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In this episode of The Geek in Review podcast, host Marlene Gebauer and co-host Greg Lambert discuss cybersecurity challenges with guests ⁠Jordan Ellington⁠, founder of ⁠SessionGuardian⁠, ⁠Oren Leib⁠, Vice President of Growth and Partnership at SessionGuardian, and ⁠Trisha Sircar⁠, partner and chief privacy officer at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP.

Ellington explains that the impetus for creating SessionGuardian came from working with a law firm to secure their work with eDiscovery vendors and contract attorney staffing agencies. The goal was to standardize security practices across vendors. Ellington realized the technology could provide secure access to sensitive information from anywhere. SessionGuardian uses facial recognition to verify a user’s identity remotely.

Leib discusses some alarming cybersecurity statistics, including a 7% weekly increase in global cyber attacks and the fact that law firms and insurance companies face over 1,200 attacks per week on average. Leib notes SessionGuardian’s solution addresses risks beyond eDiscovery and source code review, including data breach response, M&A due diligence, and outsourced call centers. Recently, a major North American bank told Leib that 10 of their last breach incidents were caused by unauthorized photography of sensitive data.

Sircar says law firms’ top challenges are employee issues, data retention problems, physical security risks, and insider threats. Regulations address real-world issues but can be difficult for global firms to navigate. Certifications show a firm’s commitment to security but continuous monitoring and updating of practices is key. When negotiating with vendors, Sircar recommends considering cyber liability insurance, audit rights, data breach responsibility, and limitations of liability.

Looking ahead, Sircar sees employee education as an ongoing priority, along with the ethical use of AI. Ellington expects AI will be used for increasingly sophisticated phishing and impersonation attacks, requiring better verification of individuals’ identities. Leib says attorneys must take responsibility for cyber defenses, not just rely on engineers. He announces SessionGuardian will offer free CLE courses on cybersecurity awareness and compliance.

The episode highlights how employee errors and AI threats are intensifying even as remote and hybrid work become standard. Firms should look beyond check-the-box compliance to make privacy and security central in their culture. Technology like facial recognition and continuous monitoring helps address risks, but people of all roles must develop competence and vigilance. Overall, keeping client data secure requires an integrated and ever-evolving approach across departments and service providers. Strong terms in vendor agreements and verifying partners’ practices are also key.

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Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Transcript

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Continue Reading Cybersecurity in the Remote Work Era: AI, Employees and an Integrated Defense – With SessionGuardian’s Jordan Ellington and Oren Leib, and Katten’s Trisha Sircar (TGIR Ep. 211)

For the Fourth of July week, we thought we’d do something fun and probably a little weird. Greg spoke with an AI guest named Justis for this episode. Justis, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, was able to have a natural conversation with Greg and provide insightful perspectives on the use of generative AI in the legal industry, specifically in law firms.

In the first part of their discussion, Justis gave an overview of the legal industry’s interest in and uncertainty around adopting generative AI. While many law firm leaders recognize its potential, some are unsure of how it fits into legal work or worry about risks. Justis pointed to examples of firms exploring AI and said letting lawyers experiment with the tools could help identify use cases.

Greg and Justis then discussed the challenges for the legal industry in using AI, like knowledge gaps, data issues, technology maturity, and managing change. They also talked about the upsides of using AI for tasks such as research, drafting, and review, including efficiency and cost benefits, as well as downsides like over-reliance on AI and ethical concerns.

The conversation turned to how AI could streamline law firm operations, with opportunities around scheduling, paperwork, billing, client insights, and more. However, Justis noted that human oversight is still critical. Justis and Greg also discussed how AI may impact legal jobs, creating demand for new skills and roles but aiming to augment human work rather than replace it.

Finally, Justis suggested innovations law firms could build with AI like research and drafting tools, analytics, dispute resolution systems, and project management. Justis emphasized that focusing on user needs, ethics, and change management will be key for successfully implementing AI. Looking ahead, Justis anticipated continuing progress in legal AI, regulatory changes, a focus on ethics, growing demand for AI skills, and AI becoming a competitive advantage for some firms.

While this was a “unique” episode for The Geek in Review, we hope it provided an insightful “conversation” about the current and future state of generative AI in the legal industry. There is significant promise but there are also challenges around managing change, addressing risks, and ensuring the responsible development of new AI tools. With the right focus and approach, law firms can start exploring ways to make the most of AI and gain a competitive edge. But they must make AI work for human professionals, not the other way around.

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Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Continue Reading A Literal Generative AI Discussion: How AI Could Reshape Law

Isha Marathe, a tech reporter for American Lawyer Media, joined the podcast to discuss her recent article on how deep fake technology is coming to litigation and whether the legal system is prepared. Deep fakes are hyper-realistic images, videos or audio created using artificial intelligence to manipulate or generate fake content. They are easy and inexpensive to create but difficult to detect. Marathe believes deep fakes have the potential to severely impact the integrity of evidence and the trial process if the legal system is unprepared.

E-discovery professionals are on the front lines of detecting deep fakes used as evidence, according to Marathe. However, they currently only have limited tools and methods to authenticate digital evidence and determine if it is real or AI-generated. Marathe argues judges and lawyers also need to be heavily educated on the latest developments in deep fake technology in order to counter their use in court. Regulations, laws and advanced detection technology are still lacking but urgently needed.

Marathe predicts that in the next two to five years, deep fakes will significantly start to affect litigation and pose risks to the judicial process if key players are unprepared. States will likely pass a patchwork of laws to regulate AI-generated images. Sophisticated detection software will emerge but will not be equally available in all courts, raising issues of equity and access to justice.

The two recent cases where parties claimed evidence as deep fakes highlight the issues at stake but did not dramatically alter the trial outcomes. However, as deep fake technology continues to rapidly advance, it may soon be weaponized to generate highly compelling and persuasive fake evidence that could dupe both legal professionals and jurors. Once seen, such imagery can be hard to ignore, even if proven to be false or AI-generated.

Marathe argues that addressing and adapting to the rise of deep fakes will require a multi-pronged solution: education, technology tools, regulations and policy changes. But progress on all fronts is slow while threats escalate quickly. Deep fakes pose an alarm for legal professionals and the public, dragging the legal system as a whole into an era of “post-truth.” Trust in the integrity of evidence and trial outcomes could be at stake. Overall, it was an informative if sobering discussion on the state of the legal system’s preparedness for inevitable collisions with deep fake technology.

Links

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Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠TranscriptContinue Reading The Rise of “Post-Truth” Litigation: ALM’s Isha Marathe on How Deep Fakes Threaten the Legal System (TGIR Ep. 209)

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.

Links

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Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Voicemail: 713-487-7821 Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Transcript⁠

Continue Reading The Rising Cost of Legal Services: Insights from 10 Years of Data from CounselLink’s Kristina Satkunas

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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⁠Links:⁠

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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 Curt Meltzer on Why Legal Tech Companies Should Give Back: The Business Case for Pro Bono, A2J, and Community Outreach (TGIR Ep. 207)

This week we bring in Christian Lang, the CEO and founder of LEGA, a company that provides a secure platform for law firms and legal departments to safely implement and govern the use of large language models (LLMs) like Open AI’s GPT-4, Google’s Bard, and Anthropic’s Claude. Christian talks with us about why he started LEGA, the value LEGA provides to law firms and legal departments, the challenges around security, confidentiality, and other issues as LLMs become more widely used, and how LEGA helps solve those problems.

Christian started LEGA after gaining experience working with law firms through his previous company, Reynen Court. He saw an opportunity to give law firms a way to quickly implement and test LLMs while maintaining control and governance over data and compliance. LEGA provides a sandbox environment for law firms to explore different LLMs and AI tools to find use cases. The platform handles user management, policy enforcement, and auditing to give firms visibility into how the technologies are being used.

Christian believes law firms want to use technologies like LLMs but struggle with how to do so securely and in a compliant way. LEGA allows them to get started right away without a huge investment in time or money. The platform is also flexible enough to work with any model a firm wants to use. As law firms get comfortable, LEGA will allow them to scale successful use cases across the organization.

On the challenges law firms face, Christian points to Shadow IT as people will find ways to use the technologies with or without the firm’s permission. Firms need to provide good options to users or risk losing control and oversight. He also discusses the difficulty in training new lawyers as LLMs make some tasks too easy, the coming market efficiencies in legal services, and the strategic curation of knowledge that will still require human judgment.

Some potential use cases for law firms include live chatbots, document summarization, contract review, legal research, and market intelligence gathering. As models allow for more tailored data inputs, the use cases will expand further. Overall, Christian is excited for how LLMs and AI can transform the legal industry but emphasizes that strong governance and oversight are key to implementing them successfully.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4c2MXnFuGxZ7XczuvNJP68?si=fT0SYJdLSoOztJIVR–H1w

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Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript⁠

Continue Reading Christian Lang on Governing the Rise of LLMs: How LEGA Provides a Safe Space for Law Firms to Use AI (TGIR Ep. 206)

We talk with ⁠Michael Bommarito⁠, CEO of 273 Ventures and well-known innovator and thinker in legal technology and education. Bommarito and his colleague, Daniel Katz were behind ⁠GPT-3 and GPT-4 taking the Bar Exam⁠. While he and Katz understand the hype in the media reaction, he states that most of the legal and technology experts who were following the advancements in generative AI, expected the results and had already moved on to the next phase in the use of AI in legal.

Michael Bommarito on his farm in Michigan, alongside his trusty friend Foggy.

While we talked to Michael a couple of days before the news broke about a lawyer in New York who submitted a brief to the court relying upon ChatGPT to write the brief and not understanding that AI tools can completely make up cases, fact pattern, and citations, he does talk about the fact that we are falling behind in educating law students and other in understanding how to use Large Language Models (LLMs) properly. In fact, if we don’t start teaching 1Ls and 2Ls in law school immediately, law schools will be doing a disservice for their students for many years to come.

Currently, Bommarito is following up his work at LexPredict, which was sold to Elevate Services in 2018, with 273 Ventures and ⁠Kelvin.Legal⁠. With these companies, he aims to bring more efficiency and reduce marginal costs in the legal industry through the application of AI. He sees the industry as one that primarily deals with information and knowledge, yet continues to struggle with high costs and inefficiency. With 273 Ventures and Kelvin.Legal, he is building solutions to help firms ⁠bring order to the chaos⁠ that is their legal data.

AI and data offer promising solutions for the legal industry but foundational issues around education and adaptation must be addressed. Bommarito explains that decades of inefficiency and mismatched data need to be adjusted before the true value of the AI tools can be achieved. He also believes that while there might have been many false starts on adjustments to the billable hour through things like Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) in the past, the next 12-36 months are going to be pivotal in shifting the business model of the legal industry.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ |  ⁠Spotify

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 Michael Bommarito on Preparing Law Students for the Future, and His Quest on Bringing Order to the Chaos of Legal Data (TGIR Ep. 205)

In our latest podcast episode, we delve into the transformative potential of executive coaching for legal professionals with our esteemed guest, Laura Terrell. As the founder of Laura Terrell, LLC, she brings to the table an illustrious career background encompassing roles such as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, senior level appointee at the US Department of Justice, Equity partner at top international law firms, and in-house counsel at a leading global business advisory firm.

Laura Terrell, renowned executive coach and former high-profile lawyer, unpacks her intriguing transition into coaching and the underlying drive to comprehend the motivations and challenges unique to professionals. She underscores the significance of active listening in addressing not only the legal quandaries of clients but their wider professional and personal concerns.

Dive into the intricacies of executive coaching for lawyers as Terrell defines it: a cooperative endeavor aimed at assisting clients in setting and achieving their objectives. It’s not therapy, she clarifies, but a method to empower clients’ goal attainment and facilitate exploration of their priorities.

Terrell sheds light on the myriad of challenges confronting lawyers and C-suite executives, from transitioning to leadership positions, fostering business growth, team management, to adapting to in-house roles. She also emphasizes the value of coaching for budding lawyers, guiding them in their transition from theory to practice and making sense of their role expectations.

Laura Terrell addresses a widespread pitfall in the legal sector: assumption-making. She motivates lawyers to question their preconceived notions and adopt a mindset of change, considering the dynamic landscape of the legal industry.

Beyond her coaching practice, Laura serves as the General Counsel for a nonprofit organization and invests in businesses owned by women, echoing her commitment to supporting female entrepreneurs and expanding her knowledge across diverse business sectors.

This episode uncovers the profound impact of executive coaching in the legal sphere, providing support to professionals at varying career stages. Whether you’re a seasoned attorney, a C-suite executive, or a new entrant to the legal field, Laura Terrell’s expertise and experiences offer invaluable learning opportunities.

Links:

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Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript⁠

Continue Reading Unleashing Potential: Laura Terrell on Transforming Legal Careers through Executive Coaching (TGIR Ep. 204)

Many of us have wondered when the big two legal information providers would jump into the Generative AI game, and it looks like LexisNexis is going public first with the launch of Lexis+ AI. We sat down with ⁠Jeff Pfeifer⁠, Chief Product Officer for UK, Ireland, Canada, and US, and discuss the launch and what it means for LexisNexis going forward.

Pfeifer discusses how LexisNexis+ AI offers conversational search, summarization, and drafting tools to help lawyers work more efficiently. The tools provide contextual, iterative search so users can refine and improve results. The drafting tools can help with tasks like writing client emails or advisory statements. The summarization features can summarize datasets like regulations, opinions, and complaints.

LexisNexis is working with leading AmLaw 50 firms in a commercial preview program to get feedback and input on the AI tools. LexisNexis also launched an AI Insider Program for any interested firms to learn about AI and how it may impact their business. There is definitely demand for the AI Insider Program with over 3,000 law firms already signed up.

Pfeifer emphasizes LexisNexis’ focus on responsible AI. They developed and follow a set of AI principles to guide their product development, including understanding the real-world impact, preventing bias, explaining how solutions work, ensuring human oversight and accountability, and protecting privacy.

Pfeifer predicts AI tools like LexisNexis Plus AI will increase access to legal services by allowing lawyers and firms to work more efficiently and take on more work. He also sees opportunities to use the tools to help pro se litigants and courts. However, he cautions that the responsible and ethical development and use of AI is crucial.

Overall, Pfeifer believes AI will greatly improve efficiency and capacity in the legal profession over the next 2-5 years but that responsible adoption of the technology is key.

Links:

Listen on mobile platforms:  Apple Podcasts LogoApple Podcasts |  Spotify LogoSpotify
Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠
Voicemail: 713-487-7821
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠

⁠Transcript⁠

Continue Reading LexisNexis Bets Big on AI Transforming the Legal Industry: Jeff Pfeifer on the Launch of Lexis+ AI (TGIR Ep. 203)