This episode explores the RAILS initiative, which focuses on the responsible use of AI in legal services. The guests discuss the origins of RAILS, its working groups, and the importance of ethical AI practices. They highlight recent outputs, including a risk management framework and various use cases, while emphasizing the need for AI literacy in the legal field. The discussion also touches on the future of RAILS and the ongoing evolution of AI in legal contexts. Thanks to our guests, Kelli Rake...
May 05, 2025•29 min•Season 7Ep. 2
In this episode of Fringe Legal, we host an engaging discussion with James Markham and Darren Mee , authors of ' The Legal MBA .' The conversation delves into their backgrounds, the inspiration behind their book, and its key themes. We discuss the importance of a broad business education for legal professionals, the integration of legal technology, and the practical applications of the knowledge shared in their book. 00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00:29 Background of the Authors 01:05 Jour...
Jan 16, 2025•37 min•Season 7Ep. 1
In this episode of Fringe Legal, recorded live from ILTACON 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, Ab sits down with JoeySeeber , CEO of Level Legal . Joey discusses the journey and growth of Level Legal over 15 years, starting during the Great Recession. The conversation delves into various aspects of building a business for longevity, maintaining a startup mindset in a small company, and delivering services in a human-centric way. Joey shares insights on their framework and principles for doing busines...
Sep 03, 2024•22 min•Season 6Ep. 3
In this episode of the Fringe Legal podcast, host Ab interviews Stefan Ciesla , the co-founder and CEO of Ayora ai , a startup that focuses on helping law firms manage their revenues and improve the revenue management skills of fee earners such as attorneys and lawyers. Steven discusses the problem Ayora is solving in the legal industry and the role of lawyers as revenue managers. He explains that fee earners often have to make revenue management decisions throughout a matter's lifecycle, but th...
Feb 14, 2024•33 min•Season 6Ep. 2
In this episode of the Fringe Legal podcast, host Ab chats with Conan Hines, Director of Legal Technology at Fried Frank, about building a tech-enabled culture in law firms. Conan shares insights from his previous roles at Clifford Chance and other law firms, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of legal technology and the psychology and behavior of users when it comes to successful adoption and change management. Conan emphasizes the need for building trust with lawyers and fin...
Jan 16, 2024•34 min•Season 6Ep. 1
While technology races ahead, improving legal training and education has lagged behind. Law schools excel at teaching students the law, but critical and practical skills development is often lacking. With the traditional law firm apprenticeship model fading, junior lawyers frequently lack opportunities to gain hands-on experience. Abdi Shayesteh , founder and CEO of the legal training platform AltaClaro , is on a mission to close this practical skills gap. Frustrated by the inefficiencies he exp...
Oct 12, 2023•43 min•Season 5Ep. 7
As part of our series of examining Generative AI in Practice, Fringe Legal spoke with Stephanie Corey , founder of legal operations consultancy UpLevel Ops , and Brandi Pack , UpLevel’s Legal Tech Analyst & AI Consultant. They share how legal teams can thoughtfully leverage generative AI to transform workflows, augment human skills, and futureproof roles. With proper governance and training, we can keep pace with the evolution of AI and maximize its potential. Show notes: Show Notes: [00:02:...
Sep 15, 2023•43 min•Season 5Ep. 6
We sat down with Jeff Pfeifer , Chief Product Officer at LexisNexis during ILTACON 2023 to get his insights on legal AI progress, hype versus reality, increased law firm adoption, and the importance of demonstrating tangible benefits. Topics covered: Navigating the legal AI hype cycle AI’s potential to enhance legal workflows Growing law firm interest and hands-on exploration Avoiding the “trough of disillusionment” Real-world benefits driving adoption over hype...
Sep 08, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 5
In this episode of Fringe Legal , host Abhijat Saraswat interviews Nnamdi Emelifeonwu and Feargus MacDaeid, co-founders of legal tech startup Definely. Key Takeaways: Definely creates software plugins to simplify drafting, reviewing, and analyzing legal contracts in Microsoft Word using AI/ML. The idea originated from Feargus' need as a blind lawyer to access information in documents more easily. They validated demand with a scrappy prototype and early pilots despite its flaws. After leaving law...
Aug 14, 2023•31 min•Season 5Ep. 4
ESG (environmental, social, governance) factors have become essential considerations for companies seeking to manage risk, attract investment, and operate sustainably. Yet myths and misconceptions persist around what ESG is and how best to approach it. This leads many legal teams to view ESG as an amorphous compliance exercise rather than a strategic priority. Recently on the Fringe Legal podcast, Abhijat Saraswat interviewed ESG expert Kai Gray , CEO of advisory firm Motiv , to demystify ESG an...
Jul 24, 2023•38 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Summary: In this insightful episode of Fringe Legal, host Abhijat Saraswat has an in-depth discussion with India Preston , Director of Platform Solutions at legal tech startup Lupl . They delve into India's winding journey into legal project management, tactical approaches to driving adoption, and how to effectively challenge established processes. India shares learnings and advice drawn from her diverse experiences - from helping build out Linklaters' LPM function from the ground up to make the...
Jul 14, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 2
In this episode, our guests Brad Blickstein , David Cambria , and returning guest Keith Maziarek join host Ab to discuss the findings from the 3rd Legal Pricing and Project Management (LPMM) Survey Report . They delve into the key challenges and trends shaping the legal industry, touching upon innovation, technology, client expectations, and the future of legal service delivery. Tune in to explore the data and analysis from the report, as these experts share their perspectives on the current sta...
May 03, 2023•41 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Professional services environments are stressful. Among the myriad of items to be juggled each day, you must manage workloads, managing the capacity of employees - what kind of work & how frequently work is allocated. How well this aspect is managed will impact performance, productivity, DEI, and retention. As part of our startup series, we speak with William Dougherty , Co-Founder of Capcity , a legal tech tool that looks to improve the allocation of work. In the episode, we'll discuss (num...
Jan 20, 2023•31 min•Season 3Ep. 56
The guest this week are co-founders of New York-based Priori Legal . Basha Rubin , the company's Chief Executive Officer, and Mirra Levitt , the Chief Product Officer, met as classmates at Yale Law School and found Priori. Earlier this year, they announced a funding round of $15 million. Priori works with in-house legal teams to connect legal departments with the right outside counsel for projects globally, saving them time and money. We discuss Legal Tech trends, their origin story, raising fun...
Sep 22, 2022•23 min•Season 3Ep. 55
Legal operation teams have been increasing in popularity. In this episode, Liz Lugones and Sumi Trombley from Uplevel Ops share why Legal Ops teams matter, why you should care, and how to leverage them to level up your legal team (in-house and at firms). Uplevel Ops are offering a complimentary 30-minute consultation , you can find more here . In the episode, we discuss: (03:12) Why should you care about legal operations (LegalOps)? (04:21) Law school vs. practice (08:12) Enabling fail-fast thin...
Aug 25, 2022•39 min•Season 3Ep. 54
To supplement the release of the Fringe Legal no-code report, which provides 100s of hours of market research in 6-min, we speak with Jackson Liu, Chief Commercial Officer at Neota, about the state of no-code in legal. During the conversation, we discuss: How firms are using no-code tools Leveraging no-code tools as a competitive advantage Focusing on the customer journey and adoption for long-term success No-code challenges Future of no-code You can read the full No-code report at www.fringeleg...
Aug 05, 2022•32 min•Season 3Ep. 53
On this episode with speak with Kai Jacob - Partner at KPMG and Co-founder of Liquid Legal Institute - about digital transformation and designing the future of law. In the episode we cover (min.seconds): Introduction -> 0.20 Enthusiasm vs adoption of technology -> 1.56 Founding the think thank -> 3.24 Facilitating cross collaboration -> 5.06 Distributing projects equitably -> 6.04 Designing the future -> 10.14 Mental wellbeing -> 13.52 Skills for future lawyers -> 21.54 B...
Jul 21, 2022•33 min•Season 3Ep. 52
Lawyers and firms have long struggled to find the right way to price their services. The hourly billing model focuses on the amount of time spent on a matter, project, or case. This can often lead to inefficiencies and frustration for the lawyer and the client. Value based pricing is an alternative that takes into account the value of the service being provided rather than simply the time spent. It means that lawyers and firms are paid based on the results they achieve for their clients. The inc...
Jun 21, 2022•37 min•Season 3Ep. 51
Leading teams during times of crisis presents a unique challenge. Many of which are multiplied when you are a startup and the team was only formed months ago. And then, overnight, everyone suddenly felt very fragile. It's a unique feeling and unique in a bad way because suddenly you have no idea what to do. And the feeling is that you're very lost. Yet, that is exactly the challenge that faced Alex Tsepko, CEO of Lawrina - a website that provides useful content and productivity tools for lawyers...
Apr 27, 2022•15 min•Season 3Ep. 50
What role does creativity play in a law firm and legal practice? "You can be creative in any industry and anything that you do. Creativity is a mindset . It's being open to new ideas, new trends that diversity of thought, as we mentioned, being willing to experiment and try things, seeing things through a different lens than people typically do. To me, that's what creativity really is. It doesn't mean you have to invent something new and be insanely innovative. It just means you can look at a lo...
Dec 17, 2021•33 min•Season 3Ep. 49
Matt Coatney is a seasoned C-level product and technology executive, entrepreneur, advisor, author, and speaker with 25 years of experience helping businesses and technology work better together. He has led divisions and portfolios for large global corporations, co-founded three companies and advised several others, been an early-stage employee of two successful tech startups, advised dozens of business and technology professionals across all stages of company formation and growth, and launched ...
Nov 18, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 48
Technology is a frequent topic of conversation. It comes up almost every single episode. And while it's fun to talk about amazing new tools or features, ultimately, you have to tie the tech back to the business strategy . Easy to say, difficult to execute. It's harder still when tracking and working with emerging technology, where there may not yet be a baseline for success. We tackle those points and so much more in the episode today. Episode content What is IncuBaker ➡ 2.46 Watching the market...
Nov 05, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 47
On the podcast this week, I speak to Quddus Pourshafie, co-founder of antiCPD a new training business looking to flip the necessary evil of CPD on its head. They have a bold vision: Essentially, we want it to be the most AntiCPD CPD training you've ever seen. CPD is one of the least favorite activities of any lawyer, right? It's something that must be done, but no one particularly enjoys that period of time. Or if it's spread throughout the year most people tick it off. It's a checkbox item. And...
Oct 28, 2021•18 min•Season 3Ep. 46
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....
Oct 21, 2021•18 min•Season 3Ep. 45
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 ...
Sep 30, 2021•32 min•Season 3Ep. 44
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 h...
Sep 15, 2021•28 min•Season 3Ep. 43
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 a...
Aug 09, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 42
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,...
Jul 16, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 41
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 ...
Jul 02, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 40
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 firs...
Jun 21, 2021•39 min•Season 3Ep. 39
