Crafting the Future of Law with Cutting Edge Tech Tools

Embark on an enlightening journey with legal tech maestro Colin Levy as we uncover the mysteries of "The Legal Tech Ecosystem." This episode promises not just to peel back the curtain on the future of law practice but also ensures you'll grasp the sophisticated interplay between pioneering tools and legal expertise. The legal profession is no stranger to evolution, and through our discussion with Colin, we unravel how e-discovery, document review, and legal research are morphing the battleground of litigation into a realm of efficiency and precision.

Imagine a world where your legal toolkit is as tailored to your practice as a bespoke suit. That's the vision we explore with Colin, emphasizing the need for a personal touch when integrating tech into legal work. The era of data-driven lawyering has dawned, and we're urging you to be at the forefront. By dissecting the strengths and weaknesses inherent in your practice, you can leverage these innovations to reinforce not just your own capabilities, but your entire team's. This episode is your roadmap to a collaborative tech evaluation, ensuring the seamless transition of your firm into the modern legal landscape.

Finally, we gaze into the crystal ball of legal analytics and interoperability, discussing how these elements are reshaping strategies from the courtroom to the negotiation table. As we scrutinize the transformative effects of data and AI on our profession, we touch on the ethical quandaries that arise, and the need for a new kind of literacy in the digital age. This conversation isn't just about staying current – it's about staying ahead, maintaining a competitive edge, and exceeding the evolving expectations of clients in an industry where technology and human intellect intertwine more closely than ever before.

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Transcript

The Legal Tech Ecosystem and Automation

Chris 0:04

Today we are joined by Colin Levy , who is well known to be a legal tech guru and has recently published a book called the Legal Tech Ecosystem . Welcome , colin , thanks for having me . It's very good to have you . It's a pleasure to have you Now to get , I guess , right into it . Your book is called the Legal Tech Ecosystem Legal Tech Ecosystem . Well , I should take a step back . Actually , the book itself is very broad , simply because the ecosystem , any ecosystem , is very , very large . Can you start off by kind of , I guess , giving us a definition of what you have in mind when you came up with that term ? I guess ?

Colin S. Levy 0:43

Absolutely so .

Colin S. Levy 0:44

The way I look at it is you know , an ecosystem like the Rainforest , for example , consists of different components that all sort of interdependent upon one another and benefit from other success and help the other succeed .

Colin S. Levy 1:00

And that's the way I see sort of the Legal Tech Ecosystem is it's composed of tech , people , processes and businesses that all depend upon one another and succeed best when all the individual components are succeeding , but at the same time they're depending upon one another , so they all need each other to be alive . And so that's really where I see tech coming into play is tech is but one piece of a larger Legal Tech Ecosystem composed of those components I mentioned earlier , and for value to be really realized from technology requires that all those other components be aligned and be working as best they can be , and so the purpose of the book really is to illustrate that concept through a variety of different lenses , innovation , technology creation and teaching . And so that's really what is intended with the book is to sort of introduce the concept and to introduce people , kind of what this world Legal Tech is all about in a non technical , accessible way .

Chris 2:02

Oh , great , thank you . Now , something you just mentioned in there was although everything is kind of interconnected , one of the things you mentioned in there was innovation within the ecosystem . Now , this podcast is generally targeted towards trial lawyers , so I was thinking maybe we could talk a little bit about what you found in your research and your writing , about things that might be most relevant to trial lawyers , things like document review , legal research , e-discovery , these sorts of things . How has that changed in the past ? Let's say even one , five , 10 , 20 years , perhaps .

Colin S. Levy 2:36

Sure , well , I think e-discovery in many ways is kind of that foundation upon which all other Legal Tech has sprouted from .

Colin S. Levy 2:44

In some ways so not to boost the egos of trial lawyers , but in some ways e-discovery , which has been a part of the litigation process for a long time , really led the start of what now is known as Legal Tech , and so what we've seen now are so many different tools that assist with different parts of litigation , whether it's legal research , such as using tools like Unicorps or Lexpredict or Unicorps and case techs that really allow for people to not just do research on their cases in terms of case law , but also to analyze the data to help them better craft briefs and arguments that have a better shot , scientifically speaking , from the purpose of , from the vantage point of data , of being successful in court , because what a lot of these tools offer is the ability to look at boatloads of data from prior cases that have gone before perhaps even the same judge , and looking at what has been the most successful lines of argument , the most successful briefs in that particular area of litigation , and that can really help lawyers better craft their strategies and also tell their clients look , I think this litigation this way .

Colin S. Levy 4:02

Approaching it from this angle is probably a better way of doing it , because it's likely to be more successful and that ultimately will also mean it'll be less financially painful for you , because , as we all know , litigation is very expensive . So that's one area . Another area is , with the assistance of tools like Co-Counsel from Case Techs , you can now help better draft briefs , you can analyze documents , you can basically do research and create a brief in a third of the time that would take in years past , when you didn't have the benefit of not just technology but also generate artificial intelligence .

Chris 4:40

Cool , thank you for that . How do you think that legal tech has kind of , I guess , changed the traditional law firm and again I realize that the legal tech ecosystem is enormous , so it changes . We could be here for a week talking about this , probably . But I guess , what are , I guess , the most profound ways so far that you've seen when you've been doing your research for your book ?

Colin S. Levy 5:03

Yeah .

Colin S. Levy 5:03

So I think that really what has happened is , for a long time , practicing law was a matter of sort of falling the way that you were taught in law school sort of with a lot of ties to tradition and things that have always been done a certain way .

Colin S. Levy 5:22

And now we've seen technology come to the fore , introduce ways of practicing that are more data-driven , more automated , that are more sort of augmented through the use of technology , and what that has meant is that lawyers now are able to spend more time providing strategic advice and counseling and be more proactive because they have tools that can help them automate , that can help them analyze data , provide data-driven strategies as supposed to be for when they would have to spend hours kind of thinking about well , how did I approach this last time ?

Colin S. Levy 5:54

I think this probably should work this time , but let me tune it to how I think I want to approach it , based off of lessons learned , where now those lessons can be data-driven instead of just based off of historical experience , because , well , history is a good teacher . It can't teach us everything , and data sometimes can be very useful as a means of learning from prior ways of doing things , and so I think also , technology has kind of raised the question of what does it actually mean to practice law and be a lawyer now , and I think that's a valid question to be asked and the way I would answer it is practicing law now is a matter of being someone who is data-driven , fluent in data and that is proactive and really focused on not just reacting to things as they come to that person's desk , but preventing those things from coming to that person's desk from the first place through strategies that anticipate rather than react .

Chris 6:50

Cool . Now , something you just mentioned there was , I guess , the automation of processes . We've seen recently a past year , 18 months or so , you know , generative AI and chat GPT in particular , kind of really come to the fore in terms of a public imagination . And you know there's a real , pretty infamous case of a lawyer submitting documents where chat GPT had just made up cases and case facts In terms of . I guess a lot of fears that lawyers can frequently have is through the automation as you kind of use that word that chat GPT , generative AI , may end up taking people's jobs as a result of this . However , I guess I've been thinking about this a bit and in my mind it's not as much automation as maybe augmentation , if that makes sense it's . There are things which are going to be automated for sure , but relying entirely on a generative AI to do the work for you is going to lead into trouble . Reasonable hypothesis .

Colin S. Levy 7:54

I think so .

Colin S. Levy 7:54

I mean , the way I would look at it is , if you're a lawyer who isn't using technology and you're competing against a lawyer who is using technology , you're going to lose out to the lawyer who is using technology . Yeah , that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be replaced by that lawyer , but just means that lawyers in technology will likely be getting more business than you'll be . If you're concerned about losing your job to technology , I think it begs the question of well , what exactly is your job ? If your job consists of doing things that can be automated 100% of the time reviewing the same set of documents , or in taking this same way every single time , and that's all you do ? Basically , automation is here to help take care of the routine , standardizable and repetitive tasks that are time consuming . If that's all your job is composed of , then I think perhaps it is worrisome about the rise of technology , but I think you should also ask well , why do I have the job in the first place ? I think another way to look at it is indeed to your hypothesis , which is that technology really is here to augment and allow us to be more productive , be able to do more with less stress , spend less time on things and be better at our jobs , ultimately , because technology is really great at doing things that humans are not very good at , which include reviewing boatloads of documents and drawing out trends and analyses from that data , looking for different specific data points from hundreds of documents , crafting perhaps a strategy that you have some ideas of but you haven't actually put pen to paper yet . General value can help with that . But to a point you made earlier about the lawyers using chat GBT to draft a brief , and it drafted a brief , but in certain cases that are not real , I think that's more a question of the lawyer not being competent enough to double check the work of the tool that was being used , as opposed to the tool doing something it wasn't supposed to do . The tool did exactly as it was trained to do what should have done but use a lawyer should have been aware enough to double check the work .

Colin S. Levy 10:06

Number two a lot of these tools not all tools that are generative AI based are based trained off of legal data .

Colin S. Levy 10:14

Therefore , you can't expect it to somehow just give you pinpoint cases if it doesn't have any pinpoint cases to draw upon , will give you is made up cases . I recall reading one story about it , a fake case set in a brief that was like beef bourguignon versus something , and while that's a delicious French dish , I would think that if you're looking at the case name , you would be like beef bourguignon , like no , that doesn't make any sense and insert to you know , have a little common sense in questioning . You know that case . The good news is there are tools based off trained on legal data that can help you pinpoint actual cases that are specific to your line of argument . You know the legal resource tools I mentioned earlier Uniport case text , lux McEnany , lux Pritta can help you with that sort of thing , which perhaps can give you some comfort , because the other part of it , too , is you have to really understand the nature of the tool you're using and strengthen limitations and understand that not every generate of a tool is going to operate the same way or offer the same level of expertise and knowledge .

Chris 11:20

Sure , sure . Now , just to kind of follow on to your points about the generative , I actually did exactly the chat GPT , did exactly what it's it was meant to do for that particular case that we were speaking about . I do agree with you . Just for our listeners who might not know the nuts and bolts of generative AI , the very basic kind of way that they work is hundreds of up to hundreds of billions of data points , which are essentially words , are entered into these chat GPT's and when it's provide producing an output for you , it's looking at the word just before it and predicting the next word , just using mathematics to say , given the previous word , this is the next word . It's not trying to infer anything . It's not actually thinking for itself . It's just given this previous string of words , what is most likely to come next . That's it .

Chris 12:09

So , even though it is really a really , really impressive technology , it's not thinking for anything new . In that regard , without being said , given that case , that where this lawyer had mistakenly using chat GP , used chat GPT to make up cases , I can understand how lawyers , who quite often can be quite slow or reluctant to adapt to new technologies , I can understand why they might be nervous about trying to use chat , gpt or some kind of generative AI or any new technology in general . I think I believe you do mention this in your book that it is quite often the case that lawyers seem to be slow and we uptake a lot of these things . Now you do discuss in your book the critical , the kind of crucial role of collaboration between legal professions and technology providers . Could you elaborate on why this partnership is more important now than ever in the legal industry ?

Colin S. Levy 13:05

Sure . I think there's a couple of reasons for why it's more important than ever . Number one you only know what you know and you don't know what you don't know . I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that there are gaps in all of our knowledge banks and therefore it's incumbent upon all of us to , even if we're not fully aware what those gaps are , at least recognize the fact that there are gaps and therefore relying people who are more than likely to have the requisite knowledge to fill in the gaps , which often means that you and the tech vendor can help one another , because you know more about your business and what you're trying to do , and the tech vendor knows a lot about their body and what it can do , and therefore the two can just collaborate and listen to one another and understand where each other is coming from and what they can do for one another . They can understand whether there's a match there , and so that's why I often say to people that you know , if you're trying to learn about something here , their journey , ask questions , shut up and listen to the answers .

Evaluating Legal Tech and Collaboration

Colin S. Levy 14:03

Don't try to just anticipate or assume you know what the answer is , because Lawyers I would say litigators you know when you're Cross examining or examining a witness , you're asking questions which you already know the answer to . That's sort of the point and that's not the right approach with respect to ventures . You really want to Get their expertise and have their expertise fill in the gaps for you . In addition , technology well , not all technology is complicated . I don't burn or nuances .

Colin S. Levy 14:31

Technologies , even between the similar tools and the vendors , can help you kind of fill the gaps with respect to those nuances and that's why it's important to ask questions and listen to the answer , so you understand what those nuances are , because you don't just want to assume just because a friend told you one tool is great for them , that was gonna be great for you . It's like asking a friend you know who knows nothing about carpentry but is a great friend hey , can you help me build this house ? Well , no , I mean I wouldn't hire my friend to help me build a house unless they were a trained carpenter . You know , similarly , with you know , a friend recommending you know some tech vendor , just because they like them Doesn't mean they're gonna be good for you , because their business may be different from yours . So you know , I think those important considerations keep in mind and why collaboration really is so important .

Chris 15:19

Yeah , yeah , absolutely to kind of follow up from that how do you see the evolution of legal tech solutions impacting the traditional role of trial lawyers ? We have spoken a little bit about kind of augmentation versus automation aspect , sure , but I guess what can trial lawyers do to stay ahead in this changing landscape ?

Colin S. Levy 15:38

So I think the first thing to do to stay ahead really is A knowledge of that , that technologies exist to help with trials , whether it be Deposition preparation , whether it be with Um discovery , legal research , writing briefs and so on . So first step is acknowledging the tools exist . Second is Considering ways in which you currently work . What are the pain points ? Where are the slow downs ? What are tests that you do that you know you can do , but perhaps technology can help with ? Whether be finding better cases , helping you craft a better brief , helping prepare witnesses better , what have you ?

Colin S. Levy 16:20

Look at tools to help fill in the those gaps or address those specific problems . That's what I would suggest . And of course , that starts with understanding , kind of what the problem is you're trying to solve , or , first , whether you know . It's a matter of understanding , kind of when your strengths and weaknesses line , how technology can help because , again to your point , it's here to augment , it's here to kind of help Make you better . So it's to make you better . You need to know yourself and know what you do well , what you don't do well , and even those things you do well . There's , there's always ways to improve as well , but it's important to know where start . And knowing where to start often starts with Knowing kind of the problems you would like to not have and seeing whether there are solutions to those problems .

Chris 17:03

Okay , I think you've kind of just answered my next question with that answer and the previous question where we spoke . We spoke a little bit about Not taking just saying that a product to work for a friend isn't going to work isn't necessarily going to work for you . Your book does provide guidance on evaluating and selecting legal tech solutions . In your mind , what are the top criteria that lawyers should consider to ensure that the technology aligns with their practice of specific needs ? I think that's , as you kind of just said , identifying strengths and weaknesses going to be a big thing , avoiding the temptation to not just look at the new shiny toy and grabbing that's Anything to add to the beyond that .

Colin S. Levy 17:40

Yeah , I would say you know , really have a keen idea of kind of how the solution fits into your existing Technologies that you currently use , if you use any at all . Does it fit in ? Does it align well with kind of your intended use case ? Does it communicate with other tools you have which may require relying on expertise to help tell you whether , what the answer to that question is , that really should be part of your valuation process ? In addition , you know , are you the only user ? Are there any other people might be using this tool ? Bring those people into the valuation process as well , because Last thing you want is , even if you're the ultimate decision maker , is to bring on board a technology . You love it , you use it , but the people you that really matter that should be using or aren't using it , in which case you basically have an expensive piece of shelf wear Collecting dust somewhere that you love but no one else does so . That's why it's more to bring users into the process of evaluating tools as well .

Chris 18:36

Yeah , yeah , absolutely , and I think that kind of again , almost if I promise this isn't scripted but kind of tie them nicely to the next question as well . In fact , I kind of interoper interoperability where you know everyone who's using this tool has got to be able to like the tool or at least Tolerate it enough

Legal Analytics and Interoperability in Law

Chris 18:53

to be able to use it . Okay , and this is the interoperability is a kind of a key theme throughout your book , I found , and can you maybe share some insights on the challenge of solutions for integrating new tech tools into existing systems ?

Colin S. Levy 19:07

Right . Well , I think it starts with kind of understanding , kind of the tools you currently use and how you use them and why you use them , and then from there then you want to look at , you know , both these tools could be better and what ways could they be better and can this tool that I'm looking at potentially , you know , augment not just you and how you work but the tool you currently use ? And that's really what on to rock reality comes from , you know , stems from ? Is so making existing tools better or , in some cases , but doesn't have to be replacing a tool because the current one just isn't working well enough or is old . For example , I was talking to a bunch of partners at some law firms the other day . I gave him a talk on AI and one of them mentioned using world docs , which is this document management tool , but it came out in the , I believe , mid to late 80s .

Colin S. Levy 19:59

Yes , so it's basically as old as I am , and while I'm not old per se , in software terms that is old , and so you know that would perhaps be a case for replacing a tool , because you know , like good , if something being as good as current tools is not high .

Colin S. Levy 20:18

But interrupt reality also means being able to have tools that communicate with one another , meaning that data that is used in one tool is updated and shared with another tool . I don't want to get too into the weeds here , but really that that means that all the tools you have are lined and constantly sort of understanding one another , meaning they're coming from the same set of data and therefore are able to best help you because they all are looking the same thing . That's posted tools that are looking at different things . It's almost , you know , it's , it's simplified . It's kind of like looking at a document that was created five years ago versus the same , versus an updated version that was created today . You know you want to have a tool that is able to , you know , look at the most current version as opposed to rely on an older version that hasn't been updated in quite some time . Yeah , yeah .

Chris 21:13

I mean , I'm quite impressed with that software from the late 80s . You still could even run today in 2024 .

Colin S. Levy 21:18

Well , it's been updated , but the question is how much has ? It been updated .

Chris 21:22

I'm just imagining needing to like special order , like a floppy disk drive or something like that , to plug in and figure it out from there .

Colin S. Levy 21:30

But floppy just been in my existence back in the day .

Chris 21:35

Taking kind of a step back to something we you touched upon earlier in our chats , going into like kind of analytics , and you spoke about how , like lawyers should really be looking to make as many kind of data driven decisions as possible rather than kind of relying on gut instincts , heuristics , potentially slightly biased memories from well , I think this works okay in this previous case that was similar four years ago , that sort of thing In your , in your lead , the scope of your legal work . What does analytics mean to you specifically ?

Colin S. Levy 22:09

How do you ?

Chris 22:10

use it on a day to day basis .

Colin S. Levy 22:12

Sure . So I look at analytics in the case of contracts and doctrines because I'm a transactional lawyer by training and trade . Some were looking at how many current agreements , their statuses , what causes are often negotiated , how often we've had to rely on backup or compromised language , the relative risks of different clauses and different agreements . Those are some of the sort of different areas of data that I'm looking at and collecting data points on . So that's how I'm using data through the benefit of a contract management system . So that's really helpful for me because it helps allow me be a more data driven negotiator . It helps me to be a more proactive lawyer Because I know what's currently currently going on the status of individual contracts and so on .

Colin S. Levy 22:57

But also I also use another tool that helps me look at data through a different lens in terms of the types of contracts that exist and what the most common different ways of phrasing certain clauses are , and that allows me to see kind of what currently is so-called standard or in-market for certain clauses . And that allows me to also be a better negotiator , because you can better see kind of what the most common standard is and therefore have data to back it up , as opposed to sort of the more traditional way of lawyering , where you kind of just say this is out of market , I've never seen this in 35 years . Well , have you looked at anything else in 35 years ? No , but will they tell you that no ? So that kind of is helpful as well to have data to back up your arguments when you're negotiating , whether it's a contract or whether it's in the course of a trial .

Chris 23:47

Yeah , yeah , something just to kind of give you an overview of what we at jury analysts do . We typically work with plaintiff lawyers who their cases are very likely to go to trial . I believe the stat is like about 5% of cases might go to trial or even less . It's a very low number , of course , but we see the majority of our cases do and essentially we work with the trial lawyers to see kind of how is a jury going to respond to the case . So we'll present to virtual jurors and this is big data hundreds , thousands of virtual jurors who are real people in the area of the case being heard . We'll give them the details of the facts . We'll see which and actually measure , quantify which facts or which aspects of the case are liked and disliked and why , and also kind of how much in the jurors would be willing to award in damages as well , so that if the lawyer is going into a settlement or mediation , they have data saying we know that 500 , 1000 people in this district would award an average of this amount .

Chris 24:55

That's what we want . Or we're going to trial , or , with these aspects of the case , we can say these are the good things we want to highlight . These are bad things . We want to try to construct counter arguments to so and again . This isn't relying on the kind of heuristics or potential biases that people might have . This is just pure data that says if you show it this way , you'll get this much money . If you show it that way , you'll get it that much money . So I think that book of both ways demonstrates that analytics is everywhere in law , and I don't think it's only when you stop to think about it that you actually realize how it is everywhere , even .

Colin S. Levy 25:34

Right , I think the challenge historically for lawyers has been that they didn't see sort of contracts or see sort of legal research as data . They just saw it as information , when really it is data and there are ways to structure that data so you can get analytics that can help you do exactly the things that you were just talking about , which I think are incredibly helpful . Useful and for clients especially . I think they would want it because it provides them an added degree of comfort knowing that there's actually data backing up why their lawyer is telling them to go about doing something a certain way or arguing a certain way , as opposed to just telling them , you know , hey , this is my opinion . You're paying me a little boatload of money to offer this opinion . You know , should just take me at my work .

Chris 26:19

Absolutely , absolutely . Now going back to you do you use analytics at all for interpreting your contracts that come across your desk ? At all ?

Colin S. Levy 26:28

Yeah . So through our contract management solution I have ways of reviewing it automatically to draw out kind of different you know , potentially problematic clauses . I can see an audit trail of how things have been touched and by whom and when things were changed . And again , as I mentioned before , I can see sort of you know what clauses will more likely to become asked and be negotiated in ways of negotiating them and offering ways to sort of find areas of compromise and so on . So I do use analytics and I think that you know to your point , lawyers in general should be comfortable using analytics because there is data work . Really , at the end of the day , that is what it is . But data isn't necessarily all numbers . Some of it is , a lot of it is , perhaps , but it's not all numbers . So for those lawyers who perhaps are a little less competent in their math skills , no one needs to be a math genius , but you have to have some degree of fluency and data , I think , to be effective as a lawyer in today's day and age .

Chris 27:27

Yeah , yeah , I

Impact of Technology on Legal Profession

Chris 27:29

certainly would agree with that . And kind of , I guess , following on from that very last point , how do you anticipate kind of the how is AI , analytic , I guess , kind of tech boom ? How is this going to change the roles and responsibilities of trial lawyers ? Like , as we've kind of covered a few times during this chat , we both kind of see automation and augmentation taking over a lot of the kind of menial labor tasks . But I think there's a very good reason to a very good argument to say that there's still a very , very , very human aspect of law work , especially trial law , where you know convincing a jury of you know the damages , the injuries that have been suffered , that sort of thing . I think that's something which the robots , so to speak , even going to do and probably will never do . So I guess yeah , that's kind of my very small world . Take on it . How do you feel that you know AI and tech are going to change the kind of jobs of trial lawyers ?

Colin S. Levy 28:27

Well , I think you know , when it comes to at least general AI , we're just at the start of the journey , so I would say go up and be prepared .

Colin S. Levy 28:35

I think , in terms of how it's going to change the jobs of trial lawyers , I think that trial lawyers are going to be perhaps especially needing to be literate in data and analytics , because there are so many tools that are just now and many more to come , like the L system and providing more data driven strategies in terms of argumentation and brief writing and so on .

Colin S. Levy 28:55

Inflation is going to be expecting them to be fluent in data and providing those types of strategies . I think , also , we're going to be seeing , perhaps , a push by the courts to be a little more transparent with respect to the use of these tools in their work as well . I don't think I mean , I certainly think you know there shouldn't be any banning of these tools , but I certainly think that transparency around the use of these tools and sort of sharing of the use of these tools perhaps will be something of their interest going forward , sort of in the way that now you know , prosecutors have to share all the evidence that they have with the defense . In some ways , I think both defense and prosecutors will need to perhaps share . You know , some of the tools are used to some degree , perhaps going forward as a way of kind of ensuring that it trials as impartial as it can be .

Chris 29:42

Yeah , yeah , something that I guess related to that .

Chris 29:45

Something I've been thinking about is kind of the democratization of data , where it kind of is related to , as you said , prosecution having to share or the evidence of the defense . But the idea that , yeah , any bit of information should be available to everybody and , in theory , the tools should be available to anybody as well , and making these accessible in the courtroom does feel like it eventually will be inevitable . I can imagine it being slower in some places than others , but , like the , I feel like I recall a case where someone was possibly wearing like Google glasses or something like that and using or trying to use chat , gpt or something similar to that during a case , and I believe the judge declared a mistrial as a result of it . But I can imagine maybe not to the point of Google glasses , but a laptop or something like that in front of all you need is an internet connection really to be able to access that . I can imagine something like that eventually being allowed , but I guess looking ahead .

Chris 30:44

Next question what kind of emerging technologies do you think are going to have the most significant impact on the practice of law ? Like this could be , I don't know , it could be generative . Ai could be blockchain , virtual reality , augmented reality , these sorts of things . What do you think ?

Colin S. Levy 31:02

Well , I think we've already seen kind of some uses for augmented reality in the cases of mediation and presentation and information . But I think , at least for the immediate short term , jeremy , I will continue to be , I think , the talk of the town , so to speak , and we'll continue to have a huge impact upon the practice and business of law , as well as pretty much every other area as well , and I think that's largely because it's AI as a concept is not new , but generative AI is , and it's new because of how accessible it is . In the past , ai was not all that accessible by sort of everyday people . Now it definitely is , and so I think that raises definitely raises the bar and places the spotlight in terms of the use of these tools and the ethical use of these tools as well . And I think that also will be a major topic of discussion and concern going forward , particularly as we see sort of a blurring of reality and what's real and what's not , with the use of tools to provide imagery and not just text .

Chris 32:04

Yeah , yeah for sure . We have already spoken a bit about how lawyers can be kind of slow , reluctant to take up tech stuff , given that , in a landscape where early engagement with technology can provide a competitive edge , you've mentioned how the lawyer who doesn't use a lot of tech stuff may well end up losing some business , or a lot of business , to someone who does . In a landscape where early engagement with technology can provide a competitive edge , how crucial is it for legal professionals to adopt tech innovative solutions sooner or later in your opinion .

Colin S. Levy 32:41

I think it's super important because there's a growing expectation , I think , on the part of clients that lawyers will be using most applicable , up-to-date tools to help assist them to provide the best level of service to their clients . Likewise , I think that there's a growing expectation , at least in the US , on lawyers to be able to be aware and use relevant technologies , because over , I think , 40 seats at this point have a duty of tech competency , require client lawyers to be aware of the relevant benefits and risks of different types of technology that may be applicable to their practice . Overall , I'd say that's a long way of answering the question by when I really could have just said the expectation going forward is that lawyers will be more and more tech-savving and using tech more and more in their practices .

Chris 33:26

As a kind of little side note , are you aware of any law schools that have kind of started teaching this kind of stuff ? Is that something you're doing ?

Colin S. Levy 33:32

Yes , there's a number of them . Perhaps the I'd say the leader , perhaps in the space is Suffolk University Law School . I have a certificate in legal innovation and technology from that law school , but they have long been known being number one in terms of legal tech education . So that's one law school . Northwestern Northeastern also have been leading the way , vanderbilt as well . So those are some of the schools that have really been taking the lead and I hope to see more law schools follow their lead as well .

Chris 34:02

Yeah , absolutely , that definitely does seem like a very important part of kind of defining a future path where lawyers aren't going to need to be prepared for this kind of thing .

Colin S. Levy 34:11

Oh , absolutely , yeah , yeah .

Chris 34:14

I guess do you have any concrete advice for trial lawyers and lawyers on how to prepare for the future , that kind of what kind of skills and knowledge are going to be important ? You have already mentioned , you know , at least , a kind of base level of competency and kind of data and statistics , perhaps Anything beyond that ?

Colin S. Levy 34:31

Well , if I may be so bold , certainly taking a look at my book , the Legal Tech Ecosystem , I think would be helpful for them to look at . I also think that evaluating kind of a landscape and the existing tools would be helpful as well , and one way to do that would be looking at a site like Legal Tech Hub that offers not just a variety of evaluations of tools but also research into each one of these tools can be very helpful . So that's , I think , another suggestion , and then the last suggestion would be to kind of understand kind of their , you know , take a look inward in terms of their levels of comfortability and understanding technology , and try to work on becoming better at technology through starting off by using better , by making use of their existing tools better , as opposed to immediately jumping towards a new tool .

Chris 35:19

Yeah . Yeah . I've kind of said earlier , trying to avoid the temptation of a shiny new toy , Like if you can optimize with what you have , then you've got a better idea of where you need to go for the next step . Colin has just plugged his book . I'm going to plug it one more time . I would highly recommend reading it . I have , and I very much enjoy it , the Legal Tech Ecosystem . It's certainly available on Amazon . That's where I got it . I'm sure there are many , basically any place you can get a book . I would say you can probably get it . Am I writing the same at Colin ?

Colin S. Levy 35:46

Yeah , it's widely available on Amazon . That's perhaps the best way of getting it . It's available elsewhere as well , but let's be honest Amazon is probably your best bet .

Chris 35:55

Yeah , that's where I found it , and Brian got it to me within two days , so I would recommend getting it from Amazon . That's , yeah , the Legal Tech Ecosystem by Colin Levy . Okay Well , thank you very much for chatting with today , colin , it's been a pleasure and , yeah , I hope we can chat again shortly to talk about how everyone has taken up all these tech suggestions and ideas in your book , and we'll take it from there .

Colin S. Levy 36:17

Thanks very much . I appreciate your speaking with you .