With the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in Melbourne, Australia fast approaching. I wanted to speak to two more ILTA peers before they left for “Down Under.” Rick Krzyminski of Baker Donelson and Julian Tsisin of Google some background on their presentations and thoughts on innovation. To review information about the Tech Fest, see But Wait… There’s More – Legal Innovation & Tech Fest, Part I. To learn about Connie Brenton and Berys Amor’s presentations, see Part II.
Rick Krzyminski
I recently asked Rick Krzyminski, Knowledge Management Director at Baker Donelson and ILTACON Co-Chair, to tell me about his session at the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in Melbourne, Australia next week. The session, “Understand Your Customer to Transform Your Business” brings varied perspectives from the panelists Rick Krzyminski, Michelle Mahoney, Executive Director of Innovation at King & Wood Mallesons and Paul Gray, Supervising Counsel at Telstra. The panelists come from a law firm in the United States, a law firm in Australia and a corporate legal department in Australia. The panel will address questions around the “how” of transforming a business by taking the audience through the matter journey or matter life cycle. Rick explained the need to analyze the process of engagement to develop a strong relationship of give and take for both the client and the law firm. In planning this session, Paul Gray told Michelle and Rick he believes, “perfection is the enemy of good." He says law firms often aim for perfection, deliver the right product but miss the opportunity to develop a relationship. Building a relationship creates a better understanding of all the business needs. Rick and his fellow panel members will also address design thinking for the client business relationship. Rick sees design thinking as thinking both outside the box and strategically. When a client seeks work on a straightforward matter, a firm can complete the work and close the matter or “enable people (in the law firm) to provide solutions or proposals for things that aren’t even being asked for yet by the client… Law firms need to be nimble.” The panel will also share innovation stories from outside legal where an established culture of customer service and providing solutions has developed into profitable new lines of business. The panel hopes these stories inspire attendees to listen to clients and to experiment with ideas and solutions that may go beyond legal work. Although the industry sees a continued need for clients to lower their legal spend, Rick see this not as an obstacle but as an opportunity to provide effective business solutions. Rick encourages people to bring questions for an interactive discussion throughout the session. With the mix of corporate legal departments and law firms attending the Tech Fest, you can count on a rich discussion.
Rick hopes to attend many sessions at the Tech Fest. He appreciates the business focus of this conference. Rick explained, “Clients are looking for differentiators who can help them beyond legal services… I see a lot of opportunity for growth and innovation on the business side of law.”
Julian Tsisin
Julian Tsisin, Legal Technology at Google, will present two sessions and sit on a panel for a third session at the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest next week. Google won the ILTA Peer Award for Innovative Law Department of the Year in 2015. I spoke with Julian and he told me about his sessions and his interests in innovation in the legal technology industry. Recently Julian has become interested in applying machine learning to the legal domain. In “Demystifying the Hottest Trend in Technology: Machine Learning for Lawyers,” Julian wants to first explain machine learning. He worries not all people understand it and only know of the hype. He said “this is not the magic box that will fix all of your problems in legal.” He will also cover some of the history of machine learning and AI. Following the 101 portion of the session where he dispels some of the machine learning hype, Julian will discuss vendors that apply machine learning such as Kira Systems, Seal Software, Neota Logic and others. Next he will delve into specific use cases with successful implementation of machine learning in legal.
Julian will address how to initiate machine learning development in firms and corporate legal departments. To adopt machine learning a few years ago one needed to hire very specialized talent. With companies like Google, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft now offering machine learning as a service, many barriers to development have been removed for smaller organizations. Companies will still need strong engineering teams but the commoditization of machine learning is an industry game changer. Julian shared this analogy, “You don’t need to know how the sausage (or the vegan burger) is made. You can just enjoy the sausage (or the vegan burger).” We spoke about increasing the adoption of new technologies and innovation in advanced law firms. He first recognized some firms already innovate in areas of machine learning, data science and more. He believes others will follow because firms understand ROI. If innovators can demonstrate that machine learning generates profits, others will embrace this technology. He also noted, some firms may adopt machine learning as a gimmick for business development purposes. “That's okay,” he says. “My message is that everybody should try it.”
When you speak to someone at Google you have to ask what’s next. Julian indulged my curiosity and told me he is very excited about introduction of intelligent virtual assistants into legal. Imagine a junior litigation associate at a firm, working on a pleading. Instead of asking around for advice, the AI-driven virtual assistant can proactively present past pleadings successfully submitted on similar matters, in the same court and before the same judge. If Google Now, Siri and Echo exist in the consumer space, why is this a moonshot? Julian explained one of the main challenges. “These very exciting opportunities all depend on very boring work… cleaning data. It’s a difficult and tedious process but it’s a requirement for any future technological advancements in legal.” His other session, “Optimized Legal Department: A Data Driven Approach,” addresses this challenge. Machine learning relies on training data, heavily cleaned and groomed data, carefully reviewed by humans. Julian said he sees innovation in legal with start-ups like Ravel Law and Lex Machina but he explained no company can do this work alone. Organizations must combine the data from different sources to make machine learning work. He closed the conversation talking about the evolution of legal technology and said, “I’ve been in legal technology since 1999. With the exception of e-discovery, it’s been a relatively static field, until recently. But things are looking up!”
Learn more about the upcoming presentations by Rick Krzyminski, Julian Tsisin and many other speakers on the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest agenda. ILTA is excited to partner with The Eventful Group to provide valuable programming to our members across the globe. Here’s more information on the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest and registration.