This week on The Geek in Review, Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert talk with Curt Meltzer, principal of Meltzer Consulting, LLC. Meltzer has over 40 years of experience in the legal and legal tech industry. He discusses his interest in pro bono and community outreach programs in law firms and legal tech companies. He notes that while 95% of AmLaw 200 law firms highlight pro bono work on their websites, many legal tech companies do not prioritize these efforts.

Meltzer emphasizes that pro bono and community work is good for business. It enhances company culture, helps with recruiting and retaining top talent, and strengthens customer relationships. He argues that legal tech companies should consider emulating their law firm clients’ community programs. This could include donating software or services, allowing employees paid time off for volunteer work, or collaborating directly with organizations that law firm clients support.

Meltzer highlights LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters as leaders in the legal tech industry for their work promoting access to justice and the rule of law around the world. However, he notes that companies of any size can contribute, whether through recognizing employees who volunteer or donating resources. He published a list of 41 legal tech companies that do highlight community outreach on their websites to raise awareness, though he found 39 companies with no mention of such efforts.

Meltzer sees both opportunities and challenges ahead. Private equity investment in legal tech companies may prioritize short-term profits over community programs. However, companies that do not respond to customer interest in their pro bono and corporate social responsibility initiatives risk losing business to competitors. Overall, Meltzer aims to foster conversations about strengthening the relationship between the legal tech community and the broader community. Corporations that embrace ESG programs and give back to the communities they serve will thrive.

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⁠Transcript⁠

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert. So Marlene, I can tell that it’s summertime because one we’re getting those afternoon thunder showers. So you may hear some thunder in the background here. But the biggest way I can tell is that, you know, I get up in the morning go to work and my family who works at public school system, or just sound asleep still as I as I walk out, and it will be that way until August until they go back. Usually it’s the other way around users. They’re, they’re out the door before I am.

Marlene Gebauer 0:44
Yeah, that sounds like my family too. It’s up. They don’t work in the public school system. They just attend the public school system.

Greg Lambert 0:53
Well, we have a longtime friend on the podcast this week, Curt Meltzer, who is principal of Meltzer Consulting, LLC, and formally with organizations like Litera, Orrick, Norton, Rose Fulbright, I’m sure there’s a few more that we don’t want to necessarily run down the entire list. But, Curt, welcome to The Geek in Review. It’s good to see you.

Curt Meltzer 1:17
Thanks, Greg. Marlene, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today.

Marlene Gebauer 1:21
So Curt, you wrote a couple of LinkedIn articles recently, where you point out that 95% of the amla 200 firms have dedicated websites for their pro bono access to justice and community outreach efforts. In addition, many ediscovery vendors and legal tech companies are also involved in supporting their communities. But there are some companies and legal tech who do not prioritize giving back the same way that law firms and corporations do. So what was your motivation to start looking at this area of pro bono and community outreach efforts in the legal industry?

Curt Meltzer 1:56
Yeah, as you as you noted, I’ve been in the legal tech industry a long time, over 40 years, and I’ve been about half the time on the law firm side and about half the time on the vendor side. So I’ve got a perspective based on participating in both. And while I was at these law firms, I was worked at five different law firms, every single one of them had extensive pro bono programs. And they inveigh engaged in various community projects as well. I volunteered time working at local schools in Minneapolis through one of these firms, and participated and other community activities as well. But of the six legal tech vendors, I work for only one, the largest one of those LexisNexis ever did anything remotely along those lines. So it was, you know, presented a pretty significant contrast in my mind, and made me wonder, why is that so different. And a lot of this has come about by the recent growth in the ESG movement, particularly within larger corporations, who have noted the value to their companies about their engagement with the community, it’s just good business, it’s very simple. It’s good business, there are many studies that have shown the financial performance is improved. Once corporations embrace an ESG program, once their own company’s b2b, customer relationships are enhanced, because of mutual involvement in these activities, they also find a tremendous increase in attracting and retaining employees. And it increases employee productivity and their motivation as employees feel increasingly good about their employer. So there’s a lot of good reasons for every company to be doing these things. And obviously, some have more resources to devote to that than others. But there is benefit associated with everybody. And I see a big gap in the legal tech community. And this is perhaps my way of trying to get back by alerting people and making them aware of it, and try to get a little more activity on the other vendors suck.

Greg Lambert 4:04
This is probably an obvious question here. But do you think the law firms are doing it only because this is something that basically the Bar Association’s kind of require us to do that there, that there has to be so many hours of community, you know, working in community, or pro bono work? And there’s not necessarily that same requirement on the tech side? And let me let me spend it another way. If we didn’t have that requirement, would we still would we be more like the legal tech companies and and not not doing it because we don’t have some regulatory board looking over our shoulder?

Curt Meltzer 4:44
Well, I’m a glass half full kind of person. So I believe that law firms would do it regardless. I think it’s part of the tradition of the legal profession is to give back it’s not a requirement that not a regulated industry, but they want to do it And, I think provides a lot of fulfillment to lawyers, many people in law firms who are engaged in pro bono activities have more client engagement with their pro bono clients than they do with their corporate clients. And they see things through to fruition. And, and it, it’s, it’s a different motivation in that in most of large law firm work, you’re helping, rich people get richer. But in pro bono work, you’re helping people with really serious personal issues, relieve those issues and help them have better lives. And while it may be, there may be some economic incentives to do that. There’s a different level of satisfaction you get from doing that sort of work. And I think that there’s enough of this in the traditional legal profession, that it will carry on, no matter what Bar Association’s might require. And secondarily, and maybe even more important, in some cases, clients are asking law firms about their pro bono activities, they want to know they want to encourage them to do more, and they may choose to work with law firms that do more for the community than those that do not. It all depends on their requirements. But there are a lot of incentives to have law firms continue to get back to their community.

Marlene Gebauer 6:21
Do you see this? Maybe changing from a generational standpoint? You know, there’s studies that, you know, certain generations like that that is more important to them in terms of, you know, giving back to the community. Do you see that there’s any trend, or will be any trend the other way?

Curt Meltzer 6:38
I think it’s very clear that there’s a trend in that direction. And that’s why corporations have been growing their ESG programs in recent years. It’s I’m a member of the baby boomer generation, don’t hate me. And I hear I know that there’s very little other than what may be a minimum requirement or minimum obligation field for majority of people in that generation. But as as we reach younger generations, like millennials, in particular, they are doing a lot more for the community, because a lot of proof of that. So maybe it’s just a matter of time, but I’m not patient enough to wait.

Marlene Gebauer 7:23
Well, what are some specific examples of community outreach efforts that have been undertaken by large law firms.

Curt Meltzer 7:32
So there’s lots as we’ve talked about the 95% of the ABA, 200 least that I could find, emphasize their pro bono programs, and many of them emphasize it in their career pages. So they’re trying to recruit people who are interested in giving back to the community. Most large law firms offer paid days, or hours of service to their employees. Many, in fact, use Martin Luther King day as a day of service. And they’ll do things as as groups or, you know, an office of the firm will do sing something together on that day, that’s become increasingly popular in recent times. And many of the efforts beyond simple pro bono work, focus on causes that they believe in supporting and preserving civil rights, protecting the environment, or ensuring access to justice, the Access to Justice, is a huge issue for law firms, because we know that a large percentage of the population doesn’t really have access to the legal system because they can’t afford it. And finding new ways to enhance the ability to deliver legal services to those with less resources is is a very important goal for ESG. In many law firms.

Marlene Gebauer 8:51
Do you find that most of the pro bono is sort of, I would say, more traditional pro bono, which involves representation? Or are you seeing any trend towards use of technology or sort of working in technology to develop, you know, access to justice solutions, or things like that?

Curt Meltzer 9:11
There have been a number of really interesting developments on the tech side for access to justice and typically comes from one of individual legal aid organization, there’s so many, you know, 1000s of them around the country. And if one gets somebody who volunteers time to say, you know, what are the issues that are hitting your customers more often, they’ll develop something like chat bots would be great opportunity to help people answer questions they have about legal services. It is interesting that many people who are impoverished still have phones that they use to access the internet. You’ll see on the streets in New York City, the public access to the internet and charging, you’ll see homeless people charging their phones. And you know, using the service for free there because it’s almost a necessity just to live nowadays. So it’s easy to access people with relatively low income, because almost all of them have access to the internet through their phones. And, and so building applications and accessibility to these services, using these applications has really taken off in recent years. And I don’t see any end to that in the near future. I think it’s encouraging. And and with all the generative AI work being done and chatbots being developed, it’ll probably grow even more in the short time,

Greg Lambert 10:44
that would seem to be the path that we’re on. So, Curt, when you when you approach legal tech companies and you start discussing this idea, how do you approach them and say, here’s kind of the benefits that you would get as a legal tech company from by engaging into this corporate social responsibility initiatives that you’re talking about.

Curt Meltzer 11:11
I think it’s very similar to any other corporation, everybody’s motivated by increasing performance, be it revenue or profitability, or what have you. And there are many studies to show that this is the case, and also saves you a lot of money by enhancing your employee relationships, increasing retention, enhancing your recruiting capabilities, getting and retaining employees is very expensive. And anything you can do to help that will save the company a lot of money. And but in terms of the disparity between law firms and legal tech vendors, it’s really easy to have the conversation to say, look at what your customers are doing. Who are your 10 biggest customers look at their websites, you’re more likely to see what they’re engaged with. And think about how can you collaborate with them hand in hand to support the causes that they believe in? So those are ready made? You know, nobody’s gonna say no. If you’re a software company, you can donate software to whatever organizations they’re working with. Many of them will have use for it, some might not. But plenty will. You can talk about the kinds of services that you deliver if you’re not a software company, and how can you al help legal aid organizations? It has their ability to run their business or what have you. So collaborating with your customers and saying, What do you guys do? We want to help you further your causes. It’s a very easy discussion to have. It’s like when I was CIO of a law firm, and a partner asked me as a CIO, what would you do to increase my business? How should I be thinking about increasing my business? And my response was very simple that any marketing person would say, go talk to your clients, ask them, sit down with them, don’t charge them, and ask them what’s going on in your business? And what are the challenges you’re coming up with and listen to them, because one of the things that clients always say the most is, my, my outside counsel doesn’t understand my business. And that’s because they don’t ask, or they want to put it on the clock to ask. But if you want to enhance your business, and create strong relationships, listen to your customers, it’s a very simple thing. So legal tech vendors should be turning around to their customers, maybe the ones that they’re having trouble with maybe the ones that they’ve let down in some way, and turn to them and say, Hey, we want to help you, in your efforts to whatever is important for or have access to justice or environmental concerns, civil rights, whatever, how can we help you in that cause and develop a relationship based on mutual interests, and that can only enhance the relationship and then the profitability for the firm as well. So it’s, it’s not complicated stuff. I think people just get wrapped up in what they’re working on and forget how simple it is to have those conversations, who’s gonna say no to having that kind of conversation? Or that a engagement? Anybody be happy to have that? So it’s, it’s really not a mystery. It’s pretty straightforward. Mix. You know, it’s just common sense.

Greg Lambert 14:35
One of the things that we started discussing you coming on to talk on the podcast is because you had written a couple of LinkedIn articles and discussed from the law firm side of things and your perspective on that. And then on the legal tech company side of things in your in your second article, promising a list of players In the industry that were doing good, good works in the second article, but what are there any particular legal tech companies that kind of stand out for their commitment for for giving back? And and how can law firms effectively drive change in their legal tech providers regarding corporate social responsibility, in other words, kind of put the pressure on maybe even start the conversation with them that we could use your help doing some either ESG or pro bono work? Yep.

Curt Meltzer 15:36
I think the two that really stood out the most in the vendor community are LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters, they really put a lot of effort into ensuring the application of the rule of law around the world. Many people outside of the US and some of the Western countries are not as fortunate as we are to live under the rule of law, their safety, livelihoods are significantly challenged, they have a lot of variables that are out of their control. And while we may think things are out of control in this country, we’re pretty safe. By and by. So these two companies work all over the world with governments and corporations, to further the rule of law. Now, if every nation filed through a law, that probably would be good for their business, too. So it’s not entirely selfless. They have a selfish motivation. But that’s great, because it works for everybody. And so that’s really a win win. But they are having worked at Lexis and I know, talk to a lot of people at Thomson Reuters, that the employees are really proud of their company’s efforts along these lines, and they’ve been sustained for many years at a great cost. And yes, those are very large corporations. But

Greg Lambert 16:53
that was gonna be my question.

Speaker 3 16:54
Yeah, they are giving back. And it’s a it’s a significant commitment to them. And their top level people talk about it routinely. It is a really a I believe, of part of their fabric. And and it’s very much admired as, as much as we might criticize them for some things from time to time. I think they both do a really great job. And Bloomberg does, as well as do many others in the legal research area.

Greg Lambert 17:21
I was just wondering, since you mentioned, really the two big players in the legal tech and legal information market? Is this something that can be scaled down for smaller companies? Or is this an excuse for smaller companies to not do it? Because they said, Well, look, you know, you need to be a Thomson Reuters or a Lexis in order to really have that type of type of capability is, do you see it that way?

Curt Meltzer 17:46
No, I think any company of any size can do that. Snell i, if we look at the low end, if we look at startups, and there are so many startups in the industry, you know, those individuals are working 100 hour weeks, and they’re losing money, it’s hard to say that they could devote some of their resources to, to giving back to the community. But at some point, if they’re making any profits at all, these companies have to start thinking about giving back. So it’s, it’s pretty easy for us, for most software companies, they can offer their product for free to any type of charitable organization, most notably legal aid organizations to enhance the access to justice. But there’s a cost associated with that, because then they have to help them implement it and support it. So yes, it will take some of their time. But they don’t have to charge for the software, right? That should be within reach of many, many companies. And again, if they’re looking for organizations that work with just turn to their customers, they could probably give them a dozen right off the top of their heads. So it’s I don’t think it’s asking a lot to do that. And the other point is that a lot of people in every walk of life volunteer their time to help their community in one way or another. Their employers should reward them for that and recognize them that for that they don’t have to give them money, but just recognition and thanking them for doing that. And then talking about it to their customers where we have X number of people volunteer y number of hours per year, and making it important part of the culture of the organization. I think almost anybody can do that doesn’t have to cost money. You don’t have to spend millions of dollars to do this. It’s just everyday people do things to give back to others. And it’s important to recognize and appreciate that and and let your customers know that you’re doing it as well. I don’t think it’s asking a lot at all.

Marlene Gebauer 19:51
Current your second article you had mentioned you were going to provide the list and you did so so you have the the list of I think it’s 41 companies and links to their community focus pages. And you encourage readers to go and check those out. What motivated you to to actually put a list together of the vendors giving back to their communities? And have you gotten any feedback on it?

Curt Meltzer 20:15
That’s a great question. Marlene, I believe that transparency is critical to foster change within any organization. And so it occurred to me that I should highlight those organizations that I could readily find, that are doing something to give back to the community. So I did find 41. But I also found 39, that do not appear, at least from their website to give back to the community, they’re not talking about it. So I decided not to include those 39 At this time, because I don’t want to embarrass anybody, I want to encourage them, you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar, right? So in the course of this process, I spoke to one vendor and said, This is what I’m gonna do. And he said, Well, we do a lot of stuff for the community. But we don’t have anything on our website about and like, why not? Why wouldn’t you do that, that’s that that’s a positive for your company. So two days later, they had a community page on their website, which was great. So I’m really about starting a conversation, I don’t think we’ll have a sea change anytime in the new near future, I think it might take a long time to really make an impact. But I thought this would be someplace to start off. And the next step really, is to have customers ask their legal tech vendors about their efforts to give back to the community. And the more people that ask, the more these companies will recognize that it’s important, and they’ll do something, and we’ll see results. And that would really be great. But you’ve got to take small steps in order to reach the goal. And so I’m at a point in my career now where I can do this, I don’t imagine I’m gonna get any income from this effort. I’m doing it because I think it’s the right thing to do. And I’m happy to be able to get back in this small way. And hopefully, you know, it’ll make a difference in in a handful of vendors in the near term. And more and more over time.

Greg Lambert 22:17
Curt, I know, I know, when you were pulling this list together, you had some concept of how you were going to kind of pick the companies that you want to look for what what kind of criteria did you use to gather, who was going to be looked at, and then also what was going to be looked at,

Curt Meltzer 22:36
I like to think of myself as a person who believes in science. But in this case, I implemented a very unscientific methodology. The first thing I did was I went to the iltacon, sponsor list. And I started at the top, and I worked my way down the list. And I looked at most of those vendors, I know I left off a few smaller ones. And then the second place I looked to was legal week exhibitor list. And I at least pulled out companies I had heard of there, a lot of companies that hadn’t heard of him, not an ediscovery expert, there’s a lot of ediscovery vendors at legal week. But I pulled out a bunch more that were not on the iltacon list. And then the third source was thinking off the top my head, what are the companies that law firms spend their technology dollars on the most? So number one is always Microsoft. Right? So let me put Microsoft in there. And then I added Dell and Cisco and many other very large corporations to list because I thought it would be interesting and enlightening for people to see, oh, what are the big guys do? And you’ll see they have very extensive coverage of their ESG efforts on their websites. Because again, it makes good sense from their business perspective. So I do not claim to be comprehensive in this list. And in fact, of the 39 where I couldn’t find anything. Maybe they do have things on their websites. And and you know, I just missed it, that might say something about how they could enhance the ability to bind it. I didn’t I didn’t go into all the press releases that may have said something about that. There are so many press releases. I didn’t I didn’t focus on that at all. But I was really looking for ESG efforts, not I’m leaving out the whole Diversity area, the DEI spaces, I think, a different discussion. And so I purposefully left that out. You know, that is also very important topic, but not part of the conversation that I’m having at this point. I’d also like to encourage any company that I may not have listed that has something to share, to reach out to me as I say in these articles, and I’d be happy to add their names to the list. The next time I update it.

Greg Lambert 24:59
As you were going through and doing our observation and investigation into the the websites, for those that you found word doing some type of social outreach, or ESG? Did you observe any kind of pattern or trends among those those vendors on what they were committing to and how they were giving back? Was that was there any trend to that?

Curt Meltzer 25:24
As I said before, obviously, the larger the company, the more likely they’re going to do something, the more b2b engagement they have, the more likely they’re going to be doing something. I think it’s interesting that most of the companies that do something, apart from the very largest ones, don’t talk about their involvement in the access to justice. But when it’s all about community activities, it might be, you know, supporting various charities in their neighborhoods, raising funds for them volunteering their time, many of the companies have a headquarters office where the largest group of their employees will be located. And they’ll work with those communities locally. And that’s all great. It’s wonderful that they would do that, you know, they’ll give their employees time off, and they’ll have employee recognition programs for their volunteer efforts. But most of them are not involved in access to justice. And again, that’s what their their customers are doing. So I think, I think they should consider how they can assist in the process, as I said earlier, by collaborating with their customers,

Marlene Gebauer 26:37
you know, you have the data on what companies are doing, you’re aware of trends and patterns that we’ve talked about. So it’s a natural next question to, to say, you know, do you envision some sort of rating system or ranking system for the community efforts? You know, what factors would you consider in this process? Or would that just kind of destroy the whole purpose of of what you’re trying to accomplish?

Curt Meltzer 27:05
It might, I think it’d be controversial. That really is a great question that I don’t have a simple answer at all. But it is something that I’ve spent some time thinking about. There are various rating systems for DEI efforts amongst law firms, some of them are more controversial than others. Some require the law firms to pay fees to participate, so that it creates less than ideal incentives, I think, for participating. But, you know, if I were to suggest something, it would probably have to vary a lot, depending on the type of products or services that each company offers, I think there’d be some sort of combination of both objective and subjective data. Simple question for software companies, that is do they offer their software for free to, to legal aid organizations or any other type of charities, research companies provide a lot of free Research Services? You know, depending on their products or services, who are they supporting? But measuring the scope of their commitment, I think is is important as well, because if it’s a one time, you know, we donated a dozen old computers to local charity, like, okay, that’s nice, but that’s not really the commitment here, we’re gonna get rid of them anyway, we have to figure out a way to rank that sort of thing. We should look at, you know, what number what percentage of the employees are participating in these programs? Or what’s the total value of the products or services donated as a percentage of your, you know, corporate gross, some people aren’t going to tell us that private companies, but they can provide those percentages. And maybe that would be meaningful to some law firms. But really, I don’t have answers to this. And I would love to have some suggestions from any of your listeners, on the best way to create a rating system, maybe they have some examples of similar things that I could turn to. And I imagine, you know, if I ever get to that point, or enough people start asking for it, then I’d have to pull a group of people together and get a diverse perspective on how to do that in as far away as possible. And I bet it’d be a lot of effort and create a bunch of controversy, but it may be worthwhile to do so at some point.

Greg Lambert 29:30
We’ve mentioned ESG a few times on this and how corporations are using that to help them do their community outreach and some of their efforts in in supporting access to justice and environmental issues, and so on. And there’s kind of a I think, a few years ago, there was a big movement to do this, and there’s kind of been a little bit of a backlash. To that, one side of one side of the coin is saying that it’s greenwashing that you’re just saying that you’re doing this, but you’re really just kind of doing busy. You know, you’re highlighting a few things while you’re, you know, kind of underplaying some of the other stuff that you’re doing. And then there’s some other folks that may be saying, Look, you’re, you’re a business, you know, stay out of this other other stuff, the kind of wishy washy stuff and do what you do best. And by doing that, that’s the best way for you to serve. Are you seeing any of that, hitting some of the some of the legal tech or even even the law firm areas, getting some back, you know, a backlash for ESG?

Curt Meltzer 30:45
I don’t think so. I think this law firm business is different because of the history of pro bono service. They’ve been giving to the community for a long time, and they strongly believe in the value that it provides, not only to them, but to their community. So very few other industries have that sort of commitment. I’m sure the medical profession has similar perspective. And they do quite a lot for the for the general public well being. But most large corporations don’t have this kind of history. And so it’s easier to question their motivations. But in the legal profession, it’s been rock solid for decades, if not over a century. So

Greg Lambert 31:35
the legal tech industry will benefit by, you know, kind of correlating or, you know, aligning themselves with the with what the full legal, you know, with the law firms and others that are in the practice of law are doing, will that kind of buffer them from some of the blowback that they may have hit more of the corporate environment?

Curt Meltzer 31:56
I think because most of the companies in the legal tech profession are private companies, as opposed to public companies, they’re not subject to as much scrutiny. And the scrutiny that they care about most is their customers. If they’re collaborating with their customers on their ESG efforts, they’ll get nothing but positive feedback. So I think it’s very different. You know, there’s a handful of public companies, and maybe their pushback will be different. But most of the legal tech professional, private, so it shouldn’t have an impact.

Greg Lambert 32:28
Well, Curt, we’re at the point now where we ask our crystal ball questions. So I want you to pull out your crystal ball and peer into the future for us. And what kind of changes or challenges in this area? Do you see over the next say, two to five years, both on on the law firm side, and on the legal tech side?

Curt Meltzer 32:51
Well, let me address the the legal tech side first, there is a sea change in going about in the legal tech industry these days. And that’s due to the amount and volume of private Equity that’s being invested in the legal tech community. There’s a lot of big PE companies that have made investments, very well known ones such as Bain Capital, and Oakley capital and Warburg Pincus. And then there’s many, many others that have made investments in legal tech. And private Equity companies are not always the best long term stewards of their member companies. They make a lot of decisions based on short term bottom line decisions. So their motivations don’t always align long term with their companies, their employees, or the customers most importantly. So that’s makes it a lot harder to try to convince these companies that they need to give back to the community. So the only way to get their attention to have is to have increasing numbers of customers, ask the vendors about their ESG efforts. And then frankly, if they don’t like the answers they’re getting, choose a competitor, and make sure that’s known to these companies. And once they see their revenue impacted, then it becomes clear that they have to do something about it. So that’s really a big motivation for me to raise awareness. Because if nobody asks, nothing’s going to happen. And as these private Equity companies increasingly come into the industry in which it seems there’s there’s no end to that insight. They’ll have to realize that this is a cost of doing business in the legal community. And they’re gonna have to consider whether or not they’re, they want to do it. So that’s kind of a cloudy future. From my perspective, I’m really unsure about that and and maybe that’ll blow over. And, you know, maybe that won’t be a big issue. But I’m very, very concerned about it. And then, for law firms who are, who have a long history of working with relatively small vendors, in the legal tech community full of very brilliant entrepreneurs that we’ve all met over the years, it’s easier to affect change among smaller companies as the size of these vendors grow. It’s harder to get them to be responsive. So I think that there’s a couple of big challenges there. And we’ll see how it affects ESG efforts in the near term. But if you don’t start asking the questions, if you don’t raise awareness, nothing’s happening. And that’s why we’re talking today. I really appreciate it.

Greg Lambert 35:51
Curt Meltzer, principal of Meltzer consulting LLC. I want to thank you very much for coming on here and talking with us here at The Geek in Review, and keep keep doing the good work.

Marlene Gebauer 36:02
Thank you, Kurt.

Curt Meltzer 36:04
Thank you both. It was a pleasure.

Marlene Gebauer 36:06
And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on Twitter,

Greg Lambert 36:20
And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter, Kurt, if people want to continue the conversation, where can they find you online?

Curt Meltzer 36:27
I am see Meltzer on Twitter. I’m also on LinkedIn as Curt Meltzer and you could also go to my website, Meltzer consulting.com. Me LTZ er consulting.com. Thanks,

Marlene Gebauer 36:42
listeners. If you want to leave a comment or a question, you can leave it on our voicemail at The Geek in Review Hotline at 71348778 to one and as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 36:55
Thanks, Jerry. Alright, Marlene, I’ll talk to you later.

Marlene Gebauer 36:58
Okay, bye bye

hey, hey. Welcome back. To back, devils back home. Devils back