In this episode, Steve Fretzin, Charlie Uniman, Colin Levy, and Maya Markovich discuss:
- The disconnect between legal tech and lawyers.
- Great online resources to stay ahead of legal tech.
- The AI impact on the legal tech industry.
- Best legal tech products for startups.
Key Takeaways:
- To get over the hurdle of choosing tech and having people change the way they do business, make a good business case and make someone the champion for the change.
- Ask yourself why you want to learn about legal tech and let that drive what you look for to avoid getting overwhelmed with the amount of information out there.
- While prompting is currently a struggle for many with AI, it is not likely to remain a challenge for long as AI gets more intelligent.
- Some tech isn’t marketed towards law, specifically, but can be a great tool for your law firm. Look at what is going to solve the problem you’re having.
“Change management is fundamentally misunderstood in the legal industry. On the brightside, firms are starting to ask about it, but there is a radical misconception as to what that entails and the value it can provide.” — Maya Markovich
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Episode References:
- Legal Technology Hub – https://www.legaltechnologyhub.com/
- Lawrina: https://lawrina.org/
Connect with Charlie Uniman:
Website: http://www.legaltechstartupfocus.com
Email: Charlie@LegalTechStartUpFocus.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-uniman-2316b83/
Connect with Colin Levy:
Website: https://www.colinslevy.com/
Website: https://www.malbek.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinslevy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Clevy_Law
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clevylaw
Connect with Maya Markovich:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayamarkovich
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkovichMaya
Website: https://vilcap.com/
Website: https://justicetechassociation.org/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Narrator: You’re listening to Be That Lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author, and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
[00:00:27] Steve Fretzin: Well, hey everybody, I’m Steve Fretzin. Welcome to Be That Lawyer Live. Now we’re doing tech talk today. And we’re only going to talk in teas. So, um, welcome to the show, everybody. We’ve got a live audience here. That’s going to be asking questions. We’ve got sponsors. We’ve got panelists. We’ve got a lot, lots of cover today.
[00:00:43] Steve Fretzin: And today’s all about legal tech. We’re going to be taking a real deep dive into that. And, um, for those again, waiting in the wings, uh, listening along, you know, please don’t be shy. We need questions. We’ve got three or four set up ahead of time through, um, some folks I asked. And then, um, we’re going to be looking for you to ask some additional tech questions before we get any further.
[00:01:02] Steve Fretzin: I do want to take a moment to thank our sponsors. We’ve got overture. law. Uh, who is helping do ethical fee sharing. So if, again, you’re giving away business or you’re taking a business and there isn’t some fee sharing going on there, you might be missing the boat. So you’re going to want to check out overture.
[00:01:16] Steve Fretzin: law. We’ve got Get Staffed Up, our newest sponsor. They’ve been doing this for a little bit, but, uh, Sergio, who’s my marketing assistant is through Get Staffed Up. So if you think my marketing is good, check out Get Staffed Up. They do legal admins and anything to help you, uh, improve business. And again, they, they leverage some folks down in Latin America to, uh, to help at a fraction of the cost.
[00:01:36] Steve Fretzin: And we’ve got live here on the show, Jason Cement of Get Visible. And Jason, you want to just say hello? Hi there. Good to be here. And you want to just share a little bit about your, about your great company? Sure.
[00:01:46] Charlie Uniman: I am a former CPA and lawyer who has turned into a digital marketer. Worked with a lot of lawyers, not just lawyers, but probably shorter, my business lawyers, helping them get more visible online to grow their practices with more traffic lead sales.
[00:02:00] Charlie Uniman: So we do the websites, we get rankings, run their ad campaigns where their voice with content. And do some LinkedIn work to get them more, uh, bigger Rolodex and that’s it. How’s that?
And
[00:02:12] Steve Fretzin: that, yeah, that was very quick and efficient. I appreciate that. And of course we, uh, we’ve got an amazing panel today.
[00:02:17] Steve Fretzin: You guys are not going to be disappointed. We’ve got Charlie Uniman who I’m liking, liking to call the godfather of legal tech. We’ve got, uh, Maya Markovich, who is a legal tech guru. And by the way, my, uh, Maya, you are the most downloaded show in the history of Be That Lawyer. I’m not, you know, and I don’t know if you got like a special, some special superpowers or mental game or whatever you’re doing, but, uh, the most downloads, uh, ever on the show.
[00:02:41] Steve Fretzin: And we’re coming up, I think on like 330 episodes. We’ve already over, we’ve already hit a hundred thousand downloads. And you’ve got a, the Lion Share and of course Colin Levy, uh, who’s our friendly legal tech maven. And do you guys just wanna take a moment just to share real quick about yourselves?
[00:02:56] Steve Fretzin: Charlie, you wanna just go, go first
[00:02:58] Charlie Uniman: your age before beauty? I am, uh, Charlie Mann, uh, recovering lawyer, 40 years of practice at New York City law firms to after retiring, I started a, uh, community with 2000, uh, 750 members as of the time I’m speaking, called Legal Tech Startup Focus. It’s devoted to helping legal tech startups succeed.
[00:03:21] Charlie Uniman: Anyone can join for free and use it for free by going to legal tech startup focus. com do hope you join and participate, uh, and look forward to today’s panel.
[00:03:33] Steve Fretzin: Very, very good. And of course we’ve got, uh, Maya, you want to say hello and tell us a little bit about your background. Sure. Thank
[00:03:40] Maya Markovich: you so much. I am crumbled by your, um, statistics there.
[00:03:44] Maya Markovich: I really don’t have any secret sauce. I. I think you have a really great audience probably is rather,
[00:03:49] Steve Fretzin: I’m not going to argue with that since they’re listening right now. So do you know what I say about them behind their backs? No, yeah, no,
[00:03:56] Maya Markovich: it’s a real pleasure to be here. I, um, you know, I working with a lot of different, um, legal tech startups right now, as well as, uh, legal services organizations, um, and law 100 law firms and.
[00:04:10] Maya Markovich: Investors working on large business transformation, uh, processes. Um, my, my last, uh, formal role was at next law labs and next law ventures, which was, um, uh, the first legal, the post, the first tech focused innovation catalyst founded by a law firm, uh, back in 2015 did a lot of obviously, um, the front of the bleeding edge, they’re, uh, learning about legal tech startups as well as investing in them and implementing them both.
[00:04:41] Maya Markovich: Within the firm and externally with clients. I, so now, um, I deliver tech and process and business growth services to those types of entities all over the world. Um, and I also founded, uh, last year, um, the justice technology association, which is a nonprofit that is dedicated to supporting, uh, startups in the mission focused legal tech space.
[00:05:04] Maya Markovich: And, um, I, you know, I am delighted to be here. So thank you.
[00:05:09] Steve Fretzin: Glad to have you and it’s nice to reconnect as well. And let’s go with Colin. Uh, yeah, tell us a little bit about your background, Colin.
[00:05:15] Colin Levy: Sure. Uh, well, really excited to be here with both Charlie and Maya, um, both of whom I really enjoy and have inspired me actually on my own journey, uh, in legal tech, I currently serve as one and only lawyer for Malbec, which is a contract life cycle management company, which is a mouthful.
[00:05:32] Colin Levy: Uh, I also, uh, write a lot on legal tech and speak about legal tech. Actually, a book I edited just came out called the handbook of legal tech. Uh, that is intended to provide sort of a little bit of a taste of the legal tech, uh, world, if you will. Uh, and really I’m just here to help grow support and encourage a legal tech community, because it’s kind of been the community that compelled me to keep doing what I do in law.
[00:06:00] Colin Levy: You know, when I was during a time when I was like, Do I continue doing this or do I just give up and do something
[00:06:05] Steve Fretzin: completely different? Yeah. Well, fantastic. Well, you’re all, you’ve all been on my podcast before, and you all know legal tech better than any other people I have had on the show. So I’m just so thrilled that you could come back.
[00:06:17] Steve Fretzin: And what I’d like to do is I’ll, um, I’ll ask the questions that I get, that I’ve got, and that I’m going to be getting. And what I’ll do is I’ll just do my best to have you either raise your hand, your virtual hand, and I’ll call on you and then maybe mention like who’s up, who’s up next, just to kind of keep it in order.
[00:06:31] Steve Fretzin: So the first question I actually came up with myself about that. And the question is, why do lawyers struggle with not only the selection, but using legal tech? Where is the disconnect between legal tech and lawyers in getting their needs met and figuring all that out? So anybody who would like to start off with, with that one?
[00:06:50] Steve Fretzin: Age before beauty. There we go, Charlie. I knew you’d jump in.
[00:06:53] Charlie Uniman: Yeah, I think, uh, there’s the, uh, the good answer, the bad answer. I think the bad answer is that how lawyers are, uh, devoted to billing their time and anything that, uh, shortens the length of time, uh, during which they work is, uh, uncomfortable for them.
[00:07:09] Charlie Uniman: And that’s why they don’t adopt and use legal tech. I think there’s a little bit of truth to it. I think the more important truth is that, uh, it, it’s often not marketed. Properly, uh, it is a, a change in the way people do their work. If you’re introducing a new tool, uh, and I, uh, I think you have to get people over that hump change management.
[00:07:31] Charlie Uniman: That’s the most important thing. And I think partly getting, and a big part of getting people over that hump is making a good business case for the use of that tool. Not just that it’ll make your life easier. Uh, sure. That’s helpful, but appeal to dollars and cents and make it worthwhile enough from an incentive standpoint.
[00:07:51] Charlie Uniman: For people to change the way they do business. And, uh, one final point, if, uh, there’s a champion at a law firm or legal department who likes tech, get them involved and let them spread the word and be the champion for
[00:08:03] Steve Fretzin: the change. Really critical. Someone’s got to take the lead. It isn’t always the managing partner.
[00:08:07] Steve Fretzin: Sometimes just, it’s just someone that, that, that enjoys it or gets it maybe more than others, or is able to identify the gaps, right? There’s some gaps in that. So Helen, you want to go and then, and Maya, you want to wrap us up? Yeah, sure. You know,
[00:08:20] Colin Levy: I think that there’s a lot of different factors that I think play into technologies, lack of adoption and or incorrect user or non use.
[00:08:33] Colin Levy: I think part of it is the fact that technology itself is very shiny and attractive in many ways, but the problem is. To get to the shiny attractive thing, you have to do some hard work that involves taking a look at your current kind of state, where the gaps are, how processes work, kind of all that stuff that doesn’t really necessarily bring you an immediate return, but lays the foundation for being able to use tech effectively.
[00:09:01] Colin Levy: And the problem is, you know, you want to do that work, but it takes time, takes time away from doing other things.
[00:09:07] Steve Fretzin: Okay. And, um, I think we lost Colin for a sec there, uh, my, you want to wrap us up on this, on this question? Sure. Yeah.
[00:09:13] Maya Markovich: No, Colin will be back. I think with more, with more feedback, but I, you know, I think Charlene brings up a really good point and there is, you know, of course there’s this presumption among tech and change advocates that billable hours are hindering the tech adoption and they discourage efficiency.
[00:09:30] Maya Markovich: I mean, to a certain extent, depending on, you know, what, what team you’re talking about and what firm and what region, what practice, you know, that there’s definitely about that. I had a lot to be said for that. I think firms are reluctant to re evaluate these structures. The productivity paradox, you know, continues to constrain industry progress on that front.
[00:09:51] Maya Markovich: But you know, I mean, yes, lawyers are trained to think of their time in these six minute increments. The issue also, you know, runs a lot deeper than that, you know, the stretched associate of, of what, you know, I was there once might think twice about spending, you know, 1. 7 hours with a dinner with friends, you know, or 2.
[00:10:09] Maya Markovich: 2 hours, you know, their close friend, instead of working towards their billable hour target and that, you know, obviously that’s, you know, less ballots, faster burnout, less attention to that, even able to be paid to anything other than the work that’s just right in front of them. But I think that it stifles.
[00:10:26] Maya Markovich: You know, larger, more strategic projects and creative thinking, which is, as Colin mentioned, I think, you know, they’re essential for applying things, you know, just behavioral economics principles to better understand why people don’t adopt, you know, adopt things that will, we all think could make their lives easier.
[00:10:45] Maya Markovich: I think, and last thing on that point is, I think that change management is fundamentally misunderstood in the legal industry. And I’ve, I’ve seen multiple examples of this in my own work where people think they need change management. And then, uh, they don’t understand what that means. There’s no, you know, there, there’s a whole industry out there that does this professionally and are very good at guiding, you know, long term muscle memory change.
[00:11:11] Maya Markovich: And I think that now on the, on the bright side, firms are now starting to ask about it. You know, for specifically talking about firms, the legal departments, they’re starting to ask like, Oh, we, maybe we should have some change management, but. There is a, a radical misconception as to what that entails and the value that it can provide.
[00:11:29] Maya Markovich: And I think we, we are still early days. Um, ultimately, hopefully we’ll catch up to other industries that totally understand and know how to leverage experts
[00:11:38] Steve Fretzin: in that field. Yeah. Really great. I appreciate that. Uh, it’s kind of an entry level question and Colin, I’m sorry, we could, that you got cut off a little bit there, but I don’t know if we want to go back or just go forward.
[00:11:48] Steve Fretzin: Just go forward. Okay. All right. The next question I have, uh, from, this is from one of our attendees. Is what online resources can I visit to learn more about legal tech? So what’s, what’s available if they have, I get like a specific issue or need, or just to just stay in the, in the, in front of legal tech to know what’s coming up.
[00:12:06] Steve Fretzin: Uh, Colin, why don’t you start us out on this one? Sure. I think there’s
[00:12:09] Maya Markovich: a
[00:12:10] Colin Levy: couple, couple sources for a general sense of kind of what exists in the space. I think legal technology hub is, is one of those places to go. It just has information about all the different areas and various providers for a sense of kind of just what’s going on in this space without diving into specific providers and their capabilities, law site slash law.
[00:12:34] Colin Levy: Next by Bob Ambroji is probably a good go to. I also would mention that Charlie Unman’s organization is great as well. Just, you know, I think he’s done a great job and that’s why I’m happy to be on the panel with him. Thank you. And I would also say a little selfishly, but, you know, I’ve interviewed a fair number of leaders in the space to get a sense of kind of like the people perspective on what has gone on, you know, feel free to visit my site as well.
[00:13:01] Colin Levy: com for interviews of, of votes, but ultimately I think if you’re trying to learn about legal tech. I would suggest instead of trying to cover the waterfront, ask yourself the question, why, why do you want to learn about legal tech and let that inform you, because otherwise it’s easy to get overwhelmed in terms of what exists and there’s a lot of different directions to go in.
[00:13:24] Colin Levy: So I think rather than trying to sort of just approach it as sort of an academic subject, approach it from the perspective of you want to learn about legal tech, but why is it because you see someone using something you want to learn more about that use case? Is it because. You have a problem and you think technology could help you solve it.
[00:13:41] Colin Levy: You want to have some sort of driving focus because otherwise you can get overwhelmed and then get turned off because there’s just so much going on everywhere and it’s a lot, lot to
[00:13:51] Steve Fretzin: take in. Yeah. It sounds like a rabbit hole that just never ends. And so you’ve got to really understand, you know, why the, why of, of going after it, and also I like what you guys said earlier about identifying, like, where are your gaps or where are your pains as it relates to your practice?
[00:14:07] Steve Fretzin: And then you think about like, is there something that can solve for this? Right. And where are those resources? So, uh, Charlie, you want to jump in on this too?
[00:14:15] Charlie Uniman: Yeah. There is a, uh, company called Lorena L A W R I N A. org that, uh, publishes a list of the who’s who, where the what’s what of, uh, Online legal tech resources.
[00:14:30] Charlie Uniman: You might want to consult that. I have no affiliation with those good people. In addition to online resources in real life, uh, depending on where you are in the country or in the world, uh, look for meetups that discuss legal tech, look for organizations, law firms. Online that sponsor a get togethers. And even if it’s an, uh, in real life, uh, get together that focuses on say, startups and legal tech, and you’re in a law firm or legal department, attend anyway, get to know people in real life that way, of course, there’s Collins book, which was mentioned, uh, by Collins, the outset as a resource and, um, search for legal tech blogs and other things, Bob and Brody’s work is.
[00:15:15] Charlie Uniman: He’s excellent. He, he gives you a good survey. There are, uh, there’s a, an outfit called the Artificial Lawyer, uh, believe it or not, uh, in basically the UK that, uh, discusses a lot of what’s going on in legal tech world in the us, in the UK and elsewhere abroad. So go out there, uh, with Collin’s advice.
[00:15:38] Charlie Uniman: Think hard about what you’re looking for and why you’re visiting these sites. Uh, and, uh, glean what you can. And reach out to me or, uh, uh, at any time and, uh, charlie and legal tech startup focus. com. I’d be happy to pitch you with some advice too.
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[00:17:43] Steve Fretzin: And Maya.
[00:17:44] Steve Fretzin: Yeah,
[00:17:44] Maya Markovich: I would just say if you really want a trial by fire, I would recommend considering going to one of the events that happens annually. Uh, usually, um, I mean, there’s everything from clock, uh, corporate legal operations consortium to a legal geek. There’s one in London and one in New York. I think there may be others now.
[00:18:05] Maya Markovich: There’s a ILTA obviously, which just wrapped up last week, I think. There’s legal week in New York. Um, and there’s the ABA tech show, which is going to be in Chicago at the beginning of next year. And that said, that will definitely give you a slice of at least the vendors that can afford to go there. Um, that said, so there’s plenty of that.
[00:18:27] Maya Markovich: I would also recommend look, I mean, trying to find key folks to follow online, because a lot of this happens informally. And the legal tech community is a close knit one, I would say for the most part, very supportive, very interested in, you know, bringing people into the tent. I’ve been delighted to be a part of it and, and watch it grow.
[00:18:48] Maya Markovich: And I feel like, you know, if I can contribute in some small way to being helpful, I almost always will do so. Um, and, um, and I think that it’s really important to remember also that what Colin and what was stated specific at the outset here of this question is really important. And that is. Yes. You want, kind of want to find out what’s out there.
[00:19:07] Maya Markovich: When we first started Nexla Labs, we had a lot of clients come to us. Dens clients come to us and ask us that exact question. I’m overwhelmed. There’s all these vendors all over the place. I’m starting to get up, get up for them. Can you please help me understand the landscape? Of course, we were more than happy to do that for our clients, but you know, it very quickly became something that was unmanageable.
[00:19:27] Maya Markovich: I mean, there’s just the, the field was much smaller in the early days. And so now I would say it’s really, really important. To take at least a loose, you know, depending on your role to take a sort of a loose design thinking approach. What problems are you trying to solve and go from there? Because otherwise it’s very easy to get overwhelmed and or find just a lot of stuff that’s inapplicable to what you’re trying to do.
[00:19:51] Maya Markovich: And if you start with that, then you’re going to be, um, a lot more directed in your research and, and know the right questions to ask. Um, when you start talking to folks about, um, you know, the potential of implementing something or exploring it a little bit further.
[00:20:07] Steve Fretzin: And we’ve got, um, Kira, thank you for submitting a question.
[00:20:11] Steve Fretzin: I’m going to. Get around to the second half of your question, because it’s funny, as you wrote that down, I thought about AI and, you know, obviously AI over the last year has been just all over the news and all over, you know, legal tech and everything. And so, you know, curious question is really around seeing met, you know, do you see med med malpractice attorneys, you know, which legal tech and AI do you see them using the most?
[00:20:33] Steve Fretzin: I want to hold off on that for just a second and let’s, let’s enter into this to talk about AI for a moment and then we’ll, we’ll lead back to Kira’s question. So let’s just start off, Colin, if you would, I mean, it’s been all, you know, all in the news and everything more than I’ve ever seen the last year with chat, GBT and some of the other AIs that are out there.
[00:20:54] Steve Fretzin: What are your thoughts on it? What do you see the problems? So, you know, what do you see this, where do you, how do you see this impacting legal?
[00:21:01] Colin Levy: Um, well, I’d say that you could probably do a whole podcast episode on that one question alone. Uh, uh,
[00:21:08] Steve Fretzin: and I have to
[00:21:11] Colin Levy: say, I think that, uh, well, let me start here. AI itself is not a new concept.
[00:21:17] Colin Levy: Artificial intelligence, or at least elements of it have been around for quite some time. What is Making waves is the fact that now you can interact with it using plain language. You don’t have to be some kind of coder or computer person to know how to use it. And you can get back, you know, a piece of writing.
[00:21:35] Colin Levy: You can get back an image, you can get back a video, what have you. So that’s exciting. I think that the challenge right now, and I don’t think this will be a challenge for a super long period, but the challenge right now is. Getting what you want from these generative AI tools requires a little bit of trial and error in terms of knowing the right question to ask and how to ask it, which is called prompting.
[00:21:58] Colin Levy: I don’t think we’re going to have that problem for too long, because I think you’re going to reach a point where AI will be able to provide you with prompts that you can ask it and you just select which one you want to ask and it will, and it will answer accordingly. I think the real challenge right now with, uh, generative AI is that.
[00:22:17] Colin Levy: People think it can just do literally everything under their sun for them simply by just existing and asking to do something that’s really not the case. It still is very much as other AI has been, you know, data driven. In other words, it has a database. It draws its power from, if you will, and then provides response based off of something that aligns with what’s in its database.
[00:22:42] Colin Levy: If it’s not in that database. Probably going to make something up. In fact, it likely will. So you need to really understand kind of these tools, the data it’s using to be able to use them most effectively. I think in terms of, you know, current use cases in different industries, you know, the more data you have that you provide one of these tools with, the more likely it is, this tool is going to be somewhat useful for you.
[00:23:08] Colin Levy: Like the medical industry, for example, you know, medicine is interesting. It’s kind of where I think the law will be eventually. The metaphor industry used to be kind of driven by history and not very data driven. And now it’s driven by technology and very much data driven. And, and while then Julie will be getting there.
[00:23:26] Colin Levy: And it’s also very data driven. The other thing I would just add is, you know, with AI and data is, you know, where’s that data coming from and how is it being stored and used and who has access to it, who’s looking at it. Because there is a human behind the machine that is looking at data. So you want to be careful with respect to what data you provide in your input to one of these, um, solutions.
[00:23:48] Colin Levy: So it’s a, it’s an evolving field. It’s definitely very exciting, but it’s also one that I think, you know, we’re really only scratching the surface of right now.
[00:23:58] Steve Fretzin: Terrific.
[00:23:59] Charlie Uniman: Charlie thoughts. Yeah, before I give thoughts on this question, note that I had put in the chat the website addresses for Legal Technology Hub that Colin mentioned and Lorena.
[00:24:10] Charlie Uniman: Those are two excellent sources for online research into legal tech. But as to AI, let’s talk about the existing vendors you may come across who claim to have and may indeed very well have AI baked in. What questions do you want to ask those existing vendors? One would be as, as Colin adverted to, uh, where’s it all being run in the cloud?
[00:24:34] Charlie Uniman: On your servers, uh, who has access to the data that you input? Be very careful about, uh, you know, inputting client data. Uh, if you don’t know where it’s going to be stored and what the privacy and security aspects are, just as importantly, is it a bolt on, uh, feature so that the vendor, whether it’s practice management, whether it’s transaction management, whether it’s litigation analysis can say I’m into AI, or is it really an integral part and what did it actually deliver that works well with the core features of what the vendor is offering?
[00:25:10] Charlie Uniman: Not to say that there aren’t good vendors who are putting it into their product properly and by properly, I mean, actually making the use of their product easier and, uh, and better, more efficient, but, uh, do ask those questions outside of that, uh, you know, I think it’s going to be a wait and see period, uh, but the problems that plague.
[00:25:32] Charlie Uniman: Generative AI, the kind of AI Colin just brought, are going to be solved sooner rather than later, as Colin said, because it’s too much money to be made in solving that. So, maybe you want to take a wait and see attitude, maybe you want to use it in a skunk works in your own firm and play with it before you turn it loose live.
[00:25:51] Charlie Uniman: Certainly before you put client information, other confidential information in, but before long. I’m optimistic the problem simply AI generative is they’re going to be solved
[00:26:03] Steve Fretzin: really good Maya.
[00:26:05] Maya Markovich: Yeah, no, I, I agree with, with all those points. I would just say that, um, that what we’re describing here just as a caveat is, is a cost.
[00:26:13] Maya Markovich: No object scenario, right? These tools are expensive and very early. Uh, not only that, but what you’ll be seeing now, if you’re lucky enough to get a demo, honestly, because of the long waiting list for some of these tools just to even get started. Um, it, it, what you’re, what you would be seeing is really almost just the, the, the structure, the kind of the, the exoskeleton of what is going to be possible with those tools six months from now.
[00:26:44] Maya Markovich: So, what I, over two months from now, or a year from now, so what I actually, I always like to remind people, um, is that people have to think about. If you’re thinking about implementing some sort of tool like this internally, even if it’s not with, with client data, you know, there’s thousands of different applications that apply to the business side, um, uh, and not are unnecessarily client facing.
[00:27:11] Maya Markovich: You really need to think about getting, and I, I feel like I, you know, bang on this drum all the time, but you need to think about how you’re going to get the lawyers and the staff involved in changing their behavior such that they leverage the tool whenever a task like that comes up because you’re not going to be able to train them for lack of a better word to go there if they need an answer to a specific type of question or they get to a specific type of workflow because you’re You know, we’re, we’re, we don’t even have any idea what it’s going, what we’re able to, going to be able to use it for in the future.
[00:27:48] Maya Markovich: So we have to think very closely and clearly about how we’re going to put time and effort into getting people used to going to a resource like this for a
[00:27:58] Steve Fretzin: lot of different things. Okay. And when you mentioned resource and you talk about tools, are you specifically talking about legal tech in general, or are you using specifically AI?
[00:28:08] Steve Fretzin: I’m sorry. Well,
[00:28:09] Maya Markovich: we’re a specific tool. Maybe. No, I mean, specifically with the kind of, we don’t know what it’s going to be capable of. We generate AI tools. I mean, RV AI is the perfect
[00:28:19] Steve Fretzin: example there. And the other part of that question I wanted to come back to just to help cure out is she was also asking what AI and legal tech tools do you see, um, medical malpractice attorneys using most, does anybody have a flavor or hint on that?
[00:28:34] Steve Fretzin: It’s kind of very specific. So we may have to come back to that. Uh, Carol, I, I would just, uh,
[00:28:40] Charlie Uniman: yeah, I, and it’s something we talked about offline before the, uh, webinar actually began, uh, med malice litigation. I was a corporate lawyer, uh, whenever I thought about litigating, I would lie down the feeling ass, but, uh, I did work with litigators.
[00:28:56] Charlie Uniman: And there are litigation outfits out there that, uh, in the legal tech world that one in particular called trellis again. No, no affiliation. T. R. T. L. L. I. S. Trellis law. They just took down a whopping 15Million dollars series B route. What they do is analyze. State court filings and state court paperwork where MedMal takes place.
[00:29:18] Charlie Uniman: That might be something that a MedMal firm should look into because as I understand it, MedMal is more state litigation driven than federal litigation driven. And Trellis and others like them whose names other companies don’t come to mind might be a good bet for someone in MedMal to take a gander at.
[00:29:40] Maya Markovich: Yeah. Ray also on volume things like, you know, intake, intake, streamlining intake workflow.
[00:29:47] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Very good. Yeah. Anything that’s going to help just again, put a process around it versus it being haphazard and just kind of people things happen or they don’t in a certain way you want to have. Processes and systems and ways of doing it.
[00:29:59] Steve Fretzin: That’s going to be efficient, right? Very, very good stuff here. And let’s move on to the next question. I’ve got, which is what are, I’m, I’m taking the question that was given and I’m adding a little bit to it. So if you guys could think of either one or two, what are the best legal tech products for startups that could be for a virtual online firm that could be for a, for a small firm, a startup.
[00:30:24] Steve Fretzin: But there’s things that they may want to look into right away because they’re just starting up. Where would you go on, where would you go to answer that, Charlie? Well,
[00:30:31] Charlie Uniman: uh, there are a number of practice, uh, management tools out there. Uh, and, uh, by that I mean those that help with, and it’s a big thing with law firms, intake, all the steps that, uh, should be taken.
[00:30:45] Charlie Uniman: I started T’s cross when you bring a new client in and those, uh, and billing. Issues and time record keeping issues. Uh, one of the big, uh, uh, gorillas, if you will, and legal tech is an outfit called Clio, C L I O dot com. They, uh, have really developed a whole suite of tools and again, no affiliation. I’m not going to benefit from this, uh, financially, although I wish it could.
[00:31:13] Charlie Uniman: Uh, we’ll talk after. Yeah. Clio is, uh, is offers a wide range of. Of tools for, uh, small to medium sized firms and, uh, and I think a new, uh, freshly minted law firm of, uh, any side other than the super big ones, uh, size, I should say, other than the super big ones would, uh, profitably spend their time looking, get the, uh, was, uh,
[00:31:37] Steve Fretzin: offerings.
[00:31:40] Steve Fretzin: Awesome. Another, another idea, Maya. I would
[00:31:43] Maya Markovich: throw out there, CARTA, uh, getting started for. You know, for, for very, for, for putting together filings of various kinds and documentation just to, yeah, it’s not necessarily legal tech. Although some people would argue that it is, I don’t think they see themselves that way.
[00:32:04] Steve Fretzin: Got it. And Colin?
[00:32:06] Colin Levy: Yeah. I mean, I think that, um, my suggestion was going to be, it was going to be Clio, but I, but I also think that might make the really good suggestion of Carta. I mean, I don’t, I, I definitely don’t think that they see themselves as. As we all tech, but that’s kind of, I guess that the beauty and also the, the challenge of legal tech is often the tools that are legal tech are not necessarily exclusive to law.
[00:32:30] Colin Levy: They’re just helpful and the legal context as well as an, as well as
[00:32:35] Steve Fretzin: another. Yeah. I think what I like is that to start a law firm today, especially a virtual law firm. Has never been easier. And there’s all these legal tech tools that, that people can bring in like a, like a, a product practice management system.
[00:32:50] Steve Fretzin: Um, I use, for example, um, acuity, which is like Calendly, you know, I’m actually using law Maddox, um, even though I’m not a lawyer, I was set up in customized law Maddox. So all of my pipeline is set. My contracts are locked in. I’m not taking any checks in anymore. I mean, that’s just that one thing alone. And the way that I’m a lot, that people are, are easily able to schedule time with me based on different links I provide me, there’s all these things that are making my life easy because I’ve inserted tech, legal tech, whatever we want to call it into the mix.
[00:33:22] Steve Fretzin: And so I think that’s really what’s critical right now is that we start looking at what’s going to solve the problem or what’s going to make us efficient and what’s going to let us, you know, breathe and spend time with our families, not doing administrative things that maybe aren’t the best use of our time or skills.
[00:33:39] Steve Fretzin: Well, that’s going to be a wrap for Be That Lawyer live tech talk part one. Please do tune in later this week or next week for part two, where we will continue this conversation with our amazing panel. Thank you. And helping you to be that lawyer. Someone who’s confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker.
[00:33:59] Narrator: Thanks for listening to Be That Lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website Fretzin. com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal Business Development and Marketing Trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.