AI, Lawsuits and the Death of the Billable Hour

Title:

AI, Lawsuits, and the Death of the Billable Hour? | Alon Shwartz, Trellis

Show Notes:In this episode of The Venture Variety Show, I sit down with Alon Shwartz, co-founder and COO of Trellis, to explore how AI is transforming one of the oldest professions: law.

Trellis is a legal tech startup using generative AI to make state trial court data searchable and accessible. Alon shares how this shift is affecting everything from legal research and billing models to the role of junior associates—and why data, not just prompts, is the real moat for AI-driven startups.

This episode originally aired as part of The AI Cognitive Shift, a podcast I co-host in collaboration with AiNews.com. You can watch more episodes over on the AiNews YouTube channel.

In this episode:

Why legal research is now “a commodity”

How AI is forcing law firms to rethink the billable hour

What makes Trellis’ dataset so powerful—and defensible

Why picking a model and sticking with it matters

The challenge of training the next generation of lawyers

What founders should ask before building with AI

Guest:

Alon Shwartz – Co-Founder & COO, Trellis

For more podcast episodes and posts on how AI is reshaping venture, platforms, and storytelling, subscribe to The Venture Variety Show.

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Chapters:

00:00 – Intro: AI and the Legal Profession01:12 – The Fragmentation of Court Data04:14 – AI’s Impact on Research, Billing & Jobs08:52 – Why Trellis’ Data Moat Matters15:14 – Future Trends and the Ethics of AI in Law

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Key Quotes:

“Research has become a commodity now.”

“What problem are you solving with AI?”

“AI will help attorneys do more.”

Keywords:

AI, legal industry, Trellis, legal tech, generative AI, state court data, legal research, billing models, data moat, startup strategy, future of work, platform tools

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