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In a recent article from Legal IT Insider, Caroline Hill wrote about how “63% of all legal contracts are gender-biased” based on a report from Genie AI. We wanted to dive deeper into that topic, so we asked Caroline and Alex Denne, Genie AI’s Growth Marketing Lead, to come on at talk with us.
Genie AI is an Open-Source product with some 1,500 legal templates available in the UK currently and is looking to expand into the US in 2023. Alex Denne mentions that in the evaluation of these templates, and in discussions he was having in the industry, there was talk of gender-bias in contracts, but that there was no baseline to measure whether the industry was improving or regressing in its bias. Therefore, Genie AI took it upon itself to evaluate the contracts it had for bias terms and phrases. It was this evaluation that found that nearly 2/3rds of contracts had gender-biased terms in them.
Caroline Hill shares her experiences in the Legal Tech industry to note that the number of CIOs in the UK who are women is actually going down instead of up, and that she’s noticed that even in simple things like job descriptions, gender-biased terms have a cumulative effect. Jobs which pull from STEM graduates still used gender-biased terms and according to Hill, phrases like “we are looking for a strong” or “aggressive” or “go getter” tend to have a direct effect on whether women apply for these positions or not.
Alex Denne points out that the UK government is requiring gender-neutral language in all contracts they approve. Both Denne and Hill agree that in order for law firms to adjust their own contract language to use more gender-neutral terms, clients have a direct impact on how seriously they take that mission. If it is part of the culture of the client to reduce gender-bias, then perhaps that should be part of the outside counsel guidelines for the firms they use.

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Links Mention:
Legal Value Network Crystal Ball Question:
This week, Erik Perez, Central Legal Operations Officer at Shell USA, Inc., answers our Crystal Ball Question by focusing on the long-term needs of legal operations to both stay on task, hire and retain excellent talent, and use the right people for the right tasks.
Contact Us:
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript

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Continue Reading Nearly Two-Thirds of Legal Contracts are Gender-Biased and Why That Matters – Alex Denne and Caroline Hill (TGIR Ep. 181)

Tim Parilla isn’t just the Chief Legal Officer at LinkSquares… he’s also a customer. That unique position of being the leader of the legal department of a company whose mission is to improve the workflow and efficiency of corporate legal departments, creates an exciting environment for Tim and his team.
Juliette Kopecky is the Chief Marketing Officer at LinkSquares and is leading the company’s DEI Initiatives and works closely with the in-house legal team to handle everything from internal issues to reviewing all the marketing and business development contracts. Juliette points to the fact that both she and Tim sit on the company’s executive team and have aligned their individual departments to the company’s overall mission, helps both of them understand and prioritize their overall processes.
Tim also gives us some insights on how he works with his outside counsel in large law firms. He lists some very simple, but effective ways that he interacts with law firms:
  • Have clear communications
  • Set scope and expectations
  • Be professional and competent
Most of all, Tim and Juliette point to the fact that regardless of if you are dealing with outside counsel, in-house legal teams, or even with the software development teams… the goal is to solve “business problems.” Not legal problems. Not organizational problems. Not technology problems. Solve business problems. If that is the way in which you address your issues, then that helps put you on the right path for creating an effective solution.

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Crytal Ball Answer
Stuart Dodds is Principle at Positive Pricing and is an executive board member at the Legal Value Network. When it comes to the future of legal pricing, he sees a focus on setting expectations for delivering superior client service, understanding the need to find the right people with the correct skillsets, and establishing the correct change management processes to help lawyers and others adjust to the upcoming shifts in the legal market.
Contact Us:
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript

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Continue Reading LinkSquares’ Tim Parilla and Juliette Kopecky: These Aren’t Legal Problems or Tech Problems… These Are Business Problems (TGIR Ep. 180)

This week we are joined by LexisNexis’ Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer and Head of Global Talent Development, Ronda Bazley Moore. Ronda and a team of LexisNexis leadership in the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network & LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship tasked 18 Fellows from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) Law Schools with one very complex task: Uncover how LexisNexis products could be used to address and eliminate systemic racism in the legal system.
The 2022 LexisNexis Equity in the Law Symposium was held in Washington, DC, where the 18 Fellows presented the results of their findings on how to reduce/eliminate system racism. The results were split into six separate clusters:
  1. Equity for Youth in the Legal System
  2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Legal Education
  3. Diversity in Leadership of Legal Profession
  4. Diversity and Equity in the Courts
  5. Equity in the Criminal Justice System
  6. Racial Equity in Wealth and Ownership
Ronda describes some of the novel ways that the Fellows proposed to leverage the data, resources, and power held by LexisNexis to achieve the audacious goal set before them.
Links:

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Crystal Ball Question – Legal Value Network Conference

Amanda Norris, Senior Operations Manager at Integreon steps up this week to answer our Crystal Ball question. Amanda has a very interesting expectation on how support staff at law firms, specifically Legal Assistants and Legal Secretaries, provide support both in-person and remotely over the next few years.
Contact Us:
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript 

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Continue Reading The Mission: Eliminate Systemic Racism in the Legal System – LexisNexis’ Ronda Bazley Moore (TGIR Ep. 179)

Whether you loved it or hated it… Season One of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is in the books. And this also wraps up Season One of SuperHuman Law Division (SHLD) Podcast. We’ve enjoyed going through and spotting the legal and law firm issues and discussing them from both a lawyer’s perspective and a legal operations professional’s point of view.

We reached back out to local counsel this week and brought back Ashley Carlisle, Head of Marketing at HyperDraft to walk us through the legal topics of this specific episode, but also to put back on her marketing and business development hat and break down the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of GLK/H’s marketing strategy. Honestly, it was GLK/H’s lack of marketing strategy that really happened in this fictional MCU BigLaw firm.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to listen to our thoughts on the show. We’ll take a break and determine what we’ll talk about in a possible Season Two of SHLD. If you have suggestions, ping us at @SuperHumanPod on Twitter.

Stay Super Everyone!!

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Links:
Transcript:

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Continue Reading What If… GLK/H Had A Great Marketing Team? (SHLD Ep. 9)

I’m not really into the whole brevity thing. I already wrote a brief post (only 800 words) that concludes with succint advice to law departments on discounts, AFAs, panels, outside counsel guidelines, RFPs, and, in particular, a humbling recommendation they not ask law firms about the use of technology unless the answers will inform structured dialogue to improve business outcomes at scale and pace (because I’d previously written a book on this subject).

At the conclusion of this off-brand concision, I promised my tiny corps of hard core readers an extended universe of nerd content. Fair warning, this is not for everyone.…

Continue Reading Scary Stories about our Wicked Problems (Legal Nerd Halloween)

This week we reached out to local Los Angeles counsel, lawyer Ashley Carlisle, who is the Head of Marketing at HyperDraft to help break down Ep. 8 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, “Ribbit and Rip It.” And there is a lot to talk about in the penultimate episode of season one.

We’d really like it if Jennifer/She-Hulk would take a little more time interviewing her clients before representing them in court. Specifically, ask more detailed questions of anyone who runs around in a superpowered Frog suit and calls themselves LeapFrog. Even if, or maybe especially if, your client’s father is a big client at GLK/H.

We finally get to see Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil, in action, both in the court and fighting goons in dark hallways. Not to mention the chemistry between Jen and Matt. For two people who can fight and discuss legal defense strategy at the same time, we need to see them team-up much more often. (Maybe there is a future Murdock and Walters law firm in the making??? Please, MCU, say yes!!)

Just how much property damage can She-Hulk cause, and still feel like she needs to leave a note confessing to it?

And finally, the Gala Awards for “Female Lawyer of the Year” starts off bad, and immediately gets worse.

Huge thanks to Ashley Carlisle for lending a hand this week in discussing all the legal and other issues. To find out more about Ashley and HyperDraft, check out the links below.

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Links:

Transcript…

Continue Reading She-Hulk and Daredevil: Attorneys at Law (SHLD Ep. 8)

For the first time, Law360 and Major, Lindsey, and Africa team up to survey BigLaw partners in their 2022 Partner Compensation Survey. We are joined by Craig Savitzky, Senior Data Analyst at Law360 and Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader of the Law Firm Practice at Major Lindsey and Africa. With this being the first survey of law firm partners since most firms have made some effort to return to the office, there were some surprises on how much remote work partners want to take versus how much their firms are offering. It may not be what you think.

Women and minority partners made some strong gains according to this survey in narrowing the pay gap. While the gap is still significant between women/minority partners and their white male colleagues, this was the smallest percentage in the history of the survey which began in 2010.

For the first time, the difference between average equity partner pay was more than $1 Million over average non-equity partner pay.

Savitzky and Lowe unpack a lot of data from the survey for us.

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Links:

Crystal Ball Answers from LVNx

This week we talk with Properoware founder Keith Lipman, who recently merged into Litera, about the role that ALSP’s and others will play in filling the gap left by law firms when the economy begins its expected downturn.

Contact Us:

Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7821 (note the NEW NUMBER!)
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca

Transcript

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Continue Reading An Overview of the 2022 Partner Compensation Survey with Law360’s Craig Savitzky and MLA’s Jeffrey Lowe (TGIR Ep. 178)

In a recent ALM Pacesetter survey, the report found “that innovators among professional services providers are grappling less with technology installation and more with process and culture reengineering.” We sit down with one of the people behind that report, Tomek Jankowski,  Director, ALM Intelligence Pacesetter Research, and dive into the ways law firms and in-house legal departments are working to change the cultural roadblocks to advance innovation and improve overall client experiences. We discuss some specific examples of firms going to great lengths to improve their interactions with clients, but that Jankowski reminds us that it doesn’t take a Moon Shot project to improve overall satisfaction with your clients. Sometimes, it is as simple as talking with your clients.
Tomek Jankowski also sees a future filled with challenges over the next few years with financial, social, and global political issues bringing back old Cold War problems than not many lawyers today experienced first-hand like he did.
Links Discussed:
Crystal Ball Question:
This week we continue our crystal ball answers from the recent Legal Value Network eXperience conference in Chicago. This week we have Damien Riehl from Fastcase and SALI discussing the need for a true organized method of allowing legal vendors, attorneys, clients, and governments to label and share information.

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Contact Us:
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7821 (note the NEW NUMBER!)
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca

Transcript

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Continue Reading It’s Not Legal Technology That’s the Problem… It’s the Culture – ALM’s Tomek Jankowski (TGIR Ep. 177)

I should be taking a victory lap. Instead, I am on an apology tour urging in-house departments not to listen to me—i.e., ignore my long-standing advice re asking law firms about their use of technology. I’ve concluded that the common application of my advice only adds unnecessary friction to an already friction-laden system—similar to the value-subtractive frictions introduced by ubiquitous, well-intentioned, and misguided approaches to discounts, panels, outside counsel guidelines, AFAs, etc.

I understand the motivations. I also understand the constraints. Everyone operating in our space should be able to connect the dots on these four statistics:

  • 75% of GCs recognize workloads will outpace budgets (problem)
  • 80% of in-house lawyers are burned out (consequence)
  • 70% of law departments are not investing in digital transformation (unavailable solution due to resource constraints)
  • 70% of law departments are asking law firms about technology usage (attempt to cope within resource constraints)

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Continue Reading Legal Buy: We’re Asking the Wrong Questions (and it is my fault, kind of)

A great Lawyer Wellness Program is something that Jennifer Walters could really benefit from with her stressful life of being the face of the GLK/H law firm’s SuperHuman Law Division. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that is offered by the firm, so she accidentally ends up in a group wellness session at Emil Blonksy’s ranch retreat. 
We discuss the various legal and personal issues raised in Episode 7: The Retreat of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. After being ghosted by “Too Good to Be True” Josh, Jen finds that Emil Blonsky (AKA The Abomination) may have violated his parole requirements after his inhibitor bracelet malfunctions. The Retreat may be just what Jen needs to find a balance between working at a BigLaw firm, dating life, and the fact that someone seems to be out for blood… gamma-radiated blood, specifically.
While we do not appear in court this week, there are still many legal issues ranging from simple assault, to property damages, insurance claims, and possible fraud and sexual assault. Just for fun, we also talk about how Disney is bringing in more and more Mutant (X-Men franchise) characters into the MCU fold.
Joshua Lenon joins in from the airport as he winds his way across the US this week before landing in Nashville for the Clio Cloud Conference, October 10 – 11, 2022 in Nashville, TN. He is looking forward to everyone asking him more legal questions about She-Hulk, so make sure to find him if you are in attendance. We are also hoping that he’ll have some SHLD Podcast Stickers to hand out!
We are making our way to the end of Season One of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Reach out to us on Twitter to make suggestions of what we should cover next on the podcast. Maybe Batman’s Trial on the animated series? More She-Hulk comic book storylines? The legal standing of The Boys? A look back at Netflix’s Daredevil series? Let us know!!

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Share/Contact/Subscribe
Contact us at @glambert, @JoshuaLenon, or @SuperHumanPod and let us know what you think!
We have a website: SuperHuman Law Division 
Artwork by @ChangoATX
Share this with friends, and don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
Stay Super Everybody!!
Transcript

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Continue Reading ABOMASTE: The Work/Life Balance of a SuperHuman Attorney (SHLD Ep. 7)