Pardon the Interruption: 2024 Edition

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Web 2.0 innovation trend 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 381 of the Kennedy Mighell Report. I’m Dennis Kennedy in Ann Arbor, and

Tom Mighell:

I’m Tom Mighell in Dallas.

Dennis Kennedy:

Another year is in the books and we’ve reached episode 381 of this podcast on legal technology within internet focus, and we’re about to start year 19 of the podcast. In our last episode, we talked with Alona Log ANOVA of Cleary Gottlieb. As part of our fresh voices on legal tech series, we highly recommend the episode if you haven’t already listened to it. And this episode is 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 2024 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 our podcast and our tradition each year is to use some of the elements of PTI for the format of this recap episode. And in keeping with that, we always have a special guest and we love to have her back and it’s our favorite fan of the show. Debbie Foster, thanks for joining us on this episode. Debbie, happy to be here. For those of you unfamiliar with the PTI format, we’re going to have three segments. The first segment is toss up in which we purposely take opposite sides of a legal tech topic, which is going to be interesting since there are three of us.

And I think that some of our opinions actually are the same on a lot of these topics. And then we’re going to do, what’s the word in which we fill in the blank in a statement about a legal tech topic with a well chosen word or sometimes words and then hot or not in which we categorize a legal tech topic as hot, not, or something in between. Then we’re going to end with our fast response, big finish to give you Debbie and Dennis, a sneak preview of the results. Guess what? I win every segment. Come

Debbie Foster:

On man. Can we change it this year?

Tom Mighell:

Nope, not changing. That’s part of the tradition. So let’s get started. Debbie, for those of you who don’t know who you are, which is probably not very many, tell us about yourself.

Debbie Foster:

I’m Debbie Foster, I am the CEO of Affinity Consulting, and I spend all of my time working with law firms, helping them think differently about how they get their work done and how they run their businesses.

Tom Mighell:

And we love to have Debbie on because you are in the trenches doing these things and I personally don’t get as much time out to see that. So I’m glad for your in this podcast and good luck to you and good luck to Dennis and thank you in advance for helping celebrate my victory at the end. Our first segment is called tossup. In tossup, 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. Dennis, are the rules clear? No agreeing.

Dennis Kennedy:

As I used to say in my favorite science fiction TV series, Babylon five Truth is a three edged sword. So I disagree about the rules, know what that means, and I disagree about the results to come. In fact, I disagree with the whole system, but here’s our first three-sided tossup. Question number one, what was the biggest lesson we learned about legal tech in 2024, Tom?

Tom Mighell:

So I think that, and I’m going to start right out by saying that I’ve given Dennis a lot of trouble over the year in podcasts about his focus, sometimes obsessive with generative ai, but as I found myself looking back on the year, I realized there’s not much we can do to avoid it. And so when I think about the biggest lesson that we’ve learned about legal tech is that generative AI has a hype cycle that does not end. We have been in a position where the hype cycle has continued and continued. I saw someone give a speech today where they basically said that we are in the middle of the generative AI bubble right now, and that bubble is big and it’s not ending. And I think that legal tech is doing the same whether, and we’ll talk about this more as we get further in, whether in legal tech that’s successful or that’s a good thing, is a different thing entirely, but it’s not ending. Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

I would say that my relearned lesson is legal is just going to be last to adopt everything including generative ai. I mean, as you said, Tom, in the trenches, I can’t tell you most of the firms that I’m working with are still either they have a policy that they’re not, no one’s allowed to use generative AI or they’re still worried about using it in the wrong way and they aren’t necessarily taking the right steps to educate themselves on how to use it. So I would say big lesson is that everything changes and everything stays the same, and we’re still just waiting on legal to adapt to some really big changes. I mean, there are definitely people who are building cool things and I’ve heard some of that on your fresh voices, people talking about innovation in law firms, but the general population is not taking that big innovator approach like what I’m hearing some of your guests talking about.

Tom Mighell:

I want to ask more about that in a minute because I have a survey that argues the opposite of what you just said. And so I want to figure out why that may not be true, Dennis.

Dennis Kennedy:

So my lesson is that, oh my god, there are so many legal AI experts everywhere and the legal industry has succeeded in overcomplicating this whole subject. And I agree with Debbie. There’s a lot of talk, a lot of people claim that they’re experts. I saw that Stanford is doing a conference in a couple months about legal ai, best practices, best practices in generative ai. It’s been around a year. It’s like the best practice would be don’t play with matches and burn the house down. What do we know at this point? And so I think the lesson always with legal tech is to have sort of an experimental approach, a humble approach, and don’t think that everything from the beginning, but just try to learn it. And especially if something as significant as generative AI seems to be, I think we should spend a little less time saying that we were experts a little more time just rolling up our sleeves and doing some experiments.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, it’s time for toss up number two. Here’s the statement the most, and this seems, it feels a little self-serving, Dennis, the most interesting legal tech developments are happening in the collaboration technology space. Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

I don’t want to talk out both sides of my mouth, but I think the most interesting legal tech developments are taking place in the a generative AI products. Now can those help you better collaborate? Yeah, there are definitely some that can help you better collaborate, but I think that one of the points here is we should be thinking about how to better collaborate. And if the tool happens to be an AI tool, great, but there are lots of collaboration tools that have nothing to do with ai. I think that where I struggle in trying to help clients figure out what’s next for them, and especially when we’re talking about interesting legal tech developments, it’s like they want to leapfrog over all of these amazing, powerful tools that they have at their fingertips and go figure out how to use AI. And that to me just use the right tool for the right job. And so interesting legal tech developments for sure in ai, but that’s happening at lightning speed and it’s hard for all of us to keep up, even those of us who have made it our full-time jobs.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, Dennis, it’s for you to argue that this is interesting.

Dennis Kennedy:

No, I think that collaboration is really significant and we’re just looking at new forms of it. I mean what does human in the loop actually mean if you’re not talking about collaboration, collaboration with the AI and collaboration with others? I come down to this point of view that I’ve always said that you want to make it easy for people to work with you. And what Debbie mentioned about this leapfrogging notion is I am hearing more people say lately like, oh, I’m so tired of zoom, I’m so tired of slack, I’m so tired of teams, and they push you back into email and we have plenty of great collaboration technology, but we just have a bunch of people who don’t want to bother to learn it or use it, have some weird rule. And so I just come back always to the collaboration golden rule I call it is like collaborate with others as you would like to have them collaborate with you. And to me that’s where the interesting stuff is happening. And I’ll just say these two words, I’ll come back to a little bit later. Client portals.

Tom Mighell:

Well, I would just say that important and significant do not equal interesting. And so I have to fall in with Debbie on this that to me collaboration is important and significant but not interesting. A client portal important, interesting, very uninteresting, but definitely something people need to have. You talk about human in the loop, Dennis, I can’t think of anything. There are very few uses of generative AI that I can think of that are collaborative, maybe listening in, taking meeting minutes and things like that. But it seems like generative AI is a solitary thing. I am engineering my own prompts, I’m doing my own thing. So it’s not humans in the loop, it’s human in the loop with ai, but not humans in the loop. I don’t see a lot of that happening. I may be wrong, and I mean there may be lots of examples of collaboration tools that use generative ai, but I would say that would make collaboration more interesting to me is if it were using more generative ai

Dennis Kennedy:

Aha comment. That’s the reason you’re going to lose this segment because of that comment right there.

Tom Mighell:

I somehow think that’s not the case. Debbie toss

Debbie Foster:

The rules are fixed. Just a done deal. Okay, so speaking of ai, how many times will we say speaking of AI in this podcast, speaking of ai, AI has really, really arrived. No question about it. Dennis.

Dennis Kennedy:

Again, to riff off what you said, this is kind of what I see in legal education and to firms and law departments that I’ve talked with. I would say that it’s arrived more than last year, but where it’s really arrived is outside legal in the legal profession. I feel we’re entering a significant period of retrenchment and so you’re hearing people say we’re not going to use it. Firms who’ve been working on their AI policies for the last two years are now deciding they can’t use it who students have no idea what they can do with AI unless they’re in class with me. And I think we’re moving backwards in the legal world and I think that that’s going to create this opportunity for the rest of rest of business. Rest of people access justice in other spaces to use AI to route around this cumbersome legal system. And I think ultimately that will be a good thing for the legal system, but maybe not so good for the legal profession.

Tom Mighell:

My approach, I think it depends on how you think of the idea of where it has arrived. When you say that it arrived outside legal, I would argue that it has arrived inside legal in terms of the vendors. I listen to five podcasts a week where a new vendor is talking about an AI that they’ve built into their tool and that they’re offering to people. Now whether people or lawyers are using it is a different question, but has it arrived in legal? I think that the tools are there whether it’s being used and what’s interesting to me, Debbie, based on kind of what you’re seeing is I was going to argue that there’s no retrenchment because I found a survey, Walters Kluwer did a survey that said that 76% of in-house legal and 60% of law firms are using generative ai. It doesn’t sound like that from what you’re saying. So I’m not sure. I don’t know that I feel like I think that the retrenchment may be with the lawyers, not with the vendors if that’s happening. But there are some people out there who maybe for marketing purposes want you to believe that lawyers have embraced AI wholeheartedly.

Debbie Foster:

And I would just say that I think that there definitely are some who have, but my experience, and let’s just give the caveat that people who call me are like, please help. We got to figure out what to do next. Nobody’s calling me and saying we’re using everything. It’s just amazing here. Can you just come in and look around and let us know if there’s anything we can do better? So there is that caveat, but I also think that, and I don’t want to beat this dead horse that I’ve beaten for the last however many years. I have also said we couldn’t figure out how to teach lawyers how to use word and outlook. Why do we think they suddenly are going to become proficient users of a generative AI tool? There has to be a desire and a willingness to think differently about how you get your work done.

If you want to see AI revolutionize work in a law firm, everyone has to say there’s probably a better way and there’s probably a better way to use word and there’s probably a better way, there is a better way, there is a better way to use outlook and there is a better way to use teams and there is a better way to collaborate. Yet no one feels really compelled to start thinking about how, generally speaking, I’m sure there are people who do, but I run into firms all the time. It is not necessarily lack of desire, but between the I’m too busy or there’s a big stack of stuff on my desk that needs to get done or my legal assistant, my paralegal is not going to flip the table on how he or she gets her work done. There’s a lot of blockers to thinking differently about how work gets done, which means that there’s a lot of blockers to the adoption of generative AI in a law firm.

Dennis Kennedy:

And it is interesting when you hear lawyers give all the reasons that they can’t learn generative AI or don’t have the time to try it, that you find these really amazing uses of the AI tools by seven year olds and nine year olds. So we’re kind of in an interesting point in history. Last toss up, if you were to sum up your thoughts on 2024, where and how would you do that? A SUBSTACK newsletter, a YouTube video, a blog post, an AI chatbot, Instagram, LinkedIn, GPTA, prompt, TikTok Discord, NFT podcast or something else. Tom

Tom Mighell:

Awfully long list there, Dennis.

Debbie Foster:

It gets longer every year

Tom Mighell:

And what’s interesting is that I’m going to say none of those because if we’re going to continue with the word retrenchment, this has been a year of continued retrenchment for me from social media. I just don’t participate as much as I should or maybe as I want to. But I’m going to say, and Dennis will poo my response is I’m interested in blue sky. I’m interested because it represents an option, it represents an alternative, it represents a chance to get it right to try to do something better, will it dunno, have no idea what’s going to happen. I enjoy what I see so far over there and it’s interesting to me, it’s a sMigheller community of only what, 25 million, so it’s much sMigheller than others. But if I were to sum up my thoughts, I would say let’s look for a fresh start in certain places in Blue Sky might be that place

Debbie Foster:

For me. I would go find a new AI tool. I’m sure there’s one out there somewhere that would create a year in review and I would just be able to give it access to my Google photos and my LinkedIn posts and I would just have it generate my year in review on its own. There’s got to be something out there. I mean, did y’all get your Spotify, whatever you call it, Spotify wrapped the Spotify wrapped and I just got my TripIt 2024 year in review. I just got my Google Photos year in review. I’d just find a tool that connects all my stuff together and it would do it for me.

Dennis Kennedy:

Sounds like Notebook LM is an opportunity there. So if you’ll permit me, I will take the opportunity to announce my new Substack email newsletter, which I thought never do an email newsletter, but I’ve been doing this thing with personal quarterly offsites, which has actually been a topic of a podcast a few years back and I decided to create a new outlet where I can talk about that technique and what I do with it in the methodology and share that with people. And I put it on substack and it’s called the Personal Strategy Compass. And I’m doing that experiment, Tom. I think that if you’re choosing Blue Sky, I think you’re going to lose this round. I really do. I think this is going to change the results we get. The other thing that I think we do that Tom and I have talked about is I think this AI chatbot, and I think that again, the Google notebook LM kind of points us to the future where it’s easy to intake a lot of things and then allow people to have a chat interface to your writings and other things like that. So I think that sort of public facing AI chatbot is probably where I would move to through 25.

Tom Mighell:

Well I would only in response to that, I wasn’t really going to have a rejoinder to any of this, but in response to that, I would say, Dennis, your Substack newsletter, I would say welcome to the Substack Club. I’ve been there for two years. It’s nice to have you finally show up there. So I still think that despite your protestations, it feels very strongly like I won this segment.

Debbie Foster:

I don’t think

Tom Mighell:

So.

Debbie Foster:

I mean I think these are just the rules that we have to live by, but I don’t think you actually, alright,

Tom Mighell:

While we debate the rules, we’re going to 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:

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

Dennis Kennedy:

The one thing that should be at the top of every Lawyer’s must learn list in legal technology for 2025 is

Tom Mighell:

So Dennis, since you prepared the script in advance and since you took mine without even doing it, so I’ll go with yours, which is prompt engineering, I’m going to say that every lawyer needs to know how to write a prompt. They need to think about how to do it. Even if you’re asking the generative AI tool itself, help me write a prompt. You’re still doing better than if you just go in there and type a couple of words and hope you’re going to get something back. I think that one of the first steps, and we’ve got a lot of different tips in the rest of this podcast on how to use AI better. One of the first steps should be how to talk to a generative AI tool. And I think prompt engineering and learning how to do it is a good start. Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

I’m going to say what must be included on the must learn list is what got you here won’t get you there. I think it’s just bigger than generative ai, it’s bigger than cybersecurity, it’s bigger than it’s really, maybe it requires a personal, quarterly offsite for you to just get out of your own way and figure out what is one thing you’re going to think about that you could do differently and start some new habits. I really think there is a fundamental challenge around building new habits and thinking about what got you here is not going to get you there.

Dennis Kennedy:

And I’m going So Tom, as you know in the script, I was planning to say it’s always cybersecurity and every single year until we as a profession get it right, but in the couple of days since I wrote this, I am also thinking that so much is happening with just regular evidence that’s used in the court system and the impact of ai. And I’m really afraid lawyers are way, way behind the curve on the impact of AI and evidence. And that’s what I think should be at the list, but probably after cybersecurity.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, sentence number two, Debbie, for your first step, the one technology tool all lawyers should be using more of is,

Debbie Foster:

I cannot think of any other answer, but to say AI like experimentation with ai, that is what people should be doing more of.

Dennis Kennedy:

I have sort of the same answer, but my nuanced answer on this is I would say that what you want to learn is the paid version of the AI tools. So the up-to-date stuff I get in these conversations with people tell me what they’re doing with AI and they’re using the free version of this stuff, which is unbelievable to me and they’re making pronouncements and judgements about what it can and can’t do based on that. It’s $20 a month. I mean people are lawyers, right? They spend more than $20 on lunch. And here’s something that’s potentially, and I’m not saying it is, but it’s potentially a type of technology change that’s similar to the printing press, similar to the beginning of the internet and we’re saying like, woo, $20 a month cost prohibitive. It’s cost prohibitive for law students. I get that. But if you’re a lawyer, I don’t get it. And what you can do with the paid versions compared to the free versions, it is night and day difference.

Tom Mighell:

Alright? My word or words is not AI related this time. The one technology tool all lawyers should be using more of is, and I’ll go back to my roots password managers, we’re still not seeing anybody use password managers. I still don’t get it. It’s amazing to me because to me the value of a password manager is not just in the security, it’s in the fact that I’m on my phone, I have a complicated password, I don’t have to remember it, I press a button, it’s filled in automatically on my phone. I don’t have to do anything about it. Why don’t you trade that kind of convenience for the misery of having a password that is just the names of your last two dogs and the number four, an exclamation point which someone in this household uses as their frequent password. What were your dogs’ names again? Yeah, you almost caught me there. Debbie almost caught me. So for gosh sake, get a password manager and use it.

Debbie Foster:

Okay. The experience of new law school graduates and law students starting work in law firms can best be described as Dennis.

Dennis Kennedy:

So my word is archaic. I love asking my students about their experiences with the technology and the law firms they go to. It is hilarious and sad at the same time. But this year there was a great survey of big law firm associates that just had me laughing out loud. So these associates were talking about the old computers they had and the batteries were bulging and they thought they were going to explode and all this stuff is really old and they have to bill a zillion hours on these archaic machines. I just really feel like as a student, they’re just going backwards in time in the technology that they actually use. That’s just in general, not the fact that most students are using Macs these days and that is a weird adaptation that they have to make.

Tom Mighell:

The word that I will use is, and I’m going to be real quick about this immutable, it’s unchanged. It hasn’t changed. We ask this question every year. We always have the same complaints. We always say the same exact things. Immutable. End of story. Debbie,

Debbie Foster:

I’m going to go. Recent experience with Affirm confusing, whether it is what tools they have to use, what tools they’ve never heard of that they have to use, the fact that they have to use eight different tools because this lawyer uses three and this one uses two other ones and this one uses three completely different ones. It’s chaos and every firm struggles with attracting and retaining talent. And then we bring people in and we’re like, hi, we’re glad you’re here. There’s your computer, there’s a bunch of software on it. If you work for this person, you got to do this, this. It’s just chaos is how I would describe it.

Tom Mighell:

Well, I think those are all good words, but I also think that mine were the best. So I will say I’ve racked up another Tom Tastic victory, what do y’all say? Terrible, terrible. Sorry. No time for comments game next year. No time. We got to move on. But before we move on to our final segment, let’s 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 really not sure about the judging

Tom Mighell:

On this show, Tom. No questioning. It’s time for our new segment and it’s not a new segment. Why’d you put that in the script, Dennis? It’s not a new segment. We do hot or not all the

Dennis Kennedy:

Time because I’m trying to get you off your game. You

Tom Mighell:

Did and I recovered quickly. So time for our final segment, which is hot or not, we describe a topic we talk about whether it’s hot or cold. I will do the first topic. Is there anything going on other than generative AI and law? Is generative AI and law, hot, cold or otherwise? Debbie?

Debbie Foster:

I do think that I have more clients asking about workflow and automation. There is definitely an increase in asking about what that might look like. So while generative AI might be part of that solution, some of the tools, I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention products, but we work very specifically with a document management program and the idea of workflow and automation being built into a document management program and actually being able to implement features and functionality that help people get their work done has been super interesting, even if it doesn’t touch ai.

Dennis Kennedy:

So Tom, good news for you. There is something other than generative AI in legal tech and that is using AI to determine what non-AI legal tech you should be focusing on. And this is a great use of ai. I agree with Debbie. I mean I think there are some things out there where now people are starting to say like, wait, AI doesn’t necessarily make sense for some of this stuff, but there are some new technologies that work and we did learn some stuff since 2020 and it could be useful. And maybe we just go a little bit deeper than that and I hear that there are new versions of software that maybe have some new features, but I think it’s going back to the notions that we typically talk about or I do jobs to be done. Debbie talks about workflow is another way of thinking about it, but is to kind of identify what you need to do and then figure out what technology fits there. And AI doesn’t fit in every case and there are some other things out there, but I think getting that framework where you understand what the job to be done is and then what technology fits into it will help you Definitely find some things. And I know I would come back to the client portal thing. I think that solves a lot of problems

Tom Mighell:

And Dennis hates when I talk about this, but because I am working in an information governance consulting group, I don’t have a lot of contact with what law firms are doing. So I rely on listening to podcasts. I rely on listening to what other people are saying. And all of those people are talking about generative ai. They’re not talking about anything else. There are no Debbie, any podcast talking about workflow management using document management systems. They’re not sexy. They don’t capture any intention or interest, although I will say that the legal departments that I work with, they’re also talking about generative ai, but they’re also talking about the types of things that we want them to talk about. They’re talking about workflow, they’re talking about working better with in collaboration with the other parts of the company. So I would say that for me it feels fairly cold. Anything other than gen ai, but I think there are pockets out there that are warming up.

Debbie Foster:

Alright. Okay, next Hotter knot topic goes to Dennis. The use of max and iPhones in the legal profession, hot or not, I think

Dennis Kennedy:

It’s hot as a new generation enters the profession. You can’t bring smart new people into a profession and say like, here’s a bunch of crappy technology to work with. They use Max, they use iPhones and they’re going to open the doors and kind of drag the existing legal profession into this world to at least accept Max maybe to have give people choices or perhaps we’ll see even more of the sort of all Apple law firms.

Tom Mighell:

So I think Dennis, it’s funny that in one part of the competition you talk about how young lawyers are complaining about how bad their technology is, but now you’re saying it’s just hot on fire with Max and iPhones. So because my opinion is is that until the new generation owns its own law firms and buys its own equipment, then Max and legal technology I think are still cool to the touch. There’s certainly a lot of practice management tools out there with Mac app, so they exist, but I think that’s for those who can afford to buy the max, this is probably a hot topic, I think that for those who can afford it, but lawyers who are coming into firms with people who have bought Windows computers, and that’s all the way that we’ve always been doing it. I just don’t see it. And Debbie, you can probably be the tiebreaker on this, you’re probably seeing more in the law firms than I am.

Debbie Foster:

I mean most everybody has an iPhone, but Max in law firms hardly ever see it. I mean I think there’s a lot of people who would like to use their Mac, but it’s not practical in most firms where I am.

Dennis Kennedy:

Yeah, interesting. Because I think from the work from home, if you’re used to using a Mac at home, it’s really difficult to go back and forth between the two. So I’m interested in how that will play out. So my hot or not is actually learning about what AI can and can’t do before making a decision about using it and broadcasting. You’re not using it,

Tom Mighell:

Tom, I will only give a short answer here, which is this is something that should be hot, it should be, should be something that people are actually doing. But we’re talking, sorry, this has become sort of a, lawyers are bad on technology show, but that’s what it is, is that lawyers are bad on technology. So not surprising that it’s colder than it really should be. I really hope that lawyers, before they plug those wrong case law into their briefs, they really should do research to make sure that a generative AI tool wasn’t making up the case. And learning that AI has hallucinations, I’m sad that it’s not so I would say should be hot is unfortunately cold. Debbie

Debbie Foster:

And I am going to give a book recommendation. There is a book that I love called the AI Driven Leader, and I think it’s really relevant to this question because the whole premise of the book is instead of facing a challenge and thinking how can I solve this? You say, how can AI help me solve this? It’s about using AI as your thought partner, not necessarily plugging your client information into chat GPT. I’m not talking about that. It’s when you start to think about how do I solve a problem? Think about how can AI help me solve that problem. So the books by Jeff Woods highly recommend that you pick it up. And I think that to this point, and to Tom’s point, we should be thinking about how AI can help us get our work done. We should be thinking about it and then we should put up the guardrails and the bumper guards to make sure we’re doing it the right way. But I think we have an obligation to think about how we can be doing things better. Dennis,

Dennis Kennedy:

On the hot or not side of this, my thought is Greenland calling on line one. I just don’t think that lawyers are bothering to do this. I think that this what I call the cult of busyness and the fact that AI seems too much like math and science. Ethan Molik, who we’ve recommended his book Co Intelligence and his work on this stuff about the practicalities, says that you can get up to speed on generative AI in about 10 hours of time using the paid AI tools. And when I ask people like when I speak and I’m talking to audiences, the percentage of lawyers who’ve done that is in the single digits. So I can’t see it as anything but ice cold. But I think that’s going to hurt us because the rest of the world is using AI at a much higher level and they’re more advanced and it’s going to ripple into the legal profession.

Tom Mighell:

Alright, and my hot take on that last segment was that I won again. So with that we’re going to move on to the big finish. We’re going to answer six questions in 60 seconds. Debbie, question number one is for you, your best tech decision of 2024.

Debbie Foster:

My surface laptop 15 is fantastic. The battery lasts forever. The screen is beautiful, the keyboard is perfect. I literally love this machine.

Tom Mighell:

Wow, I’ve been at a surface in forever. That’s great,

Debbie Foster:

Dennis. Question number two, favorite new tech tool. And I can’t believe if I’m reading this script right, please do tell.

Dennis Kennedy:

So one of the things that I’ve noticed about back to the office movement is that we’re people are going back into buildings with really bad HVAC. And so what I found is just the basic USB fan and I have this Gaia top, and I mentioned this in previous podcast, G-A-I-A-T-O-P-U-S-B fan, 15 bucks, put in USB port, turn it on, three speed, and then in your overly hot office you can cool down.

Debbie Foster:

I’m sorry, two words. Rest in peace. Ross Coburn. I was

Tom Mighell:

Going to say

Dennis Kennedy:

It

Tom Mighell:

Feels

Dennis Kennedy:

Like the first time we, Dennis is carrying the flag. The first time we mentioned it, I did do a shout out to Ross. Okay,

Debbie Foster:

Good.

Dennis Kennedy:

So Tom, best new Google or Microsoft product or service.

Tom Mighell:

So I thought about this, I thought copilot, I like copilot. I’m not going to say that that’s the best new one. I love the fact that Microsoft has finally put Microsoft Project in the cloud and combine it with planner. It’s really useful. It’s dorky and geeky and not very exciting but useful. Not going to say it. Hands down. The best new product this year is Notebook. Lm being able to create your own podcast with articles that you wrote or things that you feed it, be able to ask questions about documents that you have. They’re finding new things to do with Notebook LM all the time. If you want to dive into something about how to use generative ai, use Notebook lm, it’s a great tool. Debbie, what tech do you most want your law firm clients to explore in 2025?

Debbie Foster:

So this is a little bit of a cheater answer because what I’m going to say is I want law firms to be prepared to use amazing technology and that is going to require them to get their data cleaned up. And so I want them to be able to take advantage of this amazing tech. And what I want them to focus on in 2025 is getting their data in a state where that amazing technology is going to be really useful for them. And that is just unfortunately not the case for so many of our clients. And Dennis, the best new tech that you saw in 2024 that people will be talking about in 2025.

Dennis Kennedy:

So the key word here is people as opposed to lawyers. I think that the Apple Vision Pro is finally going to come into its own and for a reason that it may surprise people, I think it is the alternative to the giant desktop screen. So just put that in the back of your mind. And then I want to second what Tom was saying about Notebook lm, but in this context, because in the paid version of Google Gemini, they’re really opening up some of the features and potential of Notebook lm. So definitely worth the look, get a dig into your pocketbook for another $20 a month. But I think once you try Notebook lm, that will get your attention. And then Tom, your best tip overall for 2024 going into 2025.

Tom Mighell:

Well now that you’ve got us paying $40 a month for our generative AI tools, I’m going to say let’s spend another 20 and spend $60 a month because my must have tip is buy Perplexity Pro and use it. Perplexity is a terrific search engine. I use it constantly. Now it is taken, there are still some things that Google is an easy quick thing if I need to find something very quickly on the internet, it’s easy to do. But I am asking questions that Perplexity is answering and giving me evidence to provide the answers to. It is a daily useful tool to me. Well worth the $20 a month that I’m paying for it, take it and use it in 2025.

Dennis Kennedy:

So that was 2024 a year that in some ways felt like a year of monumental changes. But upon reflection, was it really, we’re all cautiously ready to move on to 2025 in Legal Tech, if not so much in other areas with a bunch of great new topics and ideas to share with you. Thank you Debbie for joining us again. And Debbie, tell people how best to reach you.

Debbie Foster:

You can check out our [email protected] and you can of course find me on LinkedIn

Dennis Kennedy:

And happy New Year to everybody.

Tom Mighell:

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 also 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, reach out to us again like Debbie on LinkedIn or we still like getting your questions, please send us a question. Leave us a voicemail at 7 2 0 4 4 1 6 8 2 0. Happy New Year’s from me as well. And 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 with an internet focus. As always, a big thank you to the Legal Talk Network team for producing and distributing this podcast. And we’ll see you next time for another episode of the Kennedy Mighell Report on the Legal Park Network.

Announcer:

Thanks for listening to the Kennedy Mighell report. Check out Dennis and Tom’s book, A Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies, smart Ways to Work Together from a 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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