Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Pratik Patel, the vice president of innovation and products at Elevate Services, a law company, where he leads the company’s product business and innovation initiatives across its range of solutions. Pratik joined Elevate in 2012 following the acquisition of RFx LEGAL Analytics, a company he co-founded. We discussed Elevate’s launch of ElevateNext in connection with Valorem Law Group and Univar, what combinations of this type signifies about the evolution of the legal profession, how lawyers can adapt to a rapidly changing legal marketplace, why alternative legal services providers are so attractive to buyers of legal services, and where this sector is headed.

I spoke with Arup Das, the co-founder and CEO of Alphaserve, a global provider of managed IT, cloud, and cybersecurity services. We discussed the genesis of Alphaserve, how the collaboration between legal and IT is evolving in corporate legal departments and law firms, whether law firms are ready for the emergence of artificial intelligence, applied data science, and blockchain, and the trajectory of innovation in the legal field.

I spoke with Elisa Cooper, the vice president of marketing for Lecorpio, a provider of intellectual property management and analytics software solutions for corporate IP departments. We discussed the results of the Second Annual Lecorpio Trademark Management Study, highlights ranging from budgeting for trademark registrations to trademark policing strategies, the primary theme of the research, and what the results indicate about where the market is headed.

I spoke with Darrell Mervau, the president and co-founder of FileTrail, a records management and information governance system for law firms. We discussed the genesis of FileTrail, what law firms using legacy records systems can do to improve their processes, the different platforms with which FileTrail integrates, and the information governance challenges that law firms are facing and the solutions they are they applying.

I spoke with Ida Abbott, the president of Ida Abbott Consulting, which promotes and supports career development and advancement from the beginning of a lawyer’s career through retirement. Abbott is an elected fellow of both the American Bar Foundation and the College of Law Practice Management, as well as the author of Sponsoring Women, What Men Need to Know and The Lawyer’s Guide to Mentoring, the second edition of which was just released. We discussed her background, how mentoring has changed since the publication of the first edition of The Lawyer’s Guide to Mentoring, the challenges to providing high quality mentoring, the difference between sponsorship and mentorship, and how the profession can leverage mentoring in its continued evolution.