Virtual court hearings are the subject of Episode 38. We talked to Magistrate Judge Tony Leung via Zoom about using Zoom videoconferences for court.

Judge Leung sits on the bench for the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota and has a pretty impressive background. He emigrated from Hong Kong to the United States at the age of 6, was valedictorian of his high school class and then headed to Yale for college.

From Yale he went to New York University law school, worked as an attorney at BigLaw for a few years and then became not only the first Asian American state court judge in Minnesota, but also the first Asian American federal judge in the state.

Judge Leung talks about his experience with virtual court hearings and the pros and cons of holding court hearings by videoconference. He also offers some best practices for appearing before a judge via video (test your equipment ahead of time, make sure you have a stable internet connection and good lighting, take time to mark and ready your exhibits and... make sure you are out of bed before hopping on the video call!).

Judge Leung also talks about how internet access for all also implicates access to justice issues. Specifically, if not everyone has access to the internet, it may limit their ability to have their day in court.

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Ethics attorney Jim Doppke returns to Technically Legal to talk legal ethics and technology.

Jim is a former prosecutor for the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and is now in private practice with Robinson, Stewart, Montgomery and Doppke. Jim counsels attorneys and businesses on legal ethics issues and represents attorneys and attorney candidates in ARDC proceedings.

Way back in 2017, Jim was our first guest and he talked about what was then a fairly recent change to Comment 8 to Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1 (a lawyer’s duty of competence).

In response to changes in technology, the American Bar Association added language to MRPC 1.1 , Comment 8 stating attorneys must understand “the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”  (To date, more states than not require attorneys to be “technologically competent.”)

We brought Jim back to talk about what has changed since he first appeared on the podcast because his original episode is still one of the most downloaded.  Jim says a few things have changed since the tweak to the Rule 1.1: More lawyers using artificial intelligence (AI), especially for contract review and litigation, more lawyers using tech in general (especially since COVID-19) and that there are now other legal ethics rules that touch on the use of technology (like MRPC 5.3 (Responsibilities Regarding Nonlawyer Assistance).

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Attorney Michael Volkov, head of the Volkov Law Group, is our guest for Episode 38. He discusses the use of technology, software and data analysis in corporate compliance and ethics programs. Michael and his firm focus on regulatory compliance issues, internal investigations and white collar crime.

Michael explains that it is very difficult to implement a successful ethics and compliance program without using technology to analyze data.

In fact, recent updates to the U.S. Department of Justice Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (the “DOJ Compliance Guidance”) emphasizes that corporate compliance officers must be given access to relevant compliance and human resources data so they may properly monitor and assess the effectiveness of compliance programs.

Michael discusses the types of data that should be measured to ensure the effectiveness of a corporate compliance program, where to find that data and the future of compliance software and “RegTech” (Regulatory Technology).

Michael has his own compliance podcast, Corruption, Crime and Compliance and a great blog focused on compliance, internal investigations and white collar crime.

Things We Talk About in This Episode

• DOJ Compliance Guidance
• Compliance Dashboards
• RegTech Software
• Association of Corporate Counsel Legal Operations Maturity Model for Compliance
• Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)
• Mr. Roboto

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Bryan Cave data privacy attorney Christian Auty returns for Episode 36 to talk about the real world implications of the Schrems II opinion from the European Court of Justice.

What is Schrems II? It is shorthand for Case C-311/18 Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook Ireland Limited and Maximillian Schrems. In it, the Court of Justice reaffirmed that generally, transfers of personal data from the EU to non-EU countries are prohibited unless sufficient measures are taken to protect it.

The court followed law found in the European Data Protection Directive and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Both say that personal data of EU citizens may not be transferred to non-EU countries unless proper safeguards are in place and only if the Non-EU country ensures an adequate level of protection for the personal data transferred.

In short, Schrems II invalidated the EU/US Privacy Shield Framework that many companies used to legally transfer data between the EU and US. The EU and US governments created the Privacy Shield so companies could become certified to securely transfer data between the EU and US.

The Schrems II court did not believe that the Privacy Shield did enough to protect EU personal data because, among other things, even under the program, EU citizens have no right to challenge government requests for their information under the Foreign Information Surveillance Act.

As Christian explains, although Schrems II invalidated Privacy Shield, it did not invalidate Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) and he suggests that if you do not have SCCs in place and you transfer data from the EU to the United States, you should look into them.

Standard Contractual Clauses are model contract clauses officially sanctioned by the European Commission that address how companies must handle and protect personal data of EU citizens.

Christian says too that companies can bolster their contracts and SCCs by implementing a law enforcement policy–a specific policy about how a company will handle inquiries from intelligence agencies or law enforcement regarding data.

You don't have to "boil the ocean" to implement innovation and change in a law firm or legal department. That's what we learn in Episode 35 from Anna McGrane, PacerPro COO, and Joshua Fireman, President of Fireman & Company.

PacerPro is an app that streamlines and automates the distribution and capture of data from federal court filings. Fireman & Company is a legal industry-focused management consulting firm.

Anna and Joshua join us to talk about a white paper they put together analyzing the time saved and the ROI law firms realized by automating the distribution and processing of federal court filings.

Dealing with pleadings may not be the sexiest legal tech use case, but as Joshua explains, addressing solvable, everyday pain points can be a big win in the development of a knowledge management program and in the bigger picture of change management. 

In their study, Anna and Joshua figured out that by automating the distribution and processing of federal court filings, participating law firms saved nearly 50,000 hours of human time.

Do you want to spend less time dealing with email? Are you interested in automating repetitive work tasks?

Cyndi Wheeler and Mark Pike, both in-house lawyers at collaboration software company Slack, offer tips on how to do that in Episode 34.

Cyndi and Mark discuss how they moved almost all of their communications with outside counsel away from email and into Slack channels and how that has increased productivity and the effectiveness of their legal team.

They also explain that Slack is more than just a communication hub, but has many other features including workflows and bots that the Slack legal department uses to automate common legal tasks. They use Slack workflows to field questions, review documents and contracts for legal issues and help sales close deals. 

Finally, the two lawyers offer tips about how to organize and prioritize Slack channels and messages to stay sane and not become overwhelmed by the barrage of electronic communications we all get everyday.

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

LegalMation Co-Founder Thomas Suh is our guest in Episode 33. LegalMation is a suite of artificial intelligence tools that helps attorneys and legal professionals automate routine litigation tasks like drafting pleadings and written discovery responses.

Thomas and his Co-Founder James Lee came up with the idea for LegalMation while working at a litigation boutique. The firm handled high profile cases and, to even the playing field with larger law firms, they leveraged automation to save time and conserve resources.

Taking automation a step further, the two attorneys realized artificial intelligence could be used to tackle routine (and sometime mundane) tasks that every litigator has to deal with–like responding to complaints and written discovery.

Fast forward a few years, LegalMation is live and used by corporate legal departments for some of the biggest companies in the world. As Thomas explains, Walmart uses LegalMation’s AI in slip and fall cases to give their lawyers a head start and let them focus on “higher touch” legal tasks. Using LegalMation’s assistance in drafting pleadings also promotes consistency throughout the company’s large litigation portfolio.

Similarly, LegalMation is also used by law firms to automate litigation tasks, such as Ogletree Deakins whose employment lawyers use it in certain employment cases.

Thomas points out that the use of AI in legal is not a replacement for attorneys, but a “lawyer’s technician.” He also says that lawyers implementing tech and AI should start slowly because if you take on too big of a project, you might be setting up yourself for failure.

Things We Talk About in This  Episode

LTL Lawyers

Legal Project Management Software

IBM’s Watson

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Legal Value Network Founding Board Members Keith Maziarek and Justin Ergler visit Technically Legal for Episode 32.  Keith, a second time guest (Episode 15 – legal service pricing) and Justin talk about the genesis of LVN (an evolution from the P3 conference) and the group’s mission of “designing, building and implementing the foundations of a more contemporary and commercially-sound model of legal service delivery.”

Keith is Director of Legal Pricing and Project Management at Katten Muchin and  Justin is Director of Alternative Fee Intelligence and Analytics at GlaxoSmithKline.

Keith and Justin explain that inclusiveness is a big goal for the Legal Value Network and the group wants to create a membership community with representation from all corners of the legal ecosystem. 

Keith and Justin explain that through LVN they hope to encourage community and collaboration throughout the legal services industry.

LVN Webinar: The Challenges and Opportunities of One-to-Many Legal Solutions

Blickstein Group Legal Department Operations Survey

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Microsoft attorneys Dennis Garcia and Jason Barnwell discuss how legal teams can successfully and productively work remotely. They also discuss how recent work from home orders may speed up innovation and transformation in legal departments and law firms.

Dennis is an Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft and a prior Technically Legal guest. We talked to him on Episode 4 about Automation, Cybersecurity and the Cloud. Dennis leads a team of lawyers assisting Microsoft’s Enterprise Commercial Sales and Services team, one of the company’s largest commercial businesses.

Jason is also an Assistant General Counsel and heads up Microsoft’s Modern Legal team. In that role, his mandate is to drive industry leading innovation to digitally transform and modernize the Microsoft legal department.

Dennis and Jason explain that for companies to equip their lawyers and employees to successfully work from home, they need to invest in the right tools. The first of which is good hardware—devices up for the task of running whatever software the business needs.

Jason points out that if remote workers have good hardware, they are well positioned for success because most modern software is cloud based and “meets you where you are” permitting work to be done pretty much anywhere with an internet connection. 

Dennis and Jason also explain that for successful remote work, the modern legal team needs collaboration tools to communicate and work with team members, productivity software like Word and Excel to create legal documents, remotely accessible data storage and knowledge management tools.

Both Dennis and Jason agree that change is hard, but lawyers, like everyone else, just need to make the jump and try new tools and new ways of working. And… it all starts with a mindset shift.

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.

Sterling Miller joins us on Episode 30 to discuss how in-house legal teams can help their companies respond to crisis situations and pandemics. Sterling is a three time general counsel (Travelocity, Sabre Corporation and Marketo) now with the Hilger Grabens law firm. He also writes a great blog, Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel.

Sterling explains that during crises, in-house lawyers should “run to the fire” and actively help their companies deal with difficult times. It is a good opportunity for legal departments to lead and show value to the organization. 

Technically Legal is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and the founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled alternative legal services provider.