Fringe Legal Presents Bots @ Work

As part of our series of examining Generative AI in Practice, Fringe Legal spoke with Stephanie Corey, founder of legal operations consultancy UpLevel Ops, and Brandi Pack, UpLevel’s Legal Tech Analyst & AI Consultant. They share how legal teams can thoughtfully leverage generative AI to transform workflows, augment human skills, and futureproof roles. With proper governance and training, we can keep pace with the evolution of AI and maximize its potential.

Show notes:

Show Notes:

[00:02:19] Getting early access to GPT-4

[00:08:00] How are the Uplevel Ops team grew adoption internally

[00:11:53] People don't care about AI
[00:14:51] Why to document prompts
[00:18:06] How are legal teams reacting to the changing landscape

[00:28:38] GenAI as a workflow tool
[00:31:03] What's the future?

[00:34:16] Will my role be displaced?

[00:38:47] What one thing can organizations do to see immediate value from GenAI?

We sat down with Jeff Pfeifer, Chief Product Officer at LexisNexis during ILTACON 2023 to get his insights on legal AI progress, hype versus reality, increased law firm adoption, and the importance of demonstrating tangible benefits.

Topics covered:

• Navigating the legal AI hype cycle
• AI’s potential to enhance legal workflows
• Growing law firm interest and hands-on exploration
• Avoiding the “trough of disillusionment”
• Real-world benefits driving adoption over hype

In this episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat interviews Nnamdi Emelifeonwu and Feargus MacDaeid, co-founders of legal tech startup Definely.

Key Takeaways:

• Definely creates software plugins to simplify drafting, reviewing, and analyzing legal contracts in Microsoft Word using AI/ML.
• The idea originated from Feargus' need as a blind lawyer to access information in documents more easily.
• They validated demand with a scrappy prototype and early pilots despite its flaws.
• After leaving law firm jobs, their mission-driven approach focuses on access, efficiency, and transparency.
• Their blueprint for innovation includes launching an MVP, inclusive design thinking, gathering user feedback, and carefully leveraging AI.
• Maintaining ethics and reputation is central, not rushing new technology to market.
• When solving problems for underserved groups, solutions often benefit everyone.
• A framework for evaluating AI: accuracy and understanding real-world impacts.

Connect with Nnamdi Emelifeonwu

Connect with Feargus MacDaeid

Learn more about Definely

ESG (environmental, social, governance) factors have become essential considerations for companies seeking to manage risk, attract investment, and operate sustainably.

Yet myths and misconceptions persist around what ESG is and how best to approach it. This leads many legal teams to view ESG as an amorphous compliance exercise rather than a strategic priority.

Recently on the Fringe Legal podcast, Abhijat Saraswat interviewed ESG expert Kai Gray, CEO of advisory firm Motiv, to demystify ESG and offer practical guidance for legal professionals. In this episode, learn what ESG means and how legal teams can pragmatically prioritize it. Get clarity on ESG frameworks, strategic rollout, and avoiding common pitfalls.

Summary:

In this insightful episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat has an in-depth discussion with India Preston, Director of Platform Solutions at legal tech startup Lupl. They delve into India's winding journey into legal project management, tactical approaches to driving adoption, and how to effectively challenge established processes.

India shares learnings and advice drawn from her diverse experiences - from helping build out Linklaters' LPM function from the ground up to make the leap to an early-stage legal tech startup. She provides a rare longitudinal view of how legal project management has evolved from a little-known concept in 2013 to a widely recognized, if still poorly understood, discipline today.

Key Takeaways:

• While LPM has gone from barely existing in 2013 to being commonly known today, there is still substantial room for education on how to apply it effectively. LPM principles empower lawyers to run matters like projects, but specialized LPM roles create incremental value on complex matters.
• Project management qualifications alone don't cut it for legal project managers to be successful. Soft skills to integrate smoothly with lawyers and legal teams are just as important, if not more so. Technical skills can be learned on the job.
• Identifying concrete problems that need solving is absolutely crucial before adopting any new solution or technology. Without an anchor in specific pain points, adoption will struggle no matter how exciting the new solution seems at first glance.
• Rollouts of new technology or processes should start small and be targeted before expanding more widely across a firm. The tendency may be to go big with a splashy firmwide launch, but this rarely succeeds.
• Resources like use case guides, template libraries, and informal user communities help drive adoption by making the novel feel familiar. However, these need to be grounded in solving real firm problems.
• Process mapping workshops - with the help of an unbiased external facilitator - can challenge status quo thinking and processes in extremely constructive ways. Just asking "why" repeatedly can unearth entrenched inefficiencies.

Actionable Takeaway: Start Small Before Going Wide

Explore in detail at Fringe Legal.

In this episode, our guests Brad Blickstein, David Cambria, and returning guest Keith Maziarek join host Ab to discuss the findings from the 3rd Legal Pricing and Project Management (LPMM) Survey Report. 

They delve into the key challenges and trends shaping the legal industry, touching upon innovation, technology, client expectations, and the future of legal service delivery. Tune in to explore the data and analysis from the report, as these experts share their perspectives on the current state and future of legal operations.

Key discussion points:

• [00:02:16] The current state of law firm investments in innovation and technology
• [00:10:45] Contradictions between client expectations and rewarded behaviors
• [00:18:50] Challenges faced by law firm and legal department executives in adopting process and collaboration improvements
• [00:27:12] The real threat to law firm success and how to address it
• [00:34:23] The impact of economic downturns on the legal industry and the potential for future transformation

Don't miss this in-depth conversation that offers valuable insights for legal professionals interested in legal tech, legal project management, and legal service delivery.

A more in-depth commentary is available on FringeLegal.com

Professional services environments are stressful. Among the myriad of items to be juggled each day, you must manage workloads, managing the capacity of employees -  what kind of work & how frequently work is allocated.  How well this aspect is managed will impact performance, productivity, DEI, and retention. 

As part of our startup series, we speak with William Dougherty, Co-Founder of Capcity, a legal tech tool that looks to improve the allocation of work.

In the episode, we'll discuss (numbers are time markers):

• What is Capacity → 1.48
• How is work allocated → 3.09
• Issues with the current approach to work allocation → 4.24
• What if nothing changes → 5.48
• Capacity management vs. work allocation → 12.31
• Getting buy-in to effect change → 17.02
• The business impact of attrition → 21.46

The guest this week are co-founders of New York-based Priori Legal.  Basha Rubin, the company's Chief Executive Officer, and Mirra Levitt, the Chief Product Officer, met as classmates at Yale Law School and found Priori. Earlier this year, they announced a funding round of $15 million.  

Priori works with in-house legal teams to connect legal departments with the right outside counsel for projects globally, saving them time and money. 

We discuss Legal Tech trends, their origin story, raising funds a Women Founders, and the secret sauce for successful legal teams.

Legal operation teams have been increasing in popularity. In this episode, Liz Lugones and Sumi Trombley from Uplevel Opsshare why Legal Ops teams matter, why you should care, and how to leverage them to level up your legal team (in-house and at firms).
 

Uplevel Ops are offering a complimentary 30-minute consultation, you can find more here.  

In the episode, we discuss:

• (03:12) Why should you care about legal operations (LegalOps)?
• (04:21) Law school vs. practice
• (08:12) Enabling fail-fast thinking in legal teams
• (11:11) It's not just about technology 
• (16:32) Embedded in the organization
• (21:25) Creating space for creativity and ideas
• (28:38) Celebrating success
• (30:49) Gaining trust
• (34:25) Shifts in legal operations

Article referenced

Striving for Imperfection: The Complicated Relationship of Lawyers and Project Management by Sumi Trombley & Liz Lugones

Key quotes

(edited for a better reading experience)

About the guests

Elizabeth "Liz" Lugones, COO/Senior Advisor, UpLevel Ops

Liz has built and managed Legal Operations teams in various industries in both public and private companies over her 20+ year career. She excels in global project management and business reengineering, with particular expertise in process improvement, change management, cross-functional collaboration and team building, but her true passion is helping others find their own strengths and talents and harness them for the value of all.

Before joining UpLevel, Liz served as the Senior Director of Legal Operations at WeWork. Prior to WeWork, Liz served as Director of Legal Operations at a diverse range of companies, including UnitedLex, DXC Technology, Becton Dickinson, and MetLife. She also worked at Citigroup as Manager, Strategy and M&A.

Liz holds a BA in Political Science and Journalism from Rutgers University, is certified in Lean Six Sigma and fluent in Spanish. She is based in New Jersey.

Sumi Trombley, Senior Advisor, UpLevel Ops

Sumi Trombley practiced in law firms and in-house legal departments for more than a decade before coming to UpLevel Ops. Sumi previously served as Director, Legal at enterprise legal services provider Marshall Denning, LLC, where she managed and trained a team of junior and senior attorneys and developed and implemented resource optimizing processes for RFPs and pre-litigation disputes. She is known for her ability to provide strategic guidance and cost-effective solutions.

Prior to joining Marshall Denning, Sumi was Legal Counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, serving as a de facto general counsel to top enterprise IT outsourcing accounts. She started her legal career at the law firms of Paul Hastings LLP in New York and Latham & Watkins LLP in DC, practicing corporate finance and securities law.

Sumi holds a JD from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, and a BA in Political Economy from Georgetown University. She is based in Maryland.

To supplement the release of the Fringe Legal no-code report, which provides 100s of hours of market research in 6-min, we speak with Jackson Liu, Chief Commercial Officer at Neota, about the state of no-code in legal. 

During the conversation, we discuss:

• How firms are using no-code tools
• Leveraging no-code tools as a competitive advantage
• Focusing on the customer journey and adoption for long-term success
• No-code challenges
• Future of no-code

You can read the full No-code report at www.fringelegal.com/no-code-report/