In this episode of The Geek in Review, guest host Marcie Borgal Shunk of the Tilt Institute joins Marlene Gebauer for a thought-provoking discussion with Avaneesh Marwaha, CEO of Litera. As someone who led the company through both pre- and post-AI boom eras, Avaneesh offers an insider’s perspective on what it takes to guide a legal tech organization through profound technological and cultural shifts. He speaks candidly about why he returned to Litera, what has changed internally, and how AI is being integrated not just into products, but into the DNA of the company itself.

Avaneesh shares how Litera transitioned from an acquisition-heavy growth strategy to one that prioritizes internal AI innovation. This shift required rethinking everything from leadership talent to product development cycles. He emphasizes that meaningful adoption of AI goes far beyond surface-level integrations, calling instead for a reinvention of workflows, organizational structure, and employee mindsets. Daily AI usage is expected at Litera, but not in a checkbox kind of way. Instead, teams are challenged to use AI tools to accelerate decision-making, increase efficiency, and share insights across departments.

One of the more pressing challenges Avaneesh highlights is “adoption fatigue.” While excitement around generative AI brought in billions of investment dollars and an explosion of legal tech startups, the sheer volume of pilots and proof-of-concept tools is starting to wear thin with law firm users. To combat this, Avaneesh argues that AI needs to be native to workflows—integrated directly into Word, Outlook, and other familiar environments—so lawyers aren’t forced into unnatural digital pivots just to use new tools.

The conversation also explores agentic workflows—AI-driven processes that take action based on inputs, like automatically triaging emails or assisting in business development. Avaneesh shares that Litera has several of these tools set to launch, all co-built with customers. But he’s cautious: if AI doesn’t return value within a six-minute lawyer mindset, the tools get dropped. It’s not about flash, it’s about results.

Looking ahead, Avaneesh envisions a legal industry where AI removes the “busy work” and gives lawyers the space to tackle truly complex problems. Rather than displacing attorneys, AI will help them focus on higher-order thinking, better client service, and proactive problem-solving. But for that future to arrive, the industry needs to move past its fear of change, embrace a growth mindset, and be willing to reimagine what legal work looks like from the ground up.

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[Special Thanks to Legal Technology Hub for their sponsoring this episode.]

Blue Sky: ⁠@geeklawblog.com⁠ ⁠@marlgeb⁠
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Continue Reading The Six-Minute Dilemma: Litera’s Avaneesh Marwaha on Building Legal Tech That Actually Gets Used

On this episode of The Geek in Review, hosts Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert delve into how AI can transform legal writing with ClearBrief founder and CEO Jacqueline Schafer. As a former litigator, Schafer experienced firsthand the frustrating scramble to finalize briefs and prepare filings. She founded ClearBrief in 2020 to leverage AI to analyze documents and suggest relevant evidence and citations to streamline drafting.

ClearBrief integrates into Microsoft Word to align with lawyers’ existing workflows. By uploading case documents and discovery materials, the AI can pull facts and quotes directly from the record to support legal arguments in the brief. New features even generate chronologies and timelines from case files automatically. Schafer explains the AI doesn’t hallucinate text from scratch, avoiding ethical pitfalls. Rigorous security and confidentiality controls provide the trust needed to gain adoption at top law firms.

According to Schafer, attorneys now exhibit much greater openness to tailored AI tools that enhance productivity versus disrupting their workflows entirely. Younger associates and paralegals tend to be most enthusiastic about the technology while firm leadership lags. She believes empowering the next generation of legal professionals with AI will modernize law practice to better serve unmet needs.

Looking ahead, Schafer expects to expand ClearBrief’s features to assist paralegals along with corporate attorneys beyond litigation. By leveraging AI to handle tedious tasks like cite-checking, lawyers can focus their time on high-value analysis and strategy. With the aid of trusted AI writing assistants, attorneys can craft compelling briefs and filings more efficiently while still verifying the underlying sources.

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Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com

Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript:Continue Reading Jacqueline Schafer on Writing Briefs at the Speed of AI: How ClearBrief is Transforming Legal Drafting