Elevate.Together.Podcast.

Innovation is a sum of steps and tweaks. 

Part of our Next Normal leadership series, this episode features Elevate's Chairman and CEO, Liam Brown, talking with Reena SenGupta, CEO and creator of FT Innovative Lawyers. Reena and Liam talk about leadership, innovation, and becoming digital.  Reena leads RSG consulting, the FT Innovative Lawyers Programme, and is a special membership advisor to the Digital Legal Exchange.

[01:24]  In 2004, innovation and lawyers did not ever go together. 

[03:46] Moving a market. 

[05:24] It's okay to try new things, to talk about new things.

[07:23] An invention, innovation, and improvement are they different? 

[10:46] A knowledge business is democratic and requires phenomenal leadership. 

[12:50] CEOs are asking their business functions, including legal, to operate digitally and innovate at the speed of the rest of the business.

[15:46] Only two out of 10 legal departments are digitally enabled enough to support their companies. 

[17:08] Until that data can flow back and forth between other functions and other digital workflows, these pools of data lose their value.

[21:53]   It's important to know when something isn't working anymore – and when to get out.  

The Accelerating Use of Analytics.

Welcome to another edition of Inside the Engine Room with Dan Katz, Vice President of Data Science and Innovation at Elevate. The Inside, the Engine Room series, focuses on the stories and people who bring Elevate's award-winning products and services to our customers.  For this episode, Dan is joined by Warren Agin, the Managing Director of Products here at Elevate.

[00:46] A one-minute description of Warren’s SME and data scientist role at Elevate.

[02:08] Warren’s journey from 28 years as a practising Bankruptcy trustee to a career in data science.

[04:27] Good advice, two meals, and a published paper pave the way for a career change.

[06:57] Realising the practice of law can be different with numbers, math, analytics, and quantitative analysis.

[10:35] Practicing law at scale.  Start with the desired outcome, the information available at the start of the case, and in half the cases, we can predict whether the case would be successful or not with a high degree of certainty.

[12:32] Working on the Elevate ELM.

[14:23] ‘We're at this cusp where things will start accelerating in terms of practising law at scale using analytics.’ 

[15:36] Senior partners, people who have 30 years of law practice and senior positions, are fueling this movement; we're also seeing the continued growth of programs in the law schools turning out phenomenal lawyers with technical skills.

[18:20] The bottleneck is the real-life deployment of these technologies. It takes time to get the engineering part down and move it into production.

Do the Right Thing.

This podcast episode is part of our Expert series featuring Elevate's, Steven Allen, Vice President of Get Shi*t Done, talking with Susan Bright, Global Managing Partner for Diversity and Inclusion and Responsible Business at Hogan Lovells. Susan and Steven discuss innovation, creating change, ESG, and Diversity and Inclusion.

[01:05] Susan has a passion for diversity and inclusion.

[02:53] Project Redefine became about engagement.

[04:48] When your business is performing well, it's hard to engage people to think differently to innovate.

[07:00]  Harnessing incremental change and small innovations to create BIG change.

[09:27]  Allocate work well, and you achieve many different things.

[12:52]  Diversity, inclusion, sustainability, well-being.  Focus, motivate and encourage others to get involved.

[15:57] Every boardroom is interested in ESG.   You need to have a purpose and drive change.

[19:19]  Be brave and be resilient, you're pushing boundaries - you have to keep going.

Celebrating A New Decade.

In celebration of our tenth anniversary, Elevate brought 9 of our co-founders together for a conversation.  This 15 min podcast episode includes highlights from that discussion.  

[00:27] Listen in as Kunoor Chopra reflects on early discussions to join Elevate and the essential and immediate support of those first customers

[02:09] Pratik Patel, VP of Innovation, comments on an immediately shared vision, a humble beginning, and our mission to move the industry forward

[03:56] Tariq Hassan, VP of Procurement Services, reflects on a customer’s reaction to Elevate entering the market - and the impact Elevate has had on the lives of many

[05:08] Vijoyata Lama, Project Lead, talks about her decision to join Elevate and our willingness as an organization to address complex topics and build a culture of acceptance

[07:08] Mark Redmayne, VP of Business Development, talks about outcome predictability and jointly improving the businesses of our customers, never losing focus on our values

[08:45] Elevate’s President, John Croft, talks about structuring the business for the future, having unquestionable faith Elevate would grow into that structure and the impact of Elevate on creating the law company market

[10:31] Joyce Thorne, VP, Head of People, reflects on establishing an organization focused on its people 

[11:28] Lokendra Tomar, Chief of Staff and Chief Corporate Development Manager, talks about growing faster than we thought we would grow

[11:59] Liam Brown, Chairman, and CEO talks about the speed of growth, reflects on the state of the market in 2011, how the market has and is responding, and the opportunity ahead

Just do it.

[00:48] Our guests start by agreeing on what innovation is…

[03:01] Applying rigor and structure. A new, more scientific, evidence-based approach.

[06:01] Eight steps broken into four and four. The first four, democratise the process. Then we ideate. 

[09:29] We experiment to see what does it look like? What are we learning? And it allows us to firm up a process. 

[11:40] It's not an easy job to identify the true problem or the job to be done - the job we're trying to achieve.

[14:04] It's called the innovator's dilemma. It's a thing. 

[16:47] Is our learning objective met? What needs to be true? And we'll have a series of statements that need to be validated, and we validate it. It's very evidence-based.

[20:09] Validation is important, and there's a resource scarcity issue in that there are always more ideas than a resource to solve. 

[22:05] A database we use every day "What have we looked at previously? What tech have we reviewed? It helps change the conversation.

[24:38] The trouble with legal is that on any given day, legal activities go from being wildly administrative to wildly complex and require extraordinary judgment 

The Power of Data.

In this episode, Stephen Allen, VP of Get Sh*t Done at Elevate,  talks with Dion Harrington, Chief of Legal Operations at Rio Tinto, about outside counsel management and AFAs. Programs that have resulted in real savings for Rio Tinto, including $2M in savings on a single matter - and $10M in savings, program-wide in 2020.

[01:56] Data enabled us to focus on bottlenecks, driving transparency and accountability.

[05:03] During 2020, as every other function had to deliver hard savings, we did the same.

[06:34] Let’s start with a correct invoice - e-billing, timekeeping, and a legal bill review.

[08:53] RFPs with a well thought out scope of work lead to a better quality of bids and

effective AFA use.

[12:32] Zero to 94% of agreements signed with some fees under AFA and 88% of those with all fees under AFAs.

[13:16] Consistency in reporting and management of all our law firm spend.

[14:47] The challenge of implementing change and the need to stick at it …

[15:25] Access to data and a clear opportunity for improvement when it comes to gender diversity.

This podcast episode is part of our Impact Series, featuring Elevate customers implementing transformative change. In this episode, Elevate's Stephen Allen, Vice President of Get Shit Done at Elevate, talks with John Hurley, the COO of the law firm, Foley & Lardner.

[01:39]   Today, Foley & Lardner has go-to-market swagger

[03:07]   If it’s not broken why change it?  30% of Foley’s clients have been with the firm for over 30 years.

[05:42] John sees his role as leading continuous change management to help the enterprise.

[08:54] This last year added a collaboration challenge; our savings grace was our strong culture.

[11:13]  Our clients don't have legal issues; they've got business issues.

[13:52]  Direct communication and direct delivery to the client are going to continue. Firms are exploring AI and analytics and other valuable tools to make delivery more impactful.

[15:24]   A law firm COO has to understand the totality of a law firm, how the pieces work and fit together, how to make the firm more efficient for partners.

In this episode, Matt Todd, Vice President of Elevate’s flexible legal resourcing business, ElevateFlex, talks with Geoffrey Vance, a partner in Perkins Coie’s litigation practice and firmwide chair of the E-Discovery Services and Strategy practice. Geoff and Matt talk about the rollout and adoption of the ElevateFlex model within Perkins.  

[00:58]      Scale with a few days’ notice to meet client requests.

[02:49]      The instinctive reaction is to question the quality of talent. 

[04:31] Elevate is using creative ways to identify great lawyers quickly.

[06:02] Clients are reducing the number of law firms they are hiring. The ability to say yes to more and different types of work is critical.

[10:12] Evaluate talent on the strengths that you’re looking need.

[14:09]      We identified clients likely to take advantage of this solution and worked with those client leads and practice group leaders. 

[16:24] The number of partners with visceral reactions keeps going down, while the number who advocate for this keeps going up.  

[17:29] This is the first of a two-part podcast. When we come back, we’ll share the stories of success we’ve had together.

In this episode, Elevate's, Stephen Allen, VP of Get Sh*t Done, talks with James Touzel, a partner in the UK law firm TLT.  James leads the Future of Law practice, a multi-disciplinary team, brought together to solve problems for clients with an emphasis on legal technology, legal transformation, and operations.

[01:30] It's about delivering the best way that you can and anticipating future client needs.

[04:38] Our collaboration with LegalSifter brought the ability to create new modules based on what clients are saying.

[07:50] You want to move quickly because like any change program, you do want to deliver on your promises.

[08:25] We’ve been looking at and helping clients with their data.

[11:00] FutureLaw is five years operationally old, we’re continuing to talk with clients about legal transformation, helping legal departments envision what their next-generation operating model should be.

[13:55] The hardest thing, is bringing people on the journey, nudging them, getting people to buy in, embrace it, and engage with it.

[16:37] The level of support that we've had to build a new team in the business was surprising.

[17:55] A number of challenger firms have become the establishment. The willingness to challenge is part of our culture.

In this episode, Elevate’s Stephen Allen, Vice President, Get Sh*t Done, talks with Helena Samaha, the President, and CEO of Lex Mundi. Lex Mundi is the world´s largest law firm network, providing information to its member firms about developments in local and global law.  

[01:17]  Lex Mundi – the who, what, and why.

[02:30]  Helena’s view on innovation and strategy.

[04:40]  Lex Mundi is evolving – talent and technology.

[07:42]  Equisphere – a solution to coordinate global delivery across countries and firms.

[10:42]  2021 – The state of law firms.

[12:49]  What’s next?

[14:01]  Advice on managing change.