Fresh Voices on Legal Tech with Amanda Brown

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

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

Tom Mighell:

And welcome to episode 372 of the Kennedy Mighell Report. I’m Dennis Kennedy in Ann Arbor.

Dennis Kennedy:

And I’m Tom Mighell in Dallas.

Tom Mighell:

In our last episode, we discussed the accelerating deterioration of our internet experience and the concept of incrapification, as we like to call it, you have to give it a listen. In this episode, we have another very special guest in our Fresh Voices series in Fresh Voices. We want to showcase different and compelling perspectives on legal tech and much more. We have another fabulous guest, Tom, what’s all on our agenda for this episode?

Dennis Kennedy:

Well, Dennis, in this edition of the Kennedy Mighell report, we are thrilled to continue our fresh voices on Legal Tech interview series with Amanda Brown, who among other things is the executive director at LANAP Law Lab and a visible and insightful contributor to the legal tech world. We want our Fresh Voices series to not only introduce you to terrific leaders in the legal tech space, but also provide you with their perspective on the things you ought to be paying attention to. And as usual, we’ll finish up with our parting shots, that one tip website or observation that you can start to use Second that this podcast is over. But first up, we are so pleased to welcome Amanda Brown to our Fresh Voices series. Amanda, welcome to the Kennedy Mall report.

Amanda Brown:

Thanks so much for having me.

Dennis Kennedy:

Before we get started, can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself? Tell us about Lanette Law Lab, your role, whatever you want to tell about what you do and what you’re involved in.

Amanda Brown:

Yeah, so I am the founder and executive director of LANAP Law Lab. My pitch on that is that we are a justice tech nonprofit that’s operating in Louisiana civil justice system. And effectively our work is focused on creating software applications and tools, resources for self-represented litigants in Louisiana, and then also looking from the 30,000 foot view at a broad stroke, what does our system look like? Are there system level changes that we can influence and create a better space for the adoption of technology with respect to those that are having trouble accessing the legal system?

Tom Mighell:

It’s great, Amanda, first of all, I know I have some things I want to talk to you about after this podcast about some of the ideas I have at Michigan State, but it’s so awesome for us to have you as a guest on the podcast. Sometimes I get a little frustrated with how difficult it still is to explain technology, both all the new technology and its benefits to those in the legal profession. Would you talk about your own approach to communicating with lawyers and others in the legal profession about technology? I think you have a gift for it.

Amanda Brown:

Thanks. I appreciate that. I try really hard to make that true, and I would say my answer is twofold to that. First is I’m a very outcomes driven person, and so when I’m speaking with other lawyers, people in our civil justice network, it’s never an emphasis on the technology itself, but really what is the outcome that we are focused on and then leading into how the technology can help support that. Also, just recognizing that the technology is merely one part of the equation, I think really helps and it just softens, I think what we see a lot of times with the push for technology to be the end all be all, and that’s just not the case. And then I would say a huge part of communicating is also listening, and I try really, really hard to be in spaces where I can listen to the issues that people are talking about in order to approach that effectively and promote the technology, but also again, focus on the outcome that we’re looking for.

Dennis Kennedy:

I want to keep the focus on lawyers and lawyers that you meet with and talk about a topic that’s sort of near and dear to our hearts, which is technology competence. There’s now a duty of technology competence yet to have seen that really enforced on a wide basis, which is probably a good thing for many lawyers, but we tend on this podcast to take probably a unnecessarily dim view of the current state of technology competence. But one of the things we like about having guests is to get their experience on that. So what are you seeing in your corner of the legal tech world around technology competence and lawyers? Is it increasing, decreasing, staying the same? What do you think?

Amanda Brown:

Yeah, I think this is an interesting question mostly because nobody’s really ever said what technology competence is. I think that’s probably part of the problem. I think the rule or the professional rule, the model rule, I think it says something like stay abreast of technology changes. I mean, in that case, maybe everybody’s doing okay, but I don’t think that that’s a strong enough, a forceful enough position to take. There are other jurisdictions, of course, that have specific requirements Florida with their CLE requirements, but realistically, staying abreast of technology to me isn’t really demonstrating competence in any way. And I think with that, I would generally agree with you that where we’re at now is not where we should be. So it’s one thing to be aware of them, but we also still see people despite being aware of ’em, actively opposing that, and from the practice side of things, that makes them less effective of course.

But also when you think about the other side of the equation for your clients, how are you able to effectively represent people, number one, from an efficiency standpoint, but number two, from the perspective of not really knowing how things work and creating, understanding how to look for specific evidence and all those things that go with actually understanding the technology. So I agree with you. I think there’s a lot more work to be done. You see surveys that I think are indicating we’re trending more positively I think, but overall there’s still a lot of room for growth.

Tom Mighell:

Yeah, I want to dig a little deeper into this. So I think that what lawyers are really good at is talking about the ethical duty of technology competence. And I agree with you if you’re looking for action or clear practical guidance, you just don’t see that. And there’s a brand new, a ethics opinion on generative ai. That to me is just one more example of this totally broad and vague approach that leaves practicing lawyers to guess how to fill in the details. I also think there’s a big assumption out there that all lawyers practice in the same ways, and I think that’s increasingly not what’s going on in the real world. So let’s have you look at what the ideal world might look at, and especially in your access to justice, justice tech space, but if there were an ethical duty of technology competence that made sense, what do you think that might look like at the ground level?

Amanda Brown:

It’s hard, to your point, everybody practices in a different way, so it’s hard to want to prescribe a specific thing for people, but also touching back on something that you said with respect to the a opinion and most opinions and guidance that comes out from these amorphous institutions is just the vagueness of it all is really problematic. I think there are other jurisdictions I think that do an okay job like putting forth examples and giving more intentional guidance. And I think we need to move in that direction. I empathize a lot, right? With attorneys that are busy, they have very full caseloads, especially in the legal aid context, but generally litigators, all lawyers are in demanding positions and it’s really hard to be given this very amorphous obligation with no assistance, no guidance, and then be able to make the time to weed through all of that and figure it out yourself.

So rather than, I guess the point is rather than saying a specific obligation, we should be helping them. We should be putting forth the resources for them in a palatable way, easily digestible and things that are actually tracking the reality of the world with technology, not just legal technology. We need to advance, I think our understanding and the sharing of that information. So I know it’s not a perfect response, but I just think we need to do a better job of providing those resources versus very generic statements that are really in some ways just kind of like virtue signaling

Dennis Kennedy:

When a regulation gets passed in other forms of government, there is soon to follow case law or some other interpretation of what that law means. And in the case of this, when the fact that nobody’s enforcing it, are we ever going to get any interpretation of that? I think that’s the way to get that. What does that really mean and what do they really need? And it’s going to depend from lawyer to lawyer. Let’s change gears. Let’s talk about collaboration. Collaboration is a topic that we love to talk about on the podcast, and the thing that I like the most about asking our guests is everyone has a slightly different answer. Dennis thinks that, I think that the answer to everyone’s favorite collaboration should be Microsoft Teams. But what I really like about it is that everybody is answering differently and everybody has a different concept of collaboration, which is expanding the way I think about collaboration. So what are some of the tools and or ways that you find are most effective when collaborating with anybody, your clients, the other lawyers, the courts, anybody?

Amanda Brown:

So my easy response to that, the most obvious one would be I really like Airtable. It really helps us internally in our organizations, keep track of all the things that people are doing, really also get my staff comfortable with the framework of using a database structure and how things relate. And I just love it. I love it. It’s a great collaboration tool.

Dennis Kennedy:

I’d love it too. Yeah, I use it to work.

Amanda Brown:

The real answer I would say I think is perhaps surprising. I would say institutions. I think we need organizations like bar associations, like committees. I’m a committee junkie for better or for worse task forces. All of these really intentional meeting spaces for people and creating that environment is the best way I think that we collaborate and it’s not a technology tool and it’s literally as old as time. And to be honest, right now, I think we’re facing this weird inflection point where these institutions are collapsing to some extent, but I really, really believe in the power of these if they’re done effectively and they’re essential, I think for us to continue to socialize ideas, learn from each other. Yeah, so it’s not a sexy technology tool, but I’m very passionate. It’s frustrating almost to see where institutions are going now because we’re ending up with all these factions and fractured or we’re ending up back in silos with our conversations when that’s the opposite of what we want.

Dennis Kennedy:

Well, I have to say, and maybe I’m saying an unpopular opinion here, but it’s very refreshing for me to hear someone who’s not a baby boomer talk about the benefits of associations and things because I feel like as younger generations are coming in, they’re finding all the flaws that exist in these associations, and I’d love to have you and generations kind of come in and say, all right, let’s bring it back to where it’s useful again and where it’s beneficial for everybody.

Amanda Brown:

Well, I’ve been within the American Bar Association since maybe two months after I got out of law school, and I’m one of those people that I see all the flaws and it actually infuriates me to some degree. It’s just very frustrating to see that what we have as lawyers, as a profession, as a collective bargaining unit essentially is collapsing before our eyes because we can’t figure out a modern way to approach this.

Dennis Kennedy:

Well, we can have an offline conversation about the American Bar Association. We have lots to say on that topic, but for right now, we need to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors and we will be back with Amanda Brown at LANAP Law Lab,

Tom Mighell:

And we are back with Amanda Brown at LANAP Law Lab. We found in the Fresh Voices series that we love to hear about our guests career paths and our audience does as well. Who do you talk about your own career path and the kinds of things you’ve done to get you to your current role and focus in access to justice and I think even more interesting in Justice Tech?

Amanda Brown:

Yeah, I think my career path at the time is very risky, and now I’m hopeful and optimistic that it’s sort of a norm. I was actually introduced to legal technology as a concept in law school, and you definitely see that a lot more. Obviously in Michigan, places like Suffolk folk, there are more intentional cultivating grounds for lawyers and law students to have access to technology. That just really wasn’t the case in 2013 to 2016 when I was in law school. But I was lucky enough to attend Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans, and they had a one semester clinic on legal technology. And I remember being very skeptical to be completely frank about the entire idea. I was in a housing clinic, I was actually doing appellate legal representation, very valuable experience in that clinic, and I had to sit with myself and think, do I really want to give that up the actual practice of law for kind of exploring what this technology side of this looks like?

So it was really a difficult for me to change at that point in my law school education, but I’m really glad I did in that class. We were just exposed to the concepts. I think of it was actually largely concepts of coding and trying to understand sources of information, creating user experiences, even things like APIs and data. Just giving a very broad overview of all that. But I think what really struck me was that the goal was always to work for the Legal Aid organization and help them solve a problem with technology. So I did that. I really, really enjoyed it. And then ultimately I went into practice after I graduated school, I went to work in a legal aid organization, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, but I was still always interested in the technology side, and so I would insert myself into technology initiatives. Oh, we need a new website.

I’ll sign up for that committee. Even though it’s not really the same thing, but you’re still getting that exposure to the concepts and really just the process of listening, again, listening is extremely important in this. And as I volunteered for things like that internally, there was an opportunity to work on an application that Southeast was collaborating with the Stanford Legal Design Lab on, it’s called Flood Proof, and it was really just a software application that would help collect information from clients related to their family trees in order for us to do successions for them after a natural disaster. Title clearing is a big problem here in Louisiana. So that was really my first opportunity to see how the sausage was made. And it also introduced me to a number of really important players, obviously in legal technology at that time, Stanford, as well as the A, BA Center for Innovation.

Ultimately, I heard that they had an opportunity for a new fellows program that they opened up. I guess it was a one time only situation, but I applied for and was given a fellowship and an opportunity to go work at Microsoft on the LSCA National Legal Navigator portal project. That was back in, I guess 20 17, 20 18, and that was a year I came back to Louisiana. I did some consulting work with our foundation and we really just looked at the network and understood that there was a lot of opportunity here. So I founded Lab and have been doing this ever since 2019.

Dennis Kennedy:

Awesome. That’s a long way in a short time. So a lot of things over that time. That’s great. Alright, it is now time for our obligatory discussion about artificial intelligence. At the time we started talking about this, there was so much hype around chat GPT. I would argue now that the hype is just generative AI in general, there are so many different tools that are out there nowadays. How are you seeing, if at all, generative AI playing a role in access to justice work with your clients at Lynn Law Lab? Where are you seeing that either playing a role currently or maybe in the future?

Amanda Brown:

Yeah, I think generally in access to justice, we’re still having this conversation, right? Really what is the most appropriate use case? It can do a lot of things. Can it do it accurately? Can it do it as well as we’d like to? Maybe not. So trying to put the guardrails on all that. I think honestly, and this is probably not a surprise to anybody listening to this, within Access to Justice, it’s looking like issue identification from plain language descriptions of problems to rag retrieval of content that we associate with particular issues. We use it internally for a lot of operational purposes or content creation purposes. So things like helping to create our articles that we post on our public information sites. We’ve also used it in the context of creating scripts and videos to expedite the process of creating multimodal versions of content that we can share with people.

So we’re able to speak to more learning styles, use it for creating and editing forms. There’s a lot of applications. I think from the helper side of that, the direct to consumer is, I think still largely in question With that, I do have a project that I’m beginning to work on where I’m actually really excited about the potential of this application that effectively I look at it as bridging an in-person experience with a technology approach to providing legal services. So the gist of the project itself is taking a paper form we hear all the time, especially from our legal service partners and from people that are trying to use our resources, especially in Louisiana, there’s a lack of digital literacy amongst the people that we’re trying to reach. So effectively we’re creating things and we’re creating processes that are frustrating to the population that we’re actually trying to help.

And this one, it’s this concept. It’s just taking a paper form that people are filling out in a clinic setting intake forms. They don’t mind filling out by hand, but the process of data entry of all that is really cumbersome. So just taking that, you can take a photo of it, these GPT models will OCR it, output it into A-J-S-O-N file and send it to your case management system via an API. That’s actually extremely useful because it puts time back in the hands of the attorneys or intake workers to have those personal conversations with people and get rid of that administrative task that nobody really wants to do. And also not frustrate the person that we’re saying, fill out this online application when they don’t want to do that. That’s actually a burden.

Dennis Kennedy:

Yeah, it doesn’t change their way of having to do things. Oh, that’s

Tom Mighell:

Awesome. What I find is when I talk to people in the A to J space, that about AI is the most innovative, most interesting potential uses, and I think it goes back to what you said about the focus on outcomes. So two comments and then I’ll ask you a question. So I was at the sub tech conference called Sub Tech, and people were talking about what they were doing in kind of access to justice applications and they were showing here’s what we do. And the output was just walls of text, just like screens of just dense text. And I’m going, they won’t work. Even lawyers, we don’t read texts like that. And then the other thing is, I was talking to somebody the other day, and Tom, you’ll remember this. Well, our friend Ernie, the blogger, Ernie the attorney through Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana, lawyers, especially in New Orleans, were like pioneers in really moving the profession forward in technology.

So I think I see the A to J space as you see these big issues, language literacy, can people understand things, just really complex procedures. And I want to go back and have you talk a little bit more about the notion I hear often in this space is this sort of helper slash navigator use of ai. So sometimes you’d say, is it simple as putting in plain language like how I find the Courtroom? It could be Courtroom navigation, it could be navigating webpage, it could be self-represented litigant to say, just put in plain language like what you’re saying, the OCR is pretty amazing to me, but put in plain language what you’re doing, and then it sort of automatically puts it into a form that is acceptable to a judge, and that really appeals to judges as well. So maybe talk about that sort of helper, navigate a role of ai. I think lawyers underestimate that.

Amanda Brown:

I agree. I think there’s so much opportunity for that, but we’re consistently hamstrung by not the AI part of that equation, but the helper part of that equation. I don’t know why that’s still such a topic that causes such strife amongst the legal profession, is just having actual humans support people that are in a very honestly can be a very frightening, terrifying situation, traumatic environment, dealing with issues that are really affecting their livelihood. So I actually think that’s the conversation that needs some attention, but pairing those two together with the adequate training of somebody that is trained on whatever subset of law or specific procedures within your court and then pairing that with the technology itself is an incredible opportunity for us here. That also, I think, again, I’m always trying to focus on the outcome of what that actually means, and that means a lot to a self-represented person that’s going through this process. So I mean, we have a long way to go on both of those issues, I think, but the potential is undeniable. So we really need to figure out, I don’t know how to be more persuasive on that, but maybe that’s something our institutions should talk about.

Dennis Kennedy:

We still got some more questions for Amanda Brown, but we need to take another quick break for a message from our sponsors.

Tom Mighell:

And now let’s get back to the Kennedy Mighell report. I’m Dennis

Dennis Kennedy:

Kennedy. And I’m Tom Lyle, and we are joined by our special guest, Amanda Brown at LANAP Law Lab. We’ve got time for just a few more questions. I want to start with what we call on the podcast, our best advice question, which is, what is the best advice that either you’ve received from someone that you’ve taken to heart or maybe the best advice that you give to the people you work with? Either one or both if you want to.

Amanda Brown:

Oh man. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I really think it’s the outcomes conversation. It truly is a guiding principle for everything that we set out to do. What is it that we actually want to accomplish with this? And I think with legal technology and we see that it’s very easy to get distracted. You even had an episode on the shiny object syndrome. It’s so tempting to be distracted by what’s out there for the sake of wanting to appear. I think it’s an appearance, an ego kind of play where we want to be up on all the latest and greatest, but what is it that we’re actually trying to do and what is the best way to accomplish that, whether that involves a specific technology or not. I also, I think maybe it’s a slight variation on the question, but I really think we need strategy in order to get to that outcome. So I would challenge people to be very strategic. I would challenge us as professionals to be strategic, really know where we’re going and what our outcome is supposed to be so that we can get there and we can find the right tools and technology to do that.

Tom Mighell:

Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. There’s this notion in the innovation world of beginning with the end in mind and there’s some pros and of that, but I just think it’s a really useful concept when you’re trying to get started with something. So I have two questions that I’ll bundle here. So one comes from my perspective as a professor of today’s law students and also new lawyers who’ve graduated. How would you encourage today’s law students and new lawyers to find career paths in legal tech and other non-traditional careers in law? So that’s question one. And the second one is just this simple. Who are the fresh voices in legal tech that you listen to and you might like to single out and see as part of our Fresh Voices series?

Amanda Brown:

With respect to the first question on just getting involved into legal tech, seek it out at school, obviously, I think now, as I had mentioned, that wasn’t as much of an opportunity when I started, but there’s at least one skills course, one introduction, one, something related to technology. Now thanks to the duty of technological confidence probably that just get exposed to the concepts and then experimentation. I feel like that’s such a tired answer, but it’s the truth. Just being willing to get your hands dirty and try a bunch of things is really the only way that you’re going to learn. You’re going to learn if you like it or not, which is valuable even if you decide, maybe that’s not for me, because let’s face it, this is sort of a risky path to take as a traditional lawyer, somebody that’s paid in some instances, hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to law school, and you find yourself kind of at this inflection point, do the testing, do the experimentation, make sure it’s something that you actually like, because I even feel this way sometimes. I’m in this niche now, there’s no going back. Maybe somebody would hire me as an attorney. I like to think I’m confident, but the fact of the matter is I don’t have any legal skills at this point. They’re a very different subset. So really get your hands dirty, experiment with things, and then yeah, listen for the problems and keep that in mind as you’re just trying to figure out what’s the right path.

Tom Mighell:

And then other fresh voices we consider. This is sort of the lazy web portion of the podcast where we try to get our guests to do our research for us. This is our recruiting technique. Yes.

Amanda Brown:

Okay. So the real issue is that I went back, look through your history. I’m like, you already hit all of the fresh voices. So I’m going to pull an answer out of nowhere because I actually have a meeting tomorrow with somebody that I’ve never met, and I would love to get their perspective in this context as the way you kind of set out the interview. So all I know is that they are starting a legal technology company and it’s focused on self-represented litigants, and it’s Amy Diaz from Grava Mint Technologies. So I would love to know more about her perspective. I guess I’ll find out a little bit when we meet, but we need more new people in this space. I think something happened, we had Twitter and then it all went by the wayside, and now I don’t really know who’s out there anymore that’s new and coming into this, so,

Dennis Kennedy:

Alright. No, that’s a great suggestion. We want to thank Amanda Brown, founder and executive director at Land Law Lab for being a guest on the podcast. Amanda, before we go, can you let everybody know either how to get in touch with you if they want to or where they can learn more about what you do?

Amanda Brown:

Sure. You can find me on LinkedIn, Amanda Lee Brown, L-E-I-G-H, and then our website is just lanap law lab.org and we just redid it a couple months ago. So I encourage you to check it out, get a sense for what our philosophy and framework is, because you’ll be hearing a lot more about it soon.

Tom Mighell:

Thank you so much, Amanda. You were a fantastic guest. Great information, great advice for our listeners, and look for a follow up from me on some A to J and tech ideas. I want to run by you now. It’s time for our parting shots, that one tip website or observation that you can use this second. This podcast ends. Amanda, take it away.

Amanda Brown:

Okay. I have to say lately I’ve been all about perplexity ai. I know it’s another AI tool, but it’s a really great AI augmented search function that is, I think, worth checking out and you can do it

Dennis Kennedy:

Today. I use it all the time. I love it. I’m going to be interested to see how when chat GPT debuts its search tool, whether it’ll be different and or better. But we’ll see. I exclusively use that instead of Google Now basically, me too. My parting shot is we’ve talked a lot on the podcast about using Read Wise as being able to capture highlights that you make in Kindle or in articles, and it saves for later and it helps you do continuous repetition on learning stuff, but it also will sync to your notion, for example, which we have done as part of our second brain project. What I’ve learned to do and what I’m also doing now with Read Wise is I’m syncing all of my read wise highlights and annotations with Google Drive. That’s another option. And when you synchronize it with Google Drive, you now make that information accessible to Gemini and you make it accessible to all the AI tools, the LM Notebook that they’ve created.

And you can basically query Gemini or LM Notebook to say, tell me what my author, if you have a lot of books on a certain subject, ask them to compare and contrast what the authors think. Where do they agree with each other? Where do they disagree with each other? Now, it depends on what you’ve highlighted. You’ve got to highlight all the right stuff. But I’m less enamored with notions AI tools than I am with Gemini. So if you’re interested in turning an artificial generative AI tool against the stuff that you think is important, maybe sync read wise with Google Drive, Dennis,

Tom Mighell:

Great ideas. So this is, the Move is going to turn into the somewhat self-promotion segment for me, but I was thinking of the question last semester of how do we teach law students to learn generative AI in a hands-on way? And so I created something at Michigan State that I called the legal r and d AI studio. It was a three-part micro course that taught law students how to do hands-on prompting from the basics to the advanced. And then we also looked at what legal employers said that they were looking for. So I wrote about it in a blog post that’s called How Can Law Professors Effectively Teach AI Literacy to Law Students? And I also made available for free A PDF download of the handout that we did for that. I think it’s something I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from it on the effort and people say, how do we teach this stuff to law students? I’m like, probably in the fall the lot students are going to blow bias in what they know. But this is sort of my structured approach to doing that and also gives a ton of my tips about how I do prompting.

Dennis Kennedy:

And so that wraps it up for this edition of the Kennedy Mighell report. Thanks for joining us on the podcast. You can find show notes for this episode on the Legal Talk Networks page for our show. You can find all of our previous podcasts with transcripts on the Legal Talk Network website as well. 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 still love getting your questions for our B segment, why that voicemail number is 7 2 0 4 4 1 6 8 2 0. So until the next podcast, I’m Tom Mighell .

Tom Mighell:

And I’m Dennis Kennedy and you’ve been listening to the Kennedy Mighell report, a podcast on legal technology with an internet focus. We wanted to remind you to share the podcast with a friend or too that helps us out. As always, a big thank you to the Legal Talk Network team for producing and distributing the podcast. And we’ll see you next time for another episode of the Kennedy Mighell Report on the Legal Talk Network.

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