The Legalpreneurs Sandbox (Brisbane Centre for Legal Innovation)

This podcast was recorded on 29 May 2024 as the third session in CLI’s Legal GenAI Around the World Series.

In this session Terri Mottershead, Executive Director at the Centre for Legal Innovation facilitated a discussion with three amazing panellists from the USA:

• Wendy Butler Curtis, Chief Innovation Officer and Chair eDiscovery & Information Governance Group, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
• Nikki Shaver, CEO and Co-Founder, LegalTechnology Hub
• Horace Wu, Founder and CEO, Syntheia Pty Ltd

Topics covered included:

• How, where and why GenAI is being used in legal businesses and what’s driving/limiting adoption
• LLMs, the impact of RAGs, and the case for/against the decision to build or buy
• What capabilities are needed to deliver legal GenAI solutions today, tomorrow, and how to bridge the gaps
• What’s unique about the legal GenAI market in the USA
• How legal GenAI is likely to evolve in 2024

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. 

Please join CLI’s free Legal GenAI Global Community for a lightly curated newsfeed on how legal GenAI is transforming the legal ecosystem.

In this podcast, the first session in CLI’s Legaltech Around the World Series, David Bushby, Managing Director, InCounsel provided an overview of the local legaltech market in Australia and New Zealand.

David was joined by guest panellists:

• Laura Keily, Founder and Managing Director, Immediation (Australia)
• Sacha Kirk, Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer, Lawcadia (Australia)
• Michael Pattison, Founder & CEO, ContractProbe and Immediate Past President, Australian Legal Technology Association (Australia)
• Gene Turner, Managing Director, LawHawk (New Zealand)

Topics covered in this session included:

• An overview of the legaltech market in Australia and New Zealand
• What’s the same (and what’s different) about legaltech in Australia and New Zealand
• The legaltech growth strategies favoured by legaltech start-ups and scale-ups - how, with whom, and where
• The needs and expectations of home grown legaltech vs the world
• The pros and cons of investing in legaltech
• 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)
• The different mindsets in legaltech purchasing and use – lawyer tools vs solving business problems
• The importance and application of legaltech case studies/proofs of concept
• The pros and cons of point solutions vs platforms
• The challenges and opportunities for legaltech in Australia and New Zealand

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.

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

With many of our guests we’ve discussed how technology is driving change at a pace that is as overwhelming as it is pervasive. We no longer work or live the same way we used to - change is challenging and shaking the foundations of who we are and what we do. These are big and small questions. They are as frightening as they are exhilarating.

In this episode we discussed Professor Gillian Hadfield’s ground breaking work in identifying and finding answers to these questions (and many more). Her most recent book, Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy, is a case in point. Gillian is  the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society, Professor of Law and Professor of Strategic Management. She is also the Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law.

Topics discussed in this episode included:

• What’s is AI, really?
• How is the interdependence/co-dependence of humans and tech/AI changing and shaping a different set of questions to answer?
• What is the role of and how do we build or maintain the rule of law? Should we?
• How can a legal system, in many countries built on precedents, an adversarial approach to dispute resolution and risk aversion, stay relevant and protect consumers when the structure and rules it was built on are being challenged and redefined daily?
• Can we find answers to the big and small questions other than through inter or multidisciplinary collaboration?
• In our world today, how do we understand and manage all this complexity?
• What is the role of lawyers in all of this?

Thank you so much for an exhilarating discussion, Gillian  – we love your work!

This podcast was recorded as a video for the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 On Demand program published on 1 February 2021.

In this podcast, Emma Elliott, CEO, ALPMA facilitated a discussion, with Kim Trajer, COO, McCullough Robertson; Tessa van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader, Moores; and Mark Wiggins, CEO, Hall Payne Lawyers about how those in the C-Suite view the use, importance and application of tech in legal practice today. It’s a practical and candid perspective that you will not want to miss!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen, the podcast is also available as a video in the CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) Free Resource Hub.

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.

The changing legal marketplace has brought with it a new and evolving set of client needs and expectations. It’s still essentially and importantly all about relationships but, it’s equally important for legal businesses to be able to anticipate where value can be added for their clients and proactively offer it. That’s increasingly hard to do if your legal practice doesn’t analyse its client related data. It’s become very important for legal businesses to know exactly when and where they have hit the right mark or strayed from it and make immediate mid-course corrections. And, if that isn’t done and your clients are unhappy, then there’s evaluation platforms where they can share their thoughts and, this could dissuade potential clients from engaging you. The legal market place today is all about choice and customisation. It’s about how clients experience the interactions with their legal service/product providers every step along the way, with many of those steps being taken “virtually” now too!

In this podcast on What do law firm clients REALLY need (and want)?, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific), was joined by an international panel of leaders and doers in the legal business development, client data, client evaluation platforms and client experience space from Australia and the USA to talk about this and lots more:

• Marcie Borgal Shunk, President and Founder, The Tilt Institute, Inc (USA)
• Silvia Coulter, Principal, Client Development and Growth Practice, LawVision Group LLC (USA)
• Ben Farrow, Managing Director, FirmChecker (Australia)
• Carl White, Chief Experience Officer and Director, CXINLAW (Australia)

Topics discussed included:

• Whether client experience and client satisfaction are the same thing or something different
• Why legal practices need to develop a “client first” strategy
• Whether or not legal services/products can be customised, and should be
• How to establish/develop/maintain client relationships in a virtual world

Marcie, Silvia, Ben and Carl – thanks so much for your practical insights and experience sharing – we love your work!

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

Contemporary legal practice may be tech fuelled but its also data driven. It's also increasingly less about imparting knowledge and more about sharing experience. The combination of knowledge and data analytics has created a new synergy that is guiding and even predicting where and how best to apply what we know to what we do as lawyers and allied legal professionals. It's spawned a whole new way to make decisions - more targeted, more accurate, more agile, better, faster and cheaper!

In this podcast on Making Legal Decisions Differently – Knowledge management, data analytics and so much more…, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific), was joined by an international panel of leaders and doers in this space from Australia and the USA:

• Carolyn Austin, Director of Knowledge and Practice Support, K&L Gates (Australia)
• Jon Metcalf, Principal Data Scientist, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (USA)
• Beth Patterson, Director, ESPconnect (Australia)

Topics discussed included:

• What is knowledge management and data analytics?
• What do knowledge management and data specialists do?
• Is data important or all things in all types of legal practice, and if so, why?
• What’s the relationship between tech, data and knowledge management?
• How and where are knowledge management and data analytics impacting legal practice?

Carolyn, Jon and Beth – now we know knowledge management and data is this much fun, we’ll all be calling you – thank you for a fabulous conversation!

If you would prefer to listen rather than watch this session, we'll also be releasing this session as a webinar as part of our FREE Reinvent Legal Business Series 2 webinars - you'll find the details and registration links as we add them here.

This podcast was delivered on 25 August 2023 and is the ninth and final session in CLI’s AI for Legal Series.

In this session Lisa Crosbie, Technology Evangelist and Amanda Fajerman, Engagement Manager, both at Barhead discussed Driving your business forward with Microsoft Copilot.

Topics covered included:

• What is Microsoft Copilot?
• Where will Microsoft Copilot be available?
• When will Microsoft Copilot be available?
• The need to be ready for Microsoft Copilot
• How to drive your business forward with Microsoft Copilot
• Reduce your digital debt
• Audit your context, knowledge and information sources
• Update your MS Knowledge and Governance Framework
• Prepare your workforce
• Embed ‘productivity efficiency’ mindsets

Resources

• CLI Legal Generative AI LinkedIn Group
• CLI Generative AI Initiative

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.

Metrics have always been a critical part of business. The Legal Metrics Portal (LMP) has made them an accessible and essential part of LEGAL business. LMP is the product of a 2-year labour of love and global collaboration of leading legal ops enthusiasts and specialists: Connie Brenton, VP of Law, Technology and Operations at NetApp; Mick Sheehy, Partner, NewLaw, PwC Australia; Jeff Franke, CEO of LegalOps.com; Pratik Patel, Head of Innovation at Elevate; and J. Deckert, VP of Operations at Is Inspired.

In this podcast, we spoke with two of the LMP founders and gurus, Connie Brenton and Mick Sheehy, to explore just what an amazing contribution the LMP promises to be and, given the brains trust and firepower behind it, what it will no doubt achieve – a form of crowd-sourced business intelligence!

LMP has been designed for use and, is user-friendly for legal ops and a whole bunch of legal practice areas too! You might be new to legal metrics or an experienced professional, no matter where you lie on that continuum, you’ll find guidance about how to make the most of this resource and, undoubtedly, something you can use along the way.

The 500 metrics are categorised, assigned levels of importance and, you can customise them and add your own metrics too!  You’ll find the website here - go visit it, you won’t be disappointed!

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

It’s been almost a year since ChatGPT launched! For many of us, that opened the door to a new world – new concepts, new terms, confusion, frustration, exhilaration – a whole lot of stuff to understand, implement and manage. We needed guidance but the sort that shines a light on where to go and doesn’t require us to build the flashlight first.

It takes a special combination of capabilities to do that, not everyone has them but determining who does, who doesn’t, and asking the right questions to engage the right person to assist can be hard, especially in new and emerging areas of expertise. Get the match right, and it can jump a legal business ahead in leaps and bounds. Get it wrong, and it will do the opposite but worse, create a culture of inertia that can last for years.

We spoke with someone who knows all about that, Josh Kubicki, the Co-founder and Business Designer of Bold Duck Studio and author of The Brainyacts Generative AI Newsletter. Josh’s deep experience in the legal ecosystem most particularly in advising on, leading, and delivering legal services done differently, qualifies him as someone who knows what it takes to make a contemporary legal business work and who it takes to do that too.

Josh’s work in the legal generative AI space is outstanding. He has combined his passion for tech, design, education, writing, and innovation with an entrepreneurial flare to produce a powerhouse of resources (check out The Brainyacts website) - videos, blogs, newsletters, checklists - to help the legal world embrace generative AI.

We spoke with Josh about one of his many projects, the AI Expert Checklist – it’s like a mini-CV for your next AI presenter so you can be sure to engage someone who really knows their stuff. In so many ways it typifies the work Josh is doing in this space – pragmatic, thoughtful, insightful, user-friendly, cutting-edge, and ground breaking – we know you’re going to enjoy this conversation just as much as we did!

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

As we reflect on the many changes in the legal ecosystem in the last 5 years, few specialist groups have evolved as quickly or had the same, significant impact as legal operations professionals. For example, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) evolved from a handful of people to thousands in what seemed like just a handful of years! So, we wanted to explore where legal ops came from and where it’s going to in Legal Operations...Is it the new legal business game changer?

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific) was joined by an international panel of the world's leading thought leaders and doers in this space:

• Connie Brenton, Chief of Staff/Sr. Director, Legal Operations, NetApp, Inc. (USA)
• Amanda Fajerman, Head of Legal Technology, LOD (Australia)
• Mick Sheehy, Partner, NewLaw, PwC (Australia)

Topics discussed included:

• What legal operations is (and isn’t)
• What legal ops professionals do
• Why legal ops has become a critical function in legal departments
• The key performance indicators for a first rate legal ops function
• The role of legal ops in the new legal ecosystem
• The connection between legal ops and the rise of Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs)
• The emerging divide in focus, function and capabilities of lawyers in-house and in private practice
• The opportunities and challenges of COVID-19 for the legal ops function

Thank you so much Connie, Mick and Amanda for a candid, insightful and information packed discussion – we love your work!

P.S. This podcast was also recorded as a webinar so, if you would like to watch it, you’ll find it here.

The oneNDA initiative has changed the way legal documents are created and used. It’s also signalled an evolving change in the way lawyers and allied legal professionals work too – one where tech features as prominently as design, client experience, and collaboration. These are big statements, but so too is what serial legalpreneur and change maker Electra Japonas has achieved in the last 18 months! 

In this podcast, in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Electra about her experience working in Europe and the UK and in her own strategic legal operations and design consultancy, The Law Boutique, that led to OneNDA (a standardised Non-Disclosure Agreement), Claustack (an online collaborative space for lawyers) and most recently oneDPA (a standardised Data Processing Agreement). 

The oneNDA initiative started as a conversation with a colleague, turned into a question posed to the legal community on LinkedIn, and resulted in an open source, standard-form Non-Disclosure Agreement created by the legal community, for the legal and business communities. It was the beginning of much more that quickly followed and even more still to come!

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

CLI Distinguished Fellow, Sarah El-Atm is our guest host for this episode (one of three). Sarah’s 12-month Fellowship explored whether client problems can be better solved by multidisciplinary teams (lawyers and allied professionals).

In this first episode, Sarah identified, analysed and discussed the importance, evolution and nature of multidisciplinary teams in contemporary legal practice. Practical insights and examples were provided by Hilary Goodier, Partner and Co-Division Head (formerly Partner and Chief Operating Officer) at Ashurst Advance; Mick Sheehy, Partner New Law at PwC; Anu Briggs, Head of Capability, Development, and Change at Gilbert + Tobin; Jemima Harris, Legal and Strategic Projects Director at Megaport (formerly Head of Legal Operations & Tech at LOD); and Denise Doyle, Chief Product Officer, Xakia Technologies (formerly Specialist Legal Operations Consultant).

Topics covered in the episode include:

• What a multidisciplinary team is within the context of the legal profession.
• How the demand from clients is continuing to change, and shape, legal teams.
• Why it is important to think holistically about a client’s legal problem and not just through a legal lens.

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 Peter Alexander Corner,  Founding Manager, Alternative Contracting and Prof Camilla Baasch Andersen, UWA Law School and Head of the Comic Contracts team.

Alternative Contracting was founded on the back of the Comic Contracts Project at UWA, where Peter was working with the lead researcher and partner, Prof Camilla Andersen. As a direct collaboration between research and industry needs, the company specialises in providing fast and affordable bespoke legal illustrations for contracts, regulations, and other legal information.

The design of contracts in visual/illustrated form is to ensure transparency, clear behavioural drivers, and improved engagement with, and perception of, contractual relationships. These objectives are also the core of the research being undertaken at UWA and this business.

Where the research team continues to explore new applications and test the impact of images in legal contexts, the business provides faster and easier avenues to commercialise the applications of the images to all sizes of businesses.

In this session, Peter and Camilla showcased their groundbreaking work, explained its challenges and opportunities, and discussed how research led to doing legal business differently.

This podcast was delivered on 20 June 2023 and launched CLI’s AI for Legal Series.

In this session, Caryn Sandler, Partner + Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer and Mitchell Scott, Data and Delivery Manager, both from Gilbert + Tobin, discussed How to Use Generative AI and ChatGPT in Legal Practice.

Topics covered included:

• The changing AI landscape
• The legal generative AI toolkit
• What’s coming around the corner in legal AI
• The approaches taken to AI in the legal industry so far
• Risks and ethical considerations when using generative AI
• The do’s and don’ts of generative AI

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.

As 2021 draws to a close, we welcomed back our innovation and legaltech gurus, now also our good friends, for a third year in review podcast: Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer at Gilbert & Tobin; Warrick McLean, CEO at Colman Grieg Lawyers; and  Graeme Grovum, Head of Technology and Client Solutions at Allens – we discussed the year that was…and it was quite a year!

Topics covered in our discussion included:

1. Did we see deep change, transformation or something different altogether in the legal ecosystem in 2021? And, how will that influence where we launch from in 2022?
2. With “digitisation” almost being the word of the year, how did that translate into action (or inaction) in legal practice in 2021?
3. Did data analytics move from numbers on a spread sheet to something pervasive in, and critical to, decision making internally and for clients externally in 2021?
4. How did the concept of the “adjacent business” evolve in 2021 and where did it/will it find its mark?
5. With so much changing in the legal ecosystem, what capabilities/talent did we see prioritised in 2021, how did that redefine the war for talent, and will that change in 2022?
6. And finally, with 2021 almost in the rear-view mirror, what are the top priorities in innovation and legaltech for 2022?

Thank you, Caryn, Warrick, and Graeme, such a delight to spend the time with you – can’t wait to see you all same time, next year!

To all our friends around the world, thank you for your support in 2021 – we are so grateful to you and for you every year. Our very best wishes to you and your families for a restful, joyful, and peaceful holiday season!

In this podcast, the first of five sessions on Digital Contracting for Net Zero, CLI’s Distinguished Fellow, Natalia Crnomarkovic was joined by Phoebe Roberts to explore how legal teams are jumping into action to propel NetZero through Climate adjusted risk allocation and Climate contracting.

Phoebe Roberts is a senior legal practitioner in MinterEllison’s Climate Risk Governance Team and Director of Implementation and APAC Co-lead at The Chancery Lane Project (TCLP).

Topics covered in this session included:

• The role of legal and contract management teams to secure the pathway to Net Zero

• The shift from traditional risk allocation to climate aligned contracting for climate impact

• Chancery Lane Project (TCLP) as an invaluable resource for climate contracting 

• Key challenges across the contract lifecycle for Australian Corporates in addressing climate

• The role of technology in securing a NetZero future

• Tips for lawyers seeking to align supply chains with Corporate NetZero aspirations

You’ll find information about the other episodes in this series in the Digital Contracting for Net Zero Report here.

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.

Can technology help to close the access to justice (A2J) gap? That’s the question the recently launched Justice Technology Association (JTA) is hoping to answer with guidance from its Advisory Board, and the shared experience of its Directors and co-founding organisations (Courtroom 5, EasyExpunctions, HelloDivorce and PeopleClerk), in collaboration with the A2J sector in the US and around the world.

JTA is providing a focus and a place for stakeholders to come together and explore/deliver ways technology can do more and do good. And, along the way it also has the real possibility of positively reframing and solving a long-standing crisis. 

In this podcast in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Maya Markovich, the Executive Director of JTA and CLI Advisory Board member, based in the USA. Maya has a distinguished career in legal innovation and legal technology. In her role at JTA she brings that to the forefront and combines it with her passion for, and commitment to, improving A2J.

We’re delighted to welcome JTA to our Network as a friend of CLI.

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’ll be 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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

In this podcast, the first episode of seven in CLI’s Digital Literacy Series: Automation Mini Series, Giles Thompson, Head of Growth at Avvoka and guest presenter Mark Ford, Director of Knowledge & Innovation Strategy at echo.legal guided us through the basics of legal automation.

Topics covered in this episode included:

• What legal automation actually is (and what it isn’t)
• If and why you should care about it
• How to tell if you should launch your own automation project
• What your aims should be if you do embark on your own legal automation journey

This mini series brings together a unique collaboration of leading legal automation specialists who will address a number of different but related topics in legal automation.

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 session, we spoke with Jean Yang, the VP and Co-founder of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence. The Center is a note-worthy offering from a software vendor. Jean’s journey to Onit seems like it was a natural progression. A former practising lawyer from New Zealand, she has spent most of her career so far (there’s lots more still to come) at the leading edge of AI in legal and, that has now taken her to Onit in Austin, Texas.

Our discussion focussed on the application of AI in legal - how much that has changed this past year; emerging trends in AI uptake; whether it’s realistic to expect definitive use cases right now; and the challenges, opportunities, needs, expectations and reality of the tech becoming pervasive/BAU in the legal world next year or maybe later - it’s hard to look too far ahead in this space right now but we did a little AI crystal ball gazing!

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

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

This podcast was delivered on 2 August 2023 and is the seventh session in CLI’s AI for Legal Series.

In this session Joel Barolsky, Principal, Edge International discussed how Generative AI is changing law firm strategy and business models.

Topics covered in this session included how current generative AI will impact a law firm’s business strategy and business model for:

• Team structure, shape and composition
• Leverage, pricing margin and utilisation
• The dynamics and exchange of value between firms and their clients
• The role and offering of private law firms
• Marketing and business development
• Firm-wide capabilities and skill sets
• Risk and the cost of PI insurance
• New growth opportunities in advising clients on AI-related matters
• Industry structure and profitability
• Likely winners and losers

Resources

• CLI Legal Generative AI LinkedIn Group
• CLI Generative AI Initiative

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 2020, the legal workplace changed, permanently! Remote work became the norm. Flexible work, for a long time a reality, became a necessity. Work was disaggregated, reaggregated and turned into something completely new. In between, legal businesses scrambled to engage in this new global proof of concept and found along the way that remote and flexible working really did…work!

In this podcast, Emma Heuston, Founder & Principal Lawyer, The Remote Expert and Katherine Thomas, CEO, Free Range Lawyers, discussed how and why people are now, and will continue to work, differently. They also shared their experience on turning today’s best practices into next practices, for the benefit of your people, your clients, and your organisation.

This podcast was part of the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 Live program on 10 February 2021.

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 the eighth podcast in this collection focusing on providing practical support and assistance for those working in the legal ecosystem during this time of extreme change, we discussed with Katherine Thomas, CEO, Free Range Lawyers, Flexible Working in the New World – and what a new world it has become!

We kicked off with an explanation of what flexible working is today – it’s not the same as it was – it’s expanded in application and definition. Katherine analysed how the wide spread application of flexible work, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, has challenged myths and provided case studies around things like productivity, uptake, and access to talent but, how it’s also been important to remember not everyone needs or wants to work this way.

Katherine also discussed how the consequences of these wide-spread flexible work arrangements have been far reaching in the legal industry (and all others). The needs/expectations of individual employees have also been reflected in changing customer and business demands – they’re all inter-related. And, what is being changed is likewise not just internal to firms/organisations like new business processes and project management, communication tools and expected outputs, but it’s also given rise to new customer behaviours and the enhanced use of technology.  

It’s unlikely law firms/organisations will return to the same work environment that they left pre COVID-19, even if they want to (and it’s clear many do not), their employees or clients may not accept a reset to the old status quo. In the near future, work may become less about when people return to work and more about how and where!

Thank you so much, Katherine – another fabulous thought provoking session!

If you would like to listen to Katherine’s other podcast in this series on Remote Working…in a crisis, you’ll find it here. If you would prefer to watch it, you’ll find it here.

P.S. This podcast was also recorded as a webinar so if you would like to watch it, you’ll find it here.

In this podcast, the second episode of five in CLI’s Digital Literacy Series: eDiscovery Mini-Series,  Kate Clark, CEO, Enhanced Litigation Management Solutions and colleagues Ciara Cooke, Senior Legal Technology Consultant and Sam White, Legal Technology Consultant, shared their experience, candid insights and walked through several practical mini case studies to illustrate key aspects of the eDiscovery process. Episode three in the mini-series completes the two-parter on process.    

Topics covered in this session included:

• Project Management/Planning
• Identification of potentially relevant document sources
• Collection of documents
• Drafting and negotiating a Protocol for Exchange of Electronic Documents
• Litigation database setup
• Processing of the documents
• Preparing documents prior to legal review and reducing the volume of documents for review

You’ll find information about the other episodes in this series here. The mini-series is presented in association with Enhanced Litigation Management Solutions.

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, 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 Catherine O'Connell, the Principal and Founder of Catherine O'Connell Law (COCL) in Tokyo, Japan.

Catherine hails from New Zealand and, as a foreign lawyer in Japan, leads a boutique law practice that provides flexible legal services to law firms, legal departments and businesses, on a project and needs-specific basis, delivered by bilingual in-house experienced lawyers - a unique legal resource in Japan - areas of focus include:

• Support for Japanese and foreign law firms in Japan, as well as New Zealand-based law firms
• Determining how, when and where a full-time, in country legal counsel might best contribute
• Setting up systems and workflows
• Localising global templates
• Introducing general commercial contract governance to business

COCL combines bilingual capability and deep in-house counsel experience, to act as the lead on all the in-person and written contract negotiations for client’s BAU and project work.

COCL is a multiple award winner in entrepreneurship, excellence and being a trailblazer.

COCL also provides an Associates Academy where Japanese in-house legal staff (and law firm associates) can upskill in their English business communication skills.

Catherine also recently launched her podcast, Lawyer on Air, focusing on the life and work of women lawyers in Japan.

Catherine, thanks so much for an excellent session – love seeing how passion, creativity and pursuing opportunities can lead to thriving legal businesses all around the world!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

This podcast was recorded on 5 February 2025, as the inaugural session in CLI’s Lex ExploreAI Series.

In this session  host Courtney Blackman, Head of Partnerships and Program Director of the LawTech Hub & AI Clinical Placements at Lander & Rogers joined Terri Mottershead, Executive Director of the Centre for Legal Innovation to discuss:

• The state of legal AI
• The work being done in AI at Lander & Rogers
• What you can expect from this series in 2025

You’ll find details about the other sessions in this series here.

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.

Want to keep the legal AI fires burning? Please join CLI’s Legal Generative AI Global Community here for a free, lightly curated daily news feed on all things legal GenAI.

As Helen Mackay, Director at Juno Legal discusses in this podcast, Juno was established from the get go with a different legal business model. Juno is a hybrid law firm and on-demand legal services business. The team comprises 21 experienced in-house lawyers and two legal professionals who serve a range of large corporates, high growth companies and public sector clients across New Zealand and beyond.

Juno's services offerings are client-focused and comprise dedicated in-house legal support, managed legal services, legal advisory, legaltech consulting and bespoke solutions. Juno places its people at the centre of everything it does. Each Juno lawyer determines their own hours of work in consultation with clients, to have full control of their careers. Juno's flat structure and egalitarian approach promotes engagement and it has no unpaid overtime. Juno's remuneration approach promotes initiative and social contribution.

Team members develop practice areas that interest them and are rewarded for business development efforts. 1% of profits are donated to each lawyer’s charity of choice. It is a collegial and supportive environment where team members work collaboratively on client and internal projects and provide expertise and peer review across the firm. Juno constantly innovates within its own business and seeks to enhance its client and employee experience.

Recognition and acknowledgement of Juno’s success in building its vision has seen the firm awarded Employer of Choice <50 lawyers at the 2018 New Zealand Law Awards, Finalist in the same category in the 2019 and 2020 NZ Law Awards, one of New Zealand’s most innovative firms in 2018 and 2019 by NZ Lawyer and NZ Lawyer Employer of Choice 2020.

Thanks so much for sharing the Juno Legal story, Helen – you’re blazing a new path and demonstrating that different works and thrives every step along the way!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

Don't forget to also check out and save the date for the other fabulous FREE ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies webinars and podcasts - you'll find the details and registration links to the videos as we add them here and, if you subscribe to this podcast, you’ll receive notification as we upload more conversations in this series.

In this podcast, , Michael Morrissey, Managing Director + Founder, Morrissey Law + Advisory shared his experience in building buy-in for your project inside and outside your legal organisation.

Topics covered in this session included:

• Know your mission
• Measuring buy-in
• Garnering buy-in: Communication; Training; Culture building; Taking your team on the journey
• Maintaining buy-in
• Reporting: Celebrating the wins; Acknowledging the losses; Recognising the team

You’ll find details about the other episodes in this series here.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

Resources referred to in this episode:

• Melissa Lyon – CLI Legal Design Thinking and Doing series
• Melissa Lyon - Building a user centred approach to innovation projects: video and podcast
• Maya Markovich - Leveraging the entrepreneurial mindset in your legal practice: video and podcast
• Brene Brown website  

In this podcast in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Heidi K. Brown about her new book, The Flourishing Lawyer - A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Performance and Well-Being (2022).

Heidi has been exploring the lawyer psyche for a number of years. What distinguishes Heidi’s work in this area is its multidisciplinary approach and that it draws from lessons learned from other industries like the world of elite sports professionals. It’s also personal. It’s part of Heidi’s lived experience as a former practising lawyer and now working with lawyers of the future in her roles as Professor of Law and the Director of Legal Writing at Brooklyn Law School in the US.

A clear theme runs through Heidi’s work – the importance of empathy, curiosity, positivity and a commitment to challenging what it means to be a lawyer and changing mindsets about what lawyering is or could be now and in the future. The Flourishing Lawyer is the third in a trilogy of exploration. It started with The Introverted Lawyer: A Seven-Step Journey Toward Authentically Empowered Advocacy (2017), then to Untangling Fear in Lawyering: A Four-Step Journey Toward Powerful Advocacy (2019) and now to The Flourishing Lawyer – and it’s clear, thankfully, that this is not the end!

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

In this podcast, Peter Dombkins, Director, NewLaw, PwC Australia discussed how legal project managers make all the pieces fit together, with these fabulous specialists:

• Linda-Rose Daya, Head of Legal Project Management and Design, Gilbert + Tobin
• Liz Fernando, Head of Legal Project Management, Allens
• Joanne Rees, CEO, AllyGroup
• Kerryn Underwood, Head of Legal Project Management, King & Wood Mallesons

This podcast was part of the COL-CLI NewLaw Careers Summit 2022 program on 17 May 2022.

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.

This podcast was delivered on 19 July 2023 and is the fifth session in CLI’s AI for Legal Series.

In this session Patrick Fair, Principal, Patrick Fair Associates discussed Generative AI, ChatGPT and IP Rights.

Topics covered included:

• Generative AI overview
• Impact of GenAI on: Design Rights, Circuit Layout rights, Trade Marks, Patents and Copyright
• Compare and contrast the legal position outside Australia
• Review of recent cases

Resources

• CLI Legal Generative AI LinkedIn Group
• CLI Generative AI Initiative

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.

We often think about legal innovation and legal education as being separate and distinct but, what if they weren’t? What if students, not just law students, could pursue their passion for change in a way that led to more people, in more places, having access to justice?

That’s the question that the Innovation4Justice (I4J) Lab asked and is answering today.

Our guest for this podcast is Stacy Butler, the Director of the I4J Program. Stacy has a deep history in community advocacy and expanding the reach of civil legal services for under-represented populations. It’s that experience, her passion and drive, that led to the establishment of the I4J Lab and, is evident in all the amazing I4J Lab team members and those with whom they collaborate too. The I4J Lab is a multidisciplinary collaboration between the University of Arizona, the University of Utah, staff, students, the legal ecosystem, many other industries, and communities.

It focuses on creating tools that provide empirical data where that’s been missing in policy formation/deployment and, solutions that enhance access to justice through user centred design and implementation. The I4J Lab is producing outcomes that make a difference. It’s also creating frameworks, models and adopting different ways to solve complex problems in a holistic way. Because the work is also scalable, it has practical application for the entire legal system and marketplace.

There are elements of this work that are familiar but, there are many others that are new, and some would not have even been possible until quite recently.

Thanks so much for the outstanding work you and the team at the I4J Lab are doing, Stacy – walking the talk and making a difference – it doesn’t get much better than that!

It’s easy to get all caught up in the shiny new tech. It’s exciting and even a little mesmerizing, but the change it brings, demands and expects has a very real and human face too.

In this podcast, Isabel Parker, Legal innovator, author and LawTech UK panel member closed out the Summit with her timely, important and candid reminder of the need to keep an unwavering focus on our humanity in a human+ legal world.

This podcast was on Day Two of the CLI Legal Generative AI Summit 2023 on 25 October.

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.

The legal ecosystem is complex, multidisciplinary and evolving. Delivery of legal services and products requires the capabilities of many people working seamlessly in collaboration with each other and customers/clients. Contemporary legal practice is all about new - new law, new professions and specialisms, new areas of practice, and new ways of conceiving, working on and solving new legal problems.

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, CLI discussed with legal innovation/transformation leaders how their firms have defined NewLaw careers; why they have evolved; how the roles have impacted the war for legal talent; and if the roles are reshaping legal practice: 

• Danielle Emerson, Senior Legal Transformation Manager, Herbert Smith Freehills
• Caroline Ferguson, Business Transformation and Innovation Director, Simpson Grierson
• Michelle Grossmann, Chief Innovation Officer & Transformation Lead, Lander & Rogers
• Amber O’Meara, Innovation & Purpose Lead, MinterEllison

This podcast was part of the COL-CLI NewLaw Careers Summit 2022 program on 16 May 2022.

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, Francesco Bianchi, Agile Coach, Marsh & McLennan Companies (formerly Oliver Wyman Digital), Sebastian Bohle, Global Owner Agile Project Playbook, Oliver Wyman Digital, and Ethan Murray, Global Capabilities Lead and Partner, Digital Practice, Oliver Wyman, connected the dots between agile, change and legal innovation, and discussed practical tools that can be used to help lead change in legal practice.

This session was part of the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 Live program on 8 February 2021.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

In this podcast, the fourth episode of seven in CLI’s Digital Literacy Series: Automation Mini Series, Evan Wong, CEO and Co-founder, Checkbox and his guest presenter Alex Rosenrauch, Manager, PwC NewLaw discussed building a business case for legal automation.

Getting budget for legal technology is notoriously difficult and is often a breaking point in a legal team's quest to improve the way they work and deliver legal services to the business. The key is knowing how to build an effective business case.

Topics covered in the session included:

• how to properly frame and communicate the value of legal automation;
• how to structure and present a winning business case; and
• how to handle common objections and pushback to new investments in automation.

What happens when you get a few people passionate about law, the legal industry and legal innovation in one room and chat – this podcast happens!

We launch our podcast series with an insightful, funny and engaging conversation between three amazing legalpreneurs, people who are making change happen for their clients, their people and their firms every day – they also happen to be members of the Chief Innovation Officers Forum (CIOF): 

• Alison Laird, Head of Innovation and Project Delivery Asia Pacific at Pinsent Masons and inaugural Global Chair of the CIOF Steering Group;
• Melissa Lyon, Associate Principal, Hive Legal; and
• Marcus McCarthy, Principal, Nexus Law Group.

These folks understand that some in the legal profession are “change challenged,” they have been on their own journeys in coming to the place they find themselves in today and, with thoughtful reflection, empathy and resilience, they work in their law firms and in the profession to push forward, make a difference and uncover the industry’s next best practices.

We chatted about a lot of things, there’s a lot to chat about after all. Topics covered in our conversation included exploring answers to hot button issues like:

• How you define legal innovation? Can/should you define it?
• Who should lead innovation in a law firm and in the legal industry?
• Should innovation be inside to out or outside to in or a bit of both?
• Can you measure innovation? What are the metrics or KPIs? Does measurement matter?
• How do you deal with the sceptics, naysayers and blockers to innovation?
• Does the lawyer personality type mean the legal industry is uniquely change challenged?
• Can law firms survive if they don’t innovate? Should they survive?
• Where and how do you start to innovate in the legal industry?
• What will the lawyers and legal practice look like in the next 3- 5 years?

Thank you so much Alison, Marcus and Mel – we applaud your work and we are inspired by you!

Do we know what our clients really want from us? Is it the same as what it used to be and if not, how do we know and what’s changed? Should the client experience of our legal practices differ in the B2B or B2C market or, are there some things that every client wants? Are we providing legal services and products that best suit lawyers or those that truly cater to clients? What have we learnt from working with clients differently during COVID-19? What can we learn and emulate in the world of client experience from other industries?

In this session, Howard Wilbury, Managing Director, Dutch Uncle, facilitated a discussion with those who “walk” this “talk” every day in the legal world of client experience:

• Justine Lamond, National Marketing and Business Manager, Nexus Law Group
• Melissa Scott, Senior Legal Counsel (Global), Megaport
• Carl White, Chief Experience Officer and Director, CXINLAW

This podcast was part of the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 Live program on 11 February 2021.

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, Caryn Sandler, Partner + Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer at Gilbert + Tobin, shared her significant experience in taking numerous legal innovation projects from conception through to implementation and, everything in between!

Topics covered included:

• Guiding your projects with an innovation pipeline
• How do ideas enter your innovation pipeline?
• Managing your innovation pipeline with guardrails to keep you on track; and
• Prioritising the right projects through your innovation pipeline.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

In the legal marketplace today, one that is increasingly client centric, legaltech enabled, data driven and where service/product delivery needs to be lean, nimble, and agile, having the right people, do the right things, at the right time and at the right price point is the only way a law firm gets to do what its clients want i.e. deliver its services and products effectively and efficiently. It's that easy and it's that hard!

The creativity, complexity and uniqueness of legal professionals has never been more important than it is right now but, so too is recognising their fragility. People aren't machines. And, if they are to be at their best, they need to be recognised, engaged, and empowered - that's where the new people, people come in - HR, talent management professionals, well -being and coaching executives collaborating and working in unison to support, guide, and connect the dots between individual capabilities and the achievement of legal business performance goals.

In this podcast on Reinventing the Legal Workplace – Meet the new people, people!, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific), was joined by an international panel of leaders and doers in this space from Australia and the USA:

• Jan Christie, Capability + Development Manager, Gilbert + Tobin (Australia)
• Louise Ferris, Chief People Officer, McCullough Robertson Lawyers (Australia)
• Krista Larson, Director of Employee Well-being, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (USA)
• Susan Manch, Chief Talent Officer, Winston & Strawn LLP (USA)

Topics discussed included:

• Who are the new people, people and what exactly do they do?
• The changing role of human resources and how it’s combining with digital resources today
• The impact of COVID-19 on workplaces, work cultures, mindsets, mental health and well-being, capabilities and capability development
• Challenges and priorities just ahead…

Thank you Jan, Lou, Krista and Sue – your work and dedication is an inspiration – amazing!

If you would prefer to listen rather than watch this session, we'll also be releasing this session as a webinar as part of our FREE Reinvent Legal Business Series 2 webinars - you'll find the details and registration links as we add them here.

In this podcast, the first of five episodes in CLI’s Digital Literacy Series: eDiscovery Mini Series,  Kate Clark, CEO, Enhanced Litigation Management Solutions set the scene and context for the mini series by discussing how eDiscovery has evolved in Australia.

Kate was joined by guest panellists who shared their practical experience and candid insights: Nicholas Andreatidis, Queens Counsel; Natalie Burgess, Senior Associate, Maddocks; and Kiri Parr, Former General Counsel, Arup.

Topics covered in this session included:

• The evolution of eDiscovery in Australia
• The problems eDiscovery can solve (beyond litigation)
• Where to begin before embarking on the eDiscovery process
• The importance of developing an effective document management strategy
• The pros and cons of DIY vs an eDiscovery provider
• The importance of ediscovery capabilities

You’ll find information about the other episodes in this series here. The series is presented in association with Enhanced Litigation Management Solutions.

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.

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

In this podcast for CLI’s ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies series, Riz McDonald, Founder and Director of Foundd Legal discussed how she turned her dream about being her own boss into a reality and combined her passion for small business with her knowledge and understanding of the law to make Foundd the go-to legal service provider for businesses in the creative sphere.

Since its inception, Foundd has grown into a practice that is known for putting its clients first, supporting the growth of small businesses, and delivering an outcome-focused service that stays in touch with the needs of its clients. Essentially, Riz is a part of each client's team, as an in-house lawyer of sorts - except in her own house!

Foundd operates entirely online, and offers comprehensive contract templates, custom services for the tailoring and review of legal documents, and short courses geared towards like-minded entrepreneurs who are ready to learn how to make their business legally legit.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here

Don't forget to also check out and save the date for the other fabulous FREE ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies webinars - you'll find the details and registration links as we add them here.

We read and hear a lot about legal innovation and transformation, more now than ever before, but it’s hard to know how much of this is “innovation theatre” or “window dressing” versus real, tangible change. In this podcast on The Changing Face of Legal Innovation and Transformation – Who’s zooming who?, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific), was joined by an international panel of leaders and doers in the legal innovation and transformation space from Australia and New Zealand to talk about this and lots more:

• Caroline Ferguson, Business Transformation and Innovation Director, Simpson Grierson (New Zealand)
• Katrina Gowans, National Legal Transformation Lead, Origin (Australia)
• Caryn Sandler, Partner + Chief Knowledge and Information Officer, Gilbert + Tobin (Australia)
• Adrian Warren, Director, Plexus + KPMG NewLaw Partnership (Australia)

Topics discussed included:

• What innovation and transformation specialists do
• How to innovate no matter what your legal organisation looks like
• The differences and similarities between internal and external innovation
• How data and innovation are link together
• The impact of COVID-19 on innovation/transformation now and moving forward…

Caroline, Katrina, Caryn and Adrian – we love learning from your innovation and transformation journeys and thank you for your generosity and willingness to share them!

If you would prefer to listen rather than watch this session, we'll also be releasing this session as a webinar as part of our FREE Reinvent Legal Business Series 2 webinars - you'll find the details and registration links as we add them here.

This podcast was recorded on 15 April 2024 as the second session in CLI’s Legal GenAI Around the World Series.

In this session Terri Mottershead, Executive Director at the Centre for Legal Innovation facilitated a discussion with three amazing panellists from India, Hong Kong and Singapore:

• Komal Gupta, Chief Innovation Officer, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (India)
• Sebastian Ko, General Counsel, DFX Labs (Hong Kong)
• Rajesh Sreenivasan, Head, Technology Media and Telecoms Practice, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP; Co-Founder and Director, Rajah & Tann Technologies Pte Ltd and Rajah & Tann Cybersecurity Pte Ltd and CLI Advisory Board Member (Singapore)

Topics covered included:

• How, where and why GenAI is being used in legal businesses and what’s driving/limiting adoption
• LLMs, the impact of RAGs, and the case for/against the decision to build or buy
• What capabilities are needed to deliver legal GenAI solutions today, tomorrow, and how to bridge the gaps
• What’s unique about the legal GenAI market in Hong Kong, India and Singapore

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.

Please join CLI’s free Legal GenAI Global Community for a lightly curated newsfeed on how legal GenAI is transforming the legal ecosystem.

We have launched our new series: ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies to showcase legal businesses - law firms, in-house legal departments, ALSPs, Community Legal Centres, Legal Consultancies, Legal Incubators and Accelerators – that have reimagined, repurposed, or reinvented legal business and tell their stories. These legal businesses are not just part of, but are creating a new legal ecosystem with the aspiration, and as these are case studies, the proof of concept, that what they do and how they do it is less about “new” and more about a different “business as usual.”

Law Squared is one of these businesses! It’s an innovative NewLaw firm that has challenged the status quo of the traditional law firm model. Founded in 2016 by Demetrio Zema, Law Squared has pursued its vision to make good businesses great and great businesses better, by working with their clients in a clear, transparent and engaging manner.

Law Squared has consistently pursued its aims to break down the barriers traditional legal service providers have created, by being clear communicators, listening to their client’s needs, being efficient, and always transparent on costs.

Law Squared has proactively approached its delivery of legal services across four practice areas; commercial, corporate, employment and litigation, and, that's led to Law Squared becoming one of the leading NewLaw firms among enterprises and corporates across Australia.

Thanks so much for sharing the amazing Law Squared journey, Demetrio – you’ve not only built the path but, you’re lighting the way for us all too – amazing!

If you would prefer to watch this session rather than listen, you'll find the link to the video on the CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) FREE Resource Centre here.

Don't forget to also check out and save the date for the other fabulous FREE ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies webinars and podcasts - you'll find the details and registration links to the videos as we add them here and, if you subscribe to this podcast, you’ll receive notification as we upload more conversations in this series.

VR has been around for a while so how is it faring in the face of so much new legaltech and AI in the market? We spoke with Matthew Stubenberg, the  Associate Director of Legal Technology – A2J Lab, Harvard Law School, about the emerging use of virtual reality in law, legal education, pro bono work and improving access to justice.  Matthew has had an amazing career and is in a role that now combines his skills and passion for the law, legaltech, the not for profit sector, and access to justice.

Topics covered in our conversation included:

In this podcast, the sixth episode of eight in the CLI’s Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab, Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group, Melissa Lyon, Executive Director and Experience Designer, Hive Legal facilitated a discussion focusing on the journey from Lawyer to NewLaw Careerist with three outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia:

• Liz Fernando, Head of Legal Project Management, Allens
• Kate Greenwood, National Innovation Manager Family & Relationship Law, Lander & Rogers
• Katherine Thomas, Managing Director, Katherine Thomas Consulting and CEO, Free Range Lawyers

Topics covered in this session included:

• What is (and isn’t) a NewLaw career
• How different paths to NewLaw careers are possible, probable, and positive
• The need for and importance of diversity and inclusion in NewLaw careers
• What’s next for NewLaw careers – evolution, journeys, paths and capabilities
• How NewLaw careers are shaping/contributing to the transformation of legal practice

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.

We are at a juncture, right now, where we can take a breath and seize the opportunity not just to do a little better in how we have practised law but, a lot!

We can't do that with ALL the same people, or thinking the same way, or doing the same things. We need to celebrate and embrace people from different backgrounds, different approaches, different points of view. And so, in many different ways, diversity AND inclusion (D&I) will play an even bigger role in how we move forward - it's pivotal to legal innovation AND at the centre of building the sort of workplace culture that reflects and respects our contemporary workplace, colleagues and clients.

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific),spoke with leaders and doers in this space from Australia and the USA about Building a New Law Firm Culture Through Diversity & Inclusion:

•  Ann-Maree David, Executive Director,The College of Law Queensland(Australia)
•  Maddison Harrington, Legal Officer - People and Wellbeing,Griffith University(Australia)
•  Leila Hock, Director, Legal Department Partnerships and Inclusion Initiatives,Diversity Lab(USA)
•  Kimya S.P. Johnson, Senior Counsel and Chair of Diversity & Inclusion Practice Group,Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C(USA)

Topics discussed included:

• Definitions for acronyms often used in D & I
• The importance of taking this time to “build back better” when it comes to the legal industry and D & I
• Identifying the challenges and overcoming them to effect the advancement of D & I in the legal industry
• Ways to ensure your D & I initiatives work in law firms, in legal education and in collaboration with consultancies
• The important role of D & I in developing organisational and workplace culture
• How D & I connects to and advances innovation
• The role of allies in D & I

Thanks so much, Ann-Maree, Maddy, Leila and Kimya for being so willing to candidly share your thoughts, experience, and the fabulous work you all do – it’s making a difference and we are all very grateful for it – amazing!

If you would prefer to watch this session rather than listen, you'll find the link to the video on the CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) FREE Resource Centre here.

Don't forget to also check out and save the date for the other fabulous FREE Reinvent Legal Business  Series 2 webinars and podcasts - you'll find the details and registration links to the videos as we add them here and, if you subscribe to this podcast, you’ll receive notification as we upload more conversations in this series.

This podcast was delivered on 7 July 2023 and is the third session in CLI’s AI for Legal Series.

In this session Stan Chua, Service Delivery Manager, Technology, Lander & Rogers discussed Large Language Models.

Topics covered included:

• Machine Learning, Large Language Model, Generative AI – What’s the difference?
• Large Language Model: How does it work? How does it learn?
• Transformer – the magic tool behind ChatGPT
• Impact, ethics and risk considerations
• Hallucinations
• Future of Large Language Models

Resources

• CLI Legal Generative AI LinkedIn Group
  CLI Generative AI Initiative

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.

The People Part of Change and Innovation – Ida Abbott on Succession Planning, Reverse Mentoring and a Whole Lot More!

In the discussion about legal innovation, we can sometimes forget to focus on the people part. People innovate, organisations do not! People find change hard and innovation is, essentially, a change process.  This is all complex enough but the people part is, itself, also changing right now. Baby Boomers are retiring, the legal workforce is increasingly mobility, employee have different expectations – the gig economy is alive and well for all legal professionals. So, how well is the legal industry coping with all of this?  

We spoke with Ida Abbot of Ida Abbott Consulting, an amazing human and guru on all things related to law firm succession planning and mentoring. We focussed our discussion on two of the most pressing people issues in the legal industry right now. These issues have been present for a long time but are finding their way onto the priority list at law firm strategic planning meetings, and will continue to do that with greater emphasis, as legal innovation takes a deeper and wider hold on the industry. These two critical issues are: the impact of the exodus of the Baby Boomer lawyers from legal practice and, the role that mentoring should/can/will play in the consequent “changing of the guard.” Topics covered in our conversation included:

Tech and data are shaping and driving service and product purchases all around us. Client/customer expectations are increasingly based on their best purchasing experience everywhere, for every service/product, in every industry. Failing to embrace this reality and the increased competition from those inside and outside the legal industry points to a grim future for those in legal practice but, it doesn’t have to be a worst case scenario….

That’s where our guest, Rudi Kesic, CEO of Advantage Consulting, comes in. A lawyer and legalpreneur based in the UK, he and his team have developed not only cutting edge and innovative legal services/products but are also paving the way for a different approach to them too – client centric, tech fuelled, and data driven!

We discussed two of Rudi’s recent innovations:

• Lawyer365 (L365) – a legaltech platform but much more. L365 provides clients with a place to find information (documents or short bursts of free legal advice from lawyers) that helps them when they need it (on demand and outside working hours) and how they need it (using video, text, etc.). It brings lawyers into the legal problem early, and, if the client needs more in-depth assistance and the matter then falls outside the scope of the initial free engagement, L365 has introduced the client to someone who will be able to help.  From the lawyer/provider viewpoint, while they pay to be there, they also have access to all sorts of amazing data that will help them be more effective and efficient lawyers.
• Verify365 – an aggregation of sources of identity (personal and big data related) that not only meet UK local and soon global legal requirements, but do so in a way that focuses on client convenience, user friendly tech and a ready to access/immediately usable report too. It’s defining and redefining digital id all at the same time!

We could have but didn’t stop our discussion there. We also chatted about the world of legaltech in the UK, the changing expectations of legal clients, and the challenges and opportunities for lawyers in contemporary legal practice.

Thank you so much, Rudi – congrats on all you are doing to bring the law to clients – you’re a trailblazer and a true legalpreneur! 

CLI Distinguished Fellow, Sarah El-Atm is our guest host for this episode (three of three). Sarah’s 12-month Fellowship explored whether client problems can be better solved by multidisciplinary teams (lawyers and allied professionals).

In the third and final episode, Sarah discusses the critical factors and questions law firms should ask as they start to build their own multidisciplinary teams. She discusses these and how they might work in law firms with Anu Briggs, Head of Capability, Development, and Change at Gilbert + Tobin; Jemima Harris, Legal and Strategic Projects Director at Megaport (formerly Head of Legal Operations & Tech at LOD); Hilary Goodier, Partner and Co-Division Head (formerly Partner and Chief Operating Officer) at Ashurst Advance; and Jan Christie, Director, Capability + Organisational Development (formerly Capability and Development Manager) at Gilbert + Tobin.

Topics covered in this episode include:

• How to ensure your clients stay at the centre of your objectives for your multidisciplinary team.
• The questions you need to consider as you plan out a multidisciplinary approach within your firm.
• Some of the realities to be mindful of with this new approach in the legal profession.

Additional resources:

• You’ll find additional information of these topics in Sarah’s blog How to start building a multidisciplinary team in a law firm.
• Don’t forget to tune in for the first and second episodes in this three part series, Episodes 105 and 106, you’ll find them here.

Will Generative AI destroy law firms? Only if lawyers are too fixed in their ways to see the possibilities that lie beyond who we've always been and what we've always done.

In this podcast, globally renowned legal commentator Jordan Furlong, Principal at Law21, unpacked the challenges and opportunities of a GenAI-fuelled and human-centred legal world, one that is new, different and completely re-envisioned!

This podcast was on Day One of the CLI Legal Generative AI Summit 2023 on 24 October.

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, CLI, discussed with an amazing panel of specialists from law firms and a legaltech company, the integral role that legal data analysts play in the business and practice of law:

• Jodie Baker, Founder & CEO, Xakia Technologies
• Gohto Saikawa, Executive, Ashurst 
• Stephen So, Head of Analytics, Lander & Rogers

This podcast was part of the COL-CLI NewLaw Careers Summit 2022 program on 16 May 2022.

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.

As 2019 draws to a close, it seemed like a good time to celebrate our 10th TLPS podcast episode looking back on how the legal industry fared in terms of legaltech and innovation: What happened? What surprised us? What didn’t happen and maybe disappointed us? And, what should we watch for in 2020?

We were joined on this partly reflective and partly prospective journey by an amazing group of legaltech/innovation gurus: Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer at Gilbert & Tobin; Warrick McLean, CEO at Colman Grieg Lawyers; and Graeme Grovum, Principal at legal industry consultancy Alpha Creates.

Topics covered in our discussion included:

1. What stood out in legaltech and innovation in 2019? And, how it showed up in law firm/legal department strategic priorities, Managing Partner/CEO agendas and industry research.
2. What trends were expected or surprised the legal industry in 2019?
3. What was the uptake of legaltech and innovation in law firms in 2019?
4. Was uptake being driven by clients or a new level of skills/industry maturity or a discernible move towards a culture of continuous improvement or something else? And, how would that change in 2020?
5. How did industry change support and shape new legal work and a new workforce profile in 2019?  Was it redefining the definition of “team”? Would that continue in 2020?
6. Did changes in work and the workforce in 2019 also change the way law firms worked with their clients e.g. in-house counsel and, vice versa?
7. Where did Australia rate in the take up of legaltech/innovation in law firms on a scale of 1-5 (1 being little or none and 5 being we’re all over it)? And, where did that place Australia in the Asia-Pacific region?
8. What were the big trends to look for in 2020 and, how should the legal industry prepare for them?
9. And finally, would 2020 bring with it a new opportunity for optimism for legaltech/innovation, or something different?

Thank you Caryn, Warrick and Graeme for a wonderful conversation – we love your work!

And, all our friends around the world, thank you for your support in 2019, we can’t wait to be part of your lives again in 2020. Our very best wishes to you and your families for a restful, joyful and peaceful holiday season!

For this podcast, the Centre for Legal Innovation was delighted to collaborate with ACC Australia’s Legal Technology and Innovation Committee for a discussion on how law firms and in-house legal departments are innovating through knowledge management.

Katrina Gowans, National Legal Operations Lead at Origin Energy and CLI Advisory Board Member and Carolyn Austin, Director, Knowledge and Practice Support, Australia at K & L Gates shared their experience and discussed the critical role that knowledge capture, management, and timely deployment plays in an increasingly volatile and dynamic legal marketplace.

Topics covered in this session included:

• What Knowledge Management is and isn’t (Hint: it’s more than precedents!)
• The business case for KM – why, when, where and how to capture this critical asset
• Why it’s important to have a KM plan for your in-house team
• The relationship between KM, digital transformation, and sustaining a culture of continuous improvement and innovation
• Practical tips and a roadmap for implementing your KM plan as part of your innovation strategy

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.

Digital learning – sounds exciting, maybe a little scary, but it’s definitely already here and thriving no matter how we feel about it!

In this podcast we explored the world of digital legal learning with our guest Ian Nelson. Ian together with Chris Wedgeworth Co-founded Hotshot, a digital learning platform focussed on teaching practical legal and professional skills to legal professionals.

Ian has lived and breathed digital learning in the legal ecosystem for more than two decades. He and Chris built Hotshot from the ground up, based on a deep understanding of the legal industry coupled with a passion and love of legal education. It’s this history and approach that has earnt them both well-deserved global reputations for thinking out of the box, applying user centred design to Hotshot’s products, and building collaborative partnerships that provide just in time legal education.

Topics we discussed included:

• What digital learning is and is not (with some help from Wikipedia)
• How digital learning has become a catalyst, a bridge, and blurred the siloed approach (academic, practical and ongoing) to legal learning
• The new and emerging role of digital learning from knowledge and skill transfer to changing mindsets and supporting business agility, collaboration and a deepening of internal and client relationships
• Where digital learning is happening and how it’s rolling out in law schools, law firms and legaltech fuelled platforms
• What to expect from and with digital legal learning in the next few years

This session has become an annual event for us and, this was a BIG year to review the world of legaltech, AI and innovation. So much has happened since ChatGPT exploded onto the market in November 2022. Its impact has been pervasive, even in an industry like legal which would not, in the past, have been described as agile.

So, what changed in 2023?  What stuck, what didn’t, and why? We welcomed back Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer at Gilbert + Tobin and Co-chair of the CLI Advisory Board; Graeme Grovum, Head of Legal Technology and Client Services at Allens; and Tessa van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader at Moores, to discuss this and, we wrapped with a little crystal ball gazing into 2024 too!

We started this session with identifying why GenAI has captured our attention, dominated every conference, meeting, and the media so completely. Then we moved into the nitty gritty of it all, identifying use cases, interrogating how tech stacks have changed, and how that is impacting the law firm business model (client relationships, billing, risk and value). And we spent a little time on the huge question around capabilities too – do we have them, what do they look like, and how we can bridge the gaps?

There’s a lot going on in legal businesses right now, in all these areas, so we also explored how these businesses are strategising and planning for/in a market that is changing so rapidly and dramatically. That discussion took us to the next, how leaders/leadership are/is being reinvented for a new legal world, and that for many, this will involve a steep learning curve.

We wrapped with what will come next, in the first month of 2024. While plans differed, one thing was certain, we all have to find the space to reflect, consider next steps, and find the calm in this AI storm.

Thank you sooooo much Caryn, Graeme and Tessa – this is a session we look forward to every year and we’re certain you will too – don’t miss this one! 

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

In this podcast, the third episode of five in CLI’s Digital Literacy Series: eDiscovery Mini Series,  Kate Clark, CEO, Enhanced Litigation Management Solutions discussed the capabilities needed in an eDiscovery Team to undertake an effective and efficient legal review.

Kate was joined by panellist, Ciara Cooke, Senior Legal Technology Consultant, Enhanced Litigation Management Solutions who shared her practical experience and candid insights.

Topics covered in this session included:

• Options for conducting a legal review
• How do you effectively brief your team prior to starting the legal review process
• The legal review process – understanding the legal review requirements and options for conducting a legal review of documents
• Milestones, measurements and team responsibilities
• The end game

You’ll find information about the other episodes in this series here. The series is presented in association with Enhanced Litigation Management Solutions.

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 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.

In this session, we spoke with Michele DeStefano about how we can approach change, manage it and leverage it for the benefit of lawyer and allied legal professional wellbeing, for our clients, and legal businesses. 

Michele knows a thing or two about this from her many roles as law professor, business founder, educator, consultant, and serial entrepreneur. Her work is visionary tempered with a strong dose of reality and, getting stuff done! Michele has been building the foundations, paving the road, and walking the talk of legal ecosystem transformation for many years and, helping others to do that successfully too.

We discussed what it will take to change the legal industry, the BIG pieces of the change puzzle - lawyer mindset, human-centred design, multidisciplinary collaboration and culture. We also chatted about how to combine the pieces in a way that creates sustained agility in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, it can be found in her most recent book (one of many already published with more to come), The Leader Upheaval Handbook: Lead Teams on an Innovation & Collaboration Journey with the 3-4-5 Method.

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

This podcast was recorded as a video for the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 On Demand program published on 1 February 2021.

In this podcast, Anu Briggs, Head of Capability, Development & Change, Gilbert + Tobin and Anna Lozynski, Problem Solver and Author, Legally Innovative discussed the challenges and opportunities of thinking differently in the legal world.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen, the podcast is also available as a video in the CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) Free Resource Hub.

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, , Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific) (CLI) and David Bushby, Managing Director, InCounsel previewed a new FREE webinar and podcast series on Legaltech Around the World.

The series is being offered by CLI in collaboration with InCounsel. It kicks off in February 2022 with David acting as the series host/facilitator. Faculty for the series compromises 25 amazing legaltech gurus – designers, developers and consumers - from 7 regions around the world.

In this session Terri and David discussed:

• What viewers/listeners can expect from the series
• Where there may (or may not be) differences between countries and regions
• Why understanding and exploring tech from a global perspective makes sense especially right now
• Their aspirations for the series – connecting people and creating opportunities for building great tech for the legal ecosystem.  

You’ll find details about the episodes in this series here.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

Additional resources:

• CLI Bi-Monthly Newsletter – subscription details here.
• InCounsel Weekly – subscription details here.

This podcast was recorded as a video for the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 On Demand program published on 1 February 2021.

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific), facilitated a discussion with Noel Lim, Co-Founder & CEO, Anika Legal and Luke Geary, Partner, Mills Oakley about the role of legaltech in reshaping the approach to pro bono work and its impact on access to justice.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen, the podcast is also available as a video in the CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) Free Resource Hub.

In this podcast, the second of five sessions on Digital Contracting for Net Zero, CLI’s Distinguished Fellow, Natalia Crnomarkovic was joined by Jessica Mottau and Tara Fontanilla to showcase how in-house and private practice lawyers are teaming to support NetZero across FMCG Supply Chains, through NetZero aligned contracting and explore the growing importance of technology in this space.

Jessica Mottau is a Partner in Allens’ TMT practice based in Sydney and Tara Fontanilla is Senior Legal Counsel NZ with Danone Oceania, based in NZ.

Topics covered in this session included:

• Danone’s approach to Net Zero

• How the in-house team works with external legal advisors on Net Zero

• How Australian procurement and legal teams are tackling Net Zero across the contract lifecycle from partner selection to KPIs and audit rights

• The role of technology and data to support decarbonisation benchmarking and reporting

You’ll find information about the other episodes in this series in the Digital Contracting for Net Zero Report here.

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

So, you thought comic books were all about entertainment, right? What if they were also a way to communicate legal concepts, rights, and responsibilities so that everyone understood them and knew exactly what they were agreeing to?

That’s the remit and mission of the comic book contracts (and visual contracts) movement! It’s established a new way to conceive and create legally binding contracts. It’s already positively impacting access to justice around the world and even given rise to a whole new area of law called graphic justice!

In this, our inaugural podcast in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Professor Camilla Baasch Andersen. Camilla leads the Comic Contracts Team at the University of Western Australia Law School. The Team is undertaking groundbreaking research in, and applying it to, the design and use of comic book contracts in all types of business settings. They’re also connecting to and connected with this amazing initiative all around the world. 

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’ll be chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. This is the first of 50 - enjoy! 

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

This podcast was delivered on 9 August 2023 and is the eighth session in CLI’s AI for Legal Series.

In this session Julian Webb, Professor of Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne discussed AI and Ethics in Legal Practice – What you need to know now!

Topics covered included:

• A brief background and context of legal AI
• ‘Old school’ expert systems
• Machine learning
• LLMs and LGAIMs (Generative AI e.g. ChatGPT)
• The ‘black box problem’
• Accuracy, accessibility and transparency
• AI and Legal Ethics
• Competence, care and skill
• Confidentiality and privilege
• The duty to supervise – systems and users
• Conclusion – A ‘duty’ to innovate?

Resources

• CLI Legal Generative AI LinkedIn Group
• CLI Generative AI Initiative

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, 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 Marguerite Picard, Director and Accredited Family Law Specialist at MELCA and Smart Separation.

MELCA is an interdisciplinary collaborative centre, which Marguerite established with a financial planner and a psychologist. They provide collaborative practice and mediation services for separating couples, focusing on genuine and deep resolution of conflict to support healthy separations. 

Marguerite's departure from traditional legal practice came from her belief that there was a better way to practice and, that she wanted to tip divorce on its head. Her aim then and now has been to change the perception and reality of what it is to be a lawyer, and to change the system by encouraging an alternative to emerge. 

The journey has been a passion project as well as a business. It has not been an overnight success. It's taken the business from Melbourne to Brisbane and Sydney and Gippsland, and online too! But, it has never wavered from a belief in interdisciplinary practice and staying true to a vision for change.

Key features of the new legal business model and practice include:

• fixed and value pricing; 
• contracting of professionals; 
• equal remuneration for professionals whether they are lawyers, social scientists or financials; 
• a described 5 step process; 
• a case managed system; 
• a client-facing business; a collaborative community; and 
• a training arm.

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, Melissa Lyon, Executive Director and Experience Designer, Hive Legal and CLI Advisory Board member discussed the role of a client experience designer with these exceptional specialists:  

• Sam Burrett, Manager, Clients & Markets, Clayton Utz and CLI Emerging Leaders Board member
• Carl White, Director, NewLaw, PwC Australia and Founder, CXINLAW
• Kim Wiegand, Partner, Beaton 

This podcast was part of the COL-CLI NewLaw Careers Summit 2022 program on 17 May 2022.

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, Adj. Assoc. Prof Peter Dombkins, Director, PwC Australia, NewLaw took us through the A-Z of Legal Project Management fundamentals.

Topics discussed in this session included:

• Planning and estimating the scope, costs and duration of your legal work
• Communications and team management - including how to delegate and provide feedback
• Crisis management

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

Additional Resources

A PDF of the Legal Project Management Foundations session PPT slides is available here.

What would happen if we disrupted legal education? Would law degrees become affordable? Could learning the law become an interactive, immersive, and holistic experience? Could things like digital literacy, agility, curiosity, creativity, problem solving, business acumen, EI, and relationship building...the tech and human bits...become critical graduate attributes in every law school? Would HOW law schools teach matter as much and
WHAT they taught? Would legal educators need to acquire different skills? Would legal regulators and regulation need to change?

In this podcast, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific), facilitated an international panel of legal educators from Australia and the USA who considered these questions and more:

• Mitchell Adams, Lecturer, LLB Course Director, Swinburne Law School, Swinburne University of Technology (Australia)
• Ann-Maree David, Executive Director, The College of Law Queensland (Australia)
• Tania Leiman, Associate Professor and Dean of Law, Flinders University (Australia)
• Michele R. Pistone, Professor of Law, Villanova University, Charles Widger School of Law (USA)

Thanks so much Mitchell, Ann-Maree, Tania, and Michele - a wonderful discussion which, no doubt, will be the first of many more to come!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

Generative AI has dominated tech meetings, conversations, debates and demonstrations this year. We’ve been impressed, intimidated, inspired and disillusioned by the tech, so now almost a year since ChatGPT launched, is GenAI REALLY a game-changer? Is it the ultimate catalyst and influencer? Can it/should it sustain its impact on the legal world through pivotal roles like legal ops?

In this podcast, legal ops legend Mary O’Carroll, Chief Community Officer at Ironclad, Inc. and Co-Founder of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) shared her thoughts, experiences and use cases in response to those questions…as well as launching the Summit!

This episode was on Day One of the CLI Legal Generative AI Summit 2023 on 24 October.

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

ChatGPT4 came after ChatGPT1 – getting from 1 to 4 and beyond took time, money, failure, frustration, resilience, agility, collaboration and multidisciplinary teamwork. These factors are all part of experimentation but they’re not typically hallmarks of the legal industry. So, how do we get from here to the new digital legal world?

In this podcast, Michelle Mahoney, Executive Director Innovation at King & Wood Mallesons got into the nitty gritty of what experimentation means in legal and how GenAI is encouraging its integration into legal BAU in discussion with this incredible panel of legal experimenters:

• Gary Adler, Chief Digital Officer, MinterEllison
• Danielle Emerson, Senior Legal Transformation Manager, Herbert Smith Freehills
• Elliot White, Head of Innovation & Legal Technology, Addleshaw Goddard
• Dominic Woolrych, Co-founder & CEO, Lawpath

This podcast was on Day One of the CLI Legal Generative AI Summit 2023 on 24 October.

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.

Orrick is a global leader in innovation in the legal industry and not just at the level of process or system improvement – that’s where we see lots of legal innovation initiatives start and end – at Orrick, they are doing much, much more.

They have created new enterprises, products and education opportunities, to name a few things - these collectively point to an innovative culture founded on client centricity, agility, continuous improvement and purpose.

We had an amazing conversation about all of this (and lots more) with: Wendy Curtis, Chief Innovation Officer; Kate Orr, Senior Innovation Counsel; and Daryl Shetterly, Director of Orrick Analytics.

Topics covered in this session included:

• What legal innovation is and is not
• A deep dive into some of Orrick’s innovation initiatives like Orrick Labs;  their tech fund; Orrick Analytics; and The Observatory
• The importance and use of data in legal practice
• The importance of multidisciplinary teams and collaboration in innovation and how these are hallmarks of innovative legal practices and critical to them
• How to create a culture of innovation
• Whether or not an innovative mindset is a case of nurture or nature
• Why law firms should feel compelled to innovate
• Where legal practitioners and practices can start on their innovation and change journeys

Thank you so much, Wendy, Kate and Daryl for leading by example and contributing so significantly to creating a new, different and better legal industry!

In the fifth podcast in this collection focusing on providing practical support and assistance for those working in the legal ecosystem during this time of extreme change, we discussed the financial management of legal businesses with Warrick McLean, CEO, Coleman Greig Lawyers in Assessing your Financial Situation Right Now (for Law Firms).

We discussed what law firm leaders and managers need to be identifying, analysing and thinking about as they take stock of where their legal businesses sit financially including:

• Why it’s important to undertake a mini audit
• What financial information needs to be reviewed and how to review it
• How to identify, minimise/review key expenses e.g. premises (leases), people and fixed costs
• How to identify, assess, categorise and deal with current, future and unlikely sources of income
• Key areas that need to be monitored, leveraged or minimised today like cash flow, overdrafts, deferred payment options, and payment extensions
• COVID-19 specific key areas to consider like access government backed loans, rebates and support

Thank you, Warrick for these super practical tips – so important and helpful right now!

P.S. This podcast was also recorded as a webinar. We will post the link to the video once it is available.

This podcast was recorded as a video for the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 On Demand program published on 1 February 2021.

In this podcast, Fiona Croswell, Learning & Development Manager, ALPMA facilitated a discussion with Sharon de Bomford, Principal, Write Results Pty Ltd; Amanda Fajerman, Head of Legal Technology, LOD; and Melissa Lyon, Executive Director and Experience Designer, Hive Legal on the use, importance, benefits of, and what we can expect in the future, from tech based communication and collaboration tools.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen, the podcast is also available as a video in the CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) Free Resource Hub.

In this podcast, the final of five sessions on Digital Contracting for Net Zero, CLI’s Distinguished Fellow, Natalia Crnomarkovic was joined by Bernadette Bulacan Starin to explore how emerging technologies are shaping the future of Climate Contracting and how leading organisations are looking to blockchain and other emerging technologies as key Net Zero enablers.

Bernadette Bulacan Starin is Chief Evangelist at Icertis, a Gartner Magic Quadrant CLM vendor, and 2021 Fellow of the World Commerce and Contracting organisation.

Topics covered in this session included:

• Digital contracting as a key enabler for Climate aligned contracting

• Contract Lifecycle maturity – the state of play and recent market shifts

• Key challenges in driving Net Zero across supply chains and how blockchain-enabled CLM technology promises to transform these challenges into a competitive advantage 

• Top tips for organisations seeking to accelerate NetZero through supply chains using digital contracting 

You’ll find information about the other episodes in this series in the Digital Contracting for Net Zero Report here.

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.

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: CLI@collaw.edu.au.

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.

Don’t think social media marketing is important in the legal world? Well, it might be time to think again! 

In this podcast, digital marketing gurus Kaitlyn Gillies and Hayley Peters, Co-Founders, Oh My Digital Agency stepped us through the dos and don’ts of social media marketing. They were joined by  Adriana Giometti, Chief Marketing & Client Relations Officer, Holman Webb Lawyers and Rizwana McDonald, Founder and Director, Foundd Legal, who discussed how they have used social media as an integral part of marketing their firms and connecting with their clients.

This podcast was part of the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 Live program on 11 February 2021.

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.

Can we profile today, the next legal services or products client? What do we know? What don’t we know? What are the key factors to consider? Do things like geography matter in a tech based, borderless world? How will we communicate and what tools will we use? How far ahead should we go – a year or a decade? What do we know today that MUST influence our clients’ choices tomorrow? What can we learn from other industries?

In this podcast, Melissa Lyon, Executive Director and Experience Designer, Hive Legal and CLI Advisory Board member, facilitated a panel discussion focused on developing a profile of the next legal services/products client:

• Debra Filippin, Head of Business Development Asia Pacific, Pinsent Masons
• Michael Morrissey, Managing Director, Founder, Principal, Morrissey Law + Advisory
• Marlo Osborne-Smith, Director, NewLaw, PwC
• Carolyn Reynolds, General Counsel, Vicinity Centres

This podcast was part of the CLI-ALPMA Innovation and Legaltech Week 2021 Live program on 11 February 2021.

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, the fifth episode of seven in CLI’s Digital Literacy Series: Automation Mini Series, Gene Turner, Managing Director of legal automation specialists LawHawk shared his experience working initially as a lawyer and now in his own automation/tech solutions focused consultancy about how to choose the right automation solution for a legal practice.

In this session, building on the first four sessions in the series, Gene discussed key considerations including:

• What you need to do to start and when you need to end your automation journey
• What to consider when identifying the type of automation solution you need
• How to leverage solutions you already have available
• What you need to consider for business continuity and security
• Identifying users and why it’s important to craft a user friendly solution
• What the solution should look like - P2P or E2E - and what customisations might be needed too
• The importance of training and ongoing support
• What to think about if you need to migrate information
• Document automation and workflow specifics

This mini series brings together a unique collaboration of leading legal automation specialists who address a number of different but related topics in legal automation. You’ll find details about the mini series here.

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.

Legal education is being redefined in just about every place it’s happening and its moving VERY fast in the on demand space.

The catalysts are many and varied – they range from wanting legal education like we want everything else – on our phone, anytime and anywhere – to new, innovative, and more convenient ways for clients to comply, and report on their compliance with, regulation based education mandates.

It’s this piece – legal education providers working, collaborating and delivering differently in the on demand space – that we focus on in this podcast with our guest Steve Gluckman, CEO and Founder of Skillburst Interactive. Steve’s deep history in legal education and his ground breaking work in the on demand learning space provided a rich history, reality check, case studies and the opportunity to discuss where on demand learning might go next in the legal industry.

Topics we discussed included:

• What on demand learning is (and isn’t)
• How the on demand learning space has changed…a lot!
• How the pandemic has impacted and accelerated on demand learning
• Where the legal industry is placed compared with other industries in this space
• How the role of on demand learning is being reimagined inside and outside law firms
• How new ways to learn have turned into new revenue streams for law firms
• The role of law firms as alternative legal education providers
• How on demand learning is being used in education related industry compliance
• How this space will continue to change over the next few years

Steve, thanks so much for continuing to redefine and shape the future of on demand learning – amazing!

We’re approaching that point in legal innovation and tech adoption where we can pause, think about the contemporary legal market place, ask and answer some critical questions.  There are few people whose experience in, understanding of, and dedication to legal practice, makes what they have to say important – important because they know what works, what doesn’t, what change needs to happen and why…but more, they’re committed to making “different” work not just to be different but because it’s essential for lawyers to remain relevant…..one of them is Christina Blacklaws, Managing Director, Blacklaws Consulting and former President of the Law Society of England & Wales.

In this episode, we discussed how the legal ecosystem is transforming in the UK and why. It’s a jurisdiction where doing legal practice differently has been at the forefront of a change agenda for a decade or more. There’s lessons to learn, reasons to understand, and the benefit of hindsight, as similar transformation takes hold around the world.

Topics we discussed included:

• The work of LawtechUK and the Legal Schema Project in showcasing legaltech and innovation in the UK (and beyond)
• Who or what is driving the legal change agenda in the UK and why it is different
• The changing focus, depth and breadth of regulation of legal practices and practitioners
• The transformation of legal services and products - globally
• If law schools are doing enough to prepare the next generation of lawyers for contemporary legal practice
• The role of diversity, equity and inclusion in legal innovation

Inspiring from the start to the end - thanks so much, Christina – you do amazing work with amazing dedication and YOU are an amazing human!  

Resource: The Technology and Innovation in Legal Services: Final Report for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (2021) referred to in this episode can be found here.

This podcast was delivered on 27 June 2023 and is the second session in CLI’s AI for Legal Series.

In this session, Ab Saraswat, Chief Revenue Officer at Lupl and Founder of Fringe Legal discussed ChatGPT Plugins – Why? Now? Next?

Topics covered included:

• The difference between APIs, Apps and Plugins
• How ChatGPT Plugins are solving some of the limitations of ChatGPT, enabling more dynamic, context-aware systems
• The risks and challenges associated with ChatGPT Plugins, including data security and reliability
• Predictions about the future of ChatGPT Plugins, including growth trends and advanced integration possibilities
• The potential for the development of legal-specific plugins and their implications for the legal sector

Resources

•         Fringe Legal #82: Unveiling the Impact of ChatGPT Plugins on Legal Tech
•         Fringe Legal: Law Tech Daily
•         CLI Legal Generative AI LinkedIn Group
•         CLI Generative AI Initiative

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.

As Melissa Lyon and Adrienne Trumbull, Associate Principals at Hive Legal discuss in this podcast, Hive Legal is a new law trail blazer. In 2014, its founders launched a corporate commercial law firm with an entirely different business model. Starting with a clean slate, they drew on the experiences of users of legal services and those who deliver those services from traditional business models, to design a model with the purpose of improving the
experience for both its clients and its team.

Today, Hive Legal provides a truly flexible workplace. It delivers its legal services/products using fixed pricing based on value rather than time spent. Hive’s team embraces technology and fosters collaboration, agility, and creativity – they have the courage to think and act differently. This business model has provided the platform for them to develop and utilize several innovative products, ways of working with clients, and an innovative culture across the entire firm.

Thanks so much for sharing the Hive Legal story, Mel and Adrienne – we are inspired by what you continue to do differently…every day!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this session, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free resource hub here.

Don't forget to also check out and save the date for the other fabulous FREE ReinventED Legal Business: The Case Studies webinars and podcasts - you'll find the details and registration links to the videos as we add them here and, if you subscribe to this podcast, you’ll receive notification as we upload more conversations in this series.

In this podcast, the seventh episode of eight in the CLI’s Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab, Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group, Bronwyn Eynon-Lewis, Co-Founder, Lacuna Professional Services facilitated a discussion focussed on when a business idea doesn’t go to plan, what’s next, with three outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia:

• Kim Trajer, Chief Operating Officer, McCullough Robertson
• Phi Vo, Principal & Director, Catalyst Migration Law
• Alexandra Vost, Legal Optimisation Manager, MinterEllison

Topics covered in this session included:

• How to encourage and sustain creativity and innovative business ideas
• How to create a culture of experimentation vs pilots
• How to frame, communicate and create buy in for your idea
• The pros and cons of falling in love with your own idea
• How to identify that not all ideas have the same risk and how to manage the differences
• Is failure different, worse or the same for start-ups vs  established businesses
• How to know when to stay or walk away  if your idea fails

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, 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.

This podcast was recorded on 12 March 2024 as the inaugural session in CLI’s Legal GenAI Around the World Series.

In this session Terri Mottershead, Executive Director at the Centre for Legal Innovation facilitated a discussion with three amazing panellists from Australia + New Zealand:

• Matt Farrington, Senior Legal Counsel, Vice Chancellor’s Office, Victoria University of Wellington
• Caryn Sandler, Partner + Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer, Gilbert + Tobin and Co-Chair, CLI Advisory Board
• Dominic Woolrych, Co-founder & CEO, Lawpath

Topics covered included:

• How, where and why GenAI is being used in legal businesses and what’s driving the uptake
• LLMs, RAGs, hallucination and whether to build or buy
• What capabilities are needed to deliver legal GenAI solutions and the impact on legal businesses
• What’s unique about the legal GenAI market in Australia and New Zealand
• How legal GenAI is likely to evolve in 2024

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.

Please join CLI’s free Legal GenAI Global Community for a lightly curated newsfeed on how legal GenAI is transforming the legal ecosystem.

In this podcast, the third session in CLI’s Legaltech Around the World Series, David Bushby, Managing Director InCounsel, facilitated a discussion about the local legaltech market in the UK with guest panellists:

• Marc May, Practice Director – Icertis CLM, SYKE
• Isabel Parker, Executive Director, Digital Legal Exchange
• Giles Thompson, Head of Growth, Avvoka
• Nick Watson, Managing Director, Ruby Datum and CLI Advisory Board member

Topics covered in this session included:

• An overview of the legaltech market in the UK
• Tech adoption – which tech, why, and by whom (in-house vs law firm)
• The match/mismatch of client needs/expectations in tech and efficient practice vs delivery
• How some big questions are being answered in the UK: platform vs point source and cloud vs on-premises
• The challenges and opportunities for legaltech in the UK

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

In the second podcast in this collection focusing on providing practical support and assistance to those working in the legal ecosystem during this time of extreme change, we spoke communication gurus Sharon de Bomford, Principal at Write Results and Olivia Kruimel, Senior Marketing Manager, Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered Bank. Sharon and Olivia have both spent many years in law firm communication roles crafting the messages that help find calm in a storm, so they know a thing or two about the topic of this podcast: The Dos and Don’ts of Internal and External Crisis Communications for Law Firms.

And, it’s a very important topic for law firms right now! When there’s so much going on, it can be hard to work out what to say, who to address it to and when to say it. It’s a delicate balance – get it right, and the marketplace embraces you, get it wrong and the opposite is true. And, people have long memories!

But, it’s not only the external marketplace at large that you need to focus on…your firm’s clients and staff need to know what you’re thinking too. In tough times, clients need to know your firm can still provide the services they need. Your staff are concerned about their jobs. Saying nothing is not an option. So, how do you get the right message to the right people at the right time? These are the questions we answer in this podcast…along with a bunch more too!

Thank you so much Sharon and Olivia for sharing your experience, practical tips and common sense approach to this topic – fabulous! Sharon has also written an excellent blog post which listeners will also find helpful, it’s titled 'Communicating in a crisis – a guide for smaller professional services firms'. and you’ll find it here.

Alternative legal careers in innovation and legaltech – are they still alternative or have they become mainstream? And how, if at all, is the evolution of new and different career opportunities reflecting a permanent change to the business and practice of law?

In this podcast, we explored these questions and many more with our guest Kerry Westland, a Partner with Addleshaw Goddard in the UK and the lead for its Innovation and Legaltech function.

Addleshaw Goddard have been doing some amazing things in the careers in innovation and legaltech space, not least of which is its recently launched Innovation & Legal Technology Graduate Scheme, we chatted about that too.

Topics discussed included:

• The new BAU in law firms – what it is and what it isn’t
• The new, different and emerging role of multidisciplinary teams in legal practice
• The role and career path of Legal Technologists at Addleshaw Goddard
• How and why the Addleshaw Goddard Innovation & Legal Technology Graduate Scheme is breaking new ground
• The new war for legal talent – it’s not just about lawyers anymore!
• How new mindsets are supporting the development of new capabilities and an innovation focussed culture in contemporary law firms
• How legaltech and innovation continue to reshape the practice of law in the UK

Thank you Kerry for an amazing discussion and congrats again on the launch of the Innovation & Legal Technology Graduate Scheme – fabulous!