Marlene Gebauer is Global Director of Strategic Legal Insights at Greenberg Traurig, LLP and serves as host of the popular The Geek in Review podcast. I spoke with her about her work and about how her background informed her views on the law and her work at Greenberg Traurig, LLP.
Olga V. Mack is CEO of Parley Pro, a modern, (truly!) collaborative, and intuitive contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform that has pioneered online negotiation technology.She is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. Olga co-founded SunLaw, an organization dedicated to preparing female in-house attorneys to become general counsels and legal leaders, and WISE to help female law firm partners become rainmakers.
Olga is very passionate about disruptive technologies such as blockchain and AI. I served as Vice President of Strategy at Quantstamp (YC W18), the first decentralized security auditing blockchain platform. I co-authored Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security (Momentum Press, 2019) and authored Blockchain Business Models (Business Expert Press, 2020)
Catherine Krow is the founder of Digitory Legal, an award-winning cost analytics platform focused on bringing data-driven pricing and cost prediction to law.
Before founding Digitory Legal, Catherine practiced law at top-tier firms for 17 years, first at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett and then at Orrick, where she was a litigation Partner. She is an accomplished trial lawyer with extensive experience representing global corporations in a wide variety of high-stakes litigation matters.
Catherine also is a frequent speaker & recognized thought leader on legal technology, spend management, and the use of artificial intelligence and data in law.
For her pioneering work in legal technology, Catherine was named a 2018 Top Woman Entrepreneur In Cloud Innovation, a 2019 American Bar Association “Women of Legal Technology List” honoree and included in the FastCase 50 Class of 2019 “honoring the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders”. Continue Reading Catherine Krow
Daniel Farris is a technology and intellectual property attorney. However, he is far more than that. He also is a legal tech founder and former programmer and software engineer. I spoke with him about his background, balancing being both a law firm partner and legal tech founder and his thoughts on the practice of law.
Quddus Pourshafie has dedicated himself to “moving the needle in the Legal Industry through FutureLab.Legal, a rare institution that bridges the gap between all stakeholders in the Legal Industry to learn and generate solutions.” I spoke with him about his background, his work, and his thoughts on the future of the practice of law.
Working as an amateur octogenarian futurist, Peter D. Lederer explores possible futures for the study and practice of law. The precursor for this was a career in the law spanning some seven decades. He studied law at the University of Chicago Law School and, for one year, at the University of Bern. He practiced for more than 40 years with Baker McKenzie, in this global law firm’s Chicago, New York and Zurich offices.
There are times in our lives when we question ourselves. When we feel an innate desire to take a look at who we are and what we are seeking to accomplish for ourselves. Lately I have been doing this. I have not done it because I was starting to doubt the need to do what I do or whether I am doing the right thing. I have been questioning myself because I felt a need to see how I can improve continuing to advocate for, write for, and create change within the legal profession.
A key area where legal tech can make a tremendous difference is in the area of access to justice or, more specifically, making the legal system more accessible and affordable to those with little means. This interview is with one of those people who has dedicated his life to this very cause and I’m honored to have been able to interview him. Quinten Steenhuis has been with Greater Boston Legal Services for over 11 years and serves as their Senior Housing Attorney and Network Administrator. In his own words, “My work since 2009 includes both direct legal representation of low-income tenants, primary responsibility for systems administration and architecture of GBLS’s computer infrastructure, and development of open source user-facing technology projects. I focus my IT work on scripting, automation, and monitoring to build a reliable system that encourages collaboration and facilitates the service of our client population.”
This week’s interview is with the CEO, Amir Reshef, and Chief Revenue Officer, Teruel A. Carrasco of dealcloser. I asked them about their thoughts on legal tech and on investing in legal tech given their positions and experience.
I started interviewing legal innovation leaders with many goals in mind. Foremost among them, however, was the goal of educating myself on just what legal innovation and legal technology were all about. Each new interview I post allows me to continue to achieve my goal every day. Legal innovation and improving the practice of law has become my passion. There remains much work to be done and much learning to be had in this area, but progress is being made each day.