I
had
the
good
fortune
to
attend
my
first
day
of
the
Legal
Geek
North
America
conference
this
week
in
Chicago.
The
Conference
Legal
Geek
touts
itself
as
an
atypical
legal
tech
conference.
It
was
founded
some
10
years
ago
by
Jimmy
Vestbirk,
who
wanted
to
create
a
fun,
fast-paced,
and
impactful
legal
conference
and
get
away
from
ponderous
content
sessions
with
speakers
who
drone
on
about
their
credentials
and
offer
wordy
and
boring
power
points.His
ethos:
“Come
to
learn,
and
to
teach.
Come
to
make
friends,
not
sell.
Look
after
your
fellow
attendees,
you
may
need
their
help
some
day.”
The
event
by
and
large
lived
up
to
that
vision.
Legal
Geek
follows
a
fast-paced
format:
short,
punchy
talks
of
10
minutes
in
length
(really
eight
minutes
according
to
the
speakers
I
talked
to),
interactive
workshops,
and
startup
and
vendor
alleyways
instead
of
cavernous
expo
halls.
I
had
to
wonder
how
the
speakers
could
stick
to
an
eight-minute
limit
but
no
one
went
over.
By
the
end
of
the
day,
I
was
convinced
the
format
worked.
It
forced
speakers
to
have
a
point,
get
to
it
quickly,
and
stick
to
it.
All
that
made
the
talks
much
more
impactful.
Also
networking
is
not
only
expected,
it’s
almost
demanded
with
plenty
of
opportunities
for
both
structured
networking
in
roundtable
sessions
but
also
unstructured
ones.
And
unlike
some
conferences
where
content
runs
every
minute
of
every
day,
Legal
Geek
provides
time
and
incentives
to
network.
High
fives
seem
to
be
the
order
of
the
day.
While
the
vibe
sounds
informal,
the
content
tackled
some
meaty
issues,
focusing
on
the
evolution
of
legal
services,
how
AI
is
being
used,
and
where
the
profession
may
be
headed,
all
in
a
concise
and
focused
manner.
The
Attendees
The
Chicago
conference,
like
all
but
one
of
the
Legal
Geek
events,
was
directed
primarily
toward
large
law
firms
and
corporate
counsel.
Legal
Geek
says
there
were
approximately
1,000
registrants,
30%
from
law
firms,
30%
in-house,
and
the
rest
with
tech
companies,
academics,
thought
leaders,
etc.
I
was
told
by
Legal
Geek
representatives
that
a
fair
number
of
attendees
are
actually
practicing
lawyers,
although
that’s
hard
to
confirm.
(In
fact,
late
in
the
day,
one
of
the
presenters
asked
for
a
show
of
hands
of
practicing
lawyers
and
there
weren’t
many.)
The
Presentations
I
go
to
a
lot
of
conferences
so
have
heard
many
of
the
things
the
speakers
discuss
but
there
were
new
things,
and
it
was
nice
to
hear
the
thoughts
expressed
in
a
condensed
style.
I
also
have
to
admit,
when
I
first
saw
all
the
vendor
presentations,
I
cringed
thinking
it
would
be
same
old
selling
from
the
podium.
Some
of
it
was,
particularly
during
the
five-minute
product
spotlights,
although
the
startups
got
a
fair
amount
of
speaking
parts
which
I
don’t
begrudge.
And
some
of
the
vendor
material
was
more
substantive.
In
keeping
with
format,
here
is
a
high-speed,
quick
bullet
point
summary
of
the
presentation
high
notes.
Danielle
Benecke,
leader
of
Baker
McKenzie’s
Applied
AI
practice,
kicked
the
conference
off
by
identifying
the
elephant
in
the
room:
what
will
AI
tools
do
to
the
leverage
and
billing
models
of
so
many
law
firms.
Benecke
candidly
suggested
that
the
AI
tools
will
indeed
challenge
traditional
ways
of
valuing
services
provided
by
law
firms.
She
believes
that
in
a
short
time,
clients
will
be
buying
vision,
strategy,
and
results
instead
of
time.
We
are
“moving
from
input
to
output.”
Alma
Asay
of
Crowell
&
Moring
stressed
practical
AI
use
cases
that
should
meet
with
little
resistance.
Things
like
creating
better
billing
narratives,
drafting
non-billable
client
alerts,
capturing
handwritten
notes
and
turning
them
into
text,
extracting
data
from
copious
documents,
and
collecting
client
statements
and
positions
or
legal
advice
given
clients
across
various
fields.
“You
have
to
meet
lawyers
where
they
are,”
said
Asay.
Mark
Palmer
of
the
Illinois
Supreme
Court
Professionalism
Commission
gave
a
fascinating
talk
on
using
AI
to
find
the
right
words
to
convey
the
message
you
want.
Words
that
help
those
you
are
trying
to
persuade
be
part
of
the
experience
you
want
them
to
understand.
Palmer
noted
that
AI
can
suggest
the
tone
a
word
creates,
can
suggest
alternate
phrasing,
and
can
analyze
drafts
to
ensure
the
words
used
best
convey
what
you
want.
An
AI
tool
can
identify
insights
that
will
resonate
well
with
a
particular
audience
—
and
those
that
can
backfire.
Nicole
Bradick,
the
Global
Head
of
Innovation
at
Factor,
talked
about
how
agentic
AI
can
and
will
affect
how
we
design
tools
to
achieve
complicated
tasks.
She
perceptively
noted
that
pre
AI,
law
was
a
completely
lawyer-driven
process
and
that
advocacy
required
a
lot
of
skills.
But
now
—
or
soon
—
agents
can
do
a
lot
of
those
things
that
a
lawyer
used
to
do.
The
benefit
is
autonomy
but
the
issue
remains
lawyer
control
over
the
process
and
where
along
the
spectrum
between
the
autonomy
and
control
lawyers
need
to
be.
Tamara
Steffens
of
Thomson
Reuters
talked
about
a
future
where
expertise
and
value
won’t
necessarily
come
from
the
data
and
experiences
within
a
firm
but
across
firms
and
business
as
anonymized
data.
The
key
to
value
in
the
future
will
not
be
either
better,
faster,
or
cheaper
but
will
be
all
three
combined.
Dan
Quintas,
an
Airias
Team
Leader,
identified
the
significant
barriers
to
successful
implementation
when
multiple
AI
programs
are
run
across
firms
and
clients
and
how
it
will
be
essential
to
have
some
AI
mechanic
to
orchestrate
and
manage
all
those
programs.
This
will
enable
better
audit
and
control
functions.
Michael
Hill
of
NetDocuments
talked
about
how
lawyers
often
ask
about
how
the
technology
works
and
what
it
can
be
used
for.
Instead,
he
says
they
need
to
be
asking
things
like:
How
to
leverage
tech
to
be
better?
How
get
associates
up
to
speed?
What
to
do
about
sloppy
work
that
could
come
from
reliance
on
AI?
How
to
open
up
new
types
of
work
that
firms
may
not
want
to
do,
like
collections?
How
to
open
work
that
can
be
done
in
an
automated
fashion?
And
how
AI
may
change
what
it
means
to
be
a
lawyer?
Wendy
Rubas
of
Innovaccer
talked
about
the
barriers
to
tech
implementation
by
and
among
lawyers.
She
noted
that
good
lawyers
simply
don’t
have
time
to
get
information
about
this
new
technology
and
so
they
simply
stay
in
email
and
Word.
She
said
tech
adoption
has
to
be
earned
from
demonstrating
how
technology
can
solve
pain
points.
The
biggest
barriers
to
legal
tech
are
frankly
senior
lawyers.
They
are
too
busy
to
get
familiar
with
tech
and
don’t
trust
it.
Rubas
says
implementation
must
start
with
younger
lawyers
and
create
a
culture.
Lawyers
fear
they
won’t
understand
tech,
they
fear
losing
work,
and
particularly
for
senior
lawyers,
they
fear
that
they
will
appear
stupid
and
old.
They
need
tech
pep
talks.
A
Sea
Change?
There
was
a
sense
at
Legal
Geek
that
the
legal
profession
is
standing
at
a
fork
in
the
road.
It
was
a
challenging
but
exhausting
day.
Lots
of
new
ideas,
lots
to
think
about
in
the
brave
new
world
of
AI.
Are
we
on
the
cusp
of
a
legal
sea
change
or
is
this
a
minor
blip
in
the
inexorable
legal
inertia?
Time
will
tell
but
if
you
attended
Legal
Geek,
you
would
think
the
answer
is
clear.
If
true,
there
are
lots
of
hard
issues
we
as
a
profession
need
to
think
about.
And
that’s
the
value
of
Legal
Geek.
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.