Ruby L. Powers is a leading immigration attorney and founder of Powers Law Group, P.C., a full-service...
Zack Glaser is the Lawyerist Legal Tech Advisor. He’s an attorney, technologist, and blogger.
Jennifer Whigham is the Community Director at Lawyerist.
Stephanie Everett leads the Lawyerist community and Lawyerist Lab. She is the co-author of Lawyerist’s new book...
Published: | January 23, 2025 |
Podcast: | Lawyerist Podcast |
Category: | Conference Coverage , Legal Technology |
In this conversation, Ruby Powers and Stephanie discuss the significance of attending legal conferences, particularly the ABA TECHSHOW. They explore the differences between local and national events, the benefits of networking, and how to maximize the conference experience. Ruby shares her personal experiences and insights on how these events can be life-changing for legal professionals, emphasizing the importance of staying updated with technology and trends in the legal field. They also provide practical tips for attendees and highlight the upcoming ABA Tech Show in Chicago.
Links from the episode:
Special thanks to our sponsor Lawyerist.
Hi, I’m Zack.
Jennifer Whigham (00:13):
And I’m Jennifer. And this is episode 542 of the Lawyers Podcast brought to you by the Legal Talk Network. Today Stephanie talks with Ruby Powers about the benefits of networking and maximizing your conference experiences,
Zack Glaser (00:27):
Maximizing your conference experiences.
Jennifer Whigham (00:29):
Cool. I love to maximize something.
Zack Glaser (00:31):
Yeah, we’ve got a lot of conferences.
Jennifer Whigham (00:34):
We do, we do. But you have one we really like coming up in April and it is
Zack Glaser (00:40):
Text show. How do you say text show in all caps? Do you have to yell it? Because text
Jennifer Whigham (00:45):
Show like a metal. You’re at a metal, you’re singing at a punk metal concert and you just scream into the mic. That’s probably not great for podcasts, but that’s how you do it.
Zack Glaser (00:56):
Yeah, but it’s good live. And that’s what we’re talking about with the benefits of conferences is before I was with Lawyerist, I was practicing and I had heard of tech show and there were a lot of conferences that were bandied about as things that were positive to go to. But it’s tough to figure out what your ROI on that is why go to a conference? Jennifer, why do you go to conferences?
Jennifer Whigham (01:23):
I don’t, but I mean not because I just stay behind the scenes like the Wizard of Oz, but if I did it would be because I like I’m seeing the people, I like talking to the people. It’s like you’re in the structured setting that you don’t get to be in often with other people and you’re really hyped on ideas and interesting things and it’s kind of a fun way to talk to people in my opinion.
Zack Glaser (01:50):
Well, and the conferences that we go to, you and I and Lawyerist a tech show, it’s obviously our conference lab con, lab con. We go to a couple others, CLE Con and things like that. But a lot of times for me the conference is small enough that it’s approachable, but yet specifically with text show, it’s big enough that it’s relevant and going to give you good information. So for example, at text show, you can run into and eat lunch with and talk with people that you’ve kind of been following on Twitter or LinkedIn or people that you think have good things to say and then you can have good things to say back to them
Jennifer Whigham (02:37):
Maybe.
Zack Glaser (02:38):
Maybe. Yeah. But I think that’s one of the major benefits too, is that you get really kind of connected with this group of people that are, I don’t even want to say hopefully we’re not just going to conferences of like-minded,
Jennifer Whigham (02:54):
Right, but like-minded in the way that you’re in discussion and interesting things in that way. Like-minded brains that are open to the open air.
Zack Glaser (03:07):
Yeah, I mean I think if you go to tech show, you’re going to be around people that are in the legal field and lean towards technology. So just as a plug, that is April 2nd through fifth in Chicago as it normally is, but I think they’re changing locations this time. We’re going to a different conference center. I don’t know it off the top of my head.
Jennifer Whigham (03:32):
Interesting Bean. It’ll be inside the Bean in Chiago. Can you go inside The Bean in Chicago? For anybody who’s never been to Chicago, the Bean is this huge glass metal, this huge sculpture in Chicago that looks just like a silver blob. But I actually don’t know if you can go inside it. I suspect not.
Zack Glaser (03:54):
I suspect not as well,
Jennifer Whigham (03:55):
But we can and we will see you
Zack Glaser (03:57):
There. Yeah, we can in our minds. But again, tech show is April 2nd, fifth. We will be there. Myself, Stephanie, I know Debbie Baron, a lot of the affinity people that we work with and a lot of the lawyers people. So we’d love to see our people there. We’d love to see people that listen to the podcast and follow us in various areas. So we’d love to talk to people.
Jennifer Whigham (04:25):
Come say hi. And now here is Stephanie’s conversation with Ruby Powers.
Ruby Powers (04:29):
Hi, my name’s Ruby Powers with Powers Law Group. It’s a full service immigration law practice in Houston, Texas as well as with Power Strategy Group and podcaster with Power Up Your Practice.
Stephanie Everett (04:41):
Ruby, I’m excited to talk to you today. In addition, you wear a lot of hats including you’re on this year’s a tech show board, right?
Ruby Powers (04:49):
Yeah, I’m really excited. I’m a newbie on the board, so I’m just soaking up everything. But I’m a big fan of tech show
Stephanie Everett (04:58):
And I mean you may be a newbie on the board, but I think it’s fair to say you’re a veteran of going to national conferences because you and I met several years ago, I don’t even remember now at which conference, but there’s a group of us that we seem to travel around and see each other at these shows and I know you and I have crossed paths a number of times.
Ruby Powers (05:15):
Yeah, I think it might’ve been maybe five years ago at San Diego or something like that, maybe.
Stephanie Everett (05:22):
Exactly. Which is actually the topic we kind of want to discuss today, which is conferences. It’s the end of the year and people are probably starting to think about 20, 25 and budgets and where they want to invest and spend their time to get better for their practice. And I know you and I want to have a conversation about why they should consider going to some of these conferences. And maybe just to kick off that conversation, it might be helpful to distinguish the difference between maybe a local CLE that you go to at your local bar versus some of these bigger events. And how would you describe those differences to people?
Ruby Powers (06:00):
Well, I think there’s a lot of different categories. I go to a lot of the immigration conferences with the American Immigration Lawyers Association for example, but there’s other organizations that do that and then there’s the tech conferences and there’s other types of conferences. But in this local, I think just if you were just break it down to local versus national, local sort of pulls a different type of speaker attendee as well as vendor. And usually they’re a bit smaller and so the pool is not as large. And when you go to more of a larger national level, you’re pulling a different level of speaker as well as a lot more vendors and just it gives you exposure to a whole bunch of people that you might not have ever gotten to bump into before. So there’s a lot of benefits on more of a national level.
Stephanie Everett (06:55):
Absolutely. Are there other considerations you think people should be making? Why they might maybe they’ve never been to one of these national events and why should they consider going?
Ruby Powers (07:06):
Well for me, I’ve actually gone to about four tech shows this year. In 2024 alone, I helped organize one for ALA and I went to Lex with F fine and CLE Con and a tech show. And honestly the people that I’ve been meeting, the conversation I’ve been having just helped give me a leg up of knowing, I think starting to see the future because you can see the trends or affirms that what you think is accurate. So the connections being made, the things that I’m learning the level of the speakers for just example, I didn’t go to a tech show until 2019 and I had been trying to squeeze it into my conference schedule and budget and I’m so glad I went because it really was a life-changing professional changing trajectory profess after attending my first one.
Stephanie Everett (08:09):
Yeah, I mean that’s a big statement. Life-changing, professional directional changing. Why? What happened or what was different about that event?
Ruby Powers (08:21):
Well, I’d always been wanting to go, but I had to sort of budget for local, my bar of my practice and I realized that I’d with my tech for example, had had a set it and forget it mentality, sort of like it’s okay, it’s good. But then when I went there, just tech show for example has a lot of, it’s like it’s a vendor, a trade show, it’s a CLE and it’s like the meeting of the minds and sort of all three proms and there’s some fun too. So I was able to talk to so many vendors on the hall that had never come to the conferences I had been attending before. I mean I found out there was categories of tech I didn’t even know I needed and then there was just the level of speakers. I remember hearing Ed Walters talking about AI and showing us samples of it and I was just mind blown.
(09:18):
And then now I saw him recently and I said, I remember what you said then. And now here we are and we have the same technology sort of at our fingertips, but that was five years ago and just the speakers and the people that I was connecting with have helped me resources for me later on when I was later actually I was writing my first book at that point and then for my second book and my podcast. So all of those things as well as helping me run a more efficient law firm and just having colleagues that are sort of like-minded in that space but then are still keeping me on my toes by comparing notes and having a really great dialogue. I think that’s how I could say it was life altering.
Stephanie Everett (10:06):
You definitely get to connect with a lot of people when you go to these larger events and I guess this might be a good place for us to shift. So hopefully throughout the course of this podcast we’re going to convince people that you should budget to go to one event like this next year. And so let’s assume they’re going to go, what tips should we give them to make the best out of the experience because we just said it can be quite large and maybe a little bit overwhelming, especially if you’re going by yourself and you don’t know anyone. And so how do you get yourself into these conversations where all these things are happening? What advice would you give people?
Ruby Powers (10:45):
So for any conference that I’m going on nationally, I try to figure out who’s going or I proceeding to that maybe a few weeks before I’m going to whatever conference, are you going to be there and sort of try to figure that out so that you can sort of create your little group that you can at least have your wingman or something. You can go to events together and sort of compare notes and oh, you’re going to that event, I’m going to go to that event. So you don’t feel alone. But then at the same time, a lot of the people who go to these types of things, they’re open to meeting people, they’re willing, I mean they know what they’re signing up for. They have sort get out of their shell having gone to a tech show or some of my ALA conferences where I know a lot of people versus when I went to Lex this year when I didn’t know that many people, it reminded me of what it’s like to be a newbie at a national conference.
(11:40):
And you just sort of have to put yourself out there and be open. So announcing to people you’re going trying to find out who else is going. I think scoping out this calendar and the schedule and sort of trying to maximize that time of where you’re going to be where and when, find out when the extra non-official parties are going to be and try to put those on your calendar as well. And I think also really being intentional is like why are you going? Are you going because you want to check out some software or to change your tech stack? Are you going because you want to meet certain people and you want to make a beeline to purposely go talking to those people? Are you wanting to meet people that you can refer business to or a natural referral and maybe it’s all of the above. So I think it’s important to sort of make a goal list so you could check it off and sort like a scavenger hunt to make sure that you’re getting the most out of it, especially if you need to psych yourself into, it’s paying for itself and it will pay for itself in the long run as long as you do these types of things and you’re out there and you’re maximizing your time at the event.
Stephanie Everett (12:52):
And I know some people go with a buddy or a friend either from another law firm or if you can bring someone from your law firm and sometimes it’s nice to have that support and obviously you can then divide and conquer in terms of which panels or speaker, which rooms you’re going to go into. There’s often multiple tracks happening at the same time, but my warning there would be don’t let that friend be the crutch too much. Right?
Ruby Powers (13:18):
That’s true.
Stephanie Everett (13:18):
Yeah. The best conversations I’ve ever had is I’ll just remind myself, I remember multiple conferences where it was lunchtime and they often, they arrange this so that you sit with each other at lunch. And I remembered thinking I got my plate and I was like, oh, I kind of feel low energy, I should just go sit by myself. And I was like, no, that’s not the reason you’re here. And then I sat down and both times I’ve forced myself to do that. I mean I can think of two times where I’ve immediately got clients as a result of those conversations. So I even have to psych myself up like, no, you’re here to meet people. Go sit with strangers.
Ruby Powers (13:55):
That’s also true about the energy part. It’s like a marathon. So just like I know when I go to my ALA national conferences from Wednesday to Sunday morning like Woo, you’ve got to moderate your alcohol and caffeine and make sure you have sleep and how long you’re going to go out so that you don’t ruin the following days so you can really maximize it and really just take care of yourself so you can do that marathon. And one other trick I do is I try to create a WhatsApp or some type of a chat group for the people that I know are going to be there so that we can create a sub community of, Hey, are you going to that? Okay, yeah. Oh, this is a really good session. You should come over here. Or sending photos so that we can use that for our social media posts later on. Which is also great because creating content that you can post on your firm’s social media or your company so that you can create those connections. And I think it also helps with those posts and everything that you might be doing to help create more of a community on LinkedIn as well throughout the year, which can also be beneficial for your business.
Stephanie Everett (15:15):
Yeah, I mean we’ve obviously been talking about the direct result. You’re going to learn new things, you’re going to meet new people, but I connect with so many law firms who want to have the, they tell me, oh, we are creating an innovative law firm. If that’s the case, you should be going to these events because what better way to signal to your clients and your potential clients? We actually are putting our, we’re actually doing what we say we’re going to do. We say we’re innovative and look, we’re at these conferences actually learning the latest and greatest and putting it into action. That’s a great marketing message that you can have as well.
Ruby Powers (15:55):
It’s not just a tagline, we’re actually doing it and we’re dedicating our efforts to improving and learning. And I think the other key point is with AI and technology changing so much for a conference like a tech show, it’s more relevant than ever before. When I think back in the day you could sort of change your tech stack maybe every, I don’t know, five years, two years, something like that. But now I feel like I’m telling people they need to be auditing at least quarterly, just evaluating what their tech stack can do, not seriously leaving it or anything because disruptive, but just maybe there’s more capabilities affecting your operations and tandem with your tech stack and just everything that’s going on within the AI revolution right now. Just making sure that you’re being as efficient as possible. That’s really why this is more necessary than I think ever before.
Stephanie Everett (16:59):
And I think that’s a great point and it’s a great reminder that these tech companies, they used to release annual updates where’d be like, here’s this year’s new features that’s too slow right now. They’re releasing them quarterly, monthly sometimes. So the updates are coming fast and furious and these conferences, all your major players are there on the floor vendor hall and they bring their best people. These are top-notch people. So even if you just go down to the floor, if you’re not thinking of changing software, you can go connect with the tool you already use and be like, show me the latest. How can I use this? Can I solve this? This is the problems I’m having. And they’ll sit there with you oftentimes and help you figure it out. I know I do that on behalf of lobsters that we work with. I’m like, people are struggling. Does this solve this yet? And they’ll be like, yeah, here’s how it’s working. So there’s a lot of different ways you can leverage the people who are at the event
Ruby Powers (18:00):
Because a lot of times what you could do different approaches. One, you could go and actually do the demos while you’re there doing those expo hall breaks or you could schedule them for later on so that you and or team could do them, but sometimes it’s good to do a little bit while you’re there so that you can really see it. And they usually have a lot of different experts maybe there on hand, but there’s different approaches to that. But that’s really what happened when we were deciding to change. Our tech stack was a combination of I toured the vendor hall, scheduled some, I played around with things and then I also had it scheduled for my office manager when we got back to really go to you a deep dive.
Stephanie Everett (18:48):
Yeah, that makes sense. Well tech show is coming up, it’s a little bit later this year. Normally we have to head to Chicago in February and it’s really cold and now they’ve pushed the dates back. So now it’s going to be right the first week of April.
Ruby Powers (19:04):
Yeah, April 2nd to fifth, 2025. And it’s at the McCormick in Chicago, so it’s a new location and a new time. So I think previously it was somewhere either in early March or last year or in 2024. It was in mid February, but this one’s early April and Chicago is a great place. There’s all those architecture tours, there’s that science and work museum that has a submarine in the basement. It’s beautiful. I think the weather’s going to be great and even though it’s a new location, it’s going to be fun to explore all the different restaurants. And there’s the bean, there’s a lot of stuff. I’ve been going there a lot for conferences and planning. But yeah, so it’s a little bit different time. So making sure you get that in your calendar scheduled. So that’s a great time to come in for that. So make sure that you get to vote, you get to see other people, get the party started with the conference and the expo hall starts later that night.
(20:07):
And then there’s the all day Thursday and Friday with CLEs and actually extends into Saturday as well till the mid Saturday. And we’ve got a really great keynote speaker that’s in the works that Ivan was really fascinated and referenced him, one of his speeches in my latest book. And there’s going to be a lot of it be really great. And one other thing is we’re celebrating the 40th birthday, so we’re going to have some fun with that. I think some of the details of the partying and the theme are to be determined, but it’s going to be fun
Stephanie Everett (20:54):
And that all sounds amazing. I’m super excited. In terms of timing, I’m not sure if you know offhand, but I’m sure there’s early bird specials going on right now. Is registration open or it’s about to open and we want to go ahead and get that in.
Ruby Powers (21:10):
It’s been open since I think the last, you could go in and register. So the A tech show, just go to tech show.com is the website tech T-E-C-H-S-H-O w.com. And you can see a pretty website with all the information. And so let’s see, register now you can the registration fees. We’ve got the A BA member, the A, BA law student member, the law practice division member, the non-member. And then there’s also government, academic, nonprofit. And you can also buy just like for Thursday or just for Friday if you want just a one day. And this is something I think a lot of people don’t know, there’s an expo only pass that’s actually complimentary. So you can go there and run around the expo, but that doesn’t get you into the LES and some of the evidence.
Stephanie Everett (22:12):
But if you are just wanting to explore new technology and you don’t need the CLEs or you’re not interested in that, that is a super great way to come and experience tech show and just walk the vendor hall floor. Although the CLEs are great too. I happen to know one of the speakers. I’m just kidding.
Ruby Powers (22:31):
Yeah, we might be a little biased. Full disclosure, we were on a panel together in 2024. Yeah,
Stephanie Everett (22:37):
That’s right. We spoke together at tech show last year and I know we’re both speaking this coming up year in 2025. So I’m always excited. And I guess I’ll just extend a personal invitation right now. I love this event. I don’t miss it now, even if I’m not slated to speak, I’m always grateful when I do get to speak. I love speaking, but it’s a must go-to event for us. And if you’re listening to this show right now, you’re our friend in the lawyers community. So we usually do some kind of meetup just like Ruby said, we’re going to have conversations going about where are we? And we wear our t-shirts, so we’re easy to find. So you already have a friend going because I’m going to be there and I would love to connect with you. So I just want to extend a personal invitation to everyone because we need to be there.
(23:29):
One, you need to understand what’s happening in the technology world. We had this discussion on LinkedIn over the weekend where somebody was saying, we’re still hearing conversations about how to use chat GPT and law firms and when you should use it and not use it. And I was saying, yeah, we still have a lot of education to do. And someone questioned me and was like, do we or do the lawyers who are figuring it out first, should they just be able to take advantage of the competitive advantage they’re going to have and leave everybody else in the dust? It was kind of an interesting little discussion we had on LinkedIn, but that should be a marker to everyone. If you do not know what’s happening in technology in legal tech right now, you are going to be competitive. You’re going to be at a disadvantage. Your people are embracing this, they’re using it for good, they’re changing their businesses as a result. So if there was ever a time to come, it feels like now, is it?
Ruby Powers (24:27):
I completely agree. If you think about that Rogers innovation curve, the people who are attending are the innovators and the early adopters and their businesses and their profession are benefiting from it because some of the people are still like, what’s Chet GPT? But the people who are attending, it’s a combo. They’re like, oh, I need to go to this. But they’re also the people who’ve been using it for two plus years and are leveraging it in their practice and finding ways to be more efficient and be more competitive. And just to give you some idea of what some of the content we’ve got coming up, we’ve got things from trial with an iPad to RV lawyering, to mindful tech, to legal technology regulation, a lot of ethics, a lot of AI is going to be incorporated in a lot of this. It’s going to be really, I think more of a medium to advanced in a lot of content.
(25:31):
So especially if you’ve been sort of listening around the country or locally to the webinars and CLEs about technology, I think this is going to be a really good meeting of the minds. And what I love also, this conference is really targeted to the small solo mid-size, depending on how you define that, because there’s other conferences for large firms, but you really are getting some practical tips on how to really use the technology. And so a lot of times at these conferences I find out who uses which program I have and I have a user’s little group that I meet maybe every other month with them. And we keep pushing each other to leverage our program to the best of our ability. So there’s so many benefits and I think we’re both cheerleaders for this program.
Stephanie Everett (26:24):
Yeah, absolutely. We’ll make sure to put the link to the registration page in the website, in the show notes for this. There’s a lot of great conferences happening in 2025 as Ruby mentioned. And I know my calendar’s already starting to fill up and we just want to make a nod tech show. Make sure you put that one because I think that’s the first kind of big one that’s happening. Some of the other ones happen later in the year, so you want to make sure you get this one on the calendar. Luckily they moved my kid’s spring break. It’s usually that first week of April and I got real nervous, but they’re going to have spring break the next week, so I love it. So I’ll be coming back from tech show and then heading to the beach.
Ruby Powers (27:06):
That’s great. I’m glad it can all work out. And just like you said, you’re a friend there. I’m a friend there, so if anyone wants to come find me, I’ll try to connect you. Just like my mentors who introduced me five, six years ago for the first time, I will do the best I can. And I want to say one other really cool thing I’ve realized from interviewing and talking to a ton of people about it, this is where company ideas have come from. This is where I come. Firms have become more advantageous in their tech and other service implementation. I’ve heard at least two stories specifically that people told me that because they were there, because they were on a panel with another cos speaker that that’s what gave them an idea for a company that’s going really successful. And one of them I’m even using. And so that gives me a lot of inspiration to think about just the ideas and the people that all come together and it’s not just ACL e, there’s so much more to this conference.
Stephanie Everett (28:11):
Absolutely. Alright, well with that, we’ll see everybody in Chicago and April. Thanks Ruby for hanging out with me today.
Ruby Powers (28:18):
Thanks Stephanie.
Stephanie Everett (28:19):
See you all there.
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The Lawyerist Podcast is a weekly show about lawyering and law practice hosted by Stephanie Everett.