The Legalpreneurs Sandbox

In this podcast, a session in our ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies series, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific) chatted with Sarah Stoddart, Founder and Director and Michele Davis, Special Counsel at Vitality Law Australia.

Vitality Law Australia (VLA) was born from a desire to do law differently and to achieve true work-life integration. It's a non-traditional law firm specialising in healthcare, small business, property and wills and estates matters.

The small and nimble VLA team works remotely and flexibly, demonstrating the firm's strong commitment to its clients, its business AND life outside of business too.

Client convenience, comfort, and customisation of services are at the core of VLA's business. This includes things like meeting online rather than in person and giving advice via slide decks and images rather than long letters. VLA has done away with legal jargon, daunting meeting rooms and dark suits – they are all about helping their clients grow, in business and in life.

Topics discussed in the session included:

• Why VLA is a "non-traditional legal practice"
• The importance of values, goals and how these shape and inform firm culture
• How client needs and expectations are changing and, consequently, how and why customisation is redefining legal practice
• How a mix of legal services and products supports and enhances the client and lawyer experience
• The pros and cons of flexible, remote and hybrid working for legal business owners and employees
• What NewLaw legal business founders need to focus on before and after they launch

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 seventh session in CLI's Legaltech Around the World Series, David Bushby, Managing Director, InCounsel facilitated a discussion about the local legaltech market in Latin America.

David was joined by amazing guest panellists:

• Andrés Jara, Co-Founder & CEO, Kea Technology Inc (Chile)
• Bibiana Martinez Camelo, Head of Legal Operations, Bancolombia (Colombia)
• Silvana Stochetti, Founder & CEO, Legalify Latam (Argentina)
• Maxime Troubat, CEO, Juridoc (Brazil)
• Agustin Velazquez G.L, Managing Partner, AVA Firm (Mexico)

Topics covered in this session included:

• An overview of the legaltech market in Latin America
• The drivers/agents of change and impact of legaltech in the B2B and B2C markets (and how they are connected)
• The challenges and opportunities for legaltech
• The impact of COVID on the legaltech market
• The importance of legaltech communities
• Who is funding legaltech development in Latin America and are tech developers staying, going, or returning
• What legaltech adoption REALLY looks like (separating the hype and hope from reality)
• The growing importance of digital literacy and the role of law schools in that education

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.

Additional Resources referred to in this session

• You'll find the Legal Hackers website here

Don't forget to subscribe to:

• InCounsel's Weekly Newsletter
• CLI's Newsletter

Neural nets…sounds exciting, perhaps a little scary, and a long way from anything to do with legal practice, right? Wrong! It has everything to do with how the legal ecosystem is being challenged to reconceive and deliver legal work differently from start to finish and…beyond!

It's easy to get caught up in jargon in all of this stuff – AI, machine learning, natural language processing, and so the list goes on – that's why we spoke with Pablo Arredondo, a Co-Founder & the Chief Innovation Officer at Casetext. Pablo works in this world every day, he really knows this stuff, understands legal practice, and seamlessly translates what he knows into the work he does with legal practitioners. That's no doubt a big part of why Casetext is leading the way in this area with its outstanding, user-friendly products.

Our conversation in this session was a journey. We discussed what neural nets are and are not; how they apply to the legal ecosystem, especially when it comes to legal search; the difference between keyword searches, neural nets, and how you choose between them; some great practical applications of these tools in legal practice like e.g. Casetext's product AllSearch; how neural nets promise to change everything in the legal world (and other worlds too); and, the benefits that have already emerged from implementing this AI for legal practitioners and, their clients too!

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 2013, after many years working in large law firms and co-founding one of the first legal metrics start-ups, Caren Ulrich Stacy took time out to reflect on how she could bring together what she had done with what she had experienced to solve a problem that keeps knocking at her door – how do women who had left legal practice for a variety of different reasons, find their way back to it?

The answer was the OnRamp Fellowship, the first returnship program for law firms that later extended to legal departments. It grew into the Diversity Lab, an incubator for innovative ways of boosting diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. The Lab ran a series of Women in Law Hackathons from 2016 – The Mansfield Rule was an idea from the first Hackathon that grew wings in US, Canadian and UK law firms and legal departments too. Named after the first woman lawyer in the US, Arabella Mansfield, its focus is on boosting and sustaining diversity in leadership and the pipeline to leadership.

The Lab also subsequently established the Move the Needle initiative, a wonderful collaborative experiment between the Lab and four founding law firms, resourced over 5 years, the outcome being to produce empirical data (which will include a Report) about diversity and inclusion in hiring, retention and advancement. The Report, when released, promises to provide a tried and tested blueprint for advancing diversity and inclusion in the legal industry.

What Caren has accomplished with the Diversity Lab and these two amazing initiatives (of many) we discussed, is remarkable and outstanding! What's also critically important is that the work and outcomes are supported, every step of the way, with data, data analysis, and metrics – they provide an empirical and quantifiable foundation that differentiates these initiatives from others and, tells a story that is both deeply personal but also objectively verifiable!

Caren is the Founder & CEO of the Diversity Lab; the Founder of its On Ramp Fellowship; was recently appointed as the Lead Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility Advisor to the USPTO; holds roles with the UN Women initiative, and holds Fellowships at The College of Law Practice Management and the Tory Burch Foundation.

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 in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Zach Posner, the General Partner and Co-Founder of The LegalTech Fund (TLTF). You can see why Zach does what he does. His 15+ years experience working with early-stage companies as a CEO and in the Venture and BOD space is layered into a background in finance, strategy, and business development – it's hard to imagine a better set of capabilities for his role or more compatible with the work of TLTF.

The TLTF is unique in a number of ways and in the same ways, stands out in a crowded tech funding marketplace - it was established during the pandemic, it invests in start-ups (and beyond), and it's driven by a desire on the part of the founders and investors to proactively support all entrepreneurs (even if they don't invest in them) and, importantly, it's very focussed on building a collaborative community along the way. For TLTF, it's not just about the money, it is about helping entrepreneurs and their companies succeed, supporting what they need, and being there at the beginning, middle, end, and back again!

We discussed TLTF; how investment and development of legaltech has progressed (or not) pre, during and now hopefully post COVID; what barriers have held it back; how these are changing but understanding that there is a lot of room for things to grow in the legal ecosystem, gain momentum, and catch up to where other industries find themselves; when we'll know if legaltech has made a difference; and the future of the legaltech industry in the near future.

We also discussed TLTF's inaugural Summit in Miami in December 2022. The Summit, like the Fund, is also unique – it will be a meeting of legaltech thought leaders, doers, and stakeholders who are looking to the future, want to play their part in it, and know the value and mutual benefit derived from working on that together. The Summit will also feature a start-up challenge with the focus again on sharing experiences and building community.

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].

What will the legal team of the future look like and, do we have a blueprint for it? That's the question Adam Curphey answers in his recently published book: The Legal Team of the Future: Law+ Skills. You can purchase Adam's book here.

How, where and why the legal ecosystem is transforming is reflected in the new and different way legal work is now being conceived and the capabilities needed to deliver it better, cheaper and faster. It's creating and driving a whole new war for talent! The workforce of the future, evolving now, is a celebration of the multis – multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural, multi-generational and multi-talented and much, much more!

In this podcast in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Adam about his book. We discussed the changing legal ecosystem and, in particular, his Law+ model – Law at the core but plus people, business, change and technology; the challenges and opportunities for law firms, legal departments, and law schools to be discovered and derived from the framework and blueprint in the book; the business case for change; and, where to start on the Law+ journey.

Adam is the Senior Manager of Innovation at Mayer Brown in the UK. He has an amazing history in innovation, legal education and capability development as a former practising lawyer, an academic, in law firms, and in advisory capacities for Lawtech UK and the O-Shaped Lawyer. This deep, lived experience is what makes this discussion and his book practical and candid…and his quirky sense of humour is what makes it fun!

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, a session in our ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies series, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific) chatted with Prue Tyler, Founder and Director of SHIFT Advisory.

SHIFT Advisory is a law firm and has been operating in New Zealand for 5 years.

SHIFT provides legal services, but also supports clients across corporate governance, risk, compliance and regulatory change by providing senior quality support to corporates, banks, fund managers, insurers and finance companies.

SHIFT offers expert capability and capacity to complement client teams, when and how they need it. They offer clients astute, experienced people, who integrate seamlessly into a client's project, team and business, for better outcomes and ways of working.

SHIFT is a values driven business – Community, Authenticity, Empowerment, Freedom and Problem Solving are at the core of its business. These values also inform the firm's commitment to customised, positive client and employee experience, continuous improvement, digitization (for and with clients), and the importance it places on long-term relationships.

The discussion in the session focused on:

• SHIFT's journey from its launch as a niche legal business (compliance) to its expansion ahead of, in parallel with, and for its market
• The challenges and opportunities managed by the co-founders as SHIFT evolved
• The importance of and how SHIFT delivers its advisory services through multi-disciplinary teams
• How to approach and build a community for clients and employees
• How to identify, recruit and manage a flexible workforce
• How COVID impacted legal business and the permanency of those changes
• The importance of mentors for business owners
• The important role of law and lawyers in the evolution of RegTech

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 sixth session in CLI's Legaltech Around the World Series, David Bushby, Managing Director, InCounsel facilitated a discussion about the legaltech market in Asia.

David was joined by amazing guest panellists:

• Komal Gupta, Chief Innovation Officer, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (India)
• Sebastian Ko, Managing Director, AI Vermont (Hong Kong)
• Maurice Rabb, Founder & Managing Editor, LegalTechJapan.com (Japan)
• Rajesh Sreenivasan, Head, Technology Media and Telecoms Law Practice, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP and CLI Advisory Board Member (Singapore)

Topics covered in this session included:

• An overview of the legaltech market in Asia
• The drivers/agents of change in legaltech in Asia
• Who and what is driving the leaders in legaltech adoption – in-house vs law firms
• What legaltech adoption REALLY looks like (separating the hype and hope from reality)
• How law schools are preparing the next generation of lawyers
• The evolution of NewLaw roles like legal engineers and their impact on legal practice
• How regulation and evolution of next-gen legal practice are intertwined
• The challenges and opportunities for legaltech in Asia

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

Mediation has an important role to play in family law matters. It provides clarity and support through an emotional and difficult situation. A mediator's role is central to facilitating an amicable outcome where at all possible. These capabilities require specialist training and, coupled with the use of dedicated technologies, combine to provide increased convenience for clients, a new and different way to resolve conflict, and a unique integration of human and digital skills.

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, CLI chatted with Fiona Kirkman, Principal of Kirkman Family Law and the CEO and Legal Co-Founder of FamilyProperty, about how the role of a family law mediator has evolved, is still evolving, what family law mediators do, and how people can develop capabilities for the role.

If you would like to know more about NewLaw Careers, you'll find loads of information in our NewLaw Careers Series here.

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

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director at the Centre for Legal Innovation explored whether or not it is possible to create a Data Driven Legal Practice with data gurus David Adason, Head of Innovation, Senior Lawyer, Aptum Legal; Denise Doyle, Legal Operations Consultant; and Matt Farrington, Lawyer + Legal Technologist, Juno Legal.

Topics covered in this session included:

• Why legal data is so much more than process – mining the data gems for true added value
• How legal organisations can start (and end) the process of demystifying data
• How data and metrics are related and why the connection matters
• The emerging gap in data application in law firms vs in-house legal departments and why it matters
• What the future will look like for legal organisations that don't embrace data

If you would prefer to listen rather than watch this episode, you'll find the podcast in our The Legalpreneurs Sandbox podcast series here.

If you are interested in learning more about the use and application of data in legal practice, please listen to our podcast with Denise Doyle (Episode 141) on The Use of Data in Legal Practice – What's happening in law firms right now? here.