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This week, we have a jam-packed episode featuring five of our colleagues from a 2022 American Association of Law Libraries panel on APIs.
  • Emily Rushing, Director of Competitive Intelligence, Haynes and Boone, LLP
  • Pam Noyd, Information Resources Manager at Foley & Lardner LLP
  • Erik Adams, Manager of Library Digital Initiatives Manager of Library Digital Initiatives at Sidley Austin LLP, and Chief of Technology at Golden Arrow Publishing LLC
  • Keli Whitnell, Director of Firm Intelligence at Troutman Pepper
  • Christopher O’Connor, Senior Director, Product Management at LexisNexis
APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, have become an increasingly important tool in the legal industry. The panel included members with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, including both librarians and non-librarians. This diversity provided a holistic view of the topic, covering everything from the technical aspects of using APIs to the importance of data quality and vetting vendors.
APIs are like building blocks for legal solutions (think: LEGO Blocks), allowing for the flexible sharing of data between different computer environments. This enables more creative solutions than vendors could create on their own and has led to a range of innovative legal solutions.
Overall, the panel provided valuable insights into the use of APIs in the legal industry and highlighted their potential for facilitating more efficient and effective legal work. As the use of API’s continues to grow, it will be important for legal professionals to stay up to date on the latest developments and best practices in this area.

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Links Mentioned:
Crystal Ball Question:
Brad Blickstein discusses the potential for a recession and its effects on the legal industry. He speculates that Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) will benefit from the downturn, as law departments will be unable to increase headcount. He also discusses the question of where the work done by ALSPs will go once the recession ends and whether law firms will be able to regain the work.
Contact Us:
Twitter: @gebauerm, or @glambert Voicemail: 713-487-7821 Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript

Continue Reading APIs are the LEGO Building Blocks of Data – API Panel Discussion with Emily Rushing, Pam Noyd, Chris O’Connor, Keli Whitnell, and Erik Adams (TGIR Ep. 183)

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)

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

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

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 

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:

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

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:

TranscriptContinue 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

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

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

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

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