Fringe Legal Presents Bots @ Work

Laura Collins Scott is the Innovation Lead for Clifford Chance in Singapore. In this episode we talk about Laura experience on leading the Create+65 Innovation Lab in Singapore. 

Laura Collins Scott began working with Clifford Chance in 2017 when she was initially engaged to define the strategy and business plan for Clifford Chance Applied Solutions.Laura founded BB Consulting in 2016 to help incumbent companies and start-ups design and build innovative products for their customers.   

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The three take away from the episode:

1. Laura’s meandering journey to her role today. From training as a lawyer to starting her own consultancy and finally landing at Clifford Chance. 
2. Why the Create+65 program was created - how it was influenced by clients, internal stakeholders, and keeping in mind the competitive landscape.
3. Approaching the first anniversary of running the lab, what did Laura and her team have learned that can benefit other firms and individuals. 

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If you have questions, comments, or feedback then please tweet to me @WhoIsAbS with #FringeLegal or email me on [email protected] 

On this episode we have Peter Buck, VP, Product Strategy at NetDocuments. The core of the conversation focuses on tackling multi-teaming - the effects of having multiple people working on multiple projects simultaneously. We pivot then to focus on productivity, discussing how it can be measured and the impact of constant context switching, discussing against the background that it takes one around 25 minutes to reach full productivity, but people are interrupted every 3 minutes!

• Art (culture and perception) and science (data and engineering supporting the argument) of product design
• Multi-teaming: people working on multiple projects simultaneously, which has many benefits as well as many risks. How does this affects knowledge professionals
• Who’s feeling the pain from constant context switching
  • Multi-teaming is more prominent with seniority
• How to structure teams to minimize destructive conflict
• Measuring productivity = output as a function of input 
  • Jamie Teevan’s research looking into micro-productivity as a way to leverage micro-moments throughout one’s day
• It takes almost 25 mins to reach full productivity, but you’re interrupted every 3 minutes
• Twitter: @backofthenapkin 
• LinkedIn: Peter Buck 

Reading list 

Article: https://hbr.org/2017/09/the-overcommitted-organization

Resource: Dr. Jamie Teevan information and publication

Resource: Marc Weiser vision for ubiquitous computing

Book: Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos

Welcome to the 2nd season of the Fringe Legal podcast. In the first episode we speak with the Maya Markovich, Head of Product at Dentons Nextlaw Labs. 

The core theme of the episode is all around innovation;  we cover three broad categories:

1. The 3 different pillars of NextLaw labs, and how innovation can take the robot out of the lawyer
2. How do you catalyze innovation? What that means, and the importance of becoming the connective tissue across the firm/business
3. Impact of legal tech on access to justice 

Thanks to Maya for taking the time, and also to Isabella Galeno (who’s featured later in the season) for introducing me to Maya.

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About Maya

Head of product for Nextlaw Labs, Maya Markovich is an innovation leader with roots in change management, behavioral science, law, VC and tech. She delivers next-generation technology, process, and business growth services for Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, and its clients, including acceleration of the legal tech startups in the Nextlaw Ventures portfolio. Her background enables her to encourage, design and implement the future of the legal profession around the globe.

Maya also serves on the boards of Legal Access Alameda, LexLab, OneJustice, and The Technolawgist, and as mentor for LegalGeek’s Women in LawTech and the University of Arizona TechLaw Fellows program, supporting legal tech initiatives to improve access to justice, gender equity and the future of legal education.  She speaks and writes frequently on legal tech and innovation/design, and is deeply committed to leveraging tech for good, especially to increase diversity and access to justice. Find her on LinkedIn and Twitter @MarkovichMaya.

Clarissa Rayward, also known as ‘The Happy Family Lawyer’, specialises in helping couples stay out of Court and work together to reach a resolution to their relationship breakdown. A practising family lawyer,she is the Director of the Brisbane Family Law Centre, a multidisciplinary practice.

Clarissa is based in Brisbane, Australia is a speaker, author, and hosts the popular podcast “Happy Lawyer, Happy Life”.

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Some of the items we cover in the episode include (numbers are time codes):

• How Clarissa went from studying marine biology, to interior design to a practicing lawyer
• How to provide a delight experience to clients even (or perhaps especially) when they are going through difficult situations -> 8.04
• Developing a client centric practice to deliver law in a different way -> 9.14
• Why empathy is so powerful in the practice of law. What is the difference between sympathy and empathy, and how the latter can elevate your practice -> 10.48
• The origins of the “Happy Lawyer” -> 15.06
• How to avoid/manage burnout & stress as a lawyer or any other professional -> 18.30
• How to identify things in your life that cultivate happiness -> 23.28
• The science behind gratitude -> 25.50
• Failure is ok, and learning from failure; restarting -> 31.15 

In this penultimate episode of season one, I speak with the fantastic Thao Tran. Thao is the Knowledge Manager at the international firm Fried Frank. She's based in New York, and is also the Member Liaison for ILTA in NYC.

Thao has a unusual route into knowledge management, and in exploring how she got there, we learn ways that can help break into a new role, crowdsource ideas and separate the signal from the noise.

At the end of the episode, I was left with a few pages of notes (and Thao even suggested a job for me after I retire :p)!.

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Some of the highlights include: (numbers are time codes)

• Thao's journey into knowledge management driven by work-life balance, and a nudge from a partner → 2.50
• Thinking through the expansion of the KM function from just one practice area to various → 5.00
• Importance of mentorship and sponsorship (and the differences between the two at a law firm) → 6.00
• Why casting a "wider net" when searching for mentors is so importance, and how it helped shape Thao's career → 8.00
• A primer on knowledge management, what does it mean to Thao and to law firms → 16.24
• Being that bridge between lawyers, technology and management → 19.48
• How to discover where the inefficiencies are, and the benefits of starting small → 25.18
• Separating the signal from the noise, and having a genuine desire to learn from each conversation → 31.01
• What's on the horizon for the remainder of 2019 → 36.30

The episode is available now here (https://www.fringelegal.com/s1-e9-thao-tran-on-crowdsourcing-ideas-the-importance-of-mentorship-and-embracing-the-km-role), on iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.

Nicola Shaver is the global Director of Knowledge Management at Paul Hastings LLP in New York. In her role, she focuses on opportunities to optimize processes and introduce tools that will improve efficiency and productivity, and on leveraging the firm's intellectual capital to better serve clients.

Nicola has worked in the legal services industry for over 15 years in three different jurisdictions. Nicola is passionate about finding innovative solutions to existing problems, building a culture of innovation within law firms, and instilling an empathic approach to design.

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Some of the items we cover in the episode include: 

• How Nikki got to NYC - her story of working in three countries
• Nikki’s move to KM - Nikki’s view of KM, and why she thinks it’s such an exciting role to be in
• What she sees as the key components of a KM role
• What are some of the items that will help lawyers actually want to continue to practice law
• The shift in technology, processes, and the way law is practiced
• What is design thinking
• What components make up design thinking
• What are the steps of design thinking  
  • Empathy
  • Define
  • Ideate
  • Prototype
  • Test
  • Execute
• Why empathy is one of the key components of any problem solving exercise
• How Nikki was first exposed to Design Thinking
• How her firm explored the concept of design thinking
• How to promote the concept to lawyers and have them be engaged
• What is one key stage, after which, the lawyers will be hooked
• What is range of time investment required for a design thinking workshop
• Some amazing tips to help you out if you’re trying this out for the first time
• Some key takeaways for Nikki after having put design thinking into
• How design thinking can help tap into the “big brains” of lawyers

Angela Dowd is the Director of Practice Innovation for the law firm of Burns & Levinson LLP in Boston, Massachusetts. In her current role with the firm, she is works with practice groups and administrative departments to increase efficiency and streamline business processes. She has also been active member of the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) for many years, speaking at the annual conference. She is in her second term on the Board of Directors, currently serving as President. In addition, she has spoken at Association of Legal Administrators, Legal Marketing Association and the Law Firm Alliance conferences.

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In this episode I speak to the brilliant Angela Dowd. We really focus the conversation on how to develop a innovator's mindset, and lessons learnt as Director of Practice Innovation at Burns & Levinson LLP, and as the President of the Board of Directors at ILTA.

Some of the highlights include: (numbers are time codes) 

• Angela's "organic, rambling path" into legal: going from chemical engineering, HR, training, applications and innovation → 1.20
• Symptomatic problem solving vs business problem solving → 4.17
• Instead of suggesting solutions, focus on learning about the problem the user is trying to solve → 5.40
• The challenges and benefits of working in a "firm of laterals" → 7.20
• "Cross fertilization of innovative ideas" → 10.45
• Make gain where you can, and tying innovation initiatives to business problems → 12.32
• Resistance to change vs desire to change → 13.48
• Reverse mentoring on as a tool to challenge your assumptions → 25.00
• What's on the horizon for the legal profession → 30.00

The episode is available now here (https://www.fringelegal.com/s1-e7-angela-dowd-on-developing-an-innovators-mindset), on iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else you get your podcasts. 

Paul Domnick is President of Litera Microsystems, having been President of Litéra Corp from 2014 to 2017. He brings unique insight into the utility of the Litera Microsystems’ risk management solutions having previously been CIO of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for five years. Before taking on this role in early 2007, Paul was head of global IT sourcing for Zurich Financial Services.

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Paul is such a font of knowledge, and has so many great stories which distill some of his learnings. I segmented our conversation in exploring Pauls’ past (being a CIO), his present (President at Litera Microsystems), and the future (what are some items a knowledge worker should be thinking about). 

Full disclosure, I work with Paul at Litera Microsystems. 

SHOW NOTES

We cover the following in this episode:

• PAST: Pauls’ move from financial services to the legal profession, and how the technology needs differ between law firms and professional service organisations.
• Why Freshfields deliberately hired a CIO (and others) from outside of legal – and why this might be more common in the future.
• Lessons learnt from being a CIO (listening, learning the law firm mechanics, and growing as a leader)
• The role of IT leaders as representatives of change in an organisation
• PRESENT: how running a different kind of procurement organisation at Freshfields led to Paul moving to Litera
• Growing a company from a customer centric view point (grow so you can better serve your client base)
• The formation of Litera Microsystems, and vision behind the creation of a platform company
• FUTURE: true disruption comes when someone does something so drastic with current technology it changes the game
• How technology can have a meaningful impact on people’s life and what role innovation plays into this
• Trends for the knowledge worker – the idea of augmentating technology to your current role
• AI becoming an ubiquitous piece of technology. AI is successful when you don’t know it’s around you.
• Advantage of a first mover vs being a fast follower

You can find out more information about at Litera Microsystems on their website. 

Full show notes can be found at https://www.fringelegal.com/s1-e6-paul-domnick-on-the-changing-landscape-of-the-legal-profession

Thomas Haines is a software engineer and entrepreneur . He is the CEO/Founder of Practice Insight and he currently works on the company's latest tool - WiseTime, an autonomous, privacy first timekeeping software. Tom holds a BSc, LLB (Hons), and LLM, and has qualified as a solicitor, barrister and Australian registered patent attorney.

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This was an interesting conversation, speaking with someone who has had quick a varied background starting with working as part of Apple's sales team, going on to study computer science, practicing law and then founding his own company.

We cover the following in this episode:

• Tom's winding journey into legal profession and becoming an entrepreneur
• When creating product, the importance of solving a real business problem (especially when it can also uncover principal opportunities at your firm)
• The importance of creating elegant software, but focusing on the small things and augmenting the users current workflow
• Tom's rule of positioning software - show an expected 6X return on investment. This will help mitigate the risk associated with adoption, change management, and implementation
• How one call from a $700M business changed Tom's life
• How a product with $0 revenue can still have the most potential and promise
• What is WiseTime and what does autonomous privacy focused time keeping mean?
• Value in automating/eliminating low level tasks
• The three pillars of timekeeping software 
  • Privacy
  • Elegance
  • Integration
• When it comes to privacy - the starting point should be that the data belongs to the individual. And why this privacy first principle has made the difference between firms adopting the technology, and not.

You can find out more information about at WiseTime.io, including a quick video and more.

Full show notes can be found at https://www.fringelegal.com/s1-e5-thomas-haines-on-autonomous-privacy-first-timekeeping