Fringe Legal

In this episode, Ab speaks with Azman Jaafar, Managing Partner and one of the founding members of RHTLaw Asia on how legal technology can drive success in a law firm.This episode is a special segment to the article "How Legal Tech Innovation Can Drive Success in Your Firm" which was published in the Singapore Law Gazette in October 2021.

I don't think we thought that it was going to be as tough of a sell because most of our clients that we have worked with and that we know very well and know how they sell, how they operate, they're all SaaS companies. So they all sell, software as a service, which is a subscription model. And we thought this would be something that, of course, they would understand the benefits of it because they're saying to their customers, here's the benefit of a subscription. It's really hard,  for the legal field to turn that corner because law traditionally has already been 10 steps behind in terms of technology. Compared to even the largest, corporate companies. So law firms are already lagging in that way. And to throw this at in-house counsel,  we were overly optimistic to think that they would swarm to adopt this idea.Joyce Tong Oelrich is the co-founder of the recently launched boutique, Tong Tejani PLLC, specializing in government contracting.Prior to the launch of her practice, Joyce was an in-house attorney at F

Julia Salasky is the CEO of Legl, a digital workflow tool for law firms. "Solving problems that are fundamental to the way lawyers work enables lawyers to focus on the work that highly skilled professionals that they are can do best. I don't have a view as to whether in five years or ten years or 25 years, you can train AI to do those jobs, but the work that lawyers do is so varied, so technical, and so human-centric that enabling them to do that work in a way that allows them to focus on the highest value piece of that is where there's a real opportunity in this space."

Adolfo E. Jiménez is a Miami litigation attorney whose practice focuses on international disputes. Mr. Jiménez leads Holland & Knight's South Florida Litigation Practice Group, which consists of more than 80 attorneys, and also leads the firm's International Arbitration and Litigation Team. He is Board Certified in International Litigation and Arbitration by The Florida Bar. He handles general commercial litigation matters in federal and state courts. His international experience, language abilities and management skills provide innovative and comprehensive representation to clients involved in complex cases.We've spoken with technologists and innovators during previous podcast episodes, and this week we talk to a practitioner. In the show, we cover: what does a day in the life of Adolfo look like the impact of virtualization on the arbitration world benefits of multiple perspectives and how it can help stay updated thinking long term, and staying client centric Find out more at the Holland & Knight w

Anna Lozynski is an award winning executive general counsel & author, turned Change Agent, Advisor and Influencer.   Starting out at a major Australian law firm, she has spent the majority of her legal career in-house working in the banking, automotive, and cosmetics industries. In 2021, Anna has donned her entrepreneurial shoes and launched her own Advisory service, on a mission to help law and business adapt to the digital age. She is consulting in the areas of social media content creation, strategy & partnerships, legal ops/optimisation, change management, as well as coaching and general counsel freelancing.  She believes that innovation is invigorating, change is energising and efficiency will never go out of fashion.   In addition, she is an Advisory Board Member to Mys Tyler (a fashion tech startup), She Breaks The Law (a global female innovator network), and sits on the CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) Australia Chapter.     Described as a change agent, Anna is a sought-after comme

I spoke with Matthew Waldman (Founder, San-Q, and Professor Keio Graduate School of Design) and Ruben Fernandez Vela (Senior Researcher, Samcara research lab) on transformation and innovation lessons from designing next-gen cities.This was a fascinating chat, and much of the ideas we discussed could very easily be extrapolated for firms, in-house teams, indeed any business.Here are three things I took away: Planning for obsolescence and avoiding in-action Balancing decision making and privacy Fostering innovation is simple Other resources mentioned during the episode Samcara circular design lab San-Q consultancy Professor Matthew Waldman on LinkedIn  Ruben Vela on LinkedIn Laying the foundation for Smart Cities What's fueling the smart city backlash? Carlos Moreno talks about the 15-minute city Beyond Tech - The True Meaning of a Smart City

So Legal is coming late to the party on some of this, but at least it arrived very well dressed because we get to now pick and choose some of the best parts of project management, change management transformation, continuous improvement.Peter Dombkins is a national leader in legal transformation, legal operations, and the project management of legal professional services. He has received awards from the Financial Times and AIPM for change and legal practice management. Peter is Australia's first Adjunct Associate Professor in Legal Transformation, at the University of NSW Faculty of Law. Peter is also the Director for New Law at PwC Australia.During the episode, we discuss: Is there a revolution coming to the legal profession? A brief history of changes in how professional legal services are offered from 1950 to - present day. Including the trend of appending “legal” in front of many things.  What is Legal Project Management, and how most lawyers are are already putting it into practice? What is transformatio

Mouthpiece Law is a student-run not-for-profit. As the world’s first legal education & technology platform, they connect and empower law students and legal professionals to form a legal aid task force and address legal needs through low-cost legal services.Avinash Pillay is the COO and Chief Legal Engineer at Mouthpiece Law.

Len Hickey is an IP lawyer and founder of Litigaze a case evaluation tool for modern legal teams that enables the evaluation of complex cases using intuitive visual planning.You can find out more about Litigaze at and connect with Len Hickey on LinkedIn. 

Elani is a leader in building high-growth startups through streamlined operations. After earning her master's from King's College, London, and serving more than two years at the Peace Corp. Elani spent almost a decade helping emerging tech companies develop, optimize and scale their operations marketing, and people processes. Elani is now the venture program manager at MDR Lab.

Jim Chaing is the founder of My Legal Einstein, an AI-powered legal contract review tool.

Parul Patel is the founder of Fuel and Move, a consultancy that helps Partners of law firms and General Counsels develop their teams and lawyers for performance optimization.

Matthew Golab is the Director of Legal Informatics and R+D at Gilbert + Tobin. He leads a specialized in-house multidisciplinary legal informatics team that utilizes a variety of data analytics and eDiscovery, and other AI technology tools. Matthew has more than 20 years of experience in the legal technology industry, including two of Australia’s preeminent law firms.

Rasmeet Charya is the Chief Innovation Officer at Algo Legal. As Chief Innovation Officer, Rasmeet brings a strong passion for transforming how law firms and lawyers work with clients and think about innovation. From understanding problems, curating ideas, and facilitating innovation processes, Rasmeet leads a team that focuses on analysing how technology can be used by the firm to enhance transparency, increase access, create efficiencies, and offer a new brand of service. Algo Legal is a new law firm, established in 2019, and the firm has started with a strong foundation in technology. As they got started the leadership wanted to create a new brand of legal services, driven by technology and innovation, and utilizing a process-driven approach to deliver a unique experience for their clients. During my chat we explore how: - How to apply a process-driven approach to your practice - Different ways in which Algo Legal has been involved in the community via law schools and supporting startups - How the Al

Giles Thompson is the Head of Growth @ Avvoka

Jan Hards is the Director of Legal Innovation at Johnson Winter & Slattery. After years of practicing as a Corporate M&A Lawyer at Freshfields in the UK, and then later at Johnson Winter & Slattery, he made a deliberate move to become the firm’s Director of Legal Innovation.

Innovation management helps to optimize the innovation process, identify bottlenecks and increase the productivity of innovation, investment, and resources. Floor Blindenbach is the founder of Organizing4Innovation. Trigged by a recent whitepaper, I speak with Floor to discuss her views on innovation management for law firms. We spoke about: - the importance of treating innovation as a process - definition for innovation' - the role of culture in driving innovative efforts - Innovation as a way to develop talent - the problem of tracking/measuring innovation efforts in law firms - best practices for innovation teams

Alice Stephenson is a founder and tech lawyer driving inclusion and innovation in law and promoting individuality within the legal profession. Alice founded Stephenson Law in 2017 to create a law firm that does things differently. Tackling each stereotype head-on, she is on a mission to build a forward-thinking, innovative law firm that puts people at the heart of everything it does. Alice's goal is to inspire young women to challenge the perceived barriers to success and see that anything is possible. In this episode we discuss: - tackling challenges - being comfortable with making mistakes - measuring lawyer value outside of the billable hour

This was first published in the Winter 2020 issue of ILTA's Peer to Peer. This is a special audio version of that article.

Contracts are crucial to the legal process, however more frequently the process of contracting can be painful. In this episode we discuss how to remove unnecessary barriers from contracts while offering the same protections, benchmarking the performance of your contracts, and Alex’s reflections on 10 years since founding Radiant Law. Alex Hamilton (LinkedIn / Twitter) is the CEO and founder of Radiant Law, the UK-based award-winning NewLaw firm. Alex is focused on improving the contracting process for clients, leading product and tech development. He also regularly talks and writes on improving contracting, LawTech and the changing legal industry. He has led a number of projects that have been recognised by the FT’s Innovative Lawyer Awards. Before founding Radiant Law, he was a Partner at Latham & Watkins and co-Chair of Latham & Watkins’ global Technology Transactions Group.