LawNext

Jim Sandman may be one of the most impassioned advocates in the United States for ensuring access to justice for all. As president of the Legal Services Corporation since 2011, he oversees an organization that funds free civil legal services to more than 130 legal aid programs throughout the country. As a frequent speaker and advocate, he forcefully makes the case for equal access to justice. In this episode of LawNext, Sandman joins host Bob Ambrogi for a frank and thoughtful discussion about the justice gap in the U.S. and his ideas for how to bridge it, from increasing funding for legal aid to loosening restrictions on legal practice. They also discuss the role of technology and the 2013 report that Sandman spearheaded, Report of The Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice. Before joining the LSC, Sandman spent 30 years as a lawyer with the firm Arnold & Porter, including 10 years as the firm's managing partner. Wanting to spend more time in public service, he became general counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools, where he stayed until the opportunity arose to join the LSC. He is a past president of the 100,000-member District of Columbia Bar. NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

Jeroen Plink was named in 2018 as CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions, a subsidiary of the international law firm Clifford Chance that designs and develops software to address clients' business challenges. He is responsible for product development and go-to-market strategy for all its products, including CC Dr@ft, a legal document automation platform. Plink is a legal technology veteran who, in 2007, moved to the United States to set up Practical Law Company US. Within five years, he successfully grew the business from two employees to 250, and had 80% of the AmLaw 200 and thousands of in-house departments as customers. In 2013, Practical Law Company was acquired by Thomson Reuters. After leaving Practical Law, Plink focused on providing strategic guidance as a board member and senior advisor to legal tech startups. He is currently on the board of the legal research startup Casetext and he has also served on the boards of Compliance.ai, a regulatory data and predictive analytics company, and Kira Inc., which uses AI to analyze and review complex documents. Plink started his career at Clifford Chance's Amsterdam office in 1996 as a private equity associate. He left the firm in 2000 to cofound a company that developed software for due diligence in the M&A transactions. In 2002, he sold that company to Practical Law Company, where he led application development in London before launching its U.S. operation. NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.

As executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, Jayne Reardon oversees programs and initiatives to increase the civility and professionalism of attorneys and judges, create inclusiveness in the profession, and promote increased service to the public. In this special edition of LawNext recorded live at the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, Reardon joined host Bob Ambrogi. They discussed Reardon's thoughts on recent initiatives in several states to loosen professional-conduct rules. They also talk about Reardon's work to promote civility and what it means for legal professionals. A frequent writer and speaker on topics involving the changing practice of law, Reardon believes that embracing inclusiveness and innovation will ensure that the profession remains relevant and impactful in the future. Her prior experience includes many years of practice as a trial lawyer, committee work on diversity and recruiting issues, and handling attorney discipline cases as counsel to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission Review Board.

In one of a series of special reports recorded live at the recent Clio Cloud Conference, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi is joined by Nehal Madhani, an attorney and the founder and CEO of the cloud-based IP filing software Alt Legal. Before starting Alt Legal, Madhani practiced as an attorney at Kirkland & Ellis. He is a Python/Django developer and serves on the board of Django-NYC, a nonprofit organization with nearly 2,500 software developers as members. He is also a CodeX fellow at Stanford Law School. Madhani speaks and writes regularly about the intersection of legal practice and technology. He has also co-authored several publications about the challenges of applying antitrust law to online business models, which have appeared in the Huffington Post and in the Journal of Management and Information Systems. He was selected for the 2016 Fastcase 50 – an award that "recognizes 50 of the smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the law."

In another of a series of special reports recorded live at the Clio Cloud Conference, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi interviews Ed Walters, CEO and cofounder of the online legal research company Fastcase. Under Ed's leadership, Fastcase has grown to become one of the world's largest legal publishers, currently serving more than 800,000 subscribers from around the world. He is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and at Cornell Tech, where he teaches The Law of Robots, a class about the frontiers of law and technology. Before founding Fastcase, Ed worked at Covington & Burling, in Washington D.C. and Brussels, where he advised Microsoft, Merck, SmithKline, the Business Software Alliance, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League. His practice focused on corporate advisory work for software companies and sports leagues, and intellectual property litigation. See also: LawNext Episode 45: As Fastcase Turns 20, Founders Recount Its History and Predict Its Future. Bonus Content Alert for our Patreon Supporters: Listen to Bob and Ed's conversation about skipping class in law school during our sound check on our Patreon page or using the custom RSS feed we provided!

After 10 years as a lawyer at two leading transactional law firms, Haley Altman decided there should be a better way to structure the workflow around the many deals in which she was involved. So in 2016, she left law practice to found Doxly, a technology platform designed to transform the archaic and chaotic process of managing transactions into one that is streamlined and efficient. Last August, Altman sold Doxly to the document technology company Litera Microsystems. That acquisition came just a month after Litera acquired U.K. company Workshare, which had its own transaction platform, Workshare Transact. Within a month, that meant, Litera went from having no transaction-management technology to owning two of the leading platforms -- platforms that spanned both the U.S. and European markets. At the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, Altman, who is now general manager of transaction management at Litera, sat down with LawNext for a conversation with host Bob Ambrogi. In their conversation, she provides updates on the acquisition and shares her thoughts on the state of legal technology more broadly.

In 2018, Mark Britton left Avvo, the often-controversial company he founded in 2006 and led as CEO until he sold it early last year to web behemoth Internet Brands. Soon after, he joined us here on LawNext in Episode 11 for an insightful conversation about why he started the company, why he sold it, and why he left. At the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi had the opportunity to sit down again with Britton to record a live special edition of LawNext. Britton was attending the conference following Clio's announcement in September that he had joined its board of directors and become an investor. In this interview, Britton explains why he decided to become involved with Clio, how he sees its mission as similar to Avvo's, and what he believes its future will hold. _________________ Become a supporter of LawNext by joining our Patreon membership!

George Psiharis was employee number six at Clio, which he joined shortly after the practice management company was founded in 2008. Now, he is COO of an enterprise with more than 400 employees and growing, responsible for customer success, business development and data operations. Psiharis also oversees Clio's annual Legal Trends Report, the fourth of which was released at the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego. This year's report included a unique feature, a study that Clio said was the largest nationwide assessment of client services among law firms. Psiharis joined host Bob Ambrogi for a special edition recorded live at the recent Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego, where he discussed some of the surprising and notable findings of the Legal Trends Report. He also discusses the growth he has overseen during a decade at Clio and how his role has evolved. Support us on Patreon!

Mark Harris, co-founder of Axiom and Now Knowable CEO, discusses the founding and growth of Axiom, as well as the challenges they faced. He also talks about their partnership with Kira to translate contract data, their joint venture with LexisNexis, and the vision for Knowable in digitizing contracts.

The seventh-annual Clio Cloud Conference recently wrapped up in San Diego. In this special edition of LawNext, host Bob Ambrogi sat down at the conference for a conversation with Jack Newton, cofounder and CEO of Clio, to talk about the conference and the company. With Clio having recently announced a $250 million funding round — one of the largest ever for a legal technology company — there was a lot to talk about. In addition, at the conference, Newton announced the forthcoming release of his book, The Client-Centered Law Firm: How to Succeed In An Experience-Driven World, in which he lays out his blueprint for law firm success. Newton talks about his vision for Clio to become the "operating system of law" and to help lawyers close the gap in access to justice. He also lays out his ideas for how lawyers can achieve greater success by building a client-centered law firm.