Writer’s Block Is Dead: Drew McElligott on AI in Legal Practice

In this episode of IP Innovators, host Steve Brachmann sits down with Drew McElligott, Counsel at Crowell & Moring, to explore what AI actually looks like inside a modern law firm—and why, as McElligott puts it, “writer’s block is pretty much dead.” From litigation and Hatch-Waxman strategy to medical device innovation and firmwide AI rollouts, Drew shares a grounded, practical view of how artificial intelligence is reshaping legal work without replacing legal judgment.

He reflects on AI as a drafting partner—one that turns lawyers into editors rather than first-drafters—while also digging into the realities of trust, training, and governance. From vetting tools for confidential use to comparing AI’s evolution from a “summer associate” to a “fourth-year,” Drew offers a candid look at what’s working, what still needs refinement, and why the genie isn’t going back in the bottle.

👨‍💼 About the Guest:
Drew McElligott is Counsel at Crowell & Moring, where he focuses on patent and trademark litigation for leading pharmaceutical, medical device, and consumer products companies. He was recognized in The Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® – Intellectual Property Law (2021). He has extensive experience in federal court litigation and inter partes reviews before the USPTO. Prior to practicing law, Drew conducted cardiovascular research at Loyola University.

🔧 Sponsored by DeepIP — your patent intelligence platform, from idea to enforcement.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Sponsor Message
• 0:48 Drew’s Path Into Patent Law
• 6:34 Hatch‑Waxman Strategy From The Generics Side
• 12:56 Where AI Shows Up In Litigation
• 20:20 Building Trust In Legal AI Tools
• 27:15 Where AI Helps Lawyers Today
• 34:18 Future Of Practice And IP’s Long Arc
• 36:00 Life Outside Law: Family And Theater

Transcript

Welcome & Sponsor Message

Steve Brachmann 0:00

Hello. My name is Steve Brachmann, and welcome to IP Innovators, where we profile the careers of patent attorneys and explore how technology in legal practice has advanced with time. This podcast is brought to you by Deep IP, the first trusted AI-powered patent assistant integrated into Microsoft Word. Deep IP helps patent professionals draft better patents faster and analyze office actions to craft responses that win. By handling tedious tasks, Deep IP frees you to focus on delivering higher quality work and greater value to your clients. Fully customizable, it adapts to your style. So it sounds like you, only quicker and sharper. Trusted by top law firms and in-house teams across the US and Europe. Today on IP Innovators, I am joined by Drew McElligott, Council at Crowell and Mooring. Drew, thank you so much for joining us today.

Drew McElligott 0:56

Great to be here, Steve.

Steve Brachmann 0:58

So on our program, we like to talk about what inspired people to get into their careers in patent law. And if you want to talk a little bit about uh what drew you into the field.

Drew McElligott 1:10

Sure. So I really didn't know what patents were coming out of college. I was working in a cardiovascular research lab. And this is right around 2007 recession, where our lab lost funding. And we kind of shifted our focus from working on our own research to helping other labs that had funding do their research. And part of that was building out a core lab facility. And at that point, uh we were being wined and dined by a bunch of smaller companies that had all these new inventions that they were keen on getting into our core lab, including things like uh high frequency ultrasound. Uh, and I remember in particular, it was that group that was taking us out to lunch trying to convince us to buy their equipment. And they were telling us about kind of their company story and describing how they were a smaller player really trying to make uh make their way in the field, and they were concerned about these larger players who were kind of showing some interest in them, maybe looking to acquire them, but they were they didn't want to get acquired because they were concerned their IP was just going to get shelved. And they started talking about the importance of their patents and protecting them, protecting their area of the market. And that was the first time I'd heard anyone say the word patent. And looking into it, I thought, you know, this is an area that kind of weds a lot of different things I'm interested in, puts me on the forefront of technology. And I started digging more and more into what patents were, and it's kind of one of those things where once the dam breaks, you start seeing it everywhere. All of a sudden we're patent was showing up all over the place. And I was really into Apple products at that time, and I started looking at Apple's patents, and I was like, this is great. This is like looking at the product pipeline for the next couple of years.

Steve Brachmann 2:51

Right, right.

Drew McElligott 2:52

So that was kind of the reason I went to law school then was to specifically pursue IP.

Steve Brachmann 2:58

Great. And then was there a particular field that you were focused in to start? Did that have to do with your own personal background?

Drew McElligott 3:05

Well, coming out of the cardiovascular research lab, it was kind of the uh medical device area that spoke to me most because that was an ability to wed technology in an area that I already had a really good deep background in. So taking human physiology and then wedding that with uh medical devices and uh the innovations in that area kind of gave me a really great foundation to understand uh where things were headed, how things were going to work within the body. I feel like it kind of gave me a little bit of an edge if I if I pursued that as my primary focus. And I think that's borne out.

Steve Brachmann 3:43

So, in your time in patent litigation early on in your career, can you discuss generally the state of the art of some of the technologies you were working on litigating?

Drew McElligott 3:54

Sure. I'd say when I first started, uh there's there was a period of time in the medical device world that was somewhat referred to as the stent wars, uh, where there were a lot of different companies that were going back and forth with their different patents about uh stent technology and who invented what and who invented it first. And that was uh something I came into the tail end of, I would say. Uh so my first few cases were all stent-based. And then after that, I had some uh consumer product cases that also uh popped up that got me some experience, for example, in Trademark. Uh, I had a trademark case for Nike that involved uh some t-shirt branding. And I had a uh design patent case for Panasonic that involved their tough book line. Uh and that really broadened my horizons to a lot of different areas of technology that I wasn't particularly um, I wasn't thinking that I was going to get into that. You know, when you get into the uh the medical device world, you you kind of think maybe this is gonna be my bread and butter for the next couple of decades, and this might be where I just hang my hat. Um, but it's been great to diversify my practice, get an understanding of how companies in different sectors work. And it certainly is an opportunity to stretch my wings and have a little bit more uh get out of the routine a little bit.

Steve Brachmann 5:15

Yeah.

Drew McElligott 5:15

Have a little bit more variety in the practice. I think that's uh probably one of the things I love the most is being able to pick up a new piece of tech in any area and really dive into it.

Steve Brachmann 5:25

Are there any areas I know we've discussed consumer products, uh, but what other areas other than medical devices have you uh really enjoyed diving into?

Drew McElligott 5:34

I've also done a lot in the pharmaceutical area. So we've done uh a number of Hatch Waxman cases. Uh, did a lot when I was uh younger. I haven't done that many recently, but uh again, it is one of those things where uh you see it in your real life world where you're sitting down to maybe watch a TV episode of something and you see a pharmaceutical commercial come on, and it's typically a brand name product, but then you have the generics that are going to be following on, and sometimes you can watch those commercials and just view them a little bit differently where you're thinking, okay, so about you know, maybe five, six years from now, that'll be the next uh big case in the Hatch Waxman world will be about that particular drug.

Steve Brachmann 6:12

So, yeah, I I mean given the timing considerations, uh what are the biggest differences when you're trying to prepare for Hatch Waxman litigation versus your run of the mill um patent litigation based on those timing issues?

Hatch‑Waxman Strategy From The Generics Side

Drew McElligott 6:31

Um, I think the Hatch Waxman cases, that's kind of part of the business model. You know, when you're talking about the the generic companies, they they typically have to pursue the Hatch Waxman uh cases in order to get their drugs onto the market. Um so it is kind of built in, they have a better understanding of of when they're gonna be broaching those things. You know, many companies have pipelines set up where they uh are already planning several years down the road of the types of drugs that they're gonna be uh looking to add to their um their repository or their catalog. Uh on the other patent cases I've done, you know, those those are more often unseen. Uh, you know, the surprise cases coming that uh you were either, you know, if you're on the defense side, uh you were just out there selling a product. You didn't know somebody was gonna be knocking on your door and saying, right, hey, I think that infringes my patent. Or if you're on the patent owner side, it's uh often a little bit more strategic where you're pursued. Sometimes it's a surprise too. Sometimes you're looking at the market and you're like, hold on a second, who's that? What are they selling? It looks a lot like my product, or it looks a lot like what I've patented. Uh, and other times it's uh understanding what the market looks like and knowing, okay, I think we've got some players out there that may be infringing certain patents, but let's look at what our product pipeline is. Let's look at what makes sense right now. Uh, is litigation the best uh the best strategy here to protect our market share and protect our innovation, or are there other avenues that we should be pursuing right now?

Steve Brachmann 8:07

So in these cases, are you working primarily with uh the branded pharmaceutical side? Are you working generic side or are you kind of on a mix of those?

Drew McElligott 8:16

When I was in the Hatch Waxman uh case world, I would say I was doing the generic side primarily. That was uh yeah, that was early on that was my focus. I don't believe I've done any brand work side.

Steve Brachmann 8:29

Okay.

Drew McElligott 8:29

And then I don't believe I've done any brand side work.

Steve Brachmann 8:32

Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you're representing generic manufacturers, what are the kind of important considerations before you head into the Hatch Waxman framework? Because from my perspective, uh writing about it as a journalist, you make this paragraph for certification and it starts uh the whole uh trial process. It's you know, you have this whole timeline uh uh elongated to make sure that all the market considerations are taken care of, uh public interest factors. But I guess how do you prepare as a generic drug maker to go into a process where you know you're gonna be uh kicking a bee's nest in a sense?

Drew McElligott 9:12

Sure. That's a good question for an in-house uh attorney at one of these uh at one of these companies. But I can certainly share uh what I've gleaned as uh as their outside counsel and what I believe the considerations are that we've discussed. Um, you know, there could be unique ones that I'm not privy to, but I would say some of the biggest considerations are how is that drug selling on the brand side? You know, is the risk here going to be worth the reward at the end? You have to contemplate what other movers in the market might be going for that same generic drug that you're thinking about, uh, because there's a big difference sometimes, uh oftentimes, between being the first to file or being the second to file and the benefits, then again, kind of back to the risk and reward, the benefits you can glean from the uh from kicking the bee's nest, as it were. Um, but it's part of the business model. You understand that in order to have a product out there on the market that's gonna get a significant market share and and boost your business, you do have to kick the bee's nest, as it were, and yeah, and wait to see what settles down afterwards.

Steve Brachmann 10:17

Well, the law is there that tells you to kick the bee's nest.

Drew McElligott 10:20

The law is set up to allow you to safely kick the bees' nest in certain ways. Understanding that the bees might still be angry.

Steve Brachmann 10:27

Absolutely. So now that we've left the bees' nest alone and we were thinking a bit more about prosecution, uh, and you want to think about those days a little bit. Can you think about any of the areas where you were involved in prosecution where you saw technology advance uh faster than maybe you expected, or just in a way that you were very impressed by?

Drew McElligott 10:58

Early on when I was doing uh when I was assisting with prosecution work, it was oftentimes uh technology that I was not leading the charge on. Um so it was a situation where I was viewing things uh intermittently. I wasn't uh really tied into it quite so much to see that. I would say though that you know, something that I was pretty tied into would be Apple's patent filings. I just followed them like a fanboy. Every time something came out article-wise, I would check and see what uh what Apple was doing, the directions they were going in. And that was that was definitely like looking into the future. That was amazing. Just wait a minute, that's something that might be coming within the next 20 years. That's astounding.

Steve Brachmann 11:44

Any particular inventions that really felt made you feel that way?

Drew McElligott 11:48

I remember where there was one uh that I recall where it was a keyboard, I think that rose out of an iPad screen or something along those lines. So it was like a flush screen until it was time to type, and then there was actually some element that rose through the surface to give you a tactile feedback type keyboard. And I recall thinking to myself, this is impossible. How could they how could they do this? But yet, here's basically here's the patent, here's the instruction manual of how this would work.

Steve Brachmann 12:22

I felt very similar about folding smartphones. I was like, the glass is gonna break. Yeah.

Drew McElligott 12:28

Well, and sure enough, it did early on. And it was a situation where and I saw a few in the wild where where that was the case. You'd have some some breakage or you'd have lines in the screen, uh, but you know, not unlike uh many other types of technology. The it's maybe a little bit on the beta side when it initially comes out, but they fine-tune it, and I believe they're working much, much better now. And I see a lot more of them walking around that don't seem to have any issues at all.

Where AI Shows Up In Litigation

Steve Brachmann 12:54

Right. Now, if we can go forward even through your litigation days, uh artificial intelligence now is a technology, a sector of technology that is starting to get baked into uh every other industrial sector. So can you talk about today the patents that you're working on litigating, where you're seeing artificial intelligence um being incorporated into those uh technologies and inventions, and in what way, generally speaking?

Drew McElligott 13:27

So I've seen a couple of instances where the litigations involve the underlying hardware. So the hardware that facilitates AI or at least facilitates it at a speed that humanity would accept. Um, obviously, uh AI is only useful in the sense in so far as it saves us time and can do things uh much faster than we can. And if the tech's not there underlying it to support that speed, then people aren't gonna be keen to use it. Um, but I've also seen a lot of clients now that are uh let's say they already had a pre-existing product that was out on the market. They want to incorporate AI in some fashion into it. They want to have that sexy new label that they can put on the product to say AI enabled or in some fashion using AI. We're seeing a lot of startups now that are using that as basically their niche in the market. They're coming out and labeling themselves as the AI-powered version of X, for example, where oh, we're we're a surgical company, but we're completely AI-based. Like that's that's going to be our skew on this. Um, we're not incorporating AI into something else. We're building our whole platform AI up. Um and I think in all of those, uh, there is this desire to try and take what is the shiny new toy and put it at the forefront so that everyone can see that your company is forward thinking and they will be getting the the brightest and shiniest new toy in that sector because AI is incorporated into it.

Steve Brachmann 14:59

And they can show that to all their business partners and potential clients and draw business that way.

Drew McElligott 15:05

And that's that's I think on the branding side where you want to put it out there. You know, I I don't know how much of it is bolstered by the marketing department. You know, there could be one aspect of AI that's been incorporated in one small sector of the company, and then marketing's grabbed onto that and blown it out to say, oh, we're totally AI-based. Yeah. But there is there is this, I think, uh shift in the winds, as it were, where for the last probably longer than the last couple of decades, we've been in the data gathering business or data mining, you know, where there's just been more data collected of about all of us than ever before in all of humanity. There's data for you and and data about me on thousands of different uh server farms, probably right now. And what do you do with all that? You know, it's one thing to to collect it. It's it's been made easier and easier with technology to collect all of that data, but no one, no human can sit down and go through it. It's kind of a job that's been sitting there waiting for AI to show up, where AI can take all that data that technology was previously gathering and figure out what to do with it, go through it, uh, correlate it, and come up with Lord knows what. I mean, that's kind of one of the exciting things about what AI can do for us. It's, you know, a lot of people talk about uh the threat of AI taking their job. Well, I I see something like that as a job that no human was ever really going to do. This is something that that AI arguably is best suited for and a job that may never have gotten done without it.

Steve Brachmann 16:40

And that might be a great point to look into uh a discussion that we had had before. Uh AI and surgical systems and taking patient data to create really personalized, successful outcomes. If you can talk about what you've seen there.

Drew McElligott 16:58

Sure, sure. You know, for a long time in the surgical world, there has been this desire to minimize the amount of time you have a patient open on the table.

Steve Brachmann 17:09

Yeah.

Drew McElligott 17:10

Minimize the size of the incision, be as uh be less intrusive. And I think one of the things that AI, in conjunction with other technologies in the medical device world, allows you to do is to get a really good idea of what it is you're gonna see before a patient gets on the table. And what is the amount of uh wear and tear in particular areas, or what what is the particular uh break in the bone? Where is it? Uh, what is the surgery gonna look like before I get into uh to really do that surgery? I think uh we have a lot of companies right now that are uh working on mapping the body and pre-op mapping, where you can get a really good idea of not just generally what does this joint look like before I go in to do uh a replacement, you know, an implant surgery, but you can get an idea of what that specific patient's joint looks like in three dimensions, taking what you get from an MRI or from a T CT scan, putting that in connection with what you get from two to three other imaging uh images in order to correlate it into a full 3D map of the body and then plan exactly how you're going to get to the surgical site the most minimally invasive way possible, in the fastest way possible to achieve the greatest end. Now, it's also possible at this point to then let's say you're you're doing uh a joint replacement surgery, let's say it's it's a shoulder joint replacement surgery. You could not only get a really good idea of what that joint looks like, how much bone is left there, because obviously all of us have different wear and tear. You've used your shoulder different than I've used mine, uh, and we're all gonna be unique in that sense. Well, there's also an opportunity, you know. I guess we talk about people who already have or companies who already have their implants out there. Well, now they have a better idea of what those joints look like. They can offer that type of pre-op mapping software to surgeons so that they can get a better idea of what those surgical sites are gonna look like. Then you've got other companies that are gonna be making, and and some of these are gonna be uh other avenues and revenue streams from uh companies that already exist. But you've got some new companies that are stepping up right now that are gonna offer custom implants. It's gonna be, okay, well, you know, I I understand not only what your joint looks like, but I'm going to create an implant specifically for you, a bespoke implant, as it were, that's going to be better for your shoulder joint given the way you've specifically used it and worn it down than it would be for anybody else's.

Steve Brachmann 19:48

Yeah. And that sounds like the flip side of you know, the the the doom and gloom argument of wow, there's so much data out there on us. I wonder what they know. Uh, some of that information can be life-saving. So, or uh if if not life-saving, at least uh life improving in a big way.

Building Trust In Legal AI Tools

Drew McElligott 20:06

It's true that it's all trade-offs. You know, it's it's really not a question of of being able to label something, is it good or is it bad? You know, there's gonna be certainly there are gonna be things that are maybe more bad than good, and there'll be things that are more good than bad. Right. But there's always gonna be a silver lining to it. And and having a lot of data out there doesn't mean that you, oh, that's terrible. I can't believe how much of my data is out in the world. Uh, some of it is being put to good use, some of it is benefiting me in the long run.

Steve Brachmann 20:35

Right. Right. And it's it's not anything to do with the particular AI, it's how we use it as the humans involved. And I think that's a big part of the conversations around AI regulation, is that you know, there are higher risk applications uh where those those are just considerations that we're starting to look at more now.

Drew McElligott 20:54

Uh AI is a is a tool, it's a great tool. And it it may it's our it's our next greatest tool, most likely. And just like any tool, it can be put to good uses and it can be put to bad uses. Every tool humanity's ever invented has had that same problem. You have to be a responsible user.

Steve Brachmann 21:12

Can we talk real quick about where you've seen AI in consumer products and how companies there are applying AI to achieve uh goals?

Drew McElligott 21:23

I have seen AI implemented in a variety of consumer products. Um, a lot of it is not necessarily consumer facing, uh, where they can see how the AI is functioning or they have access to it. Some of it is more on the uh more incorporated within the product. So you don't realize that AI is at work, um, but it is gathering data, churning out results, um, giving you notifications on your phone that in a way that's more accurate, in a way that's more specific to your particular product. And what's happening? With that product in your home, for example, in ways that have never been achievable before. I think uh I can't get into specific products uh because I don't have any right now that are uh being broadcast as AI-based within the home. Um, but there are quite a few where, and and that might be pretty common right now. You know, there we are still at the beginning of whatever AI is going to do, uh, what however we're going to incorporate it, it we are still at that the uh I don't even know if the wave has crested yet. You know, we're still gathering steam here and and pushing into the future with this to the point where AI has a lot of positive stigma and a lot of negative stigma. And so it is a situation where you'll have a part of your customer base that gets excited when they see AI enabled or AI empowered as part of your product. And there'll be another side of the customer base. Uh I believe it's a it's a shrinking side, but uh there'll still be a side of the customer base that's a little bit wary of that, unsure of exactly what that means, um, what what kind of uh information is the AI using, what is the AI doing with it? Um, and they they're I think uh maybe sometimes a little too wary of that to even dig into the details to better understand exactly how AI has been incorporated.

Steve Brachmann 23:27

Right. It's important for AI companies to work with uh their potential clients to become these trusted partners. That's been one of DeepIP's uh foundational objectives in developing their own patent agent. Uh and I wonder if we can segue a little into uh AI tech in legal practice and discussing some of the implementation over at Crowell that you've seen? And how and how uh we may have addressed uh with the particular vendors that you've worked with. We could speak generally, uh, but how has trust been uh able to be encouraged between attorneys who haven't used AI before and um implementers who know that yeah, it is a safe option and and we do have secure protocols here in place.

Drew McElligott 24:16

Sure. I kind of bouncing off of what we were just talking about. I think sometimes like when a new product drops, you're gonna have those those first wave people, those early adopters who are gonna rush out and grab it because they want to have uh they want to be first in line, yeah, as it were. And then you have those people that are kind of following on that think, is this is this really a beta? And you're selling it to me, and this is gonna be trial and error, you're using me as a test case just to iron out all the bugs.

Steve Brachmann 24:46

Yeah, I don't want to be the gerbil.

Where AI Helps Lawyers Today

Drew McElligott 24:47

So exactly. And those are the people who say, I'm just gonna wait for the second generation to come out. Uh after they've ironed all these things out, I'll get the the one that actually works. And I think that kind of factors into building the trust is convincing the customer base, you're not the test case. You know, we've we've worked out the bugs, or at least uh as many of the bugs as possible, uh, and we're giving you the best product we possibly can. Um, and if there is a problem, we're gonna work with you to resolve it. Uh, and I think that's how you you really build up that trust. Now, this is such a big move to incorporate AI into a thousand-year-old practice of law. At least it's never seen, you know, a lot of people make the comparison to email, but I would say no, we've never seen anything like this uh in this particular uh area. So I think it is kind of a full-time job, and that's the way our firms approached it, that we have people whose job it is, and you know, a whole department of people whose jobs uh are all figuring out what are the best AI products out there. Because this isn't a situation where, and this is maybe where it is like email, the the genie's not putting, not gonna be put back in the bottle. Right. This is something that is gonna be part of our practice going forward. We are all of us, I think at this point, figuring out what that looks like and how it's gonna be incorporated. And we have a team in our firm that is working every day to figure out what are the best products that are out there, how do they work? What happens with the data that goes in? And what is the process by which this particular program spits data back out? And and how much of that can we understand so that we can vet it and make sure that we know is it safe for potentially confidential data? Is it a closed universe where we don't have to worry about uh this being exported somewhere or teaching a model? Or is this gonna be something that's uh that's maybe for non-confidential work, but great for non-confidential work, you know, and can really shorten up uh some client alert work or something that's just uh article-based, that's more maybe on the business development side. There is gonna be probably a a use case for the majority of programs that we find out there. And it's a question of just trying to figure out well, what's the best package for us? And what will our attorneys use these things for the most? And where will we get the most bang for our buck? Which is, you know, I mean, that's that's been the question of any product ever. And now we're just it's a little bit of a harder analysis when you're dealing with something so new uh with so many unique questions about it, like AI.

Steve Brachmann 27:28

What are some of the practical ways that the team over at Crowell, who's involved with AI implementation, uh, what are some of the ways that they engage with Crowell attorneys on um showing them, you know, how these can be adopted safely and securely into their practice?

Drew McElligott 27:45

Sure. Um, there are a lot of different trainings that we do. So when a new uh program comes within the the firm's universe, it's almost like a white paper. It's like, okay, this one's now okay to use. Uh we're going to do a rollout where we have um trainings, and they are required trainings. You know, it is a situation where uh the firm understands this is a powerful program and there are rules around its use. So we're going to have mandatory trainings for attorneys before we just give them access to it. And that's the way we've set it up for a number of different programs at this point. Uh, I am having my uh training for my next program tomorrow, uh, for example. So I'll be looking at that shiny new toy and working to implement that.

Steve Brachmann 28:27

Is there anything, and speak as generally as possible if you need to, uh, is there anything that Crowell's currently looking at um as far as a possible solution, whether it's in-house, out-of-house, uh, or a vendor, I should say, um uh to adopt in a particular area of the firm?

Drew McElligott 28:48

I think we're slowly looking at bringing more and more use cases within the realm of our AI programs, uh broadening their use within the firm. I I don't know how much I can get into the details of it, but speaking broadly, we had an in-house program that we were using for the last two years or so. And I spoke with our innovation team who's kind of leading the charge and incorporating AI programs, and I asked them to describe that particular program in terms of attorney level. If you were to describe that program as an attorney, what level would they be at? And I was told, well, that's that program is like a really good summer associate. They're gonna they're gonna get an offer. That's but they they have not really quite uh begun the practice of law just yet. And then I as I just mentioned, we're looking at uh a new program right now that's gonna be uh incorporated very soon. I'm gonna get my training on it tomorrow. I asked them to describe that program to me. Where's that program at? And they said, well, that program is actually like a really good fourth year associate. And that's that's the jump that we just made, pretty much. I was using the summer associate AI program, and now I'm about to go to the fourth year associate program. I'm getting my training on it tomorrow, so I can't really speak personally to what the difference is or or how much I can do with this fourth year associate AI program relative to the summer, but it's a pretty big jump.

Steve Brachmann 30:17

So you may have said it, but let's uh really focus on it. What what was the time between you using the the summer associate program, uh, between now you have a fourth year associate quote unquote program? What was the time between you using the first and now this other one is available?

Drew McElligott 30:33

Two years. That was two years. And I can't say for sure that there weren't uh stepping stones that we could have taken between then.

Steve Brachmann 30:39

Right.

Drew McElligott 30:39

Or how much earlier we could have adopted this later program, but because there is a relatively robust uh vetting program. So we want to make sure we're comfortable with something before we bring it on board.

Steve Brachmann 30:49

Yeah, and I don't want to I'd be remiss to say that summer associates can't handle any um, you know, especially uh tech-based research. I remember we had discussed a story from when you were earlier on in your career and you had a summer associateship where you uh gained a bit of a nickname because of your research skills.

Drew McElligott 31:08

That is true, yes. So when I was doing my summer program at Brinks Gilson and Lione, uh, an IP boutique in Chicago, we had a group of 10 of us, and we were all in what we called library circle, which was just this circle of 10 desks in the library. Um, and we could see each other's almost like a cubicle setup, and we could ask questions of one another, we could uh discuss issues we were dealing with, and slowly throughout the summer, uh it became clear that when people were starting research projects, they were stopping by my desk first, uh first to ask me uh general questions of, well, where should I go for this? Uh, where would you start? How would uh how should I find cases related to X, or how should I find uh legal principles related to Y? And I started providing answers as best I could and pretty much giving everybody these golden nuggets to follow of uh, all right, you know, I would start here, or here's an article, or here's a treatise I just found, uh, go look at this. Um, this seems like a good collection of cases that was just mentioned in this article over here. I'll send that to you. And I was just doing Google searches. Uh, and they realized that that was ultimately what I was doing. And over the course of the summer, I just slowly became uh known as Drew-gle. Uh that was my nickname by the end of it, because uh everybody would just start their searching with me and I would just turn to the internet to get a good idea of all right, well, here's an excellent place to start looking. Uh so I've always been looking to really incorporate technology as much as possible into my practice, understanding the benefits of it and trying to make myself as efficient as possible for my clients.

Steve Brachmann 32:43

With what you've seen of artificial intelligence now, uh, can you give a sense of what you feel as a lawyer are kind of the pros and cons of the current state of AI and legal practice? Uh, what's really great about it and where it needs to advance?

Future Of Practice And IP’s Long Arc

Drew McElligott 33:02

Sure. I don't know where I would say it needs to advance. I'll start with what's really great about it. Great. Um I don't want to steer the ship as it were. Uh where should go in the future. The areas in which I think it's really good right now are uh outlining, uh issue spotting. Um there are some issues in terms of consistency sometimes, where uh you will, for example, ask it to summarize a document and identify the issues that were raised in the document. If it, let's say it's a complaint, identify the issues that were raised in the complaint. If you ask it to do that twice, you'll get two different answers. And sometimes you'll get one that actually is a little bit more robust than the other, will identify more issues. And so if you didn't do it twice and you just did it the first time, there'd potentially be some issues you were missing. Um so I think there is some uh some detail work that could still be ironed out there. Um, but I still think that it is a tremendous time saver. Uh, even if you have to, let's say, summarize a document and then go back into the complaint and peruse it to make sure vet basically the answer, make sure that it's right. Um I think where you have a tremendous amount of time saving. You know, you're you're no longer going to be trapped staring at a word doc with a blinking cursor wondering where to start, because you can ask AI to create an outline for you uh with specific issues. You can ask AI to come up with alternative four alternative opening paragraphs. And then even let's say you're not happy with any of those four. Well, one of them is gonna be pretty darn close. And you could ask for variants of that paragraph, or you could just use that as a starting point. So I think writer's block is pretty much dead with AI, and you have the opportunity now to jump into projects and get to uh first drafts much easier, much quicker than you ever were before. And kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier, we have some similar data issues in the legal world. You know, we do discovery in cases where you've got hundreds of thousands of documents. And in the past, we've always had associates, attorneys going through and checking those documents. You know, for really, really big cases where you've got hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, clients will finance that and ask you to get eyes on all of those uh documents to make sure you understand the full universe. But when you're dealing with a smaller case, it doesn't often make financial sense for you to go through or pay someone to go through every single one of those documents and get eyes on them. And I think AI has been a really big help there in terms of funneling those documents, categorizing them, making sure that you're getting eyes on what we call the hottest docs before you go into depositions, before you go into summary judgment.

Steve Brachmann 35:49

Any way to quantify um the time savings or any productivity gains that you get uh from uh using AI to cure writer's block?

Drew McElligott 36:00

I guess that kind of almost depends on how bad your writer's block is. I don't think I've ever sat there for too long uh staring at a white page, but it is, I think, a situation where you know it's tough to quantify because sometimes you'll take a path because you want to start writing something and then you think better of it. And you're like, no, that's not quite working. I'm gonna try something different. Uh I think something else would work better here. And I think AI kind of cuts to the chase with that, where you get some samples thrown at you of, well, you could try it this way, this way, or this way. And you get to be kind of the second drafter to a degree. You become a little bit maybe more of an editor than the first drafter, and you get to have that particular filter that you're reading it through. And you think, oh, you know what? Looking at all four of these and how they would be drafted, I think option C is going to work best. Let's let's go with that.

Steve Brachmann 36:52

Yeah. It's easier to second guess uh an AI output and have a back and forth that way than it is to second guess yourself, right? And you're sitting there trying to figure out what's the pathway that I have to start on. And sometimes you're seeing you can't see the forest for the trees. And I think that's a big part of what what AI and especially the new wave of agentic AI is really starting to address.

Drew McElligott 37:16

Sure, sure. And I think that that's probably where things are gonna progress, at least in the immediate future, where you're just gonna get more and more robust outlines, uh, more written by the AI potentially that uh you're not talking just about an introductory paragraph, but you might even I I would say maybe five years from now, maybe significantly shorter, you're looking at a full first draft that AI has generated, and then you really are doing just the editing and making sure that that this is correct and it didn't veer off in some way or hallucinate. Um, and that could result in obviously significant cost savings for clients and significant time savings on our end where we're able to manage more cases too.

Steve Brachmann 38:00

Yeah. No, the uh you had said it earlier. The uh I don't know if you'd use the word advent, but it was this idea that we're still in the phase of like seeing where AI is coming in, what it's gonna be able to do to the industry moving forward, and still trying to figure out and it's really exciting times there.

Drew McElligott 38:18

It is, and it we're really limited only by our own imaginations at this point in terms of what we want to use it for and what it will become used for generically by the industry or generally by the industry. Um, you know, I think it's uh it's a really interesting time to be working in the legal field, uh, to be part of this. Um, and I understand there are some people who are, you know, cautionary and uh or or wary of it uh because you you don't know where it's gonna end. You don't know exactly what the end product is gonna look like. Uh, but you know, that's uh maybe an interesting or unique aspect of IP law. I don't know that about most of the products I work on. I don't know that about most of the patents I work on. You know, they're all they're all stepping stones towards something in the future, and most of them will probably be uh still progressing long after I've retired and uh passed on.

Steve Brachmann 39:09

Right. Yeah, we're just uh cogs of the machine a little bit.

Drew McElligott 39:12

So we'll just be waiting for the period where they uh scan my likeness and my brain into the system, and then uh AI is the uh engine by which I continue to practice law into the next thousand years.

Steve Brachmann 39:23

And we can be having this conversation forever because I'm sure they'll get my voice too. Um great. On that very uplifting note, um I love to, we're getting to the end of our time here today. I love to uh take a few moments at the end here to get a sense of like the person behind the law career. Where do you get your personal zen? We all have uh lives outside of the courtroom, and uh what brings you joy in yours?

Drew McElligott 39:53

Sure. I've got uh two young children that are the fountains of joy uh at home, and uh my lovely wife as well. Um I probably should have mentioned her first. I'm sure I'll hear about that.

Steve Brachmann 40:05

Uh it's in the same, yeah, it's in the same sentence.

Drew McElligott 40:08

It was in the same sentence, honey. Um, but that that is certainly a great source of zen for me. Uh our family uh is definitely a a respite that I uh I get my little decompression ride home on the train, uh, and I get to uh reboot with them. And then my wife and I are are avid theater goers, so we'll head out to see uh uh sometimes musical, sometimes a straight play, sometimes uh Second City in Chicago, uh catch a show there. Uh we just went and saw Phantom of the Opera not too long ago, uh, and we saw Billy Corgan over at the Lyric Opera doing uh uh doing one of his albums. Um and and so oftentimes uh it'll just be uh jaunt over to the movie theater too. Uh you know, just to be able to sit down uh in a quiet dark room and allow uh somebody else to tell a story uh while I uh take a break.

Steve Brachmann 41:03

Are those are those more uh date night movies with the wife, or are those family movies where we're uh you know finding something for the kids too, or is it a mix?

Drew McElligott 41:11

It is a mix. So uh, you know, we've got uh an interesting, healthy mix of Hamnet and uh Zootopia 2 all happening in close proximity to one another.

Steve Brachmann 41:21

That's quite the double feature.

Drew McElligott 41:23

It is, it is. And you know, after seeing Hamnet, I was kind of hoping my kids would be right next door in Zootopia 2, so I could just run and give them a hug. That is a good movie, but it is a tough watch.

Steve Brachmann 41:33

A lot of good movies are. Well, Drew, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. I really appreciate it and be well.

Drew McElligott 41:41

Thank you, Steve, and uh look forward to talking to you later, hopefully. It's been uh been good getting to know you.

Steve Brachmann 41:47

Absolutely. Same here. Well, for IP innovators, I'm Steve Brachmann. Happy patenting.