Reinventing Professionals

I spoke with Casey Flaherty, the founder of Procertas and the creator of the Legal Technology Assessment, a competency-based learning and benchmarking platform focused on the core technology associated with the delivery of legal services. We discussed the genesis of the Legal Technology Assessment, its advantages for employers and professionals, how law schools are leveraging it to transform legal education, and the misalignment between hiring expectations and technological proficiency.

I spoke with Robb Caruso, a vice president with Compliance Discovery Solutions, a service provider that offers defensible discovery support for law firms and corporate legal departments. We discussed the genesis of the company’s Discovery-as-a-Service offering, who benefits from that model, what is driving the interest in alternative efforts at managing discovery, and what the emergence of strategies like Discovery-as-a-Service indicate about the evolution of the legal market.

I spoke with Pratik Patel, the vice president of innovation and products at Elevate Services, a law company, where he leads the company’s product business and innovation initiatives across its range of solutions. Pratik joined Elevate in 2012 following the acquisition of RFx LEGAL Analytics, a company he co-founded. We discussed Elevate’s launch of ElevateNext in connection with Valorem Law Group and Univar, what combinations of this type signifies about the evolution of the legal profession, how lawyers can adapt to a rapidly changing legal marketplace, why alternative legal services providers are so attractive to buyers of legal services, and where this sector is headed.

I spoke with Arup Das, the co-founder and CEO of Alphaserve, a global provider of managed IT, cloud, and cybersecurity services. We discussed the genesis of Alphaserve, how the collaboration between legal and IT is evolving in corporate legal departments and law firms, whether law firms are ready for the emergence of artificial intelligence, applied data science, and blockchain, and the trajectory of innovation in the legal field.

I spoke with Elisa Cooper, the vice president of marketing for Lecorpio, a provider of intellectual property management and analytics software solutions for corporate IP departments. We discussed the results of the Second Annual Lecorpio Trademark Management Study, highlights ranging from budgeting for trademark registrations to trademark policing strategies, the primary theme of the research, and what the results indicate about where the market is headed.

I spoke with Darrell Mervau, the president and co-founder of FileTrail, a records management and information governance system for law firms. We discussed the genesis of FileTrail, what law firms using legacy records systems can do to improve their processes, the different platforms with which FileTrail integrates, and the information governance challenges that law firms are facing and the solutions they are they applying.

I spoke with Ida Abbott, the president of Ida Abbott Consulting, which promotes and supports career development and advancement from the beginning of a lawyer’s career through retirement. Abbott is an elected fellow of both the American Bar Foundation and the College of Law Practice Management, as well as the author of Sponsoring Women, What Men Need to Know and The Lawyer’s Guide to Mentoring, the second edition of which was just released. We discussed her background, how mentoring has changed since the publication of the first edition of The Lawyer’s Guide to Mentoring, the challenges to providing high quality mentoring, the difference between sponsorship and mentorship, and how the profession can leverage mentoring in its continued evolution.

I spoke with Jim Beckett, the CEO of Qualmet, the developers of a cloud-based law firm performance management platform. We discussed the genesis of Qualmet, how it works, ways that law firms and corporate legal departments are using its technology, and where the sector is headed.

I spoke with Chris Kave, the founder of Aurora North Software, a software and services provider delivering IP solutions and Intapp products for law firms. We discussed the genesis of Aurora North Software, why patent and trademark prosecution has become so important in the current economic climate, how the company is building automation into its processes, useful analytics organizations can generate by tracking patent and trademark prosecution, and what law firms should evaluate to determine whether their current prosecution processes are sufficient.

I spoke with Christina Wojcik, the vice president of solution consulting for Seal Software, where she leads the company’s technical and legal solution consultancy, at the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium 2018 Institute. We discussed the impact of regulatory changes, including GDPR, on the corporate law department, the role of legal operations leaders in promoting innovation, and the rising importance of contract management.