The Legalpreneurs Sandbox

In this podcast, the fifth episode of eight in the CLI's Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab, Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group, Sheetal Deo, Founder and Principal Solicitor, Shakti Legal Solutions facilitated a discussion focussed on Partnership or Sole Proprietorship and what to consider before you jump, with two outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia:

• Natasha Blycha, Managing Director & Founder Partner, Stirling & Rose
• Kelly Gatehouse, Principal Lawyer and Director, Nurture Law

Topics covered in this session included:

• How you know when you've reached a decision point in your career, the alternatives available to you, and how to compare/assess them
• The key differences and considerations between partnership and sole proprietorship
• The realities of starting and running a legal business: solo or a team; growing the business or not; home office or not; funding options; balancing doing the work and managing your business
• Why you need and how to create/integrate a multidisciplinary team inside/outside your firm, or both
• The importance of mentors, advisors and support – who you need, where to find them, and how you translate advice into actions steps

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

In this podcast, the fourth episode of eight in the CLI's Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab, Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation, facilitated a discussion with three outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia on how they created a change agenda, led their firms (and clients) from A-Z, and what their plans are to sustain this in 2023:

• Genevieve Collins, Chief Executive Partner, Lander & Rogers
• Caryn Sandler, Partner + Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer, Gilbert + Tobin
• Tessa van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader, Moores

Topics covered in this session included:

• How to define innovation and change (it's different for everyone) AND how the two are intertwined
• The catalyst for and if there is a "secret sauce" that engages people in change/transformation
• Real-life examples of change/innovation projects/initiatives that worked or failed AND what happened next!
• How to value innovation and resource it at any time but especially in the face of a recession
• How do you know innovation/change has become your new BAU, part of your culture, and not just a project
• The importance of developing leadership capabilities in achieving and championing innovation/change

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

This session has become a signature event for CLI – this is our fourth year of looking back, seeing what stuck and what didn't in legal innovation and tech and why. We always wrap with a little crystal ball gazing into 2023 too!

This year we chatted with Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer at Gilbert + Tobin and Co-chair of the CLI Advisory Board; Graeme Grovum, Head of Technology and Client Solutions at Allens; and Tessa van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader at Moores - we had lots to discuss, 2022 was a big year…

On the tech side, we spoke about tech stacks (the nice to haves vs not negotiable now in our post-COVID BAU world); the winners and the REAL, practical differences between platforms and point solutions; the outlook for legaltech start-ups in 2023 (the good, the bad and the ugly); and yes, ChatGPT too!

On the innovation side, we discussed the rate and distribution of REAL change in the legal world, where that was happening i.e., in legal departments vs law firms and why that mattered. We did a deep dive into capabilities – how these were changing and expanding to accommodate new law firm business models and meet/exceed client expectations – that inevitably led us to a discussion about NewLaw careers! We also chatted about the many practical, critical ways that firms were processing all of this and addressing that in an employment market increasingly typified by skills shortages, resignations, hybrid work, and with the threat of more economic challenges to come in 2023.

We wrapped with predictions for 2023…you'll need to watch/listen to this session to find that out…no spoiler alerts here!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you'll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series, we're chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].

Robots are going to replace lawyers! That's the headline that often comes to mind when we think about AI in the legal world. But, it's not realistic for a bunch of different reasons and in this session, we discussed why with Uwais Iqbal, the Founder of simplexico, a legal AI consultancy based in the UK and dedicated to serving the AI, ML and NLP needs of the legal sector. You'll also find Uwais on Twitter here.

Uwais' background as a machine learning engineer and data scientist and, the emerging need for those skills in the legal world, is what connected him to it. From that lived experience, he identified an opportunity to make AI understandable, user-friendly, and an integral part of the legal marketplace. It's an amazing story and where we started this conversation.

We then jumped into some myth-busting and discussed where AI in legal lies today on the Gartner Hype Cycle and where we can expect that to go. We did a deep dive into the practical benefits of AI. We also discussed the challenges, especially those that relate to and have already pointed to the need for careful review, consideration, and determination in areas like ethics and bias.

We ended with a discussion about ChatGPT. Having been launched in November 2022, it was a hot topic in the media when we spoke and, subject to mixed reactions. We discussed how the real opportunity of this AI, and AI in general, was yet to be fully realised and we'll likely get closest to seeing it when the data sets used to train AI to move from the public to private arenas.

This is a conversation everyone in the legal ecosystem should watch/listen to. AI is going to influence decisions and impact every part of the legal world. It won't all happen at the same time but, one thing is for sure, it's going to be harder and harder to catch up if we don't get on board and at least follow the trajectory.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you'll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series, we're chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].

In this podcast, the third episode of eight in the CLI's Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation, facilitated a discussion about the when, how, why and what of funding for women-led businesses with two outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia and the USA:

• Jannaya James, Partner - Financial Advisory, Grant Thornton Australia
• Basha Rubin, CEO & Co-Founder, Priori Legal

Topics covered in this session included:

• How to think about and make fundamental choices for business funding
• Key sources of funding for legal businesses
• Whether or not legal businesses need to be more creative and cast the net widely/differently when it comes to funding
• What funders look for in a legal business and why
• When it's desirable/undesirable for a funder to take a stake in the business
• The profile of and your checklist for a fabulous investor
• Why women-led businesses don't fare as well in the funding stakes and what can be done about it

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

Everywhere you look there's another launch, announcement, and even more discussion about legaltech! While there is DEFINITELY more tech to choose from today, the SAME critical question remains for you to ask and answer...what's the right tech for you and your law firm?

In this podcast, Fiona McLay, Principal Lawyer & Consultant at McLay Legal answered that question, revisited her popular original video from May 2020, and provided a practical framework for getting started and implementing your legaltech projects.

Topics covered in this session included:

• What's changed since 2019 in the legaltech marketplace
• Common legaltech adoption challenges and how to solve them
• A five-step practical process for choosing the right legaltech
• How to kick start your legaltech projects today

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

If you would like to revisit Fiona's earlier video on Getting Started with Legal Tech Projects, you'll find it here.

In this podcast, in the second episode of eight in the CLI's Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab, Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group, Courtney Blackman, Head of Partnerships, Lander & Rogers, facilitated a discussion about the journey from Start Up to Scale Up with three outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia:

• Riz Amin, CEO, Foundd Legal
• Renee Coman, Mergers and Acquisitions Relationship Manager, Jonas Software
• Kate McAlister, Lawyer & Co-Founder, Markster

Topics covered in this session included:

• The difference between a start-up and scale-up
• How to identify, read the signs, and make the business transformation from start-up to scale-up at the right time
• Determining, understanding, and prioritising your product market
• The importance of client relationships and client-based business growth
• How to sustain a scaled business – what it takes, what to do, and what it looks like
• Developing, managing and choosing the right talent for a growing business – capabilities; FT/PT/casual; insourcing/outsourcing
• Funding options – bootstrap/client investment/external funding
• The role, challenges and opportunities of tech
• Helpful tools and resources for growing start-ups

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

In this podcast, the final session in CLI's Legaltech Around the World Series, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, CLI facilitated a panel discussion focussing on what we have learnt this year – the big themes, the big changes and what that's telling us about where legaltech is heading.

Terri was joined by amazing guest panellists:

• David Bushby, Managing Director, InCounsel
• Nikki Shaver, CEO & Co-Founder, Legaltech Hub
• Clinton Swan, International Operations/Co-Founder, Codelex Legaltech

Topics covered in this session included:

• What defines a legaltech ecosystem
• Whether or not the global legaltech market is in start-up or scale-up mode, or something entirely different, and why it matters
• What's hot in legaltech right now
• Where the legaltech money is being spent and why
• The biggest challenges for legaltech development around the world
• The biggest opportunities arising from taking a global view of legaltech
• The impact of digital literacy on legaltech uptake
• The impact of and the difference between regulation of the legal profession vs regulation of tech
• What's next for legaltech in 2023

You'll find information about the other episodes in this series here. The series is presented in association with InCounsel.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

Don't forget to subscribe to:

• InCounsel's Weekly Newsletter
• CLI's Newsletter

So much has changed in the legal workplace. We've heard about the gig economy. We know people are working differently and from different places now. We also know that no matter what your profession, the digital ecosystem has disrupted it and will continue to do that for a long time to come. So, have these changes opened the door to a new way to conceive work for a different workforce? Is it possible to access the right amount of expertise (not all of it), at the right time, remotely, and at the right price? Debra Andrews has answered this question with an emphatic "yes" for the marketing world and calls it fractional marketing!

Debra is the President and Owner of Marketri LLC in the USA and, a marketing guru! She has worked in senior marketing roles in 3 of the 4 big global consulting firms and as a Fractional CMO, all before launching Marketri. Marketri is a strategic marketing consultancy that provides a slice (fraction) of expertise from a whole bunch of marketing specialists in strategy, execution, and analytics to B2B companies including law firms.

So, what exactly is fractional marketing? It means instead of expanding your internal marketing team (Chief Marketing Officer, Managers, creative directors, data analysts, PR professionals, project managers, writers, graphic designers, MarTech specialists) you outsource your marketing work to a team of these specialists who provide the slice (fraction) of expertise you need from them, when you need it. For a company like Marketri, that could mean providing one person to act as a fractional (not full-time) Chief Marketing Officer. At other times, it might mean selecting a team of experts in areas relevant to the engagement. And, because the fractional specialist/teams don't work in just one industry, it also means they bring the best of all ideas, approaches, and initiatives from all industries to the engagement. It's customised. It's grounded in efficiency. Being able to access this depth of expertise allows mid-sized businesses to compete with those that are much larger.

We've seen the rise of fractional CEOs, now fractional CMOs and other specialists, it will be interesting to see if this idea evolves into a fractional C-suite and beyond!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you'll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series we're chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].

With this podcast, we launched CLI's Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab, Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group.

In this, the first of eight sessions in the series, we chatted with three outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia, Singapore and the USA who have taken the journey from Founder to CEO and candidly shared that experience:

• Sonja Ebron, Co-Founder, & CEO, Courtroom5
• Sacha Kirk (Facilitator), Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer, Lawcadia
• Cherilyn Tan, CEO & Founder, AsiaLawNetwork.com & Tessaract Technologies

Topics covered in this session included:

• What changes when you move from the role of founder to CEO
• The benefits of having a founder vs co-founder; how this evolves; and how/why roles and responsibilities are distributed
• How to build an effective team: in-sourcing vs outsourcing; what you continue to do vs what the team does; the challenges of scaling, hiring the right people, contractors, retaining mindset and culture
• The pros and cons of international expansion
• The relationship between investors and founders – who wants what and how to ensure interests are aligned

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.