Daily Matters: The changing face of the legal industry

This week on Daily Matters, we are taking a look back at some of the key themes, ideas, and moments from our first 70 episodes. Each of the next 5 episodes will focus on a different topic playing a central role in the future of the profession. In today’s episode, we’ll be recapping how the legal industry reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic—and how the coronavirus crisis is changing the practice of law, for good. 

This episode features valuable insights from:

• Judy Perry Martinez, President of the American Bar Association
• Jordan Furlong, Principal of Law21
• Rachel Roche, Founder of Roche Legal
• Erin Levine, Founder of Levine Family Law Group and Hello Divorce
• T.C. Whittaker, Law Firm Solutions Leader at PwC InsightsOfficer
• Joseph Andrew, Global Chairman of Dentons
• Richard Susskind, Author of The Future of The Professions
• Mitch Jackson, Founding Partner at Jackson & Wilson

“If you were designing a system of justice from scratch, this is not what you would design,” says Judge Jennifer D. Bailey, Administrative Judge for the Circuit Civil Division in Miami-Dade, Florida. As someone who wrote a thesis on why judges should utilize case management software and practices, Judge Bailey is an active advocate for judicial reform.

In this episode, Judge Bailey talks to Jack Newton about:

• Why the American judicial system is more complicated and inefficient than it should be
• How COVID-19 is reshaping courts and the justice system in general
•  The importance that technology will play in the courts of the future

Judge Bailey has been a circuit court judge in Miami-Dade, Florida, for 26 years. She is the Administrative Judge for the 25-judge Circuit Civil Division and handles a docket of Complex Business Litigation cases. She previously served in the Family and Criminal Divisions. 

During the current pandemic, she has served as leader of the Pandemic Digital Workgroup setting up Virtual Courtrooms for Miami’s state courts. She is serving on the Conference of Chief Justices/Conference of State Court Administrators’ Pandemic Rapid Response Team Civil Courts committee.

Judge Bailey serves on the Board of Governors of Directors of the National Center for State Courts and on the Board of Advisors for the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) and the NCSC Institute for Court Management. She is a member of the Florida Commission on Trial Court Performance and Accountability and earned her L.L.M. in Judicial Studies at Duke University Law School in 2018, where she wrote her thesis on “Why Don’t Judges Case Manage?”

Judge Bailey taught as faculty for the Florida New Judge’s College, the Florida College of Advanced Judicial Studies, and for the Florida Conference of Circuit Court Judges. She has received multiple awards for her service, including 2015 Florida Jurist of the Year from the Florida chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and the Equal Justice Judicial Leadership Award from Legal Services of Greater Miami in 2011.

Shreya and Colin Ley met each other while studying abroad during law school—then they got married and co-founded LayRoots, a law firm bringing a new approach to Asset Protection, Estate Planning, Business, and Intellectual Property Law. In this episode, Shreya and Colin talk to Jack Newton about:

• Why and how they founded their firm and embraced a new way of delivering legal services
• The challenges COVID-19 poses for law firms, and how LayRoots has responded
• The importance of adopting a data-driven mindset for making strategic firm decisions
• How client expectations are changing in light of the pandemic
• Shreya and Colin’s advice for lawyers thinking about starting new firms

You can watch Shreya and Colin’s 2019 Clio Cloud Conference presentation on building a unique law firm here.

Shreya and Colin Ley are the Lawyer-Humans at LayRoots—a law firm that works with high-performing, on-the-go parents, professionals, business owners, and investors who understand the value of time and flexibility.

LayRoots’ Lawyer-Humans® work across the nation and around the world to ensure that their clients are prepared and protected. Partners in life and business, they founded LayRoots to build the life they wanted while helping their clients do the same.

You can follow Shreya and Colin on Twitter at @layyourroots and @lawyerhuman, respectively, or visit the firm’s website at www.layroots.com. 

Today’s guest is changing legal history: I. Stephanie Boyce is the current Deputy Vice President of the Law Society of England and Wales, and in 2021 she will become the first Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic (BAME) person to ever serve as the Law Society’s president. (For context, the Law Society was founded in 1825.)

In this special Daily Matters episode, Stephanie talks about this remarkable accomplishment—how she persevered through career obstacles and multiple electoral defeats, and what it means to her to be in this position.

Additionally, Stephanie and Clio CEO Jack Newton discuss:

• How George Floyd’s death and Black Lives Matter protests are influencing British society
• The obstacles faced by women, ethnic minorities, and other underrepresented populations in the legal profession
• How legal professionals can help make the industry more equitable for all

​I. Stephanie Boyce was admitted as a solicitor in 2002 and holds a Master of Laws in public law and global governance from King’s College, London. She is an experienced general counsel and has worked in-house at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. She currently sits on the Law Society Council holding one of the seats from the Women Lawyers Division. She also chairs the Council Members’ Conduct Committee and holds a number of statutory appointments with her local authority.

After going through an extremely difficult period in her career and life, attorney and entrepreneur Brooke Moore knew she needed a change—and she founded a subscription-based, limited-scope virtual law firm as a result.

As Founder of MyVirtual.Lawyer and Co-founder of MVL Licensing and {Shift}her, Brooke is changing the landscape of legal service delivery and women’s business development. In this episode, she and Jack Newton discuss:

• The challenging experiences that caused Brooke to found MyVirtual.Lawyer
• How MVL delivers legal services differently as a virtual firm, and the advantages of doing so
• How Brooke helps other law firms adopt her business model via her licensing company
• How Brooke helps other businesswomen succeed with her {Shift}her mastermind model
• Brooke’s advice for women in the legal industry

Brooke Moore is the Founder of MyVirtual.Lawyer, an online law firm model providing flat fee and subscription-based, limited-scope services to self-represented litigants, individuals, and small businesses. After establishing the MVL brand in Arkansas she co-founded MVL Licensing, a LLC providing attorneys in other jurisdictions the opportunity to leverage the MVL brand, systems, and processes to implement limited-scope, virtual components into their firms. She has also leveraged her experiences in law and life to co-found {Shift}her, a unique mindset-centric mastermind model created by women, for women to collaboratively level up in business and life.

Brooke has worked on the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission’s task force on limited scope representation and serves on the UALR Bowen School of Law Rural Incubator Committee, and as Chair of the Arkansas Bar Association’s Continuing Education Committee. She is a 2013 graduate of the Arkansas Bar Association Leadership Academy and a 2015 recipient of the Judith Ryan Gray Outstanding Young Lawyer Award. She was a 2015-16 American Bar Association Law Practice Division Fellow and currently serves as a member of the ABA TECHSHOW Board and on the ABA Law Practice Division Council. In 2017 she was named as an American Bar Association Women in Legal Tech honoree and received the Fastcase 50 Award. She is a nationally recognized speaker and author on topics related to limited scope representation, virtual lawyering, legal technology, and well-being.

You can follow Brooke on Twitter at @virtuallawgirl.

“What we’ve seen is that words alone are not enough,” says Geneviéve Jones-Wright, Executive Director at Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance (MoGo), which demands transparency and government accountability to serve all people, especially those who are marginalized.

In this episode, Geneviéve and Clio CEO Jack Newton discuss the vital work that needs to be done to transform America’s legal and law enforcement systems. The interview covers:
- Geneviéve’s experiences as a public defender
- The importance of public defenders in society
- The risks of letting this political moment pass without achieving meaningful change
- How members of the legal community can move beyond words—to action

To learn more about MoGo’s important work, visit https://moralgovernance.org

Geneviéve Jones-Wright is the Executive Director at Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance (MoGo), which demands transparency and government accountability to serve all people, especially those who are marginalized. She is also the Founder of Motivation In Action, a professional motivational speaking firm.

Geneviéve has served as: the Legal Director of the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA) San Diego, a Deputy Public Defender with the San Diego Office of the Primary Public Defender, a volunteer attorney with the California Innocence Project, and a mock trial coach and member of the Criminal Justice Advisory Board at Lincoln High School. Her community activities also include serving as a board member of David’s Harp Foundation, an organization that radically transforms the lives of at-risk and homeless youth through the power of music.

Follow Geneviéve on Twitter at @GJonesWright.

Jordan Couch, a Partner at Palace Law, has been front and center for the recent events related to protests and COVID-19 in Seattle, Washington. Today on Daily Matters, he talks about what those experiences have been like—and a whole lot more.

Jordan’s conversation with Jack Newton touches on:

• The importance of law firm culture
• Misperceptions people have about the protests taking place in Seattle
• Issues with the pertinence (or lack thereof) of bar exams in the modern legal world
• Why lawyers need to use their expertise and influence to advocate for change

Jordan Couch, a Partner at Palace Law, is a workers’ compensation attorney and a dedicated advocate for those in need. While in law school, Jordan worked for NASA and clerked for judges in the Maryland Court of Appeals and the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington. He also managed and litigated cases for a pro bono organization that provided assistance to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Through each of these roles, he gained valuable experience in a wide array of legal fields and honed his skills as a courtroom advocate.

Jordan moved to Washington in June of 2015 and put his skills and experience to use helping injured workers at Palace Law. He knows his way around the complex legal system and enjoys working with his clients to help them obtain the benefits they deserve. Outside of the office, Jordan is heavily involved in the legal community. He can frequently be found at the University Of Washington School of Law or the Seattle University School of Law donating his time to teach advocacy to the next generation of lawyers.

You can follow Jordan and Palace Law on Twitter at @jordanlcouch and @palacelawoffice, respectively.

As Founder of The Hite Law Group, a solo practice serving New Orleans and Louisiana, Nicholas Hite specializes in LGBTQ advocacy. He travels the state training and educating legal, medical, and other professionals on how to support LGBTQ families and children, and he has successfully represented hundreds of families and children in family and juvenile courts in 10 parishes across Louisiana.

As Pride Month 2020 winds down, Nicholas joins Jack Newton to discuss:

• How Nicholas provides accessible legal services to members of the LGBTQ community
• The impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on LGBTQ rights
• How Nicholas wants to see the legal industry serve marginalized communities better
• What legal professionals can do to make a difference for LGBTQ clients

To learn how The Hite Law Group uses Clio to further its mission, read the case study here.

Long before COVID-19, immigration lawyer Greg McLawsen’s law firm operated remotely—and he practiced while traveling around the world. During the pandemic, Greg is helping Sound Immigration’s clients navigate these difficult times from his home in Seattle. (Until he can buy a boat—then he’ll practice from the sea.)

In this wide-ranging interview, Greg and Jack Newton discuss:

• The impact of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on DACA
• The ramifications of the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign work visas
• The challenges of practicing law and caring for children during a pandemic
• The long-term effects this time period will have on Immigration Law and the legal industry

You can read Greg’s recent blog post on U.S. immigration policy and COVID-19 here, and you can listen to Greg’s previous interview on the client experience (from the Matters podcast) here.

Greg McLawsen is the Founder of Sound Immigration, “America’s online immigration law firm.” A nomadic traveler who has run his practice while traveling the world, Greg is passionate about reinventing the practice of law to make it work better for legal clients. He works hard to identify the best available technology to make Sound Immigration convenient for clients, including by looking at other industries like real estate and the restaurant business to learn new best practices.

Greg has chaired the 1,000-member Solo and Small Practice Section of the Washington State Bar Association, where he helps attorneys learn about ways to help clients more effectively with technology tools. For two years he served on the Washington State Bar Association’s Future of the Profession Workgroup, which explored the future of the legal industry. And he chairs the Technology Committee of the American Immigration Lawyer’s Washington State Chapter, and formerly served as Treasurer and Secretary of the Chapter.

As Chair of the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT), Shannon Salter is pioneering new ways for dispute resolution to take place. Shannon’s advocacy for access to justice and justice reform includes re-envisioning how our justice system operates.

In this episode, Shannon and Clio CEO Jack Newton discuss:

• What CRT does, how it came to be, and why it has seen such strong success
• Why the current legal system is failing to expand access to justice in an effective way
• The potential of technology and online services to revolutionize legal—not replacing lawyers, but acting as a win-win that enables the role legal professionals play to shift
• What a more accessible and equitable system could look like.

Shannon Salter is the Civil Resolution Tribunal’s Chair, and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Allard School of Law, teaching administrative law and legal ethics. Shannon was a BC Supreme Court judicial law clerk before practicing civil litigation at a large Vancouver law firm for several years. She has served as a vice-chair of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal and as a board member of the College of Registered Nurses of BC. She is currently a commissioner of the Financial Institutions Commission, vice president of the BC Council of Administrative Tribunals, and a board member of the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII). 

In 2017, Shannon was named one of the 25 Top Most Influential Lawyers in Canada, and was previously recognized as one of Canada’s New Law Pioneers by the Canadian Bar Association and an Access to Justice All-Star by the National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSLAP). She is also the 2016 recipient of the Adam Albright Award for outstanding teaching by an adjunct professor. Ms. Salter is a frequent speaker at international conferences on online dispute resolution, administrative law, legal education, and the future of law and technology.