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We give you the true “3 Geeks” experience on this week’s show as we are joined by an OG (original geek) Toby Brown. Toby, Marlene, and Greg talk with Litify’s President and COO, Ari Treuhaft, and Pam Wickersham, the VP of Product and Engineer there at Litify. One of the taglines at Litify is that they #BreakLegalSilos. Treuhaft and Wickersham explain what that means, and how they focus on providing an operating system, built on Salesforce, that creates transparency between Corporate Counsel and their law firms.

Both Ari and Pam got their start in Financial and Professional services, so they come at these business problems with a different approach. With Pam’s engineering background, and experiences at Google, she brings in a unique perspective on how to build the technology through the lens of the customer. Ari’s experiences with the Financial Services industry going to the cloud over a decade ago also positions him to better understand the naysayers in the legal industry who are still resistant to placing data in the cloud.

It’s a great conversation. We want to thank the great folks at City Acre Brewery in Houston, Texas for letting us record this episode there. And, for not laughing too hard as Greg destroyed his laptop by spilling an entire Maple Porter into his brand-new laptop. We hope this is a semi-regular event! (Recording at City Acre… not pouring a beer into laptops!!)

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Crystal Ball Question

Toby Brown takes on our question this week by talking about the fact that attorneys are resistant to changing behaviors, not because they are unwilling to adapt to new technology, but because this is an industry that is very reputational based.

Links Mentioned:
Contact Us:

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

Transcript

Continue Reading Creating Actual Transparency Between Law Firms and Clients – Litify’s Ari Treuhaft and Pam Wickersham (TGIR Ep. 182)

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

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

With the influx of Venture Capital and overall interests in Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), the rest of the legal industry is finally figuring out what InnoLaw‘s Lucy Bassli has known for years; contracts are sexy. We sit down with Lucy to discuss her second book, CLM Simplified: Efficient Contracting for Law Departments and the potential of making the contract process faster, better, easier, smarter, more efficient, operationalized, and automated is the concept that is so appealing. Lucy Bassli’s experience in-house with Microsoft helped launch her new career advising other in-house and outside counsel on legal operations, and how to really communicate with one another in ways to produce true innovation.

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Information Inspirations

The Debt Relief Clinic was named the 2022 recipient of the Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access for its commitment to increasing legal services to low-income Tennesseans and reaching that goal through the innovative use of technology.

We talked about the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance back in August of 2020 (Ep. 83), well our guest, Skadden’s Brenna DeVaney along with Cravath’s Kiisha Morrow talk with Thomson Reuter’s Thomas Kim to catch us all up on the progress that LFAA member firms are doing in order to keep up the momentum we all felt after the summer of 2020.

Contact Us

Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert.

Voicemail: 713-487-7270

Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.

Music: As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.

Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 148 – InnoLaw’s Lucy Bassli on the Sexiness of Contracts

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
― Yogi Berra
Yet that never stops us from asking our “crystal ball” questions to our guests like Axiom’s Chief Commercial Officer, David Pierce. Some of the traits that David believes will make for successful businesses and people include:
  • Emphasis on creativity and great imaginations
  • Make it clear that everyone’s health and safety are top priorities through clear communication and transparent efforts
  • Be flexible on work environments with clear policies
  • Lay out clear business missions and objectives and make it clear what role each person plays in helping accomplish that mission
We also dive into Axiom’s mission and the role that David has played over the past few years. As well as David dropping some knowledge about Yellow Loading Zones he learned in law school.

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Contact Us
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert.
Voicemail: 713-487-7270
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.
Music: As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.
Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 142 – Axiom’s David Pierce on Talent Recruitment and Flexible Working-Models Amid Shifting Industry Expectations

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Nancy
Jessen, SVP at Legal Business Solutions at UnitedLex about a survey recently
completed with ALM on legal department insourcing, entitled “Build or Buy? The Evolution of Law Department
Sourcing”. Our chat was really interesting, different
than what I expected. Here’s what I learned.

We are all

…