Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast
The Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast covers the startups that develop and sell legal tech products and services. Through interviews with legal tech startup founders, investors, customers and others with an interest in this startup sector, the podcast's host, Charlie Uniman, and his guests will discuss such topics as startup management and startup life, startup investing, marketing and sales, pricing and revenue models and the factors that affect how customers purchase legal tech. In short, the Legal Tech Startup Focus Podcast will focus on just what it takes for legal tech startups to succeed.
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Beyond Generic AI: Luminance's Specialized Approach to Legal Contract Intelligence
12/23/2024
Beyond Generic AI: Luminance's Specialized Approach to Legal Contract Intelligence
Beyond Generic AI: Luminance's Specialized Approach to Legal Contract Intelligence - Episode 65 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A conversation with Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance In this episode, recorded at the Legal Tech Fund Summit in Key Biscayne, Florida, host Charlie Uniman interviews Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance, about the company's innovative AI-powered legal technology platform and its impact on the legal industry. Key Discussion Points Luminance's origin story: Founded in 2015 by Cambridge mathematicians responding to lawyers' needs for automation of repetitive tasks The company's proprietary Legal Pre-trained Transformer (LPT) model and its advantages over generic large language models How Luminance's AI knows when to defer to human judgment, building trust with legal professionals The platform's evolution from serving law firms to enterprise clients, including AMD, Koch Industries, and DHL User-friendly interface: "Push-button" simplicity in Microsoft Word integration Real-world ROI examples, including recovery of missed early payment discounts Key business metrics for scaling legal tech companies
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Ep 64 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Time, Money, and AI – Ajax’s Mission to Modernize Legal Timekeeping
12/16/2024
Ep 64 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Time, Money, and AI – Ajax’s Mission to Modernize Legal Timekeeping
In this episode of the Legal Tech Startup Focus Podcast, host Charlie Uniman interviews Jack Weinberger, co-founder of Ajax (), a cutting-edge AI-powered timekeeping solution designed specifically for law firms. Join Charlie Uniman, your podcast host, and Jack as they explore: The challenges lawyers face in accurately tracking their billable hours and their impact on law firm revenue. The origins of Ajax were born from a personal experience of witnessing the tedious and time-consuming nature of manual timekeeping. The unique features and benefits of Ajax, highlighting its seamless integration with widespread practice management software and its intuitive user interface. How Ajax helps lawyers recover two to three billable hours per week, on average, by capturing time spent on short tasks that are often overlooked. The importance of user-friendly design in legal tech and how Ajax draws inspiration from successful consumer apps to create an enjoyable user experience. Ajax's significant impact on its customers includes a compelling story of a law firm that chose Ajax over a competitor after a head-to-head trial. The importance of seeking out advisors with expertise in areas beyond the legal field, particularly in product design, to ensure the development of genuinely user-friendly solutions. Don't miss this insightful conversation! Tune in to learn how Ajax is helping lawyers work smarter, not harder, and maximizing their earning potential.
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Building and Scaling Legal Tech: Lessons from Gary Sangha, the CEO of LexCheck During LexCheck's Decade of InnovationLegal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast
10/24/2024
Building and Scaling Legal Tech: Lessons from Gary Sangha, the CEO of LexCheck During LexCheck's Decade of InnovationLegal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast
In this episode of the Legal Tech Startup Focus podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Gary Senga, the CEO of LexCheck. This company has been at the forefront of legal technology for nearly a decade. We delved into Gary's journey as an entrepreneur, including his previous startup, Intelligize, which LexisNexis acquired, and how that experience shaped his approach to LexCheck. Gary provided an insightful overview of LexCheck, emphasizing its evolution from a natural language processing (NLP) development shop to a leader in AI-driven contract review solutions. We discussed their latest offering, LexCheck Insights, which combines NLP with large language models (LLMs) to create a powerful contract review tool. Gary highlighted the unique features of LexCheck Insights, including its ability to generate playbooks in minutes and its best-in-class redlining capabilities. As we explored the competitive landscape, Gary explained how LexCheck distinguishes itself from other players in the market. He pointed out the limitations of traditional LLMs in contract review and how LexCheck's proprietary pre-processing and post-processing technologies enhance the quality and comprehensiveness of contract analysis. This nuanced approach allows LexCheck to address the complexities of legal documents that many competitors overlook. In discussing marketing and sales strategies, Gary candidly shared that there is no secret formula for success. He stressed the importance of hard work and a balanced approach to lead generation, combining both inbound and outbound strategies. He noted that legal tech sales often require a hands-on approach, as the legal industry has historically been slow to adopt new software solutions. Gary offered valuable insights on onboarding for legal tech entrepreneurs. He advised against assuming that users will intuitively understand the software and emphasized the need for a thorough onboarding process. He encouraged startups to invest time and resources into helping users become comfortable with their products to avoid the dreaded "shelfware" phenomenon. As we wrapped up our conversation, Gary reflected on the milestones that have brought him the most pride over the past ten years, particularly the joy of seeing customer renewals and the professional growth of his team members.
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The Damien Riehl Interview - Legal Data, Legal AI, and Thoughts on a Legal Tech Duopoly
10/09/2024
The Damien Riehl Interview - Legal Data, Legal AI, and Thoughts on a Legal Tech Duopoly
In this episode of the Legal Tech Startup Focus podcast, I welcome Damien Riehl, VP, Solutions Champion, at vLex and a leader at SALI (Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry). Damien provided an insightful overview of vLex, a legal data/legal data science company that boasts an impressive repository of over a billion legal documents from the United States and worldwide. He explained how vLex utilizes data science to tag and structure this vast amount of information, enabling users to run large language models (LLMs) across the data to answer complex legal questions. We also explored the significance of having well-structured data and how SALI contributes to this by providing a comprehensive taxonomy of legal concepts, dramatically enhancing legal data's usability. As we delved deeper, we discussed the retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) concept and how vLex employs a five-stage process to increase the likelihood that the legal answers provided by vLex’s LLMs are grounded in reliable data. Damien elaborated on how this process not only retrieves relevant cases but also analyzes their validity and relevance, providing users with a robust legal analysis that would typically take hours of work for a lawyer. We also touched on the implications of generative AI for the legal profession, particularly how it could disrupt traditional billing models. Damien highlighted the advantages for plaintiff-side lawyers who can leverage VLex’s technology to save time and increase profitability while addressing the potential challenges for defense-side lawyers relying on hourly billing. The conversation then shifted to the competitive landscape of legal tech, where we discussed the risks posed by large tech companies potentially absorbing legal tech innovations. Damien emphasized the importance of having unique data sets and value propositions to stand out in a crowded market, warning that companies that merely act as wrappers around existing LLMs without offering additional value may need help to survive. Towards the end of our discussion, we explored the future of AI in legal tech, particularly the integration of symbolic reasoning with neural networks. Damien shared his insights on how combining these two approaches could enhance AI's reasoning capabilities, making it more effective in the legal domain. We concluded with a discussion on the importance of free access to legal data and how it could foster innovation and competition in the legal tech space. This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone interested in the intersection of law and technology, particularly those looking to understand how data science and AI are transforming the legal landscape.
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Episode 61 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Michael Stych, Co-Founder and CEO of Contend
09/03/2024
Episode 61 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Michael Stych, Co-Founder and CEO of Contend
After Charlie introduces Mike and congratulates him on the recent Time of London article about Contend, Charlie and Mike discuss: Just what it is that Contend (at https://contend.legal) does to provide safe, accessible, and affordable information for "regular people" when those people confront a legal issue (principally, providing both signposts to information resources (often secondary sources aimed at non-professionals) and connecting people to legal professionals and other organizations that can provide additional help) Why Contend at present operates only in England and Wales (primarily because (i) the UK's regulation of the legal services delivery system is less hidebound by outdated and overly broad "unauthorized practice of law" rules and (ii) the UK's legal innovation culture is so well developed) How Contend markets its product offerings (initially focussing on paid Google ads, now coming to rely more on organic Google search of access-to-justice content that Contend creates, and partnering with A2J nonprofits and other brand-building efforts) The significant business challenge Contend has so far faced (customer acquisition - and, in particular, conveying why Contend is a service provider that consumers can trust) and the most significant "win" that Contend is to date most proud of (having as significant and favorable an impact on people's lives as Contend has had) Link to Times of London article about Contend: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/we-use-ai-to-make-justice-more-accessible-to-ordinary-people-fk78crxtt
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Episode 60 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - An Interview with Chris Cartrett, CEO of Aderant
07/12/2024
Episode 60 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - An Interview with Chris Cartrett, CEO of Aderant
In this podcast episode, Chris and your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, discuss: What Aderant’s () software offers its large law firm customers generally and, most significantly, how Aderant’s new offering, 'Stridyn,' brings a real platform technology to Aderant’s suite of practice management and related tools. The Stridyn technology enables Aderant’s customers to integrate all Aderant tooling and third-party software seamlessly. How Aderant is bringing GenAI’s natural language processing features (and other machine learning architectures) to Aderant’s software suite, especially with Aderant’s MADDI “legal assistant.” This innovative feature has the power to significantly reduce the time spent on routine tasks, allowing legal professionals to focus on more strategic and value-adding activities. How to understand the true meaning of 'cloud-first' and 'cloud-only' in legal tech use for law firms. Chris also explains how a legal tech vendor’s robust security and privacy features are not just crucial, but non-negotiable for encouraging the adoption of cloud-based software by legal tech customers, ensuring their data is always safe and protected. Chris shares valuable insights for legal tech startup leaders on the subject of legal tech software pricing. He emphasizes that a 'value-based, ear-to-the-market' driven pricing strategy is key to gaining market share. He cautions against the risky path of bottom-up cost-plus pricing, advocating for a pricing approach that aligns with the value the product brings to the market.
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An interview with Jim Sullivan, founder and CEO of legal tech startup eDiscoveryAI
07/08/2024
An interview with Jim Sullivan, founder and CEO of legal tech startup eDiscoveryAI
Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Jim cover the following in this episode: How Jim’s undergrad major in computer science and his graduation from law school took him from his first job as a lawyer doing document review to working for over a decade in e-discovery. Eventually leaving e-discovery work to found his own company offering services outside the legal tech field, Jim nonetheless kept track of the immense benefits accruing to document review from the use of NLP and, eventually, GenAI solutions. Jim realized how these GenAI-driven solutions could solve longstanding problems with less up-to-date e-discovery solutions. With this realization, Jim returned to the e-discovery field to start his own business, eDiscoveryAI (), and bring the benefits of GenAI to e-discovery customers. Jim explains how GenAI-driven e-discovery tools advance e-discovery far beyond the levels of accuracy achievable from the predictive coding tooling previously used in e-discovery - all at a lower cost and with faster time-to-value. Jim explains how, by operating as a nimble startup with virtually no bureaucracy to get in the way, Jim and his colleagues at eDiscoveryAI can get closer to the customer and build customer-requested features more rapidly than his big-company competitors.
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Episode 58 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - A conversation with Peter Duffy, founder of Titans, a legal tech and innovation consulting company, and publisher of the Legal Tech Trends newsletter
05/04/2024
Episode 58 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - A conversation with Peter Duffy, founder of Titans, a legal tech and innovation consulting company, and publisher of the Legal Tech Trends newsletter
Your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Peter discuss: Peter’s professional background and his founding of Titans () and the creation of the Legal Tech Trends newsletter () Adoption trends, including the factors promoting (or hindering) legal tech adoption by large law firms Where large law firms are when it comes to the GenAI “hype cycle” Peter’s most contrarian view on legal tech What are the biggest mistakes (“own goals”) or oversights that legal tech vendors suffer from Peter’s (surprising views) as to what the blue ocean spaces are in the legal tech competitive landscape
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Episode 57 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An interview with Tanguy Chau, co-founder & CEO of Paxton and Michael Ulin, co-founder and CTO of Paxton
03/14/2024
Episode 57 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An interview with Tanguy Chau, co-founder & CEO of Paxton and Michael Ulin, co-founder and CTO of Paxton
Tanguy's and Mike's Respective Backgrounds and Path into Legal Tech: Tanguy is an engineer with advanced degrees (including an MBA) from MIT and experience in venture capital, notably early-stage investing in legal tech startups (one of such startups being Ironclad) Mike has a background that includes working at the Federal Reserve, McKinsey, and co-founding a company that applied AI in the insurance space. Mike’s experience with AI and legal/regulatory challenges contributed to starting Paxton. Paxton's Recent Award: Celebrated being one of the winners at the 2024 ABA Tech Show Startup Alley Paxton's Technology and Approach: Focuses on developing industry-specific, application-specific, and firm-specific legal language models for greater accuracy, response speed, and security. The data for model training includes public domain legal documents, emphasizing legal-specific training over general-purpose models. Paxton enables customization for firms by allowing connections to internal knowledge sources without training the model on client-specific data unless requested. Applications of Paxton: Legal Research: Provides access to laws, regulations, and court rulings across all states and federal levels. Document Drafting: Uses a vast corpus of legal documents to assist in drafting accurate first drafts of legal documents. Document Analysis: Offers document analysis and Q&A capabilities for large volumes of documents, ensuring data privacy and governance for firms. Use Case for Training Young Lawyers: Paxton aids in training younger lawyers by allowing them to ask questions and practice without fear of judgment, enhancing their learning and confidence. Future Roadmap: Paxton plans to develop more advanced language models, connect to more data sources, and execute multi-step workflows for synthesized answers from various data sources. Advice for Legal Tech Startups: Tanguy and Mike emphasize the importance of being customer-centric, seeking feedback, and iterating based on user input to improve and refine the product.
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Episode 56 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A conversation with Jackie Schafer, founder and CEO of Clearbrief
11/24/2023
Episode 56 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A conversation with Jackie Schafer, founder and CEO of Clearbrief
In this podcast episode, Jackie shares her personal journey from working as a lawyer to founding Clearbrief, an AI-powered litigation analysis tool that integrates with Microsoft Word to assist with research, citations, and document management. Jackie and Charlie discuss the challenges women founders face in getting venture capital attention and support, even when their offerings are high quality. Jackie spoke about the importance of women legal tech startup leaders speaking confidently about their product and its market prospects (especially when, as was the case with Jackie’s own early product development efforts, the assessment of product prospects is based on feedback arising out of literally hundreds of customer interviews). Charlie and Jackie also talk about the difficulties of marketing a product to senior law firm decision-makers (who, after all, control budgets) based not only on the product’s firm-wide and enterprise-wide benefits but also on the product’s prospects for improving the quality of life for junior lawyers and paralegals. Charlie and Jackie cover the implications of AI on the legal profession, including AI’s potential impact on billing practices as technology continues to drive efficiency.
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Episode 55 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An interview with Dan Broderick, co-founder and CEO of Blackboiler
11/01/2023
Episode 55 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An interview with Dan Broderick, co-founder and CEO of Blackboiler
In this episode, your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Dan Broderick discuss: How Dan started BlackBoiler after practicing law for 7 years, having gotten the idea for Blackboiler while reviewing large numbers of contracts for a client and realizing how much of the work could be automated. BlackBoiler’s focus on automating high-volume contract review and markup during the negotiation phase, with BlackBoiler using machine learning AI to learn from historical edits and rule sets in order to suggest edits in tracked changes. BlackBoiler’s target market consists principally of corporate legal departments, with people in those departments - and in other departments in the enterprise - using BlackBoiler’s software to help them review contracts more efficiently and to empower business users who “touch” contracts frequently, but who aren’t lawyers. What some of the challenges are in selling AI, including the challenge (and importance) of separating hype from reality and getting customers to think “problem-first,” not “AI-first.” How BlackBoiler uses machine learning, but currently not of the generative AI type, as the tasks that Blackboiler carries out are more a matter of text-classification than text-generation. However, Dan does point out that generative AI may be helpful for purposes of initial drafting and finding clauses. For legal tech startup leaders, some of Dan’s key pieces of advice are finding the determination to get through business highs and lows and making sure to reward positive team dynamics.
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Episode 54 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A Conversation with Otto Hanson, CEO of TermScout
08/07/2023
Episode 54 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A Conversation with Otto Hanson, CEO of TermScout
· Otto is CEO of TermScout, which provides data and analytics on market terms in contracts to reduce friction in negotiations. · Otto was motivated to start TermScout after seeing startups overpay for legal services due to a lack of data on market terms. · TermScout uses AI and human review to analyze contracts and provide market data on common clauses. · TermScout's offering helps lawyers know what's "market" to resolve disputes over contract terms. TermScout's customers are both the contracting parties and their legal teams. · TermScout also offers contract certification to validate a vendor's contract as balanced and have it labeled as such. · Otto sees room for more contract standardization not only by way of the use of standard forms, but also through the standardization of various contracts' overall concepts. · When it comes to the interoperation of various legal tech vendors' offerings, Otto and Charlie discuss how legal tech tools should ideally interoperate via APIs using a standard schema. · Otto and Charlie also consider how the onus is on legal tech companies to coordinate standards and seamless interoperability to improve customer experience and reduce the drag on software use that comes from having to constantly shift among different legal tech applications.
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Episode 53 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A Conversation with Mathew Kerbis, founder of Subscription Attorney and evangelist for the subscription legal services business model
07/24/2023
Episode 53 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A Conversation with Mathew Kerbis, founder of Subscription Attorney and evangelist for the subscription legal services business model
Mat Kerbis founded Subscription Attorney LLC to offer legal services through recurring monthly fees rather than hourly billing; in that way better aligning incentives between lawyer and client. Going solo allowed Mat the freedom to innovate with new billing models, which is harder at larger firms wedded to the billable hour. The subscription model expands affordable access to legal help, helping close the "justice gap." Mat leverages legal tech and other automation strategies to work efficiently and keep costs low as a virtual solo practitioner who charges on a subscription basis. When developing their product offerings, legal tech companies should consider the needs of subscription model law firms as a growing niche. An "all-in-one" solution tailored to subscription law firms could integrate practice management, document automation, intake, billing, etc. Mat's "Law Subscribed" podcast profiles lawyers using alternative fee arrangements and also features the tech enabling new models beyond the billable hour. The legal industry needs new models like subscription-based billing as it competes for talent against fields with better lifestyles and fewer grueling hours. Mat aims to spread the subscription model to save the legal profession and head off competition from alternative legal services. Mat's Subscription Attorney Website: Mat's LawSubscribed Podcast:
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Episode 52 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - A Conversation with Steve Fretzin, Podcast Host of BE THAT LAWYER and Legal Business Development Coach for Lawyers
07/15/2023
Episode 52 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - A Conversation with Steve Fretzin, Podcast Host of BE THAT LAWYER and Legal Business Development Coach for Lawyers
Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Steve Fretzin discuss: Lawyers need training in business development and client relations, which is not taught in law school. Technology can help lawyers be more efficient, so they have time for business development. Social media is a great marketing equalizer that allows individual lawyers, as well as small-to-medium-sized firms, to build their brand and get their voice out, social media's certainly not just for big firms. Automating scheduling, email outreach, and content creation through technology frees up lawyer time and builds relationships through organization and consistency. Becoming a thought leader takes consistency and multiple touches, through content creation, networking, writing, and speaking engagements. Business coaches can help too. Leveraging virtual assistants, marketing professionals, and technologies like chatGPT allows lawyers to focus on their strengths and delegate marketing tasks. Tracking marketing data and metrics helps assess what's working through things like CRMs (though CRM adoption is slow). Investing time and money in marketing coaching provides high ROI through increased business and, in larger firms, control over one's career. Lawyers should learn enough to guide the process rather than do it all. Steve's website: All Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast episodes at:
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Episode 51 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast)-- An Interview with Gaurav Oberoi - CEO and co-founder of Lexion
05/22/2023
Episode 51 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast)-- An Interview with Gaurav Oberoi - CEO and co-founder of Lexion
In this 51st podcast episode, your podcast host Charlie Uniman interviews Gaurav Oberoi, CEO and co-founder of Lexion (). Gaurav talks about how, as a software developer and not a lawyer but who recognized the potential of natural language processing AI, he ventured into the legal tech industry. He co-founded Lexion to focus on making sense of contracts for corporate enterprises. During its history, Lexion transformed from being a simple repository for contracts to a CLM for an entire organization that serves as an operational workflow platform to speed up deals. Gaurav also describes how Lexion harnesses AI to, among other things, enhance contract visibility, manage renewals and reminders, and provide powerful search and reporting features. According to Gaurav: Some of Lexion’s chief areas of focus include customer requirements and rapid implementation, and learning from competitors' shortcomings (notably, the high failure rates of CLMs generally). Lexion found that other CLM systems' complexities and steep learning curves significantly deter adoption. So, Lexion designed its system to integrate seamlessly into an organization's existing workflow, offering immediate functionality without requiring extensive setup or training. This, and Lexion’s focus on integrating with platforms like email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce, promotes high adoption rates. Lexion has recently raised funds in an environment of challenging macroeconomic conditions and increased diligence from potential investors. Gaurav attributes Lexion’s recent fundraising success to, in part, the company's robust business model, dedicated team, high customer retention, and high user engagement. As Gaurav notes, Lexion's vision to serve corporate operations teams and not just the legal department (by giving just a couple of examples, automating standardized sales contracts and employment offer letters) was also an attraction to potential investors. Gaurav concludes the podcast by describing some of Lexion’s guiding business principles, including the company’s obsession with the customer, an insistence on clear written communication among team members, and a company-wide commitment to transparency regarding company direction and individual and team performance.
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Episode 50 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) -- An Interview with Kevin Miller, CEO of LegalSifter (www.legalsifter.com)
05/02/2023
Episode 50 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) -- An Interview with Kevin Miller, CEO of LegalSifter (www.legalsifter.com)
Among the subjects that your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, discusses with Kevin are: What does LegalSifter do and how does it do it? The hype cycle of AI. The growth of the company? Finding the right investor for a legal tech startup. Partnering with other companies. Regulatory reform in Arizona.
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Episode 49 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) -- An Interview with Andy Hoyt, CTO of Aderant (www.aderant.com)
04/13/2023
Episode 49 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) -- An Interview with Andy Hoyt, CTO of Aderant (www.aderant.com)
At the outset of the podcast, Andy shares his professional background, which spans over 20 years in the technology industry, building software solutions for various industries. He also talks about his transition to legal tech and his excitement about the future of innovation in the industry. Charlie and Andy discuss Aderant's broad functionalities, including practice management, litigation management, billing, recruiting, and knowledge management. Andy turns next to his current focus on innovation and disruption in the legal industry through data analytics and AI. Andy mentions Aderant's upcoming Momentum conference (May 2023), where it plans to unveil new technology for the legal tech space. Andy and Charlie close the podcast by covering futuristic legal tech trends (including blockchain (not "crypto") and the metaverse), Aderant's plans for staying ahead of the technology curve, and the pride that Aderant takes in its ability to evolve with the changing needs of clients and its continuing to be a leader in the market.
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Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Episode 48 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) - An Interview with Mike Zouhri and Bryan Saunders of Painworth (www.painworth.com)
02/13/2023
Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Episode 48 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) - An Interview with Mike Zouhri and Bryan Saunders of Painworth (www.painworth.com)
Our guests today are Mike Zourhi, the co-founder and CEO of Painworth, and Bryan Saunders, Painworth's Director of Growth, Marketing, & UX/UI. Mike kicks off the podcast by telling us his story where, as the victim of a hit-and-run by a drunk driver, Mike was inspired to create Painworth. Mike and Bryan describe Painworth's aim: to be the "voice" of the personal injury victim in settlement discussions of the victim's claims. Painworth does this by educating the victim with award estimates for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages that will carry weight with lawyers and insurance adjusters because they are based on Painworth's machine learning-driven reviews of relevant court-based and other documentation relevant to award calculation. Painworth's secret sauce is that it was built for use by personal injury victims (i.e., "regular people") themselves. Mike, Bryan, and Charlie discuss: - How Painworth simplifies processes for its users without sacrificing its use of a sophisticated approach at the back-end for award estimation, - Painworth's process for educating its "regular-people" customers in its web app's use and its processes for iterating on UI/UX improvements. - Painworth's roll-out plans for a US-based web app, - How Painworth has succeeded in gaining acceptance by both lawyers and insurance adjusters for Painworth’s use by personal injury victims, and - Business events that Mike and Bryan are most proud of to date.
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Episode 47 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - A Conversation with Jerry Ting, Founder and CEO of Evisort
09/22/2022
Episode 47 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - A Conversation with Jerry Ting, Founder and CEO of Evisort
Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, sits down (virtually) with Jerry Ting of Evisort to talk about: (i) How Jerry planted the seed for founding Evisort while still a student at Harvard Law School (and the role that serendipity played in Jerry's finding his co-founder), (ii) what law schools can (should?) do when it comes to training lawyers-to-be in the art of legal innovation and what perspective law students can bring to innovation in legal, (iii) just what it is that Evisort does in the contract lifecycle management space (with the discussion focusing on, among other things, Evisort's out-of-the-box usability and how Evisort really does help take the grunt work out of contract review), (iv) Evisort's success in marketing to in-house legal departments and other business enterprise personnel involved with contracts (here Jerry covers how Evisort has achieved success by helping those departments transform from being a "brake" on enterprise success to becoming a "gas pedal" that accelerates business success), and (v) the very personally gratifying story behind one of the business successes that Jerry and his team are most proud of to date.
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pisode 46 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An interview with Zach Posner, co-founder and Managing Partner of The Legal Tech Fund
08/17/2022
pisode 46 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An interview with Zach Posner, co-founder and Managing Partner of The Legal Tech Fund
Episode 46 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) - An Interview with Zach Posner, co-founder and Managing of The Legal Tech Fund (www.legaltech.com) Interested in the subject of how legal tech startups can get funded? Thought so - that's why this is a "must listen" episode. Here Zach Posner of The Legal Tech Fund (TLTF) (i) talks about fund-pitching strategies, (ii) offers advice for legal tech startups when facing the headwinds in today's economy and (iii) discusses TLTF's forthcoming Summit conference (December 7 - 9, 2022 in Miami; register here by the November 23, 2022 deadline: https://www.tltfsummit.com) and the Summit's StartUp Challenge (apply here by the August 31, 2022 deadline:(https://www.tltfsummit.com/apply-now) ).
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Episode 45 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), an interview with Luke Yingling, founder and CEO of Analytica Legalis (www.analyticalegalis.com).
07/08/2022
Episode 45 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), an interview with Luke Yingling, founder and CEO of Analytica Legalis (www.analyticalegalis.com).
Luke Yingling founded his legal tech startup, Analytica Legalis, about a year ago during his second year in law school. As you'll hear from Luke, his company has already raised its pre-revenue seed-stage financing and is looking forward to launching its beta version (with law firm beta testers already lined up and eager to go) this coming August. Hear Luke (a) chart his path from law student to legal tech startup founder, (b) relate how, as a student entrepreneur, he was able to take advantage of programs at his law school and elsewhere aimed at assisting very early-stage student-founded startups, (c) describe what Analytica Legalis does and how it distinguishes itself from other tools for litigators that analyze judges' opinions, (d) explain the preparations his company undertook to ready itself for its beta testing program, (d) also explain how he attracted investors that were interested in funding a pre-revenue legal tech startup, (e) discuss the importance of data visualization techniques for making his company's UI intuitive and easy-to-use and (f) tell listeners of the pride he and his team have taken in generating both commercial and academic excitement for the results available from the built "from-the-ground-up" version of Analytica Legalis' machine learning software and in innovating in the judge analytics space.
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Episode 44 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Susann Funke, CEO and co-founder of LEX AI
06/01/2022
Episode 44 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Susann Funke, CEO and co-founder of LEX AI
Episode 44 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), an interview with Susann Funke, co-founder and CEO of LEX AI (www.lexai.co). As Susann tells us, LEX AI has built proprietary natural language processing tools that automate the preparation of accurate and readable summaries of often voluminous regulations for use by lawyers and business people alike. From there, Susann charts her path from practicing law to co-founding LEX AI . In doing so, Susann describes how a massive client project - with a very tight deadline - motivated her to find a way to automate the immense amount of manual effort that the project required. Susann also explains how LEX AI: - has developed key metrics that show how its tools free timekeepers from low value work that clients won't pay for - gathers valuable feedback from its top-of -funnel sales efforts - has benefitted from building a diversified team, particularly when it comes to its solution building and cross-border marketing efforts - uses social media (including Instagram and soon TikTok) to bolster its marketing efforts (particularly among younger lawyers and younger business people) - finds a welcoming user base inside law school and university classrooms
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Episode 43 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Jace Lynch, COO of HyperDraft, and Sean Greaney, HyperDraft's General Counsel
05/10/2022
Episode 43 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Jace Lynch, COO of HyperDraft, and Sean Greaney, HyperDraft's General Counsel
Episode 43 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast () -- An interview with Jace Lynch, COO of HyperDraft (), and Sean Greaney, HyperDraft's General Counsel. HyperDraft is an AI-driven full service document generation, editing and closing platform for lawyers and other legal professionals. Listen to Jace and Sean describe: (1) HyperDraft's origin story, (2) their company's commitment to designed-in simplicity and ease of use, (3) HyperDraft's own brand of customer on-boarding (ranging from an intuitive UI, helpful app tools tips, written materials and video explainers), (4) their aim to expand from currently targeting North American customers to targeting the European legal tech market next, (5) their successin selling HyperDraft to boutique and other SMB law firms, as well as to solo practitioners and (6) how and why they are most proud of HyperDraft's team, product value, software development responsiveness and short time-to-value for HyperDraft's customers.
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Episode 42 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Raman Malik, Founder and CEO of Rhetoric
04/25/2022
Episode 42 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Raman Malik, Founder and CEO of Rhetoric
Episode 42 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) -- An Interview with Raman Malik, founder and CEO of Rhetoric (www.rhetoric.app) Most leaders at legal tech startups present at one time or another to existing and prospective stakeholders (most importantly, to customer and investor prospects). So, it stands to reason that those leaders could use an app that makes getting presentation feedback as easy as clicking a button. Raman and his team have designed Rhetoric to be just that app; a "Grammarly for presentations," if you will (as Rhetoric itself puts it on its website) . Raman discusses (1) how Rhetoric works, (2) the growing importance of asynchronous presentation-giving, (3) several of Rhetoric's chief use cases and (4) Rhetoric's success in closing a seed round. Raman also gives some presentation-making pointers of his own (including his noting of two common presentation mistakes; namely, not soliciting enough feedback and ignoring the importance of tailoring the sequencing of a presentation’s topics for each different audience group). Finally, Raman explains how he and his team pride themselves on how carefully they define their goals, while at the same time being open to goal-revision as the Rhetoric team strives to learn, iterate and improve quickly.
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Episode 41 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Scott Leigh, Co-Founder and CEO of AltFee
04/12/2022
Episode 41 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Scott Leigh, Co-Founder and CEO of AltFee
In this 41st episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (), we lear that guest Scott Leigh's company, AltFee () is on a mission. And that mission is to help lawyers (whether practicing solo, at small or medium-sized firms or at Big Law law firms) gain the freedom to implement alternative fee arrangements and break out of the billable hour model. We'll hear Scott talk about how he and his team have created an app that brings repeatable methods to lawyer/client alternative fee discussions - an app that, among other things: (1) encourages healthy and disciplined upfront conversations about matter scoping and (2) brings greater transparency to alternative fee setting. Moreover, Scott describes how AltFee's app helps lawyers build a repository of alternative fee setting best practices where lawyers (senior and junior) can go for guidance as new matters arise. Scott also talks about his company's "land and expand" strategy when selling into law firms and about the pride that he and his colleagues take in AltFee's thought leadership efforts to educate lawyers about alternative fee arrangement management. In addition, Scott provides insight into AltFee's app design and post-sale customer success efforts.
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Episode 40 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Christy Burke founder of Burke & Company
03/23/2022
Episode 40 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Christy Burke founder of Burke & Company
Episode 40 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Christy Burke, Founder of Burke & Company In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Christy Burke, founder of Burke & Company (www.burke-company.com). As Burke & Company says on its website, "Legal technology providers need strong, creative PR representation to market successfully. Since 2004, Burke & Company has provided the highest standard in PR and marketing for legal tech." In addition to discussing how Christy came to found her company and what kinds of communications-related services her company provides firms and companies in legal and legal tech, Christy offers listeners a "masterclass" on legal tech sales-related communications by providing some answers to the following questions: (i) What are the most significant steps that legal tech startup leaders can take to “up their game” when it comes to communicating their company’s value proposition to law firms and in-house legal departments? (ii) What are some of the chief “unforced errors” that you’ve seen legal tech startup leaders commit in dealing with the press and in undertaking social media campaigns? (iii) Because legal tech startup founders often ask for tips on establishing their thought leadership bona fides, are there any pointers that you can offer to assist them in using their already existing subject-matter expertise to enhance their credibility as thought leaders?
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Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - An Interview with Stephen Dowling, founder and CEO of TrialView
01/27/2022
Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - An Interview with Stephen Dowling, founder and CEO of TrialView
In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), podcast host Charlie Uniman interviews Stephen Dowling, founder and CEO of Dublin, Ireland-based Trialview. As TrialView puts it on its website (www.trialview.com}: "Quickly and easily digitise the trial process and save time, effort and money. . . . [Moreover,] TrialView’s unique synchronising technology enables document led hearings to be conducted remotely." We learn from Stephen how his founding of TrialView began, as is the case with many other legal tech startup founders, with frustrations he faced while practicing law. Stephen explains that, as a junior trial lawyer working on long-running litigations, he wondered why his and his colleagues' wrangling with many thousands of documents couldn't be handled better with the introduction of digital technologies. As Stephen's developed his thinking about the "digitization of trial work," he came to realize that it it went beyond just the digitizing document review (a step that was already being addressed by e-discovery companies). As Stephen came to see it, digitization tools could also be applied to the task of coordinating, in real time at trial: (i) the presentation of trial documents and (ii) the collaboration among the parties to the litigation in dealing with those documents and their presentation in court. Stephen goes on to discuss, among other topics: (A) How TrialView went from its first, very minimum viable, product to the initial funding round for the company and the company's development of a fully-featured trial management tool. (B) The way in which the COVID pandemic accelerated TrialView's development of video features in support of trials and other dispute resolution mechanisms that were required to be conducted on a fully-remote basis. (C) Stephen's belief that, even post-pandemic, we will witness a hybrid approach to conducting trials, mediations and arbitrations (where much of what was formerly done in-person will be carried out remotely, but with a core set of dispute elements more frequently than not being handled in-person). (D) What marketing approaches TrialView has taken successfully, especially in the face of getting both judges and frequently litigating parties (such as insurance companies) "on board" with TrialView's use (with Stephen also pointing out here how TrialView has partnered with companies that handle trial-related tasks outside of TrialView's purview to call attention to TrialView's offering) . (E) TrialView's penetration of markets outside Ireland and the UK, including especially its targeting of the deposition-taking market in the US (F) How Stephen and his TrialView colleagues are most proud of the role TrialView played in keeping Irish courts functioning at the outset of the COVID pandemic.
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Episode 38 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with Zeb Anderson, co-founder and CEO of LegalQ
01/03/2022
Episode 38 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with Zeb Anderson, co-founder and CEO of LegalQ
Episode 38 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with Zeb Anderson, co-founder and CEO of LegalQ In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (), your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Zeb Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Legal Q (). As LegalQ describes its offering on its website, “Searching [for an attorney] online feels overwhelming. Referrals from friends and family leading to dead ends. Often the only way to get legal help is by talking to an attorney. Use the LegalQ app to get help today [and] a licensed attorney will help you [to]: Know your options and legal rights, Avoid common legal pitfalls and mistakes, [and] Get personalized guidance for unique legal issues.” After talking about Zeb’s professional background and LegalQ’s product, Charlie’s discussion with Zeb digs deeply into: Given the need to reach customers in mass, “retail-like,” markets, LegalQ’s go-to-market and marketing strategies (and, more particularly, how those strategies entail Google searches, Facebook ads and, more generally, search-engine marketing and search-engine optimization strategies) The iterative process that LegalQ uses refine its app design, improve its customer onboarding and, most interestingly, revise its core revenue model (well after LegalQ’s initial launch) in light of market reactions to its initial business model approach LegalQ’s use of analytical tools to understand the most cost-effective ways to lower customer acquisition costs The importance for LegalQ of making a great senior marketing hire LegalQ’s ambitious (and access-to-justice driven) mission statement (a mission attributable, at least in part, to LegalQ’s participation in the TechStars program).
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Episode 37 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Mat Rotenberg, founder and CEO of Dashboard Legal
11/15/2021
Episode 37 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Mat Rotenberg, founder and CEO of Dashboard Legal
Episode 37 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Mat Rotenberg, founder and CEO of Dashboard Legal In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Mat Rotenberg, founder and CEO of Dashboard Legal. On its website (), Dashboard Legal writes of its value proposition: "Tired of switching between email threads, apps and workarounds? Dashboard Legal lets you and your team work right from your inbox - by transforming it into a unified workspace for all the materials related to a case or transaction." Mat and Charlie talk about the following topics during this episode: How Mat's experience working as a law firm deal lawyer led him to build a suite of tools that creates an "inbox-first" universal view of a deal or litigation that helps to solve the organizational and collaboration roadblocks that Mat confronted when he practiced law, What Dashboard Legal does to systematize legal matter workflows and encourage lawyer-to-lawyer collaboration, while at the same time allowing its users to continue using software that they've long used as part of their day-to-day work (e.g., such as word processing and email apps like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook), The growing importance of collaboration among legal professionals and the benefits that such collaboration offers those professionals (not least of which is the improvement of one's "lifestyle" at work), and What approaches Dashboard Legal has taken to market its offering (including participation in partner-channels such as Reynen Court and Jameson Legal Tech) and how important a part the building of relationships with customers plays in Dashboard Legal's marketing.
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Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - Interview with Rich Lee, co-founder and CEO of New Era ADR
11/01/2021
Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - Interview with Rich Lee, co-founder and CEO of New Era ADR
Episode 36 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with Rich Lee, a co-founder and CEO of New Era ADR In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Rich Lee, a co-founder and CEO of New Era ADR. On its website (), New Era ADR says “Use smarter, more intuitive tools to get to resolution faster with some of the most experienced mediators and arbitrators in the industry. Do it all from home or anywhere in the world on our fully-digital platform. Get everything done in one place, without everyone being in one place. Don’t waste your time, money, or energy on logistics or fighting, make it simple with New Era ADR.” Here are some topics that Rich and Charlie discuss: How Rich made his way from law school to co-founding New Era ADR. How Rich’s experience as a GC and also as a business person at IP-related businesses (where he confronted first hand the expense and inefficiencies of litigating disputes in court) informs his vision for New Era ADR. What’s New Era ADR’s secret sauce when it comes to providing a software-based approach to alternative dispute resolution? (Hint: Among other things, shorter times-to-resolution, a “virtual first” approach, an emphasis on UX and the customer experience, and versatility as a platform that enables New Era ADR to handle not only disputes that involve commercially sophisticated parties, but also disputes that involve consumers and disputes that have A2J implications)? What business successes are Rich and his co-founders most proud of to date.
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