Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the legal learning podcast. I’m your host Jolene. And with the legal learning center, I help prospective law students save $300,000 on law school. If you’d like to ensure that you are remembering everything that goes into applying to law school, visit legal learning center.com for a free law school application checklist. Today I’m joined by calling levy a corporate attorney with a passion for legal tech. I fully admit I was a little nervous about this one since I just don’t even feel like I know what legal tech is, but Colin lays it all out for us.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure. So my name is Colin levy. I am a lawyer as well as a legal tech writer, speaker and enthusiast. And I have spent I’d say the last seven or eight years writing and speaking about technology and the legal context to try to help people overcome their fear of technology, make technology in concepts, around technology accessible and in an effort to help bring the legal profession out of the 19th century into the 20th century. And I say that on purpose because I’m not so naive as to think that it could go for the 19th all the way to the 21st skipping over the 20th.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You’re absolutely right. I think a lot of lawyers do have a fear of technology and you do do a good job with like your LinkedIn posts, you know, making us all feel like we can talk about it and we can understand it. But firms for sure, definitely are in the 19th century. Every time I talk to somebody I am shocked at, even if I feel like the place I was working at is a bit behind other places are super behind. I was just talking to a friend the other day. They’re a nationwide law firm. They’re in more than half the states and they’re still paper-based and he was talking about how during COVID he goes into the office twice a week to do file exchanges so he can gather new stuff to work on. And don’t you think this would be a good time to maybe go paperless? I don’t know. So, okay. So what exactly does legal tech actually encompass?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So that’s a great question. And I think that actually is partly why legal tech faces resistance is because people have different definitions of what it is. So the way I would define it is two ways. Number one, it refers to tools used by legal professionals to do and deliver legal services. And that means not just as kind of more advanced tools, but also tools you use everyday, like word Google docs Excel, zoom. What have you. I also think to a certain extent legal tech is a movement in sort of a cultural phenomenon that is seeking to try to digitize. I would say the legal industry and, and bring the legal industry into a world that is data-driven and tech enabled.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, I think when we say legal tech, it sounds so big and scary, but you’re right. It does start at a base level of even something simple like you and I were talking about off the air dictation software or yeah, some of these apps, I know, you know, I’m using a Trello as a kind of a to-do list and you know, it doesn’t have to be an outside source. It could be something your company makes or whatever. It could be, whatever, but we’re all using legal tech to some degree to stay organized to bill all that stuff. So incorporating more and more of it, I don’t think has to be so difficult and we don’t have to be so resistant to it.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, absolutely. There’s no need to kind of shoot for the moon. In fact, I often say that it best, it works best to just start small, start with small achievable goals and then build off of those goals. Cause that way you feel like you’re making progress without feeling intimidating and feeling like you’re just setting yourself up to fail.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Now, are you aware of law schools doing anything to help current law students be more familiar with your legal tech and maybe start integrating it immediately into law firms?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah. So there are a number of law schools that are at the forefront of incorporating technology and tech skills into their curriculums. There is Ryerson in Toronto. There is Suffolk university law school, which has a whole tech program. There is Northwestern, there’s also Northeastern there’s Stanford, which has a program as well. So there are a number of different law schools that are all approaching this from different perspectives, but all share a similar goal of trying to embed technology into their curriculum and graduate students that are tech savvy and view tech as another set of tools in their legal toolbox.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
That’s great. So how are they actually doing that? Is there a specific classes or is it more integrated across the board?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So most are doing it through classes. A lot of them are practical skills based classes with the focus on, you know, some have a focus on actual programming, developing apps, others focus on project management and process improvement. So it’s primarily class-based. But I do think more and more schools are looking at making it an actual integral part of their curriculum selfless, certainly I think is definitely leading the way there. And is probably one of the top legal tech schools in the U S if not the top legal tech school in the U S but that being said, just because there are some of these fools trying to do some of us and introduce some of these concepts into their curriculums, they’re still in the minority. There are still a lot of schools that are not touching this stuff and it’s leaving. I would argue their students at a disadvantage
Speaker 1 (06:14):
For sure. I know when I went to law school, which I graduated almost 20 years ago, but, you know, we all had laptops and yet we weren’t allowed to use them on our finals. And it just was so silly because we’re all sitting there taking all our notes on our laptops, but we can’t use them for the final. And so when it came to the bar exam, you had a choice. Do you want to write it, or do you want to take your first ever laptop tests as the bar exam? And it was just a little too scary, you know, you knew you could type faster, but you don’t want to risk it. So it just really, I feel like detrimented us, that we didn’t have that practice all because our law school didn’t want to, you know, get up to date.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that’s an interesting point actually, because certainly most law school most law students, if not all use laptops to take notes in class. However, I also think that there is a tendency when you’re using a lot of topic in class to make use of the fact that it’s connected to your wifi and therefore you can do other things while you’re in class. So, you know, some professors I had would ban laptops in fast forward. We’re just a lot one person to take notes. In class, I understand sort of the goal there. I certainly think there can be a tendency to get distracted, but I, I do think overall, you know, using laptops to learn is an inherent part. I think of being a tech enabled tech savvy person.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah. I think that they need to start encouraging that. And I know for me, everyone learns differently, but for me, what I discovered once I started taking notes with a laptop is I’ve always been a horrible note taker. I tend to my mind drifts, but if I could play a very simple like solitaire game while the professor was speaking, for some reason that enable my brain to hone in and actually take down the important notes and kind of sift out the other stuff. So I actually took better notes. So I don’t know, I could understand their, their hesitancy, but it helped me.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, I do think there also is a need to accommodate different learning styles for sure. I tend to be someone who writes and sort of very systematic way he’s I think because I just tend to think that way. So if I’m taking notes on a laptop, all sort of create bowl do listen things. Or if I’m taking notes by hand, I tend to create charts and arrows to connect things together. But yeah, no, there are, I think there, there definitely is a need to accommodate different ways of learning and technology certainly can help with that.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Well, it’s nice to hear that the law schools are even offering practical classes cause that’s one of the main complaints that lawyers tend to have is my law school had no practical classes. So having a tech-based practical class sounds just, it hits both major things that we need. So that’s great. Now I meet a lot of pre-loss students who really want to just start their own firms right out of the gate. That seems to be a really big trend right now. They don’t want to go work for the big firms. So what type of tech tips do you have for them?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So I think that starting your own firm is definitely ambitious and can be appealing and can definitely work out well. But you kind of have to have sort of your basics set down, right? I mean, in, I’m not a cook, but I watch cooking classes and, and cooking shows. And one of the things that a lot of chefs tend to teach right off the bat is what’s called [inaudible], which means having all your things set up, ready to go before you start even doing your cooking. So basically all the prep work and I argued the same thing, needs to happen with respect to setting up your own firm, meaning you want to have in place software to handle managing your matters billing, sort of those administrative tasks are really important. You also want to have a collaboration platform so that you can enable real-time communication with yourself and potentially with your clients as well.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And that can be just simply, you know, setting up a zoom account or something like that. I also think it’s very important for lawyers set up their own firms to just be aware of maintaining documents and files, which is why I mentioned earlier having a matter management system in places I think vital. And you certainly, you know, given that financially it can be costly to get going. You want to spend more your more of your time on things that are bringing in revenue, which is why I mentioned the importance of having software that can handle sort of the administration of billing and things along those lines as well.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah. There’s a lot more, I think, especially these days that goes into a law firm because you definitely need just so I, I feel like there’s so many different legal tech things you need, and you mentioned communication systems with clients and so forth. Are there apps you feel like are maybe just a little too casual that attorneys shouldn’t use, you know, something like slack or discord to communicate with clients or teams?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah. I mean, I think if you, you know, using teams or using slack or something like that, I think can work, you just have to be aware of maintaining files and documenting and making sure that everyone’s aware of, of what is happening and ensure that whatever account you’re using meets the security requirements that you’re ethically and otherwise obligated to adhere to. Certainly I think there is room to improve in that space for sure when it comes to a lawyer or law firm specific communication platforms. But I do think that that can be very useful and important, particularly when you want to have clients that are tech savvy themselves and want to be communicating with you and sharing documents over a secure platform. And there definitely are tools out there that exist, but there is always room for improvement as well.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Now again, a lot of law firms are way behind, but if an intern or let’s say a new hire goes into a firm and notices some easy fixes, some little things, are there ways that you recommend they approach that so that maybe they can actually catch that you’re the partner and convince them, Hey, we could try this thing.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
So I think the best way to go about doing that is rather than pointing out that this is a problem because perception is reality. And some people, not everyone perceives these things the same way is document what the problem is or what you perceive to be a problem and understand why you think it’s a problem in terms of its impact and, and track that using data. You know, if it’s, you know, if, because there’s a certain system in place and it’s taking you, you know, 20 minutes to do something, whereas you think you can be done in 10 and you’ve done an intent here’s, what’s makes what makes the difference, that type of argument and business case that can be, I think, can be more effective and simply saying, Hey, so I’m doing this, but I think, you know, this could be done better this other way because lawyers tend to not want to be told they’re doing something wrong, even though they perhaps are, I think a better way, rather than telling someone that you’re doing something wrong is showing them, you know, exactly what is happening, why it is a pain point and how it can be improved.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
So be patient and take your time and not kind of just rush from, yeah, this is problem to saying, Hey, this is a problem.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I’m just gonna tell everyone, listen to calling. Cause I’ve actually done what he said not to do. So, yeah, I was a, I’m a legal secretary before I went into law school. I took a few gap years and we were all using PCs and they want to trout the Mac. And so they bought a Mac and they said, who’s going to try it. And I said, I’ll try it. Cause I had a Mac at home and it was horrible. Now I don’t, again, I didn’t know anything about the background of why it’s horrible. It just wasn’t working right. That it was super slow and all this stuff, of course, it’s a brand new computer. I know the computer’s not slow, but I just made a list of complaints. Here’s what I noticed. Right. It’s slow, it’s this it’s that. And I guess I should have been a little more like, like you said maybe a little more data related instead of just this list of complaints. Which again, I thought is what they were asking for, but I could definitely see where if I had taken a different approach, it would have been received better because rather than actually use my info, they actually commented on my complaints and told me like I was wrong. I’m like, okay, well, not wrong. It’s just what I noticed, but okay, next time I’ll say please. And thank you with that little letter. So yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I know a lot of attorneys and a lot of firms, especially I think these bigger ones are hesitant to jump into the 21st century or the 20th century because they are so big. So it’s going to cost a lot to nationwide go paperless you know, have that system in place. Any ideas on how that can happen or not without too much expense.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah. I mean, again, I think it goes back to something I said earlier which is start small. You know, if you, you know, for example, the paper was thing which doesn’t surprise me, but scares me that there are firms that are not fully paperless at this point. But that’s another discussion to be had. I think that, you know, how about you just start with a certain practice area and just start digitizing that area first? Cause I often think that, you know, you want to build on your successes in, in be incremental, I think in how you innovate and become tech enabled. Because oftentimes, you know, you want to kind of know exactly how things operate currently, what the processes are, where the pain points are and therefore address solutions at those problems, which may or may not be tech related. Some of them may simply be process improvement related, but that’s the way to go about it rather than just kind of, as I said before, shooting for the moon, because I often think that you know, doing that is appealing because you can attend to skip this less sexy stuff, but by skipping over that stuff, you’re probably setting yourself up to just make existing problems worse, or create new problems you didn’t have before.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah. I think actually a good example of that, that came to mind when you were talking is, you know, everyone used to have a law library, but we all realized that just wasn’t practical and most firms have moved on. As far as I know, pretty much all firms have moved on to Westlaw or Lexis. They don’t update their law libraries anymore, the physical ones. And so that’s an easy way. We incorporate some tech into our world and I don’t know that we feel like we’ve incorporated tech anymore because it’s such an everyday part of our, every firm. If a law student is very comfortable with tech and maybe has some tools under their belt. I know personally if I was to look at their resume and they had these crazy systems and so forth on their resume, I just don’t know what that means. Is there a way for a tech savvy law student to put on their resume, what their skills are without you writing the systems? So that it’s actually translatable to me.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah. So certainly, you know, this is a different type of resume than one, you know, if you’re looking to move into it, we’re kind of listening what systems you know, is important. So what I would say is instead of necessarily just listing the specific systems, you’ve used a list, what you have accomplished with those systems, you know, whether it’s digitizing documents, organizing contracts or, or have you just give examples of projects that you’ve completed. And in the context of describing that project mentioned what system you used, because I think that if you can emphasize kind of the results and outcomes that’s gonna make you stand out more effectively than simply just listing. Yeah. So I have knowledge of X, Y, and Z. Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah. That makes sense. Cause I definitely have seen that on some resumes and it’s like, I don’t know what this means. So can you explain it, is this important or not? You know, so as far as if students are looking to yeah, incorporate more tech into their lives, where should they be going?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
So I get this question a lot and the good news although I would argue, it’s also kind of a double edged sword a little bit is there is a ton of information available out there on the subject. However, that also makes it difficult because it can be overwhelming to see all that information. So I think before you start looking around for information to read, have a sense of kind of what it is you trying to learn more about, or you’re trying to learn more about litigation management and trying to learn more about contracts. You’re trying to learn more about documents. Are you trying to simply learn more about automation and use that sort of as a guide to looking for information that is, that exists out there because there’s tons of it. It just helps to know exactly what you’re looking to find.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Cause we set space while not necessarily big and people as big in terms of areas that it covers. More generally speaking in terms of resources to go to, to look at I think though they include things like law sites, law, which kind of gives it’s a general overview of what exists in the market and new developments artificial lawyers, also a similar type of blog. I think that watch when he won by my friend, Jordan Furlong and is great as well. Who’s focused a lot on kind of the future of law, but now it’s focusing on how to actually prepare lawyers for that future. There also are sites like legal evolution, which provides law informed, detailed data-driven blog posts on kind of the state of the market. There are also of blogs, like my, my own calling us luvvie.com where I interview leaders in the field who are doing interesting things, either teaching or creating in the legal tech space. So those are some examples I would give.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
And if somebody feels like they are tech resistant, is there a way that you recommend, they kind of break through that?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah. I think you start by, by asking them what tools you currently use and they may say, oh, well I just, you know, I type things up on my computer. Well, you’re using technology to do that. So, you know, yes, I understand your fear of kind of some of this more complicated tech, but it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Just think about what you do currently and think about in an ideal world, how you could be doing it better or would like to be doing it better. And then use that as a bridge to show how pools can help that person achieve what they want to achieve.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah. I think there’s so many different ways that we can slowly tip toe into that pond. You know just in anticipation of today, I was thinking about a task that takes when I was doing worker’s comp my secretary, if you speak are a lot of time, which was setting up doctor’s appointments for injured workers and she would call the doctor’s office, have to wait for a call back, you know, then we have to exchange documents and, you know, give them all our stuff, whatever. And you know, if you know, a lot of us in the online space we use like Calendly and stuff like that. And if the doctor’s office just had a Calendly and said, okay, if this is a first eval scheduled two hours or whatever, and if it’s a reeval schedule one hour and so that you had your guidelines and you could just set it up and if there was some kind of weird problem and you have the office can always call you back. But in the meantime it also has the instructions. Here’s what we need from you within 10 days or 10 days of the appointment or whatever. And it would just cut out that middleman for like 90% of those appointments. So
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s, that’s exactly right. I mean, I think actually there is an interesting kind of link between the medical industry and the legal industry because the medicine medical industry used to be like, they’ll be going industry resistance, attack, doing things the way they’ve always been dumped, but now medicine makes extensive use of technology for documentation purposes, for automation purposes, they have client portals where patients can enter their information in and legal, I think really can take a note and a page from the medical industry and learn how they’ve made use of tech and do similar things with technology.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, they really, we really can do so much more. And I know some attorneys in some fields complaining that they just don’t make, you know, attorney money, right. They don’t make good money and I’m thinking about, okay, so if my secretary used Calendly to set these doctor’s appointments, which streamlined all these appointments, she makes that frees up so much more of her time, which means I can dump more stuff on her, which frees up my time, which means I can bill more, which means the firm makes more and then I make more. So this is all good stuff. And it’s something so simple. It’s not even a complex let’s, you know, have a whole new system, you know, so yeah, I was just dreaming of all these possibilities before we got on the call today. So I’m, I’m pretty excited.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, no it’s awesome to hear your enthusiasm and excitement. I really think it’s that type of, of thinking that can be very useful with respect to technology because it’s, I’ve been independent. Technology is just a facilitator of allowing you to do things better and more productively. It’s not kind of, you know, some panacea is going to solve all of your problem. It’s just going to hopefully resolve some of them and make others less of a problem. And that’s really how any tool should be, should be viewed. It’s really ultimately a tool it’s up to you to use it effectively. So it’s kind of a relationship between you and the tool. So, you know, yes, the tool can accomplish certain things, but it needs your assistance to get there
Speaker 1 (24:31):
For sure. Okay. So this is my last question for you today. Colin, are there any apps or tools that specifically you think last students can use to help their education make life easier as a one L two L w or whatnot?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of different tools out there that exists that I think can help. I mean, you know, something like Trello or some other project management app app can help you kind of manage kind of what you’re trying to accomplish in terms of tasks that you have or, you know, such as, you know, studying for a pate, you know, writing papers, saying for exam, completing a problem set, what have you there are all sorts of tons of note-taking apps that can help as well. I think you know, those are some of those technologies that I think could help as well as collaboration platforms like teams or, or slack, or what have you, particularly when you’re working on projects together or, or you’re having a study group and you want to work on things and ask each other questions together, even if you’re not in the same physical space together.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I just, ever since I discovered Trello, it’s just been an eye-opener, it’s been a game changer, you know, it’s hard to have fit all your, to do’s on your daily planner. I do like my physical daily planner, but it just makes it messy. So now I have two things I have my schedule and my to-do on Trello, so yeah, I definitely second that one for sure, but cool. Well thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate your time calling.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure and I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Before we get into my top takeaways, a quick word from our sponsor. Juno, if you need to take out student loans, check in with Juno. First, Juno can often offer law students one to 2% lower interest rates than the federal government and with no origination fees and oftentimes cash back as well. Visit advisor legal learning center.com forward slash Juno. For more information, my top takeaways from this chat with Colin, number one, legal tech can be as simple as Excel. So it doesn’t have to be this big, scary, unknown thing. Number two, if you want to create change at your firm, start with data. Number three, some law schools actually have legal tech programs. So if that’s something you want to learn more about or are interested in, check it out. And number four, if you want to learn more about legal tech, pick a specific top, there’s too many topics out there. You’ll just get overwhelmed. So pick something and learn it. That’s it for this episode of full transcript will be available@legallearningcenter.com forward slash Colin. There will also be show notes with all the links mentioned today there as well as always. If you enjoyed the show, if you learned something today, please like share comment, subscribe that just helps the show help more people. Thanks.
