LawNext

Populus Radio, Robert Ambrogi
LawNext

LawNext is a weekly podcast hosted by Bob Ambrogi, who is internationally known for his writing and speaking on legal technology and innovation. Each week, Bob interviews the innovators and entrepreneurs who are driving what’s next in the legal industry. From legal technology startups to new law firm business models to enhancing access to justice, Bob and his guests explore the future of law and legal practice.

  1. 3 DAYS AGO

    A Year Into His Tenure at UnitedLex, CEO James Schellhase on How the Company Is Embracing Innovation

    One year ago, in September 2023, James Schellhase was named chief executive officer of the alternative legal services provider UnitedLex. The move was particularly significant, as he was only the second person ever to hold that title at the company, having succeeded Dan Reed, who cofounded UnitedLex in 2006 and had been its CEO ever since. Reed is now chairman of the board. A year into his tenure, Schellhase joins LawNext host Bob Ambrogi to discuss how UnitedLex is seeking to embrace innovation and leverage technology to transform legal service delivery. He talks about what this change in leadership means for the company now and into the future, how the company is embracing generative AI to drive its technology-enabled services, and why he believes the company’s crown jewel is its India-based workforce. Schellhase is no stranger to the legal industry. He was formerly executive chairman of McCarthyFinch, developer of a suite of AI-driven contract management software that Onit acquired in 2020, and before that was CEO of e-discovery company DiscoverReady, which Consilio acquired in 2018. Before joining UnitedLex, he was most recently CEO of risk management company Breakwater Solutions.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

    37 min
  2. SEP 24

    A Deep Dive Into Filevine’s New Gen AI Tools for Litigators

    At its recent customer conference in Salt Lake City, called LEX Summit, the case management company Filevine unveiled a number of product releases and updates. Among them were several products for litigators driven by generative AI, including a first-of-its-kind tool, Depo CoPilot, that helps guide a lawyer during a deposition, and another, DemandsAI, that generates settlement demand letters in the lawyer’s own voice and style.  On today’s LawNext, we do a deep dive into those new products with the two executives who oversee product development at Filevine, Michael Anderson, chief product officer, and  Alex McLaughlin, vice president of product. LawNext host Bob Ambrogi was at LEX Summit and sat down with Anderson and McLaughlin for this live conversation.  As Ambrogi wrote in his review of Depo CoPilot, it is like having a guardian angel on your shoulder during a deposition, analyzing and transcribing the questions and answers in real time to help ensure the lawyer achieves the desired goals, avoids unclear questions and identifies inconsistent answers. In today’s episode, you will learn more about what it can do and how it works.  Note that this is our second episode from LEX Summit. In last week’s show, we featured conversations recorded there live with three of Filevine’s leaders: Ryan Anderson, the company’s cofounder and CEO; Nathan Morris, cofounder and chief culture officer; and Cain Elliott, head legal futurist. Also, Ryan Anderson was previously a guest on this show on April 27, 2022, so if you are interested in hearing from him in greater depth, check that out. Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner).   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

    30 min
  3. SEP 17

    Live from Filevine’s LEX Summit: Interviews with Three of Its Leaders

    In today’s episode, we feature three impromptu conversations with leaders of the case management company Filevine. Last week, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi was in Salt Lake City to attend LEX Summit, the Filevine customer conference. While there, he snagged three of the company’s top executives for brief, impromptu conversations about the company, its products, and the conference.  In today’s show, you will hear from: Ryan Anderson, the company’s cofounder and CEO.  Nathan Morris, cofounder and chief culture officer.  Cain Elliott, head legal futurist. Separately, Bob recorded a longer interview about Filevine’s product announcements — including several generative AI products — with Michael Anderson, chief product officer, and Alex McLaughlin, vice president of product. Watch for that episode to post soon. By the way, Ryan Anderson was previously a guest on this show on April 27, 2022, so if you are interested in hearing from him in greater depth, check that out. Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.   Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner).   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

    35 min
  4. SEP 3

    The State of Knowledge Management and Innovation in Legal, with Patrick DiDomenico and Joshua Fireman

    On Oct. 17 and 18, 2024, two of the legal industry’s leading experts on knowledge management and innovation, Patrick DiDomenico, founder and CEO of InspireKM Consulting, and Joshua Fireman, president of Fireman & Company, which is owned by Epiq, the global provider of technology-enabled legal services, will present the second-annual KM&I for Legal Conference in New York City.  The conference, which focuses on the latest developments and best practices in knowledge management and innovation in law firms and legal departments, comes at a critical juncture. In recent years, KM and innovation professionals in legal have seen their roles evolve significantly, as law firms have come to better appreciate their importance. Now, with the advent of generative AI, KM and innovation professionals are more essential than ever.  So as the second convening of the KM&I for Legal conference approaches, DiDomenico and Fireman join LawNext to share their thoughts on the state of KM and innovation in law firms and legal organizations, including the impact AI is having on the field. They also offer a preview of what’s in store at the conference.  By the way, if you are interested in attending the conference, you can get a 15% discount off the cost of registration with the code LAWNEXT15. LawNext host Bob Ambrogi attended the inaugural version of this conference last year, and, as he wrote in his review after the event, he found it to be substantive, engaging and thought provoking. (He also had the opportunity there to record several interviews for this podcast with some of the speakers and vendors who attended the conference.)   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

    52 min
  5. AUG 27

    All About Spellbook’s New AI Agent, Capable of Performing Complex Legal Tasks, with CEO Scott Stevenson

    In what it says is the first AI agent for law, the legal technology company Spellbook just released Spellbook Associate, an application that can plan and execute complex, multi-step workflows in transactional matters, much as an associate would. This is the same company that introduced the first generative AI copilot for contract drafting and review back in 2022, even before ChatGPT was released to the public.  In today’s episode of LawNext, Scott Stevenson, the cofounder and CEO of Spellbook, joins host Bob Ambrogi to tell us all about the new Spellbook Associate, as well as to discuss the company’s origins and future. As you will hear, the company pivoted from its original product when Stevenson and his cofounders began exploring large language models and saw their potential for streamlining law practice.  Stevenson, a computer engineer, founded the company in 2019 together with Daniel Di Maria, a former lawyer and now chief revenue officer, and Matt Mayers, a user experience expert and now chief experience officer. When they pivoted in 2022 to launch their AI copilot for lawyers, “customers came pouring in faster than we could keep up with,” he says.    Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

    47 min
  6. AUG 6

    Is Gen AI the New Paradigm for Technology Assisted Review in E-Discovery? Three Redgrave Scientists Discuss

    For at least two decades, artificial intelligence has been used in e-discovery to help surface and prioritize review of potentially responsive documents from large document collections. But while technology-assisted review (TAR) has traditionally been driven by AI in the form of supervised machine learning, some vendors and e-discovery professionals are starting to experiment with the use of generative AI in its place.  So how effective is generative AI for document review in e-discovery? Is it a replacement for traditional TAR or a supplement? Are there other ways in which this rapidly evolving technology can be used in discovery?  On this week’s LawNext, we are discussing the application of generative AI in e-discovery. To do so, host Bob Ambrogi is joined by three computer and data scientists from Redgrave Data, a consulting firm that specializes in e-discovery and data science. Today’s guests are: Dave Lewis, chief scientific officer, who has over three decades of experience in AI and statistics. Lenora Gray, data scientist, who has worked for more than 15 years in law firm project management and matter support roles. Jeremy Pickens, head of applied science, a pioneer in the fields of collaborative exploratory search and technology assisted review.    Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

    40 min
  7. JUL 31

    In the Wake of KKR’s Acquisition of CLM Company Agiloft, CEO Eric Laughlin Discusses Its Past and Future

    Last month, KKR, a major global investment firm, announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Agiloft, the contract lifecycle management company. As part of the deal, the growth equity firm FTV Capital, already an Agiloft investor, is making an additional investment, and another growth equity firm, JMI Equity, is joining as a new investor. The deal was a feather in the cap for Eric Laughlin, who joined Agiloft as CEO in 2020 after leading the Pangea3 business at Thomson Reuters. When Laughlin stepped into that role, Agiloft had been in business for 30 years, and he succeeded a predecessor who had been CEO for nearly all that time. He came aboard just as the company had raised its first-ever outside funding round, tasked with the mission of taking the company to its next level of growth.  During his tenure, the company has earned a reputation as a leading innovator in the CLM space, including in its development of features based on artificial intelligence, and it has significantly grown both its workforce and its global customer base. Laughlin has also strengthened his own reputation as a leader who believes that employee experience is as important as customer experience.  In March 2021, not long after he joined Agiloft, Laughlin was our guest on this show to talk about his plans for the company. On today’s episode, he returns to discuss how Agiloft has grown during his four-year tenure and to share his thoughts on the contract lifecycle management landscape, now and into the future.  Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.   Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

    48 min
5
out of 5
33 Ratings

About

LawNext is a weekly podcast hosted by Bob Ambrogi, who is internationally known for his writing and speaking on legal technology and innovation. Each week, Bob interviews the innovators and entrepreneurs who are driving what’s next in the legal industry. From legal technology startups to new law firm business models to enhancing access to justice, Bob and his guests explore the future of law and legal practice.

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