Pardon the Interruption: 2023 Edition

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1:

Web 2.0 innovation collaboration software, metadata got the world turning as fast as it can hear how technology can help legally speaking with two of the top legal technology experts, authors and lawyers, Dennis, Kennedy, and Tom Mighell. Welcome to the Kennedy Mighell report here on the Legal Talk Network

Dennis Kennedy:

And welcome to episode 355 of the Kennedy Mighell Report. I’m Dennis Kennedy in Ann Arbor.

Tom Mighell:

And I’m Tom Mighell in Dallas.

Dennis Kennedy:

Will another year is in the books. And we’ve reached episode 355 of this podcast on legal technology with the internet focus, and we’re about to start year 18 of the podcast. In our last episode, we talked with Catherine Bamford of BAM Legal, as part of our Fresh Voices on legal tech series. We highly recommend the episode if you haven’t already listened to it. And in fact, we recommend a whole series of fresh voices, which has been one of the most enjoyable things we’ve done this year in this episode. It’s time for our annual end of the year tradition. Tom, what’s all on our agenda for this episode?

Tom Mighell:

Well Dennis in this edition of the Kennedy Mighell report, we will indeed be wrapping up 2023 in our traditional style. Longtime listeners will know that ESPN’s, pardon the interruption, A-K-A-P-T-I with Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon was one of the inspirations for this podcast. Our tradition is to use some elements of PTI for the format of this recap episode with our own unique twists and special touches, and we’ve got a special guest, our favorite fan of the show, Debbie Foster. Debbie, thank you for joining us on this podcast episode.

Debbie Foster:

Thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, for those of you unfamiliar with the PTI format, we’re going to have three segments. In this case, it’s going to be toss up in which we purposely take opposite sides of a legal tech topic. Dunno how we’re going to do that with three people. It’ll be interesting. The next segment will be, what’s the word in which we fill in the blank on a statement about a legal tech topic with a well chosen word or maybe sometimes words. And our own new segment, we’re calling it hot or not, in which we categorize a legal tech topic as hot, not, or something in between. And then we’re going to end with our fast response, big finish, PTI style. So to give you Debbie and Dennis a sneak preview of the results. As happens every year, I win every segment. Oh,

Dennis Kennedy:

Come on.

Debbie Foster:

Never going to end, Dennis

Dennis Kennedy:

Never,

Debbie Foster:

Never going to end. Well, it’s

Tom Mighell:

Never is. So you just need to just accept it. Alright, so let’s get started. We’re going to get started by, for those of you who haven’t seen Debbie on our year end podcast, let’s have Debbie introduce yourself. Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

My name is Debbie Foster. I’m the CEO of Affinity Consulting Group, and I have been a legal technology and business consultant for 25 years and I’m a self-proclaimed super fan of the Mighell Report.

Tom Mighell:

Well, Debbie, thank you very much and good luck to you in the game. Thank you in advance for helping me to celebrate what will clearly be my big win and victory at the end. Our first segment is called Toss Up. In Toss Up. We are all required to take a different side on each topic. We argue our positions and at the end I declare myself the winner of the segment. Dennis. Are those rules clear? You don’t get to agree with me.

Dennis Kennedy:

No, I actually do. I want to agree with you. I disagree about the rules and the results. In fact, I disagree with the whole system, but here’s our first three sided toss up question. What was the biggest lesson we learned about legal tech in 2023? Tom?

Tom Mighell:

So I’m going to take an interesting position and I’m going to say that unlike the past in some areas, legal tech seems to have pivoted faster than I am used to seeing. And I will say that is purely in the area of artificial intelligence. Document assembly, been around for how many years? 40 years, 50 years. And still most lawyers still don’t even know how to use it, but just mention the word artificial intelligence and bam, we’ve set up whole departments, we’ve set up tools, we’re doing all sorts of things. We are gun hoe on artificial intelligence. And so I don’t know if it’s just the new shiny, shiny, but to me I feel like that’s my biggest lesson is, is that give a technology enough power, enough pizazz enough, I guess potential revenue, the law firms will actually pay attention to legal technology. Maybe if we could just get document automation, that sexy factor, it’s been missing. We could get lawyers to be doing that too. Debbie?

Debbie Foster:

Well, my take is similar to yours, but I think that what I’ve learned is over all of these years of working with software companies on features and functionality and them telling me how long everything takes, the lesson that I’ve learned is that products can be developed in five minutes or less, as evidenced by every few minutes. There’s a brand new AI product out on the market. Yet still, I can’t get some of those hotly requested features in some of the software that’s been around a long time. A little frustrating

Tom Mighell:

And Dennis.

Dennis Kennedy:

So my big lesson is that, well, first of all, I never imagined how many AI experts in law there were because there’s a lot, there are literally millions of them it seems like. I think the biggest lesson that I learned or maybe relearned is that in the legal world we don’t like to do the hard work. And so AI is great. It takes our attention away from the hard stuff like cybersecurity, collaboration, learning the lessons from March, 2020 and beyond. So I think that it’s partly that we’re not learning from the other adjacent professions. As Debbie says, we see all kinds of development happen really quickly out in the rest of the world and things take longer here. And also think that once again, even with ai, the legal world is still not asking customers what it is that they want or need.

Tom Mighell:

I have the next question. The most interesting legal tech developments are happening in the collaboration technology space, right? Debbie, you first,

Debbie Foster:

I’m going to start with an emphatic maybe, but I really wish it was true more broadly. I was just in a firm last week where someone was telling me that they print out their documents, they edit them, and then they scan them back in and email them back around. And I literally said, edit with a pen? Yes, edit with a pen. I wish it was happening more broadly, but the reality is people are still struggling with some of the basic features and functionality of Microsoft 365 of working in word collaboratively. And even now when we do training and we show people that people’s mouths drop open still at the end of 2023, people are shocked by what is available. So maybe in some places it’s happening, but we still are seeing so much old school collaboration that is incredibly frustrating not just to lawyers but to their clients.

Dennis Kennedy:

I still think that this is the place, I mean we have to work together more and more and clients want to work with you. They want to be on a bunch of different platforms using old technology and all these other issues. They want all their suppliers to work together and that includes lawyers. So I think the lessons that I like to emphasize in this space is one that it’s incredibly important and this is what your clients will appreciate and the other people will work with you. I always say make it easy for people to work with you. I call this a collaboration golden rule. You want to have people you collaborate with you in the ways that you would like to collaborate with them. And if you take that as your guide, I think this is going to be the most fascinating place you can possibly put your energies and money into next year.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, so if the question had been the most basic legal tech developments are happening in the collaboration technology space, I probably agree with that because yeah, it’s pretty basic. I mean, as Debbie described, collaborating, Vieth, printing out and marking things up, I thought I was going to have a pretty good story talking with a bunch of lawyers who are saying, oh yeah, no, we prefer not to use Teams or Slack. We just we’re just old school emailers and we just email back and forth. And that’s just really the way to collaborate. I hate to say it, but we happen to think it’s interesting. Go ahead and make sure you buy the work from Home edition of large guided collaboration tools and technologies, but I’m hard pressed to find that it’s that interesting. And Dennis, you even have changed the tagline on your ex posts to say that it’s the second most interesting legal tech development in legal tech. So even you don’t completely believe it. I’m sad to say that I think it’s probably the most important legal tech developments. I think it’s the most impactful but interesting not to so many lawyers. All right, next toss up Debbie, you

Debbie Foster:

AI has really, really arrived. No question about it. Dennis.

Dennis Kennedy:

I think my answer is possibly, I mean, but probably not in ways that people are expecting or thinking at the moment. The reason I’m really hesitant is there’s a lot of cool things happening in certain pockets, but I find that most lawyers are still using GPT-3 0.5, they’re not willing to pay the $20 a month. They’re using really rudimentary approaches. There are firms that are prohibiting people from using ai. The law schools still haven’t decided whether they’re going to let students use ai and the law firms are hoping that new students coming in are going to be the ones who teach them how to use ai, the whole legal research area. So much money going in, I don’t know how if at all, that’s going to turn out or work well. So I think it’s sort of creeping in and it’s captured so much attention, but I’m not exactly sure in the ways that people expect. And I’m kind of thinking that 2024 could be a year of disappointment in ai. There I said it.

Tom Mighell:

Alright then I will turn around and be the voice of hope and optimism for artificial intelligence and say that I will say that I believe that artificial intelligence has really, really arrived in one respect and that is the chat. GPT has made AI accessible to the average person. The average non-techie. The person who doesn’t really understand the basics about artificial intelligence is that now you can actually have a conversation with an artificial intelligence and have it give you useful information. I will use the most simple example that I wound up using for the past two weeks I’ve been doing. I am going to freak you out briefly and say I was doing legal research, but that’s not exactly right. I was researching legal citations around record keeping requirements and I was doing it in the chemicals area for a particular type of company. And I have no idea if this company uses beryllium or whether they use butane tine or whatever the name of the chemical was.

And I used chat GPT-4 to say, is this chemical used typically in the high tech industry? Which if I asked Google that question, I would get terrible, terrible results. And instead Chachi PT gave me accessible. I am believing accurate results from the fact checking that I did on it and it made it easy for me to have a conversation with it. I could ask it a follow-up question. And to me it made that work actually enjoyable. I enjoyed doing that work. I think that making it easier to work with AI is what’s going to help it to arrive for the general public.

Dennis Kennedy:

Were you using the paid version? No, Tom,

Tom Mighell:

I was, yes. I was using chat GT four, the most recent one.

Debbie Foster:

So for me, I was thinking about my answer to this question, and I don’t know if this is exactly the right analogy, but I’m thinking about ai, it’s like an active tornado. It’s hard for us to really assess what the practical results are going to be until it passes. And I’m also wondering what are the tools that are going to be widely adopted? How are the thought leaders or the average people or the authorities, theBar associations, how are they going to muck it up for people? Just reading some opinions last week from I think California and Florida have opinions now about how you can bill when you use ai. And I think it’s just going to add to the confusion that already exists. Everybody still talks about that New York case where someone cited chat, GPT, and I think there’s still a lot to come. We’re going to learn a lot more as the tornado continues to blow past us and the dust settles a little bit on what’s really going to be practical for people to use and quite frankly, what lawyers aren’t going to be afraid to use.

Dennis Kennedy:

Yeah, I mean I think those California guidelines, practical guidelines they call ’em are super vague and they’re going to deter people. I think that the regulators are throwing a wet blanket on the most innovative AI approaches. That’s why I was a little bit more pessimistic than you sometimes hear me in the other answer. But let’s go to the last toss up. If you were to sum up your thoughts on 2023 in legal tech, where and how would you do that? A substack newsletter, YouTube video, Instagram, LinkedIn, GPT, prompt, TikTok, discord server, NFT podcast, something else. And I might’ve left off something to set you up, Tom.

Tom Mighell:

Well you left off blog, which sort of surprised me. I think you threw in NFT to trigger me. I think that was to trigger me because oh my gosh, does anybody do NFTs anymore? I mean what are those things? They were so 2023 or the beginning of 2023 that I don’t think anybody knows about ’em. But I think, and not to steal your thunder, I mean I think it’s hard to choose between one of these because our method Dennis, you and I method has always been very similar, which is to have a home base and to publish out and radiate outwards, those types of things to bring people back to the home base. I will admit I have been lacking on the communication side. What I’d noticed is not on here is a micro blogging site such as X or Blue sky or threads. And maybe that’s intentional because it’s hard to know what to put in there, but I’ve been very absent from it. I would say that if I had the time and the energy to do it, I would fire up my Substack newsletter one because those are very popular. I would learn better how to make videos, but watching some TikTok videos and I just don’t understand how easy it is for some people to put things together that look so popular. Those would be my two, probably my favorite ways of doing it, but I’m not going to rule any of ’em out. Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

I will rule them all out and say LinkedIn because pretty much that’s the only place I go anymore. I’ve just wound it down to LinkedIn and Instagram personally. But if I’m going to write my thoughts about 2023, I can’t go to all of those other places. It’s my brain. I’m out of room up here. LinkedIns it for me.

Tom Mighell:

LinkedIn’s a solid choice. It’s a solid choice.

Dennis Kennedy:

There’s a part of me that says, oh, just a little bit here, a little bit there, but I’m starting to focus and it’s LinkedIn, my blog, maybe a Mighty Networks community idea that I’m working on. Definitely this podcast, maybe even this podcast episode to be precise. But I think those are the things, or maybe even some sort of free ebook sort of thing. There’s a number of approaches, but I think LinkedIn is in my blog. Are we going to be the places I stay? It is just appalling to me what Elon did to Twitter and in essentially destroying its usefulness this year.

Tom Mighell:

And that is it for toss up. And as everyone expected and as I predicted, I easily won hardly.

Dennis Kennedy:

I don’t think your answers were terrible,

Tom Mighell:

Tom. Alright, before we move on to my next win, let’s take a quick break for a word from our sponsors

Dennis Kennedy:

And we are back. Tom, what will you be rigging the judging on next

Tom Mighell:

Dennis? The answer to that question is, what’s the word in this segment? We’re going to have a sentence about a legal tech topic with a blank in it. Each of us has to come up with a best word or words to fill in the blank. Dennis, what’s our first sentence?

Dennis Kennedy:

First sentence is the one thing that should be the top of every lawyer’s must learn list is blank.

Tom Mighell:

Well, I was thinking about using the one that Dennis is going to give, but since he got it into the script first I changed it. And so I’m going to say that on the top of every Lawyer’s Must Learn list should be prompt creation because it’s kind of at the top of my list. Being able to write a good prompt is really the key to getting good information out of chat GPT or other artificial intelligence tools. And when I talked earlier about just asking a simple question, which is beryllium used in chip manufacturing, that’s such a basic way to ask it. And I admit that when I see the way that some prompts have been engineered in order to craft the best possible response, I am terrified at how much creativity it takes to do that and how much thinking that I just don’t have time to do. And so that’s one of the things that’s at the top of my list. I think that to get the most out of these tools, we have to know instead of garbage in, garbage out, we want to make sure that we are improving the results of what we do and helping to improve the quality of the output that we get from these tools. Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

So I’m going in a little bit of a different direction here and I think that what should be at the top of every Lawyer’s Must Learn list is how to unlearn things.

I think that there are some obstacles in the average lawyer’s way of learning things and one of them is just the familiarity of how they’ve always operated. Whether that be collaboration or how they get their time in or how they converse and keep things up to date with their clients or the spreadsheet that they use to track their deadlines or whatever it is. And I think that lawyers would benefit from a conscious effort of learning how to unlearn and deciding what things they should unlearn, where should they start the things that maybe are harder than they need to be. And I think that there’s a lot of bang for your buck in unlearning Dennis, what about you

Tom Mighell:

Getting all philosophical on us and everything? Wow.

Dennis Kennedy:

So I have two quick comments. One, Debbie, I think we should just do a whole podcast on learning. I think that would be awesome. Second thing is I love the way both of you ignored the rules for this game and gave multiple word answers. So I am going to follow the rules in a desperate attempt to try to win this segment away from Tom and say cybersecurity, this is like blocking and tackling. Got to No, your

Debbie Foster:

Word is up, your is up. You said one word,

Dennis Kennedy:

You got to get this right. This is more important ever more security risks than ever. There’s cyber warfare going on, there’s ransomware like crazy. All this stuff is happening and the legal world just seems oblivious to it, like it somehow won’t touch them. Number one at the top of the list, Tom.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, our next sentence is the one technology tool all lawyers should be using more of is Debbie.

Debbie Foster:

So I almost went back to try to find our script from last year because I really wanted to resist the urge to say what I always say, which is can they please just learn how to use word and outlook? Everything would be better if they just learned how to use Word

Tom Mighell:

And Outlook. Say it again, say it again.

Debbie Foster:

Say it again. Use word, use outlook. But instead I’m going to say it doesn’t even matter what program it is. What you already have is so powerful whether you’re using a practice management tool or it could be even word and outlook. There are so many features that are available to you for free right in front of you. And there are so many resources to learn how to use those things. What they should be doing more of is paying attention to what they have and really figuring out how to leverage what they’ve already purchased.

Tom Mighell:

So your word is what you already have. That’s the word.

Debbie Foster:

Yes. That is my one word. What you already have

Dennis Kennedy:

Hyphenated. I’m also using a hyphenated word Debbie. Mine is online payments. There’s no reason for the legal world to be the last profession to use paper checks, but we’re headed that way. And online payments in terms of speed of getting paid and make it easy for clients to pay you, everything is positive. We learned so much since March of 2020. This is the one thing that should stick with us. And I still run into firms that don’t give you a way to pay online. It’s incredible to me.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, my word, my single word is collaboration tools and using less email. Alright, it’s easy to say collaboration tools. I’m going to be specific. I am a huge believer. We are, and my consultants, we use such little email in talking to ourselves and in working on projects that it is astounding to me how little we use email. I literally only use email with the administrative parts of the office who don’t want to collaborate. They just want to send email. But the consultants, we have a very tightly organized and well run by just using chat and other different areas primarily in Microsoft teams. But I’m not just going to say use Microsoft teams. I’m going to say use a tool that brings you away from email. Use something that gets you further away from email and into other areas where you can just stay away from that because there is not one tool in my opinion that makes it harder for you to get your real job done as a lawyer. As it is email, it may be your filing cabinet, it may be all your source of truth, but it is a terrible time suck for you and you should run away from it as fast as you can. Alright, Debbie, next question.

Debbie Foster:

Next question. The next sentence is the experience of a new law school graduate and law students starting work in law firms can best be described as Dennis

Dennis Kennedy:

Befuddling. And I’m just going to ask one simple question here. How many lawyers listening to this podcast are actually embarrassed by the technology their firms make them use today? I rest my case.

Tom Mighell:

Wow, that was short and sweet Dennis. I wasn’t even ready to start with mine yet. So my word is, I only have one word for this and that is typical and I’m going to say that it’s typical because of the experiences I have with corporate law departments. Now, corporate law departments benefit from the technology innovation of the company a whole oftentimes, but many of them, a lot of the ones that I work with still operate like very old fashioned law firms. And every single one of them is we really got to get a contract management system. And it’s like they’ve been talking about that as long as law firms have been talking about document automation. So I would say it doesn’t really matter where are new law graduates going to work. I think the experience is going to be the same wherever they happen to go these days. Unfortunately Debbie, so

Debbie Foster:

My word is chaotic. I think that lawyers and law firms generally have not figured out how to get onboarding right for the most part. And so a new lawyer shows up in a law firm, even if they’re showing up as a LawClerk in a law firm and they’re like, here’s your desk, here’s how you log in. They might get the drink from a fire hose 24 straight hours, eight at a time of training and then they’re left to their own devices. And I just don’t think that we’ve evolved with the different kinds of learning styles and the way that people thinking about how people absorb information. And I don’t think that information is as readily available to these people. You think about the old school intranets or a learning management system that really makes sense where people can find the answers that they’re looking for and then add to that how busy everyone is. And then add to that, these new lawyers are often expected to work in the office and the other lawyers aren’t in the office and the paralegals are only in the office two days a week. And I think it’s just really chaotic and it’s really hard to get integrated into the culture. And I think there’s some amazing work that could be done there for new lawyers starting out at a firm.

Tom Mighell:

That is a great word and a great answer, but we’re at the end of, what’s the word? And unfortunately for you and Dennis, I have racked up another Thom Tastic victory so much she

Debbie Foster:

Makes up words too.

Tom Mighell:

Words. And yet it’s accurate. All right,

Dennis Kennedy:

What’s the words

Tom Mighell:

Tom? No time for comments. We’re going to move on to our final segment, but before we do that, we need to take another quick break for a message from our sponsors. And now let’s get back to the Kennedy Mighell report. I’m Tom Mighell

Dennis Kennedy:

And I’m Dennis Kennedy, along with our special guest Debbie Foster. I’m not really sure about the judging on this show. Tom is acting like the referees at a Dallas Cowboys home game.

Tom Mighell:

Hey, all those plays came down the way that they needed to be judged. It is time for our new segment. Our new segment is called Hot or Not. I guess I’m going to fire the first topic. That first topic is generative ai, hot or not, Debbie.

Debbie Foster:

I’m going hot for some and mysterious for many others. Dennis,

Dennis Kennedy:

I think talking about it is solar flare hot, doing things much less hot. Finding lawyers willing to pay $20 a month to go up to the premium version that is markedly better, that’s even less hot. So it’s a mix, but man, people love to talk about it.

Tom Mighell:

Going to say, I also have sort of a split answer to which is I think I’m going to, I’m rely back on my earlier word of accessibility that because it’s accessible now to me that makes it hot, hot, hot. But I also think there’s an element to generative AI that’s a little bit like trying to feel heat from the Yue log on your tv. It’s fake and it’s not really exactly there. So it’s just kind of an illusion of heat that may or may not be there. So a little bit of both. Alright, what’s our next Hotter, not Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

Access to Justice Technologies. Dennis.

Dennis Kennedy:

It’s not as hot as I like, but it is heating up. And I think this is the single most interesting area for generative ai. And I’ve talked to judges, I’ve talked to people in the legal services area. I’ve been looking at it in rural access to justice. I think there’s some fantastic opportunities there and I think we’re just going to see more of it as the venture capital money gets disappointed with some of the money they’re putting into more software for lawyers who are unwilling to use the software that they have.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, I’m going to say that access to Justice Technologies is perennially warm. We have this same question every year during this podcast and the answer is never different. We always are saying Dennis, I think your answer is always the same. It’s not as hot as I like, but it’s heating up and it continues to heat, but it’s not getting where it needs to be. I really want it to be better. I’m hoping that generative AI is a little bit of the boost that it needs. I hope that’s happening, but I still just think it is simmering and I want it to be hotter than it is. Debbie.

Debbie Foster:

I feel exactly the same way and I think that AI is going to be a distraction from solving the access to justice problem before it is a solution to that. For me, I hear lots of people talking about it. I don’t see a lot of people doing a lot about it. I don’t want to be the glasshouse, throw the stone person. There’s work to be done across the industry, no doubt about it. But I am pessimistic about AI solving that problem anytime soon.

Dennis Kennedy:

And our last one, increasing law firm technology budgets other than for ai.

Tom Mighell:

Well, I would say that if AI is the bright side of the Moon, then increasing budgets is dark side of the Moon cold. Obviously I don’t work with law firms as often as Debbie does, so you can tell me if I’m wrong, but like I said before, I think that the shiny, shiny is getting the money these days and not so much standard, more effective technologies. Debbie, am I wrong about that?

Debbie Foster:

No, I think you’re right about it. I think that we are definitely seeing people talking about spending more money and you have to spend more and you have to do more and you have to learn more. And I think there are more people who recognize, especially with AI on the scene, that standing still just gets you further behind. They’ve got to make some decisions, you have to spend some money. There’s no way to get there for free. It can’t be done Dennis,

Dennis Kennedy:

I’m going to call it glacier reversing cold. I just don’t see the money being put into things. I mean, I think there’s more likelihood of layoffs you’ve added. You’ve seen associate salary increases, you’ve seen all this other stuff going on. And economy in a world situation is so difficult to predict. I think it’s going to be easy for people to cut tech budgets and stay pat another year.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, I think we’re done with that segment. And this just in, I won again and that’s hot. Alright, we’re moving on. We’re moving on to the big finish where there are no winners. We’re all winners. In this next segment, we’re going to do some six questions in 60 seconds. Debbie, here’s number one for you, Debbie, your best tech decision of 2023.

Debbie Foster:

I love my new podcasting equipment, my microphone, my little focus right box. I love my new podcasting equipment. Yay, Dennis. This one’s for you. Your favorite new tech tool.

Dennis Kennedy:

It’s the paid version of chat GPT. Look at the numbers on what version of Chad. GPT-3 0.5 got a score of about 10% on theBar and what version GPT for passed theBar $20 a month. I just cannot believe the number of lawyers who are willing to talk about AI but not willing to put out $20 a month, Tom Best new Google or Microsoft product or service.

Tom Mighell:

So I’m cheating a little bit and I want to actually preview a product and I am not going to talk about Microsoft’s copilot, although I’m really looking forward to using it. I think it’s going to change the way we use Microsoft 365. But instead I’m going to focus on changes coming to Microsoft Planner. They are finally doing what I think is the right thing and they’re combining all of the five bazillion tasks and to-do apps that they have into planner. And they’re also combining Microsoft Project into Planner as well. And I’m very intrigued about how all of that works because I’ve been looking for something better in Microsoft to deal with it. I hope that that works. So Microsoft planner out sometime, I hope in Q1 of 2024. Alright, Debbie, what tech do you most want your law firm clients to explore in 2024?

Debbie Foster:

So sorry, this is the more things change, the more they stay the same. I want our clients to start depending on technology as their first choice for how to get work done. And I don’t think that happens enough. I think that is a tendency to depend on people. There is a tendency to depend on the old ways, and I want our clients to be thinking tech tools first. How can I solve this problem with technology instead of just with a process or with a way that I’ve always done something? Dennis Dennis, the best new tech that you saw in 2023 that people will be talking about in 2023 and 2024.

Dennis Kennedy:

I think it’s generative ai, but in super targeted use cases. And so I have some examples. I wrote a white paper on what I call the guided advisory layer approach in using generative ai. That’s one example. I love what the American arbitration Association is doing with their AI lab in very targeted use cases. I love what clear brief is doing very targeted use case of ai and I love what Net Documents is doing. It’s super targeted use cases in AI with summarization and other things like that. And then Debbie, when you were talking about the training issue, which my students talk about all the time, is if you just had a basic generative AI approach for training that people could get the answers to the questions about common technology issues and simplified training, it’d be amazing. Tom, last one. Your best tip overall for this year?

Tom Mighell:

So you mean other than buy the Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies Work from Home Edition and listen to all the additions of our podcast this year. My tip actually is a throwback to a tip I gave in an earlier podcast, which is take advantage of the read wise set of tools, whether you’re using the Read Wise Daily Reminders, or you are using the Read Wise reader, I love that tool. I’m using it as my Read It later app now. It has a artificial intelligence which will help summarize. You can ask questions of articles, it’ll help summarize things for you. It really is a great tool for keeping the knowledge that you have and you can share it with your second brain if you want to, or you can store it there. Just a great overall tool. And the reader is free. The other tool is 8 99 a month. Good price and a good tip.

Dennis Kennedy:

So that was 2023 a year that in some ways felt like a year of dramatic movement, but upon reflection, maybe less than we thought, but as we went through this podcast, maybe more than I was thinking when we started this podcast. So we’re all cautiously ready to move on to 2024 with a bunch of great new topics and ideas to share with you and some more of our fresh voices on legal tech interviews. Thank you Debbie for joining us. And Debbie, tell people how best to reach you.

Debbie Foster:

LinkedIn’s probably the easiest if you just search for me on LinkedIn. Debbie Foster, it should be your first option and I’d love to connect with you. Thanks for having me guys.

Tom Mighell:

And so that wraps it up for this edition of the Kennedy Mighell report and our last episode of 2023. Thank you for joining us on the podcast. You can find show notes for this episode on the Legal Talk Networks page. You can find all of our previous podcasts along with transcripts on the Legal Talk Network website. If you’d like to get in touch with us, remember, you can always reach out to us on LinkedIn or leave us a voicemail. We love getting your questions for our B segment. That number is 7 2 0 4 4 1 6 8 2 0. So until the next podcast, I’m Tom Mighell.

Dennis Kennedy:

And I’m Dennis Kennedy. And you’ve been listening to the Kennedy Mighell report, a podcast on legal technology within internet focus. As always, a big thank you to the Legal Talk Network team for producing and distributing this podcast. I believe this episode is going to air before the end of 2023. So happy New Year to all. We’ll see you next time for another episode of the Kennedy Mighell report on the Legal Talk Network.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the Kennedy Mighell report. Check out Dennis and Tom’s book, the Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies, smart Ways to Work Together from ABA Books or Amazon. And join us every other week for another edition of the Kennedy Mighell report, only on the Legal Talk Network.

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