In this episode of the Fringe Legal podcast, host Ab interviews Stefan Ciesla, the co-founder and CEO of Ayora ai, a startup that focuses on helping law firms manage their revenues and improve the revenue management skills of fee earners such as attorneys and lawyers. Steven discusses the problem Ayora is solving in the legal industry and the role of lawyers as revenue managers. He explains that fee earners often have to make revenue management decisions throughout a matter's lifecycle, but they may not have the necessary skills or focus on revenue management. Ayora's smart lockup assistant he ..read more

In this episode of the Fringe Legal podcast, host Ab chats with Conan Hines, Director of Legal Technology at Fried Frank, about building a tech-enabled culture in law firms. Conan shares insights from his previous roles at Clifford Chance and other law firms, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of legal technology and the psychology and behavior of users when it comes to successful adoption and change management. Conan emphasizes the need for building trust with lawyers and finding those who are curious and open to tech-enabled solutions. He suggests starting small with bite ..read more

While technology races ahead, improving legal training and education has lagged behind. Law schools excel at teaching students the law, but critical and practical skills development is often lacking. With the traditional law firm apprenticeship model fading, junior lawyers frequently lack opportunities to gain hands-on experience. Abdi Shayesteh, founder and CEO of the legal training platform AltaClaro, is on a mission to close this practical skills gap. Frustrated by the inefficiencies he experienced firsthand as a junior lawyer, Abdi has reinvented legal education and training. AltaClaro lev ..read more

As part of our series of examining Generative AI in Practice, Fringe Legal spoke with Stephanie Corey, founder of legal operations consultancy UpLevel Ops, and Brandi Pack, UpLevel’s Legal Tech Analyst & AI Consultant. They share how legal teams can thoughtfully leverage generative AI to transform workflows, augment human skills, and futureproof roles. With proper governance and training, we can keep pace with the evolution of AI and maximize its potential. Show notes: Show Notes: [00:02:19] Getting early access to GPT-4 [00:08:00] How are the Uplevel Ops team grew adoption internally [00 ..read more

We sat down with Jeff Pfeiffer, Chief Product Officer at LexisNexis during ILTACON 2023 to get his insights on legal AI progress, hype versus reality, increased law firm adoption, and the importance of demonstrating tangible benefits. Topics covered: Navigating the legal AI hype cycle AI’s potential to enhance legal workflows Growing law firm interest and hands-on exploration Avoiding the “trough of disillusionment” Real-world benefits driving adoption over hype ..read more

In this episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat interviews Nnamdi Emelifeonwu and Feargus MacDaeid, co-founders of legal tech startup Definely. Key Takeaways: Definely creates software plugins to simplify drafting, reviewing, and analyzing legal contracts in Microsoft Word using AI/ML. The idea originated from Feargus' need as a blind lawyer to access information in documents more easily. They validated demand with a scrappy prototype and early pilots despite its flaws. After leaving law firm jobs, their mission-driven approach focuses on access, efficiency, and transparency. Their blu ..read more

Summary: In this insightful episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat has an in-depth discussion with India Preston, Director of Platform Solutions at legal tech startup Lupl. They delve into India's winding journey into legal project management, tactical approaches to driving adoption, and how to effectively challenge established processes. India shares learnings and advice drawn from her diverse experiences - from helping build out Linklaters' LPM function from the ground up to make the leap to an early-stage legal tech startup. She provides a rare longitudinal view of how legal project ..read more

The guest this week are co-founders of New York-based Priori Legal.  Basha Rubin, the company's Chief Executive Officer, and Mirra Levitt, the Chief Product Officer, met as classmates at Yale Law School and found Priori. Earlier this year, they announced a funding round of $15 million.   Priori works with in-house legal teams to connect legal departments with the right outside counsel for projects globally, saving them time and money.  We discuss Legal Tech trends, their origin story, raising funds a Women Founders, and the secret sauce for successful legal teams ..read more

Legal operation teams have been increasing in popularity. In this episode, Liz Lugones and Sumi Trombley from Uplevel Opsshare why Legal Ops teams matter, why you should care, and how to leverage them to level up your legal team (in-house and at firms).   Uplevel Ops are offering a complimentary 30-minute consultation, you can find more here.   In the episode, we discuss: (03:12) Why should you care about legal operations (LegalOps)? (04:21) Law school vs. practice (08:12) Enabling fail-fast thinking in legal teams (11:11) It's not just about technology  (16:32) Embedded in the ..read more

To supplement the release of the Fringe Legal no-code report, which provides 100s of hours of market research in 6-min, we speak with Jackson Liu, Chief Commercial Officer at Neota, about the state of no-code in legal.  During the conversation, we discuss: How firms are using no-code tools Leveraging no-code tools as a competitive advantage Focusing on the customer journey and adoption for long-term success No-code challenges Future of no-code You can read the full No-code report at www.fringelegal.com/no-code-report ..read more