Pioneers and Pathfinders

We’re joined today by Dan Rabinowitz, founder and CEO of Pre/Dicta, which offers litigators AI tools that can forecast litigation timelines and provide accurate predictions for outcomes of motions. Dan has had many different roles in his legal journey. He started as a litigator at Sidley Austin LLP, and later became a trial attorney at the US Department of Justice. He then served as general counsel at a data science company, and went on to be associate general counsel, chief privacy officer, and the director of fraud analytics for WellPoint Military Care. With all of these experiences, Dan took a deep interest in the innovation and technology side of legal work. Wanting to focus on data analytics in particular, he ultimately decided to leave practice and develop Pre/Dicta.

In today's discussion, Dan speaks about the behavioral science factors that can help forecast legal outcomes, the information Pre/Dicta provides lawyers in a given case, how he became involved with behavioral analytics, and the need to think outside the box in the legal world.

In this week’s episode, we're speaking with a legal tech entrepreneur who operates at the intersection of generative AI and access to justice. Today's guest, Kara Peterson, is co-founder of descrybe.ai, a free legal research tool leveraging AI to make complex legal information more accessible to professionals and laypeople alike. For several years, Kara worked in marketing and communications at various organizations, including Suffolk University Law School. She continued this work in the public health space for a decade, serving as Executive Director of Communications at Boston University School of Public Health and Chief Communications Officer at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In these roles, she became further interested in access to justice. She would go on to create descrybe.ai with tech software engineer Richard DiBona, as a way to help people overcome the cost barriers to legal information they may need. This year, descrybe.ai is a finalist at the American Legal Tech Awards for both the AI category and the Startup category.

In our conversation, Kara talks about what makes descrybe.ai unique and the problems it aims to address, how her hometown influenced her access to justice work, and her advice for legal professionals considering using generative AI.

This week, we're joined by Brian Corbin, Vice President of Legal Solutions and Operational Excellence at QuisLex, an alternative legal services provider that specializes in managed document review, contract management, compliance services, legal spend management, and legal operations consulting. Brian started his career at the moment in time when the federal rules of civil procedure changed, revolutionizing the eDiscovery process. As senior staff attorney at Covington & Burling LLP, Brian managed teams of document review attorneys on high-profile intellectual property litigation and federal regulatory matters for Fortune 500 clients. Later, he observed the rise of legal offshoring, so he decided to work for Clutch Group in Bengaluru as associate vice president of legal services. Brian then went to JPMorgan Chase, where he worked various roles involving eDiscovery, ultimately becoming executive director and assistant general counsel at the company. Today, at QuisLex, he is part of a team of attorneys, process experts, legal technologists, statisticians, and linguists working closely with clients to reduce cost, mitigate risk, and maximize efficiency.

In our conversation, Brian talks about the "long and winding road" to his job at QuisLex, what it was like to work in different countries, how he addresses the fear around legal tech and change management, and what we can learn from the eDiscovery revolution as it applies to generative AI.

As the summer comes to an end, many in the legal world will soon return to academic settings as students or as educators. So, this week, we wanted to look back on a wonderful discussion we had with Andrew Perlman, Dean at Suffolk University Law School. In this episode, Dean Perlman spoke about his various roles as a leader in the legal industry, and we discussed the impact of recent technological advancements on legal training as well as the bar exam. Thank you for listening. We will return next week with a new episode.

Our guest this week is a leading voice on the future of legal education and law practice. Andrew Perlman is Dean at Suffolk University Law School, and has been a faculty member there since 2001. Before entering academia, Dean Perlman was a litigator with a lifelong fascination with innovation and technology. He has served several important functions in the American Bar Association, and was recently appointed to serve on the Advisory Council of the ABA Task Force on the Law and Artificial Intelligence. Dean Perlman has also been involved in various national and local reform efforts—from police practices and access to justice, to developing alternate paths to law school and bar admission. He has served as a member of the Content Scope Committee of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which helped to identify content for the next generation of the bar exam. Additionally, he has written numerous articles on professional responsibility and legal innovation, and he has served as a presenter or panelist at more than 100 academic, judicial, and other professional programs.

Today, Dean Perlman talks about how his passion for innovation started with a Commodore 64, the history and culture of Suffolk, helping law students embrace generative AI, and updating the bar exam.

Today we’re replaying our episode with Ilona Logvinova. When we spoke with Ilona, she was managing counsel for McKinsey Digital and Head of Innovation for McKinsey Legal. Since then, she has become director of Practice Innovation at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. In our discussion, Ilona talked about her unique role at McKinsey, reimagining legal practice, and how collaboration can advance innovation efforts at legal organizations. Thank you for listening. We will return with brand new episodes on September 4th.

This week’s guest is reimagining the way legal professionals work as we explore new frontiers in technology. We’re speaking with Ilona Logvinova of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. Ilona is managing counsel for McKinsey Digital and Head of Innovation for McKinsey Legal. After working as a corporate lawyer for several years, and working in-house at Mastercard, she joined McKinsey as a technology lawyer, a position which ultimately evolved into her current dual role. As managing counsel, she serves a more traditional in-house legal role for McKinsey’s technology legal team. As Head of Innovation, she architects the innovation transformation journey for McKinsey’s legal department—a function that is still relatively new in the legal world. Additionally, Ilona is a frequent author, and writes about innovation and tech on McKinsey's legal blog and other forums.

In our conversation, Ilona discusses her fascinating work at McKinsey, the nuances of adopting legal tech, training generative AI tools, and the importance of human centricity in legal innovation.

Last week, our virtual roundtable series returned with a fourth installment focusing on the company boardroom and how boards of directors can successfully navigate the high-stakes leadership decisions that are emerging with the rise of generative AI. Our panelists—Marissa Geist, Chief Executive Officer at Cielo Talent; Camille Olson, Partner at Seyfarth; and Paul Washington, President and CEO of the Society for Corporate Governance—considered the issues from both the perspective of board members, as well as key management stakeholders executing on company strategies.

The panel covered a variety of topics: how the implementation of generative AI may affect the role of the board, the particular talent and training considerations that board members should have in mind as they prioritize tech adoption, and how boards should work with management in order to meet their objectives.

Thank you to the panelists and everyone who joined us last week, and thank you to everyone listening today. We are off for the next two weeks, but we will return on September 4th with brand new episodes.

Today we welcome back to the podcast Jacqueline Schafer, founder and CEO of Clearbrief. Jacqueline is an entrepreneur who previously worked as a Paul Weiss litigator, in-house counsel, and assistant attorney general. Clearbrief is a legal tech company with the goal of transforming the legal writing process. Last year, the company launched its own set of generative AI tools, including Instant Hyperlinked Timeline and Verified Facts Section, which helps litigators overcome the problem of hallucinations when using generative AI.

In our conversation, Jacqueline discusses the impact of generative AI on the legal profession, Clearbrief's new AI tool, what she has learned from working in business, and the emerging technology she finds most interesting.

This week, we welcome Kimberly Fine and Neil Handwerker, co-founders of ex judicata, an organization which helps lawyers seeking new careers in other fields. Neil started as a law firm associate, but soon left practice to pursue business. Prior to developing ex judicata, he worked in legal recruiting for 15 years, placing partners and associates in law firms. It was during this time that Neil discovered that many lawyers had wished to leave the profession altogether and seek opportunities in other industries. Kimberly is a legal industry veteran who has focused on the legal events space, legal tech education, and project management throughout her career. Neil and Kimberly first worked together at Executive Enterprises, a conference event and publishing company. They went on to co-found Fulcrum Information Services, a venture-backed provider of management education to law firms, law departments, and C-level executives. They grew the company for five years before selling the business to a public company. Years later, Neil and Kimberly reconnected to start ex judicata, where Kimberly serves as Chief Connectivity Officer and Neil serves as CEO.

In today's discussion, they talk about how they help lawyers transition out of practice, what inspired them to start their latest venture, their respective journeys in the legal world, and their advice for making legal careers more desirable.

Today we're joined by a true pioneer in the legal profession: Sanjay Kamlani, founder and CEO of Maker5, a law firm innovation advisory and software development services business that also builds new legal industry startups through its venture studio. Sanjay started his career as an international tax lawyer at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), focusing on US-India business advisory work. Wanting to do business in India himself, he left PwC to co-found OfficeTiger, a company that pioneered the offshore professional support services industry in India. At OfficeTiger, Sanjay served as CFO, general counsel, and member of the board. He would later co-found Pangea3, one of the first major businesses in the legal process outsourcing industry. At Maker5, Sanjay helps law firms and legal departments transform their processes, workflows, and outcomes. He is also involved with Duke Capital Partners, Duke University's early-stage venture investment fund.

In our discussion, Sanjay talks about why he felt confident venturing into business, the challenges he had faced in the outsourcing industry, his advice for legal tech entrepreneurs, and what it's like to manage a multicultural organization.

Keith Maziarek joins us on the podcast today. Keith is Director of Pricing and Legal Project Management at Katten Muchin Rosenman. Keith entered the legal world as a Marketing and Communications Manager at the ABA, where he learned about working with lawyers, as well as the business side of the industry. He later went on to serve as a business development manager at DLA Piper. There, Keith began exploring pricing and profitability matters, eventually becoming the firm's first head of strategic pricing. He continued in this field at Perkins Coie, where he worked as Senior Director of Client Value. Today, in his wide-ranging role at Katten, he collaborates with others to design, build, and implement the firm’s robust and scalable strategic pricing, profitability, process improvement, legal project management, and client value capability. Additionally, Keith is a board member of the Legal Value Network, where he helps further the evolution of the business of law in the commercial legal services sector. He has also authored several published articles on the topics of pricing, client value, and collaboration, and he speaks regularly at industry conferences.

In today's discussion, Keith talks about what led him to work in pricing, how discussions about pricing have evolved in the legal profession, the key factor about generative AI tools that people often overlook, and how he became involved with the Legal Value Network.