Our guest this week is ⁠Kristina Satkunas⁠, Director of Analytic Consulting at LexisNexis. Kristina discusses the recently released LexisNexis CounselLink Enterprise Legal Management Trends Report for 2023. This annual report provides insights and benchmarks on key metrics related to corporate legal spending and outside counsel relationships.

The 2023 report found that law firm hourly rates increased 4.5% over the past year, the highest year-over-year increase in the 10 years LexisNexis has published the report. While rate increases are not surprising, the magnitude is noteworthy. Kris attributes the largest drivers of the increase to economic factors like inflation as well as lower demand for certain types of legal work. However, average blended rates (the rates charged for entire matters rather than individual timekeepers) remained relatively flat. This suggests in-house counsel are mitigating rate hikes by changing the mix of firms, timekeepers, and types of timekeepers working their matters.

The report also found the ongoing trend of consolidation to fewer outside firms continues, with 61% of companies using 10 or fewer firms for 80% of their legal spending. Kristina expects this trend to remain relatively stable but notes there are benefits to using both a smaller number of firms (e.g. better rates, stronger relationships) and a larger number of firms (e.g. subject matter expertise, competitive rates). She recommends companies determine when to use large firms versus smaller or midsize firms based on factors like matter complexity, risk profile, and cost.

Alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) have not gained significant traction according to the report, remaining at about 12% of matters. Kristina is an advocate for wider AFA adoption and believes companies need to ask for and consider AFA proposals, especially for appropriate matters. AFAs can help buffer rising hourly rates. She acknowledges AFAs require effort to evaluate and implement but thinks legal operations teams and outside counsel should work together using data and analytics to develop reasonable AFA proposals.

The report provides new data on international lawyer rates in 22 countries. Rates differ significantly between countries based on factors like a country’s economy, political stability, and role in global trade and commerce. Many companies are leveraging international firms for regulatory, litigation, IP, and other legal needs outside the U.S. Benchmark data on rates in different countries provides helpful context, especially when engaging firms in new countries.

Kristina sees two significant changes on the horizon:

  1. Determining how to properly and effectively employ AI and technology to increase efficiency and reduce costs; and
  2. Continued access to data enabling both in-house and outside counsel to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

When asked what metric in-house and outside counsel should focus on, Kristina recommends using available data, whether from the survey or a company’s own systems. Data is a “two-way street” that should be shared collaboratively to improve decision making.

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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 was listening to a recent podcast on Stephen Poor’s Pioneers and Pathfinders where Steve was interviewing Natalie Anne Knowlton. And there was something that Natalie had said during that episode, I think is very relevant to the conversation that we’re about to have. And that is that the legal world is it uses a lot of anecdotal stories to describe how things are going on, especially in the operations of law and those relationships between corporate counsel and law firms. But based on what she was saying, we really need to do the research and collect the data, and use the data to back up the stories that were telling.

Marlene Gebauer 0:59
Well, our guest this week is also very much a proponent of analyzing the data to describe what’s happening in the legal market, and has recently produced a Trends report focused on what’s happening with outside counsel rates.

Greg Lambert 1:11
So we’d like to welcome Kristina Satkunas, Director of analytic Consulting at LexisNexis. Kris, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Kristina Satkunas 1:11
Yeah, thanks to you both for hosting me. I’m glad to be here.

Marlene Gebauer 1:23
Kris, the 2023 edition of counsel link enterprise legal management Trends report was released recently, and you titled it insights into seven key metrics in depth perspective on rising outside counsel rates, we wanted to bring you in and talk about this year’s report and dive into some of those numbers. But before we do, would you mind giving us a little bit of background on what the annual report measures and what the objective is for council link when it compiles the report each year?

Kristina Satkunas 1:53
Yeah, I’d be I’d be glad to do that. There are seven as the title would imply, there are seven key metrics that we track every year. And most of them are a cut of hourly rates. So hourly rates by practice area, or by law, firm size, by geography, etc. But there are two that are not rate related at all. So there are seven seven metrics that we have consistently tracked over those years so that we can track the trends of them. And then as to the purpose of the report, we’re sitting on a gold mine of useful data, or we have a benchmarking database that has well over $50 billion in legal spending, and that data spans a broad set of industries and practices. And within you know, my own 20 years, or 20 plus years at this point in the legal industry, one thing I’ve learned is that people want benchmarks. They want to know if what they are doing, or what they’re experiencing is like what everybody else is. So we mined the data to be able to share insightful benchmarks to others in the industry. And then I think there’s a side benefit that comes from being able to see analytics presented in a different way so that readers can have ideas of new ways for them to think about their own data. So for instance, we present both timekeeper rate statistics and then also blended matter rate statistics and show how that data can be presented. So I think that’s useful for people to think about with their own data.

Greg Lambert 3:38
And, Kris, how long have you been doing this specific report?

Kristina Satkunas 3:42
We’ve been doing this reports counseling has been doing this report for 10 years. This is the this is the 10th year of producing the the trends report. So it feels like a good time to to really be broadcasting then the value of and some of the changes that we’ve seen.

Greg Lambert 3:58
Yeah. So in the most recent report, you found that law firm hourly rates have increased significantly. I don’t think anyone’s too shocked by that. But what are some of the key drivers that you’re finding behind those rates and our clients seeing a value in return for the hike in the rates? Yeah, that’s

Kristina Satkunas 4:20
it’s a, it’s definitely two different questions. And I’ll try to I’ll try to hit hit both of them. So the the increase that we saw in the past year was the highest that we’ve seen in the 10 years that we’ve produced the report. And you’re right, I don’t think anybody surprised by it. We certainly heard anecdotally that rates were increasing at super high levels, that I heard from a number of our customers that they were seeing double digit rate increases. So So while the average that we report in the in the trends report is 4.5% was the average partner rate increase So that actually, I think 25% of partners actually had those double digit rate increases. So I think oftentimes, we get skewed by the by the average, but there were a lot of much larger increases out there. So as to why, why last year? Why why the largest increase that we’ve seen? You know, I think there are a number of drivers, their economic drivers the effects of inflation. Demand is certainly a part of it. Right? Lower m&a demand, other corporate types of legal work that we’re hearing about our I wouldn’t say drying up but but are certainly dropping in terms of demand. And as you both know, firms typically go to two levers to compensate for lower revenue and lower demand. They raise rates and or they reduce headcount. And I think we’re seeing or hearing about both of those things today. And as to clients seeing value. I think that it’s fair to speculate that some do, and some don’t. But the interesting thing that that is a separate metric in the report is that at least at a macro level, clients aren’t really feeling the pain of individual timekeeper rate increases. So another key finding in this year’s report is that blended matter rates were pretty flat relative to the prior year. So what’s happening is that customers are changing the mix in order to offset individual rate increases. So it’s either the mix of the firm’s they’re engaging, or the specific timekeepers, that are working on their matters, or the types of timekeepers, you know, partners, versus senior associates versus sivut, Junior associates, etc. So there are ways to mitigate the rate increases. And I think that’s an interesting finding to this year, as report

Marlene Gebauer 7:04
did investment or use of technology? Did that have any impact on the higher rates?

Kristina Satkunas 7:10
No, I don’t think so. So I think that it would be the opposite, right? Like we would expect investment of technology to help drive efficiencies, which, if anything, like drive down some rates? So I don’t I don’t think we’re seeing any effect at this point of investment in technology. But hopefully, hopefully, that’s a future thing specific to AI in particular.

Greg Lambert 7:32
I’ve heard people arguing the opposite. And that if the efficiencies go up, the rates go up. Because basically, they could be wrong. But I’ve been hearing arguments on both sides that efficiencies will drive down cost, whether that be maintaining rates, or if time drive up cost in Drive downtime. So it’s going to be interesting to watch how that how that plays out over the long run.

Marlene Gebauer 8:01
it’s gonna be very interesting to see how the generative AI impacts that.

Kristina Satkunas 8:06
Yeah, I agree. I agree with both of you. And it will be interesting to see what if any of the responses from corporate counsel, as if in fact, rates do go up as a result?

Marlene Gebauer 8:17
Kris, you found major differences in rate increases between practice areas? Why did rates increase so much more in areas like m&a versus others? What’s driving that demand?

Kristina Satkunas 8:31
I think the answer to that is that high value work tends to get the least pushback from corporate clients. So be it, m&a work, other types of corporate work, regulatory and compliance is a good example. Right matters in those categories are often deemed, as you know, either high risk, highly complex, critical, whatever the term is, that’s going to be used to categorize them. And nobody wants to haggle over hourly rates when the outcome is that crucial to the business. So even though demand is dropping in some of those categories, I think firms can continue to raise rates without fear of significant pushback. I mean, to to a limit, of course, but I think the the the perceived value of that work is is going to continue to fuel an increase in those rates.

Greg Lambert 9:26
And Kris, you had mentioned earlier about the blended rates, and those going up a little more modestly than the hourly rates. So I want you to kind of expand on on that. So how are the legal departments managing those costs in light of the higher rates? And are you finding any of the strategies that are there more effective than others?

Kristina Satkunas 9:50
Yeah, I think that one of the shifts that I’ve observed in the 10 or so years, I’ve worked with corporate counsel is that they’re getting savvier. and corporate legal departments have realized that while we often focused on individual timekeeper rates and approving those rate increases that are being asked for that total fees are the product of rates and hours and who is billing those hours. So legal departments can make choices to shift to different firms. And to make sure that high rate timekeepers aren’t doing work that somebody else perhaps could be performing. They can also ask for budgets, they can ask for staffing lengths if they really want to manage it closely. And the data suggests that this is happening, because the mix is shifting. And as to I guess, one other one other thing as to strategy. So the the mix is certainly a strategy paying attention to the mix. But I’d be remiss not to point out that if any sort of fixed fee, AFA arrangements are put in place, right, who cares at that point about hourly rates? Right, it doesn’t matter how much they’re going up if you’ve negotiated a a reasonable flat fee. So despite the fact that AFS are not being broadly adopted enough, in my opinion, they are still a tremendously effective strategy when dealing with soaring rates like we’re seeing.

Marlene Gebauer 11:22
So law firm consolidation is continuing, and with most companies using 10 firms or less for 80% of the spend, and you know, I imagine, you know, it’s it’s probably easier managing fewer panel firms, maybe you can, you know, do something with alternative fees across the board with a firm, what are some things that are fueling the ongoing consolidation? And do you expect this trend to continue?

Kristina Satkunas 11:53
Well, you’ve already so you’ve touched on a couple of reasons that, that that trend is, is there that it’s just easier to manage fewer firms, right, that they’re that they understand how, what the policies are of a given organization, under bills are hopefully going to be more in compliance with your guidelines, those things of that nature. But, but also, I think that one of the biggest benefits of consolidating to a relatively small number of firms is that those firms are going to have both a deeper and a broader understanding of a given clients work of their business, which should lead to better outcomes, as well as efficiency. And then I think, well, you touched on this already, that from a cost perspective, you should also be able to negotiate better fees be that better discounts on hourly rates, or AFS, because you’re more comfortable with the relationships that you that you have with those firms. So that increase volume should give you some negotiating power. And as to the trend itself, so in this most recent report, 61% of our customers use 10 firms or fewer for 80% of their of their of their work at their spend 10 years ago, when we started this report, the metric was 54%. So it’s bumped up to you know, somewhere around 60%. And it’s actually been pretty stable in the past several years, you know, it may shift up or down by a percentage point. And I think that most corporations have gone through this exercise of consolidation. And I don’t really expect to see it increased significantly at this point, because there are there are lots of industries where it’s just not possible. So take insurance carriers, for instance, they require firms in multiple jurisdictions, so they’re never going to consolidate their legal work to just a few firms. So I think we’re fairly stable, maybe it will go up just a little bit more, but but I don’t expect it to go up much beyond that. 60% It’s

Marlene Gebauer 13:56
interesting, because, you know, different firms are good at certain things as as opposed to others are focused on certain things as opposed to others. And, you know, you have boutique firms that, that are, you know, have a lot of expertise in, in certain types of areas. And yet, you know, you see this consolidation, you know, just it’s just kind of interesting that the ease and costs, and some of the factors that you mentioned, you know, seem to be seem to be important to firms as opposed to kind of picking and choosing, you know, who’s the absolute best?

Kristina Satkunas 14:34
Yeah, that’s the, I think there’s, there’s the question of who is the absolute best and also, could I potentially get a better rate by going to a smaller firm? So there are there are definite trade offs to having this strategy in place. You know, my my advice to our customers is to make sure on the pricing side that they really thought about the strategy, you know, when do you need when do you need to go To the largest firms that are out there, perhaps Perhaps there’s certain types of work where you could go down to the next tier of firms and still get just as just as high a quality of advice, but for a for a slightly lower rate. So I think there’s a balance. And that’s the other reason that that I don’t think we’ll see it go much above 60% Is that many, many feel like they need that they actually do better by having a bigger number of firms within their pool that to choose from. So it’s a great, it’s an interesting question. And I think that we’re maybe we we’ve hit that balance of having a small number of firms versus a slightly larger number of firms on their panels,

Marlene Gebauer 15:41
Do you see perhaps as a trend sort of going more to sort of the the smaller or the mid level firms and sort of saving the, you know, bet the ranch type of stuff for the larger ones.

Kristina Satkunas 15:51
So I haven’t seen it, you know, we one of the statistics that we track, as part of the research I do in the trends report is what percentage of work is going to the very largest firms versus the next year of firms. And overall, it really hasn’t shifted much. And I look at that by practice area as well. So we haven’t seen it to date in the data. Will that happen in the future? Again, I think people are getting savvier. And they’re thinking about their strategy. So it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw some strategy of of thinking about when it would be better to engage other other types of firms besides the the biggest in our country. Yep.

Greg Lambert 16:31
Kristina, you had highlighted earlier that alternative fee arrangements or AF A is a really kind of a good strategy long term to kind of buffer those rate increases. But the amount of AFS has stayed pretty steady for a number of years at around 12% of matters. So it from what you’re saying, Why aren’t these AFA is gaining more traction? And what do you think needs to change for it for it to do so?

Kristina Satkunas 17:03
I’m not gonna lie. And maybe picked up on this from my answer to the other question. This metric is a metric is a bummer, I think to the industry. I’ve been in legal for a long time.

Greg Lambert 17:15
It sounded like you were pro AFA, but I didn’t want to I didn’t want to come right out and say,

Kristina Satkunas 17:20
I’m definitely pro AFA. And I think, you know, both on the law firm side, I worked, you know, for a good 10 years or so with large law firms. And now with corporate counsel for the last 10 or so years, and both sides claimed to have this tremendous interest in adopting non traditional billing. But the numbers speak for themselves, right the needle. Maybe it’s moving just a little bit, but it’s it really, for all intents and purposes hasn’t moved in the last 10 years. So why I’m speculating a little bit here. But you know, some of this is based on what I learned from our own customers. So some of it I think, is staying with the devil you know, versus the devil you don’t write that’s that’s one reason. Practically speaking, I think the reason AFA is aren’t used more is that it’s one less thing to think about. And if you think about departments that are staffed leanly legal departments that are staffed very leanly thinking through whether a proposed AFA is appropriate and reasonable, that takes time and also takes a certain skill set. So while legal departments have moved in recent years toward having Legal Operations functions, and some of them include people with analytical strengths and those skill sets, but many don’t, right, and that I think that would certainly help in my opinion, to have people who have the, the know how and the instincts to to break down and analyze an AFA. And then another factor is that AF A’s depending on the type of AFA can be harder to demonstrate the value of specifically, I’ve talked to procurement professionals who are involved in the fee negotiation process. And many of them prefer to stick with negotiating hourly rates because it’s easy to say, you know, look, I negotiated that lawyer’s rate from $2,000 an hour to $1,500 an hour and by doing so I saved the business X amount, right? That’s a really easy way to show my value as somebody who’s a procurement individual, but it’s not as simple with non hourly billing and and I think in order to try to demonstrate the value than many that do engage in a ifas go down the unfortunate path of requiring shadow billing, which takes away from the simplicity and the efficiency, which is one of the key reasons to have an AFA. So that’s lots of reasons maybe more than more than you wanted to hear, but I will say on a positive note If we do see non hourly billing across the board, right in all practices, all sizes of law firms are engaging with them to some extent. And I think that clients just need to ask they need to work with their most trusted law firms to be creative, and then use their historic data to validate whether a proposed AFA is reasonable. So I do I’m still hopeful, I’m disappointed. But I’m still hopeful that we will start to see a face pickup.

Marlene Gebauer 20:33
Surprisingly, high numbers of lawyers build minimal hours on matters. How can legal departments better manage staffing to address that issue? You know, what should they watch out for? And outside counsel billing practices?

Kristina Satkunas 20:46
Yeah, I included that metric about how many lawyers bill and then how many hours they typically bill, this is the first time in this Trends report that that I analyze that data. And it’s actually supplemental analysis to the seven key metrics that, you know, depending on the feedback that we get to this year’s report, we may, we may choose to include that every year and move on to move to having eight key metrics that we start measuring beginning with this year. And I did that analysis for a few reasons. One is that it’s been 10 years felt like it would be nice to have something new to analyze and look at. And then also because I I’ve actually had several clients asked me about that metric, you know, what’s what’s typical? How many lawyers should I expect to bill on this type of a matter? So, so So as I said, first time that we’ve done that analysis, and I have to say the results were surprising to me to, on average, matters, on average matters have 37% of lawyers billing fewer than five hours over the lifetime of the matter. And I should state that that’s only looking that’s only using a population of matters that have material spent, I use 25,000, is that threshold, right? So I looked at matters that have gone through their full lifecycle and have accumulated at least $25,000 in spend. And of those 30 37% of those matters, excuse me, of those matters. On average, 30% of lawyers Bill fewer than five hours over the lifetime of the matter. And it’s worth stating to that that’s just lawyers, right, we know that there are many other types of timekeepers, that are billing on those matters, I’d focus just on lawyers. So these these are indeed a high portion of lawyers that don’t do a whole lot of billing. So as to what to as to what they should watch out for what what should legal departments be paying attention to. This data is readily available for any legal department requiring a billing, which is certainly the vast majority of companies of any size these days. And my suggestion would be I’d start out by just monitoring the largest matters, right? monitor those high profile, large matters, pay attention to how many people are billing and how much they’re billing and then it comes down to communication, as so many things do. Setting expectations with, with law firms, and asking questions when the numbers of billers start piling up. One other thing I want to mention, related to this is that automation can help. Right I can only speak for counseling, because that’s who I work for. But for example, counseling can flag a new biller on a matters invoice. And that can lead to a conversation with whoever is looking at that invoice to say, well, there’s a we already have 50 people billing on this matter, why did a new one suddenly pop up? Right. Also automation related? Our customers can require staffing lists, which will enforce that only pre approved timekeepers are billing on a given matter so so in addition to kind of auditing and having some sort of analytics and reporting to be able to track what’s going on automation can can make a big difference.

Greg Lambert 24:23
Or our friend Toby Brown would would also point out that there needs to be better scope on the on the matters so that you don’t see this or if it Yeah, and I guess a prime example which would be legit is let’s say you’re doing some kind of deal. And then there’s a tax issue. Well, there might be a tax lawyer that comes in that gives two or three hours of advice on that particular issue. Is that in scope outs out of scope that you know, those sorts of things? And of course, you know communication everybody’s terrible at talking to one another apparently.

Kristina Satkunas 24:56
Yeah, that’s it’s a really good point. Right. So I so I I started speaking about the numbers. But there are certainly legitimate reasons that people that lawyers need to be brought on to a matter for just a short period of time. But, you know, to your point, it comes down to a conversation. So make sure that make sure that you that you understand the reason for that, and, and are communicating expectations and what is in and out of scope. The related thing to scope, of course, is budgets, too. That’s the other tool that that both sides can use, let’s create a budget and be specific in that budget and talk about who needs to be involved in the matter in order to be able to hit those budget numbers. So yep, good, really good point.

Greg Lambert 25:38
Speaking of adding some new data to the list, you provided some new data on international lawyer rates this time around? So what were some of the key drivers behind the different rates between countries? And our, our and how are US companies leveraging international firms and their work?

Kristina Satkunas 26:00
Yeah, so this is the third year that we’ve actually included non US rates in the trends report, but each year, we’ve added additional countries and or practice areas. So so we have reported on on international rates for quite a few years. But I did expand that a little bit this year, as we have more and more volume to be able to speak to. So I can’t really speak to what drives specific individual country rates, you know, differences are definitely going to be affected by by economies of that country of those countries. political stability, you know, multiple factors are going to come into play as to as to why the rates in India are much lower, for instance, and the rates in Japan, right, but But as to how international firms are being leveraged. Many of our customers need outside counsel advice outside the US for multiple reasons, you know, maybe regulatory advice in a specific country, I litigation might pop up from a specific country, patents is a really big reason you want to file a patent in a particular country. So you need some advice within those countries. In fact, 10% of the spend flowing through counseling is from non US law firms. So it really, it’s definitely material, and it’s growing. So we knew that more and more of our customers are needing to seek outside, outside the US advice. The benchmarks, I think, are super valuable to a company who either has never needed advice from from a firm outside the US or just needs to engage a firm from a country they haven’t used before. So you know, say suddenly, I need a lawyer in Brazil. And now I can look at those benchmarks and know that the rate that is being proposed to me is at least within a reasonable range. So again, I think the value of benchmarks in general is, is having a comfort level that something is is normal or a similar to what to what others are paying. So I expect to see more and more of the international data coming through counsel Inc. And we will continue to expand on what we include in the in the trends report.

Marlene Gebauer 28:28
So if you compare today’s data to five to 10 years ago, what do you see are the biggest shifts in how companies are managing costs and working with outside counsel?

Kristina Satkunas 28:41
So as you both know, our industry moves slowly. So there aren’t huge changes that I’ve seen over those 10 years. But you know, there is glacial glacial glacial movement, and, and even 10 years of data, but there are some if I go back 10 years ago, then I do start to find some differences, like I mentioned, the 54% consolidation to 10 firms or fewer versus 60. Right, that doesn’t, that’s actually pretty significant over the course of 10 years. So that’s one, I think, slightly more consolidation that we’ve seen in the last 10 years. And then that increased attention to timekeeper MCs. You know, I think I really feel like in the years that I’ve worked with corporate counsel, it’s always been about timekeeper rates, individual rates, I’m not going to pay this much for that person, but anecdotally, I am I’m hearing and we’re seeing the data, especially this year, that people are paying attention to that mix. And anecdotally, the other thing I would say that I hear more now than I used to from our customers is a greater willingness to change firms, or even those that they’ve had long standing relationships with and part of that is And this is outside of the scope of that Trends report. But I think that many legal departments are taking more things into account when they consider whether those relationships should continue. So Diversity is definitely one within the last few years that while I would say every customer I talked to said it was important five years ago, now I’m hearing that they will actually move, leave work away from a firm that is not improving or showing efforts to improve and Diversity. So So yes, absolutely some some shifts just awfully slow within our within our industry.

Greg Lambert 30:39
So Kris, if you were to present this in person to a group of in house attorneys and outside counsel, and you were to hand each one a copy of this, what would you tell the in house counsel, what they should know? What’s the number one thing they should look at? And what what would you tell the law firm leader, the number one thing that they should look at?

Kristina Satkunas 31:02
So I think my answer to that question is a high level answer to that question. It’s really about using data. And this is where, where I geek out, when I talk to our customers, I tell them, my job is to help you use data to improve all of the decisions that you make within your departments. And so here in the trends report, we are providing external benchmarks. But in house counsel, again, assuming that they have some sort of enterprise legal management system in place, they have their own data to benchmark internally. And that’s really even more important than looking externally right as my own are the rates that I’m paying across the spectrum of firms that I work with consistent am I paying rates that are increasing a lot every year and then sure that external benchmarks are valuable, but that using your own data is the place to start. And then the same applies to law firms, right? So if we’re talking, we’re talking about a partnership here where corporate counsel rely on their outside counsel to help advise them. So they have this internal data that they can be using, but law firms have their own internal data. So as an example, you know, going back to AFA is I’ll just keep beating my AFA drum. So if a given client says we’ve got no experience in using a ifas, at all, right, and should we use it for employment work, for instance, and a law firm that they partner with can say, you know, 20% of our customers who are in your industry are using flat fees for immigration work, or whatever it might be. And this is something you should continue that you should consider because our data helps support this, right. And so as long as you’re within the bounds of privacy, sharing that information, data really is a two way street, I would love to see that data being used proactively and collaboratively between in house and outside counsel,

Marlene Gebauer 33:05
Kris, so now’s the time where we ask our crystal ball question. So you pull out your crystal ball and you look into the future. And tell us you know, what changes or challenges do you see over the next two to five years?

Kristina Satkunas 33:20
Well, you kind of teed me up earlier to do this, but I can’t walk away from this discussion as a LexisNexis employee without mentioning AI. Right, figuring out I think figuring out where AI is figuring out where AI can and should play a role in increasing efficiency, and ultimately reducing costs, in my opinion, is going to be a focus for for many, it’ll be an interesting path to see how we get there. And I think we’re at the very, very, very beginning of that path. But hopefully, within five years, many will have have have figured that out as to what role AI can and should be playing. And then I think the broader change, I think we’ll see is that data, and the and having access to data continues to make us all smarter.

Greg Lambert 34:16
All right, well, two very good predictions, I think. So. Chris, Kristina Satkunas, Director of analytic Consulting at LexisNexis. Thank you very much for coming in and discussing the survey with us today. This has been fun. Thank you. My pleasure.

Marlene Gebauer 34:31
Thank you enjoyed it. And of course, listeners, thanks to all of you 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 34:47
And I can be reached @glambert on Twitter, Kristina, how can people reach out to you if they want to learn more?

Kristina Satkunas 34:54
They can find me on LinkedIn that probably be them the easiest way.

Greg Lambert 34:58
All right. And we’ll also make sure that we put a link to the survey as well on the show notes as well.

Marlene Gebauer 35:06
Listeners if you have questions or comments, you can also leave us a voicemail and our geek and review Hotline at 713-487-7821 and as always, the beer is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 35:19
Thanks, Jerry.

Marlene Gebauer 35:20
Okay, bye bye