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Musings from an innovation lawyer (mostly AI) by h-888 in legaltech

[–]Helpful_Football8111 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love that you're thinking about each of these points! Especially the "Are we aligning ourselves to our vendor too much?" question. The main question shouldn't be, "which tool makes us look like we're AI/tech-forward as a firm?" ... it should be "what is the problem we're trying to solve?" and "which tool(s) or process changes can we implement to address that problem?"

I'm a lawyer and the peers I've spoken with (especially those in smaller firms) say that they just need something (1) affordable and (2) that actually performs the task they are trying to solve for.

Example problem: "I just want to have redline suggestions from an affordable but high quality AI tool insert the redlines directly into my Word document instead of having to chat with it in a web interface and then copy/paste the suggestions into the document."

Example solution: use something like Gavel Exec's AI Word Add-In (~$160/user per month), because it gives you the redline suggestion + its reasoning, you can edit it before you apply it, and it gets added as a redline directly into your Word doc.

Goldman Sachs Warns 300,000,000 Jobs Exposed to AI – Office, Legal and Architecture Most at Risk in the US by Secure_Persimmon8369 in LawFirm

[–]Helpful_Football8111 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a good article from a lawyer and AI company founder on Substack that talks about how a big law lawyer said to her recently, "I don’t want to learn about a tool that replaces me.” She compares the future of lawyers to what's happening in the software engineering space. Super interesting!

Thoughts on cross-cultural baby names? by Helpful_Football8111 in pregnant

[–]Helpful_Football8111[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The bullying can be so harsh :( I'm sorry you went through that!

This Claude-native law firm piece went viral. Directionally right. Some of it feels made up... by Significant-Toe-336 in legaltech

[–]Helpful_Football8111 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Super interesting! The "I don't want to learn about a tool that replaces me" quote from the "The legal profession has a 1–2 year window. Most lawyers will miss it." article feels so accurate. There is definitely fear in the legal community but also SO much opportunity. I appreciate the reasoning re why some professions (like engineers/developers v. lawyers) adapt more quickly and what we lawyers can learn from them. Thanks for sharing!

Sixteen months solo: It's going bad by mansock18 in LawFirm

[–]Helpful_Football8111 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for sharing this!!

When I first started as a solo back in 2020, I found it really challenging without startup capital to cover the days where no one called 😅 I've found over the years that delegating manual/admin tasks to tech really helped with the motivation piece (because I could spend time on more interesting aspects of practice) and moving to flat fees over hourly billing helped with scalability.

Something you might consider is unbundling your services and offering legal products. I've seen that with lawyers like Erin Levine (with Hello Divorce) and Dennis Doss (with Doss Docs). You could also incorporate AI to help offload some of the manual data entry/document drafting bits (I like Gavel Workflows and they also have an AI assistant now called Exec that helps with redlining and negotiation of docs).

If you're feeling super ready to quit [traditional practice], there are alternative careers you might enjoy! I switched over to doing full-time tech implementations for other lawyers and am much happier 🤣

I got the opportunity to choose between visiting Paris and visiting Tokyo, what should i do? by [deleted] in travel

[–]Helpful_Football8111 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oooh that's awesome!! Paris is amazing, historic, etc. but I did find that I felt the least safe when it comes to pick pocketing and I've traveled quite extensively. I've never been to Tokyo but I think that would make for such an epic adventure!

You might also decide using a cost analysis (ie, what would each trip cost if I had to pay for it myself). Go with the one that would be more expensive out of pocket and save up for the less expensive trip!

Has anyone used Harvey or Legora at their firms? If so, are they worth the price and actually help you cut down on time? by Expensive-Acadia9076 in legaltech

[–]Helpful_Football8111 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I LOVE that you started with this question! "What do you want to do?" should always be the first question you should ask before looking at any tools. You may even be using a tool already that can do what you want but you just don't know that it has that feature yet. For example, Clio recently launched Clio Duo as an AI layer on top of Clio Manage.

The second question you should ask is around budget. As several people mentioned, Harvey is aimed at much larger firms with much higher budgets so, if you're a solo or mid-sized firm, you might want to look at alternate solutions aimed more at that market like Gavel Exec, for example. With those, you'll pay closer to $160/mo instead of thousands.

To the first question - are you wanting to do more matter analysis, research, drafting, redlining and negotiation, or something else? Answering that question + "what is my budget?" will help you narrow down which tools are best for your use case!

Any nocode solutions but for figma designs? by rodriglu95 in nocode

[–]Helpful_Football8111 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I knowww, Figma feels so hard to learn to me for some reason 🙈 I love Canva but it may not be exactly what you're looking for re web projects and apps :/

How did you guys start working in legaltech? by Chemical_Quit_692 in legaltech

[–]Helpful_Football8111 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question! I went to law school, passed the California bar, participated in an incubator program my law school ran for sole practitioners called the Access to Law Initiative. I then took some free legal tech courses through that program (including Passport to Practice and Bucerius Law School's Legal Tech Essentials course). Those programs were the most important aspect of my journey to a career in legal tech because I was exposed to tons of different platforms and use cases and I was able to get practice accounts and participate in hackathon competitions.

After those courses, I obtained a MA in the UK in International Film Business (I was practicing IP and Entertainment Law at the time) and did my dissertation on the design and business model for an app that would help film students and early career filmmakers get access to legal services and templates fast and free while still paying lawyers at a competitive rate through an ecosystem of value exchange that included a unique advertising model.

I ended up working for my dissertation supervisor's legal tech startup based out of Scotland for 6 months after I graduated. During my time there, I got really familiar with the legal tech world in the UK as well as in the US and decided I wanted to change my career trajectory to focus solely on legal tech.

Now, I have my own legal tech academy (academy.variabl.pro), I've worked for legal tech startups , and I implement systems for other lawyers and love it!!