Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Scott Mozarsky, a managing director with JEGI, a middle-market investment bank, who is leading the firm’s legal and compliance practice. We discussed the strength of the legal market, the enthusiasm for legal technology, what investors are looking for in legal, and where legal is headed.

I am speaking today with Rob Feigenbaum, the co-founder and CEO of Prevail Legal, a testimony management platform. We discussed the genesis of Prevail Legal, the appeal of the court reporting sector, the difference between using a trained court reporter and a testimony management platform to capture the record, and the impact of the pandemic on how professionals view remote reporting.

I spoke with Matt Mahon, the National Manager for Information Governance and eDiscovery Sales at Ricoh. We discussed the workplace communications challenges that e-discovery and information governance practitioners are facing, whether professional communication has become more casual in this remote and work-from-home environment, and the challenges associated with interpreting emojis.

I spoke with Robert Gray, the CEO of Legality Software, a subsidiary of Matters in Motion and a provider of custom-development solutions and other technology for legal professionals. We discussed the genesis of Legality Software, how the challenges of running a law firm changed, ways that the pandemic has forced the legal marketplace to change, and the benefits of the One Step Workspace.

I spoke with Katherine Porter, an executive coach for female attorneys and the founder of the Transition Navigator. We discussed how design thinking can enhance a professional’s work, its relationship to the practice of law, the advantages of incorporating a designer’s mindset to client service in legal, ways to overcome the barriers to using design thinking to improve law firm operations, and how it can help law firms through this period of uncertainty.

I spoke with Adrian Camara, the CEO of Athennian, a developer of legal entity management software. We discussed who uses legal entity management software, what the focus on legal entity management indicates about the changing nature of legal services, and the challenges associated with raising capital in the current environment.

I spoke with Phil Anthony, Ph.D., division president at DecisionQuest, a U.S. Legal Support company. We discussed how the pandemic has changed trial consulting, ways to adapt in-person litigation to a virtual environment, how legal professionals are approaching virtual depositions and trials, and reactions from jurors to COVID-19.

I spoke with Johannes Stiehler, the CEO of ayfie Group, an Oslo-based company that provides technology for collecting and processing data from different silos using linguistic technology. We discussed the company’s mission, how the appeal of linguistic technology at law firms and corporate legal departments has evolved, and ayfie’s listing on the Merkur Market in Oslo in July of 2020.

I spoke with Soumya Nettimi and Sarah Schaaf, the CEO and general manager of payments, respectively, for ASG LegalTech, a platform of legal SaaS products including PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase, and now following its recent acquisition, Headnote, of which Sarah is a co-founder and the former CEO. We discussed the alignment of Headnote with ASG LegalTech’s suite of products, how the future of payments in legal is evolving, and what the appetite for a suite of technology tools indicates about the shift in the business of law.

I spoke with Amy Osteen, the founder of Outside CLO, a service for corporations that need an outsourced chief legal officer. We discussed why a company would outsource its in-house counsel needs, how that work differs from outside counsel at a law firm, and how the pandemic has impacted the appeal of outsourced in-house counsel services.