The
13th
annual
Clio
user
conference
kicked
off
this
week
with
the
traditional
opening
keynote
by
Jack
Newton,
Clio
CEO.
Newton
delivered
what
may
have
been
the
most
consequential
keynote
in
the
company’s
history
and
one
that
signals
a
shift
by
Clio
from
a
traditional
practice
management
provider
to
a
comprehensive
platform
that
essentially
does
everything
for
the
business
and
practice
of
law.
The
Announcements
Newton
walked
through
a
number
of
updates
and
enhancements
to
Clio’s
core
products
of
Manage,
Grow,
and
Accounting.
He
also
announced
a
move
by
Clio
to
go
after
the
large
firm
market,
firms
with
over
200
employees.
(Clio
has
historically
served
solo,
small,
and,
more
recently,
midsize
law
firms).
Clio
recently
acquired
ShareDo
to
facilitate
this
addition.
ShareDo
offers
practice
and
management
software
for
many
large
firms.
But
That’s
Not
the
Big
Story
Clio
also
earlier
this
year
acquired
vLex,
the
heavy-duty
AI
legal
research
player.
The
acquisition
is
pending
regulatory
approval.
It
is
the
vLex
acquisition
that
is
powering
the
Clio
transformation
that
Newton
described
in
his
keynote.
vLex
has
a
huge
amount
of
legal
data
in
its
wheelhouse
to
power
sophisticated
legal
AI
research.
On
top
of
this
data,
vLex
developed
Vincent,
a
powerful
AI
tool
to
work
with
this
data
and
enable
all
sorts
of
actions
and
work.
This
means
a
couple
of
things.
First,
by
acquiring
vLex,
Clio
can
now
offer
its
customers
AI
legal
research
tools.
Clio
customers
will
no
longer
have
to
go
one
place
for
its
practice
management
needs
and
a
second
place
for
its
substantive
legal
work,
like
research.
It
makes
what
Clio
can
provide
much
more
comprehensive
and
all
inclusive.
Second,
by
getting
access
to
vLex’s
powerful
AI
tool,
Clio
can
allow
its
customers
to
apply
Vincent
to
a
firm’s
internal
documents.
Clio’s
tools
can
thus
offer
a
whole
range
of
automated
AI
work
across
the
firm.
In
essence,
it’s
marrying
internal
and
external
data
upon
which
AI
can
run.
So
Clio
can
now
offer
such
things
as
a
transactional
and
automated
document
drafting
which
Newton
described
as
a
drafting
teammate.
It
can
offer
tools
that
manage
workflows.
Clio
can
automate
client
intake
almost
completely,
even
determining
whether
an
engagement
should
be
accepted
in
the
first
place.
It
can
calendar
dates
and
then
automate
compliance.
It
can
write
briefs.
It
can
take
actions
and
steps
in
matters
to
automate
a
huge
amount
of
work
throughout
the
life
of
a
matter
from
billing
to
collections.
It
can
do
sophisticated
legal
work
like
complex
contract
analysis,
legal
research,
or
brief
writing.
From
back-office
work
to
preparing
the
Supreme
Court
brief,
Clio’s
tools
will
be
embedded
and
central
to
what
law
firms
and
lawyers
do.
The
vLex
acquisition
also
means
that
Clio
is
no
longer
a
practice
management
company.
It’s
much
more
of
a
comprehensive
provider
of
all
needs
of
its
customers
big
and
small.
To
the
extent
it
wasn’t
before,
Clio
is
now
a
legal
AI
company.
No
one
else
in
the
market
can
offer
such
a
monolithic
set
of
service
powered
by
internal
and
external
data.
It’s
now
the
proverbial
one
stop
shop
that
other
vendors
have
been
trying
to
figure
out
by
either
offering
integration
with
other
vendors
or
even
loose
partnerships.
But
those
arrangements
can
be
complicated
and
not
allow
for
nimbleness
and
centralized
decision
making
which
matters
now
more
than
ever.
But
There
Are
Dangers
Newton
took
a
few
moments
during
the
keynote
to
walk
through
what
a
day
in
the
life
would
look
like
for
a
lawyer
using
a
full
set
of
Clio
AI
tools.
He
showed
the
tools
doing
virtually
everything
that
needed
to
be
done.
But
then
it
hit
me.
Much
of
what
many
lawyers
and
legal
professionals
do
every
day
can
now
be
done
by
AI
tools.
With
AI
doing
so
much,
what
will
lawyers
do
all
day?
What
will
paralegals
and
administrative
staff
do??
At
several
points
during
the
keynote,
Newton
referred
to
the
AI
tools
as
a
“teammate.”
He
even
described
Vincent
as
a
“brilliant
junior
associate.”
That’s
great
but
what
happens
to
all
the
work
the
human
“teammates”
were
doing?
How
do
you
become
that
brilliant
human
junior
associate
when
the
so
many
legal
answers
can
be
found
through
AI?
It’s
often
said
that
AI
will
enable
lawyers
to
do
the
more
sophisticated
legal
work
that
they
don’t
have
time
to
do
now.
But
is
there
really
enough
need
for
that
kind
of
work?
(Not
to
mention
the
fact
that
not
every
lawyer
is
good
at
the
vision
thing.)
And
where
will
these
sophisticated
thinkers
come
from
in
the
future
if
we
don’t
need
as
many
associates?
Which
raises
an
even
bigger
question:
how
will
we
train
and
develop
younger
lawyers
to
be
future
lawyers
and
thinkers?
How
will
we
develop
younger
lawyers
to
be
strategic
thinkers?
The
truth
is
pretty
clear:
the
legal
profession
as
we
know
it
is
going
to
be
different
and
perhaps
even
downsized.
We
have
to
face
the
possibility
that
lawyers
and
legal
professionals
may
need
different
skills.
It’s
an
inevitability
and
reality
that
few
in
the
legal
business
are
preparing
for.
I
talked
to
Ed
Walters,
vLex’s
Chief
Strategy
Officer,
after
the
keynote
and
he
made
a
very
good
point:
“We
need
to
be
teaching
younger
lawyers
things
like
judgment,
discernment,
counseling,
and
how
to
assess
the
outputs
of
AI.”
Those
that
do
will
prosper,
those
who
don’t
won’t.
As
William
Gibson
famously
said,
“the
future
is
already
here,
it’s
just
not
evenly
distributed.”
We
also
need
to
recognize
that
there
will
certainly
be
smaller
administrative
staffs,
who
are
composed
of
people
who
will
be
hurt
the
worst
by
job
displacement.
While
it’s
true,
as
John
Foreman,
Clio’s
Chief
Product
Officer,
put
it,
“AI
is
really
good
at
administrative
work
and
a
lot
of
administrative
work
just
isn’t
getting
done.”
But
that
still
means
that
some
job
functions
that
humans
are
doing
will
be
replaced
creating
the
risk
of
job
displacement.
You
can’t
blame
Clio
for
these
risks.
It’s
doing
what
other
vendors
are
trying
to
do
and
it’s
doing
it
more
responsibly
than
most.
But
I
saw
maybe
for
the
first
time
how
disruptive
AI
can
and
will
be.
And
there’s
another
danger
when
one
company
provides
all
the
necessary
services.
Enshitification
Once
Clio
can
provide
soup
to
nuts
needs
of
law
firms
such
that
other
vendors
are
rendered
irrelevant,
the
temptation
to
increase
prices
and
decrease
services
will
always
be
there.
Once
you
are
in
a
walled
garden
and
a
company
like
Clio
can
provide
the
kind
of
wall-to-wall
service
you
can’t
get
anyplace
else,
it’s
tough
to
leave
the
garden.
Even
if
it
ultimately
costs
more
to
get
less.
It’s
the
enshitification
syndrome
that
Cory
Doctorow
waxes
eloquently
about
in
his
book
titled
Enshitification:
Why
Everything
Suddenly
Got
Worse
and
What
to
Do
About
It.
Again,
Clio
shows
no
indication
under
present
leadership
of
going
this
route.
As
I
said
before,
it’s
one
of
the
more
responsible
players
in
legal
tech.
But
things
can
change.
Leadership
can
change,
economic
forces
can
shift.
All
of
which
points
to
the
risks
of
a
single
provider
being
able
to
meet
every
need.
Make
no
mistake,
being
able
to
serve
the
majority
of
customers’
needs
with
one
provider
is
good
for
lots
of
reasons.
But
customers
also
need
to
recognize
that
there
are
risks.
Divorcing
a
provider
is
not
easy,
particularly
where
you
have
to
replace
one
vendor
that
supplies
your
every
need
with
six
or
seven
separate
ones.
You
need
to
have
an
exit
plan
out
of
the
walled
garden.
The
Big
Story
So
the
big
story
from
the
keynote
is
not
the
new
and
shiny
AI
products
Clio
introduced
and
Newton
discussed.
It’s
Clio’s
transformation
from
practice
management
provider
to
comprehensive
legal
services
platform,
one
capable
of
handling
sophisticated
legal
work
across
every
aspect
of
a
firm’s
operations.
For
customers,
it’s
undeniably
powerful.
Whether
it
proves
to
be
a
blessing
or
a
curse
will
depend
on
how
both
Clio
and
the
legal
profession
navigate
the
profound
disruption
ahead.
Time
will
tell.
Stephen
Embry
is
a
lawyer,
speaker,
blogger,
and
writer.
He
publishes TechLaw
Crossroads,
a
blog
devoted
to
the
examination
of
the
tension
between
technology,
the
law,
and
the
practice
of
law.