking for a competitive edge - you need to hear this!

Key Topics Covered:

• The AI tools shaking up court reporting (Transcript Genius, Verbit AI, and more)
• The security blind spot in transcript workflows and how to close it
• Why "context engineering" is your next competitive advantage
• Agentic workflows explained: what they are and why they matter
• The myth of the disappearing billable hour and what's actually happening
• How Stephanie builds AI muscle on weekends (and why you should too)
• Field-tested career advice for rising legal ops pros

This Episode is presented by Steno: Smarter transcripts. Faster delivery. Built for modern legal teams.

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

Will Seaton, Chief Customer Officer at DraftWise and former commercial lead at Palantir sits down with David Cowen to unpack what's really changing at the intersection of AI, contracts, and legal careers. This conversation dives deep into the shift from prompt to context engineering, the rise of roles like forward deployed engineers, and why the future of legal work isn't about replacing lawyers, it's about scaling their judgment. If you're serious about where your team, talent, and tech are headed, this is the episode.

Key Topics Covered:

• What law firms and legal departments can learn from Palantir's forward deployed model
• Why context, not prompts is the real power source behind GenAI in legal workflows
• The new business value of outside counsel: from selling information to selling judgment
• How tools like DraftWise unlock contract data and turn junior lawyers into high performers fast
• The evolution of roles in legal: from lawyers to context engineers, data strategists, and AI copilots
• Augmented intelligence > artificial intelligence: the case for keeping humans in the loop
• What legal AI tells us about the next wave in the demand and flow of talent

People & Ideas We Mentioned:

• Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir – the philosopher-CEO shaping how the world thinks about data and power
• Kyle Bahr from Cleary Gottlieb – sparking smart conversations on context engineering and where legal AI is headed
• Omar Haroun, founder of Eudia (formerly Text IQ) – pushing the boundaries on augmented intelligence in legal
• Song of the Day: "Celebrate" by Jordan Rakei – Will's go-to morning track – Give it a listen

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

Bestselling author and "non-obvious" thinker Rohit Bhargava sits down with David Cowen for a high-energy, idea-packed conversation on creativity, persuasion, and building influence in unexpected ways. Drawing from his global bestseller and branding roots at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett, Rohit shares how to spot hidden patterns, spark change inside organizations, and bring others along the journey. If you've ever felt like the only one seeing around corners, this episode is for you.

Key Topics Covered:

• The 4 habits of non-obvious thinkers (and how to build them daily)
• Why ideas alone are worthless and what separates dreamers from doers
• The Einstein lesson: how to find (and be) your "Max Planck"
• Self-serving altruism: the underrated power move in building influence
• How to get others to join your vision without a "hard sell"
• The art of persuasive storytelling from someone trained at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett
• Why getting outside your echo chamber is the secret weapon for innovation

Speacial mention: Rohit's latest bestseller, Non Obvious Thinking, is now available, don't miss it.

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

Frank Nuzzi, Senior IP Counsel at Siemens, joins David Cowen to unpack the mindset shift every legal professional needs right now. From sandboxing with Microsoft Copilot to pushing the boundaries of AI in legal workflows, this episode dives into how curiosity and experimentation, not perfection are shaping the next generation of legal work. If you're waiting for AI to be flawless before jumping in, you're already behind.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why "don't be cheap on your career" might be the best AI advice you'll hear
• The productivity edge: how Copilot saves time in Outlook and sharpens legal workflows
• Frank's system for learning fast: white papers, eBooks, YouTube, and morning study
• How genAI accelerates legal research and boosts comprehension
• The reality of "time saved" in legal, quality over quantity
• Lessons from DHL's legal playbooks and the power of asking "what if?"
• Why staying curious is the real ROI of AI tools

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

Frank Nuzzi, Senior IP Counsel at Siemens, joins David Cowen to unpack the mindset shift every legal professional needs right now. From sandboxing with Microsoft Copilot to pushing the boundaries of AI in legal workflows, this episode dives into how curiosity and experimentation, not perfection are shaping the next generation of legal work. If you're waiting for AI to be flawless before jumping in, you're already behind.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why “don’t be cheap on your career” might be the best AI advice you’ll hear
• The productivity edge: how Copilot saves time in Outlook and sharpens legal workflows
• Frank’s system for learning fast: white papers, eBooks, YouTube, and morning study
• How genAI accelerates legal research and boosts comprehension
• The reality of “time saved” in legal, quality over quantity
• Lessons from DHL’s legal playbooks and the power of asking “what if?”
• Why staying curious is the real ROI of AI tools

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

Catherine Jopling, General Counsel at MPW Industrial Services, doesn't lead from behind a desk, she builds trust in the field, layer by layer. In this episode, she shares how she leads legal with empathy, curiosity, and proactive strategy in a decentralized, blue-collar business. Instead of waiting for crises, Catherine gets ahead of them, visiting sites, meeting people where they are, and building systems that make legal a value driver, not a cost center. Whether she's coding a risk registry in SharePoint or talking AI with her executive team, she proves that innovation doesn't require big budgets, just resourcefulness and courage. 🎙 Highlights:

• Leading a lean team of 7 serving 4,000+ across North America
• Legal as a proactive partner, not a reactive fixer
• DIY tech: Building risk tools with ChatGPT + SharePoint
• Trust as the foundation, human connection > automation
• Leadership lessons from books, site visits, and Whitney Houston

💡 Takeaways:

• Build trust before it's needed
• Innovate with what you have
• Legal can and should drive value
• AI is powerful, but relationships are everything

🎯 Try this: Reconnect with someone in your org before you need to. And take one small step toward building something new, just like Catherine.

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

Live from the DHL Legal Innovation Summit, David Cowen sits down with Omar Haroun, co-founder of Eudia, to break down the shift from artificial intelligence to augmented intelligence. Together they unpack what's actually happening in legal innovation: smarter workflows, real cost transformation, and human-machine collaboration at scale. This conversation goes deep from M&A disruption with DHL to the messy middle of change, to the opportunities ahead for those willing to live in the future. If you're trying to figure out how to adapt, evolve, and lead with AI at your side, start here.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI isn't replacing lawyers but the ones who use it might
• The real reason behind layoffs (hint: it's not just tech, it's operational innovation)
• How DHL and Eudia are unbundling legal services and redefining M&A speed
• What it means to be a Pattern Breaker and why "messy middle" is where the magic happens

Don't wait for the dust to settle. If you're a seeker, striver, or top guard thinking out loud about AI, talent, and transformation, this one's for you.

🎧Subscribe. Share it with a co-conspirator. And if you're not living in the future yet… what's holding you back?

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!

What happens when you take legal operations, move it into finance, scale it globally, and build a team of 85 legal professionals inside a Fortune 500? You get Brian Edge's world and it's nothing short of groundbreaking.

Live from the DHL Legal Innovation Summit, David Cowen sits down with Brian, SVP of Legal Franchise & Integrity Shared Services at MasterCard, for a high-energy, human-centered conversation on the next evolution of legal ops. From creating capacity through shared services to layering AI on top of HI (human intelligence), this episode is about unlocking better work, better relationships, and better outcomes at scale.

What You'll Learn:

• Why shared services might be the next big leap beyond traditional legal ops
• How MasterCard scaled legal support globally without outsourcing its soul
• The surprising power of empathy, data, and dashboards in shaping business outcomes
• How AI is enabling, not replacing human brilliance in legal service delivery

This is legal operations V.3, more collaborative, more strategic, more human.

🎧 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Share this episode and take your career from now to next!

💡To learn more about the future of legal innovation, visit https://cowengroup.com/ Never eat alone!