Episode 194: Future 50 Series – What the future of AI holds for the legal industry
Release Date: 12/06/2023
Episode 211: Future 50 Series - GenAI and Legal Ops - What’s next?
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
In many respects, generative AI has impacted few roles as directly as legal operations. These professionals sit at the epicentre of tech experimentation, deployment, adoption, evaluation and change. As the tech has evolved, so too has their role to right now, being part tech interpreter, teacher, multidisciplinary relationship builder, enterprise-wide and legal function collaborator, and connector. That’s been layered into what they have always done, practical problem solving to ensure the legal department responds to organisational needs with timely, measured, candid and practical solutions...
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Episode 210: Future 50 Series – Small Words, Big Consequences: How prompts are redefining legal practice
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
Prompt engineering has captured our interest, been at the core of our frustration and continues to find its way into our new way of working in the post ChatGPT era. But like the tech it is so integrally tied to, generative AI, knowing you need to be good at prompting is not the same as being good at it – it requires context, application, refinement and education at a pace, scale and continuous engagement like we have never seen before. The launched its in Emerging Technologies with this in mind. Our Fellow, , Senior Lecturer, focussed his highly successful...
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Episode 209: Legal GenAI Conversations Series: The Lawyerless Law Firm – Myth or Reality in 2030?
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
On 7 May 2025, in the fourth podcast in ’s , Executive Director of the was joined by three amazing guests to discuss The Lawyerless Law Firm – Myth or Reality in 2030? , Head of Transformation and Legal Operations (OGC), , Founding Director, , CEO and Co-Founder, Topics covered in this session included: Whether or not we are close – technologically, culturally, and commercially - to a truly lawyerless law firm and what key barriers stand in the way If we are likely to see lawyerless business models emerge in certain sizes of practices...
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Episode 208: Legal GenAI Conversations Series – Will GenAI kill the billable hour…ever?
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
There’s little more fundamental to every business than revenue. In law firms, for a while now, that’s been measured by the billable hour. In most law firms today, we still wrap up hours billed in the same parcel as expertise, performance, and value. That’s a BIG problem and it’s getting bigger as AI and particularly generative AI is completing tasks faster, better, and cheaper AND starting to advance into complex problem solving too! So, what does that mean for law firms? Can we/should we all immediately convert to fixed fees, subscriptions and/or value-based pricing or something...
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Episode 207: Legal GenAI Conversations Series – Legal leaders in the AI era – Are we there yet?
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
Every aspect of legal practice is transforming before our eyes with AI as the catalyst and the enabler. It’s a challenging time for law firm leaders - it’s definitely not a role for the faint hearted. On 18 March 2025, in the second podcast in ’s , Executive Director of the was joined by three law firm leaders from Australia and New Zealand to discuss this and much more in Legal leaders in the AI era – Are we there yet? , Partner, , Chief Executive Partner, , Founder and Director, Topics covered in this session included: ...
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Episode 206: Future 50 Series – The Law Profs GenAI Sandbox – Empowering legal educators in the age of AI
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
Generative AI has created a critical role for educators. Everyone is learning something new, and educators know how to make that meaningful and stick. Whether the tech is forcing us to challenge traditional mindsets, understand a new context for our work, experiment with new ways to work, or embrace different ways to collaborate with different people so we find the right solutions to new issues, educators have a pivotal role to play. In this session, we chatted with three professors in the US who took their individual experiences with generative AI, and their learnings in their respective...
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Episode 205: Legal GenAI Conversations Series – The Lawyer Mindset
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
This podcast was recorded on 20 February 2025, as the inaugural session in ’s . In this session, , Executive Director of the discussed The Lawyer Mindset with global superstar former lawyer, psychologist and legal industry consultant Founder and Principal Consultant at . Topics covered in this session included: Defining and understanding how the lawyer mindset is different How the lawyer mindset is impacted by, and impacts, continuous change How lawyers can best manage and cope with the GenAI enabled pace and breadth of change You’ll find details...
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Episode 204: Welcome to Lex ExploreAI Series – What you can expect!
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
This podcast was recorded on 5 February 2025, as the inaugural session in ’s . In this session host , Head of Partnerships and Program Director of the LawTech Hub & AI Clinical Placements at joined , Executive Director of the 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 . If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC)...
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Episode 203: Future 50 Series – Legal Innovation and Tech in 2024 – A year in review
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
We’re back for our sixth year and what a year it has been for legaltech, AI and innovation! If 2023 was the year to figure out what generative AI was all about, then 2024 was most definitely the year for pilots, experimentation, and strategies for data and AI. Well, that was how it went for some, but not everyone… In this, our annual year in review, we discussed what happened and where the dust settled in 2024 with , Partner and Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer at and Co-chair of the ; , Head of Legal Technology and Client Services at and Host of...
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Episode 202: Future 50 Series - Breaking New Ground in Legal Education – Vanderbilt Law School’s AI Lab
The Legalpreneurs Sandbox
In this session, we spoke with , a Founding Co-Director of the (VAILL) and a Professor of the Practice of Law at the AIGP. Mark has come to AI via journalism, law, sometime in the political world and knowledge management. In many respects, his work now draws on that rich professional and personal life experience. Today, Mark is deeply immersed in working with and educating future generations of lawyers through the AI Law Lab. The Lab is a hands-on, multidisciplinary, experiential learning opportunity at (VLS). The VLS AI Law Lab is preparing law graduates for the next...
info_outlineIn this session, we spoke with Beth Patterson, the Founder and Director of legal industry-focused tech consultancy, ESPconnect and an Adjunct Professor (Industry) at UTS Faculty of Law.
Beth’s career has the distinctive hallmark of being groundbreaking. The depth and breadth of her experience in tech and legaltech, in tech companies and law firms, as a consultant and educator, means she has a highly practical, global and unique perspective on where AI in the legal industry is going today.
Our discussion began with context - placing generative AI in the broader AI continuum - and moved into its impact on the legal industry. We are all still experimenting (testing and investing) in every industry, legal included, and we should be because there are still major issues with the tech that need to be worked out. However, what was also clear from our chat is the need for us to engage with the tech NOW because it’s not going away, not ever! Senior management in law firms know this (as do our clients) and they’re driving the engagement with it, something that makes this tech journey different from others.
What AI will we end up with at the end of this journey? Beth opines it will be a portfolio - a combination of enterprise-wide tech and point solutions, with commercial models driving the selection of what you use, for what and when. But, integration will also remain key; data governance critical; and capabilities to identify pain points, choose and use/apply fit-for-purpose tech increasingly part of every solution and BAU.
The opportunities with AI in legal are plentiful for those who jump in – new roles, new responsibilities, new practice areas (or expanded), new revenue streams, increasingly refined LLMs that do more and do it better – it’s a brave old and new world which we will embrace with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) or JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) – you’ll definitely want to listen to or watch this session to see where you fall on the continuum!
If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.
Resources:
- Thomson Reuters Institute, Edge International, and ESPconnect: 2023 Australia: State of the Legal Market Report
- Thomson Reuters, Tech & the Law 2023 Report: Perceptions and Priorities
- The conference referred to it this session is CLI’s Legal Generative AI Summit 2023 (24 and 25 October) – you will find the video and podcast recordings here.
About the Future 50 Series
In the Future 50 Series, we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.
If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].