Taking our “Tiny Mic, Big Ideas” series to Vegas for the latest in legal ops – Part 1
Legal operations is the talk of the town in Las Vegas during the 2023 CLOC Global Institute (CGI), and our Marketplace Network Director David Drew was there asking legal ops professionals about what the present and future of legal ops looks like for our “Tiny Mic, Big Ideas” interview series. With all of the knowledge being shared at the show, it’s clear that legal operations is more important than ever to corporate legal departments and in-house legal teams. Read on to find out about the big ideas the legal ops professionals on the show floor were talking about. In this first installment, they touch on some of the hottest topics at CGI this year, like generative AI and the strength of the legal ops community. And check out Part 2 for more insight, including legal operations and law schools and being a strong business partner.
Legal Operations & Generative AI
"The one thing I feel like people aren’t talking about, though there is a lot of hype around AI and I am one of those people, full throttle, is what’s going to happen when AI is actually implemented? So, what is going to happen to the folks who were originally doing doc review and now generative AI is doing doc review? What is the expectation for the professionals? Are they going to become prompt engineers? Are they going to become AI specialists? Are they going to be doing client development? What does that look like?”
– Courtney Weidner, Legal Operations Manager, The Clorox Company
“I think that AI is being severely underestimated right now. Everyone says it’s overhyped but I think it’s actually super crazy what it can do, and, we’re only going to start talking about it now, but I think every year it’s going to get bigger and bigger. That’s my hot take: [It’s] not hyped enough.”
– Alex Su, Head of Community Development, Ironclad
“A big thing that everyone’s talking about at CLOC right now is generative AI. My hot take is that everyone is sorely underestimating AI. Generative AI is just the form of AI that is first to market, but AGI [artificial general intelligence] is already here, it’s already in development, it’s just not at market yet. And when this AI gets combined with autonomous vehicles, the advantage that we have right now of being the ones that can interact with the physical world, that disappears. And neither the market nor the global regulatory landscape is prepared for it. … I’m not too worried about Skynet taking over, I’m just worried about people not taking this seriously and not learning the tools now. People should be experimenting, perfecting their prompt engineering and really trying to see what they can do with the tools that are at market now. Because the skills you learn today with AI will be transferable into the future iterations.”
– Lynden Renwick, Esq., Managing Partner, Out-House Attorneys, LLC
“I think the practice of law is going to be a lot more fun for lawyers in 10 years. AI and technology are going to take away a lot of the more rote, mundane tasks that, let’s be real, we didn’t go to law school to do. Instead it’s going to be higher-level expertise, advisory work where lawyers can flex their creative muscles as opposed to doing drudgery. And I say we embrace it.”
– Basha Rubin, CEO & Co-Founder, Priori
“There are a lot of big ideas running around here. More technology, AI is the hottest thing since the microprocessor. It’s amazing the potential that’s being unleashed and that’s exciting. But the yin to that yang is the stuff that isn’t going away, which is always going to be part of legal ops. The less sexy things like cleaning up the data so that the technology is actually measuring things properly. Working with the stakeholders. I have news for everybody: Working with people isn’t going away because of AI. It’s going to change, but that isn’t going away. Just like a good wedding is something old and something new, CLOC 23 is about something new and something old.”
– Jason Winmill, Chair, Buying Legal Council
Streamlining Common Legal Tasks
“One of the ideas we’re thinking about and coming up with is how do we make it more efficient for companies to do business on both ends, right? … Why don’t we have a service where all the companies can agree to essentialize terms and conditions for contracts or NDAs and then we all just go into the service and if you want to do business we’ve already agreed to Ts and Cs, we’ve already agreed to the NDA. Now, we just need to worry about scope. We’re not reinventing the wheel because otherwise we have tons of people spending resources, hours, time on things that we’re just doing the same thing over and over. … The other idea is you could also then roll it into IT security checks. So you don’t have to do a security check every six months and 12 times for every company, it’s one and we all come in and we’re linked in and done. … It’s going to come down to the Twilios, the big companies of the world, to say we no longer want to do this work or pay for it. Why don’t we centralize it? And then somebody’s going to come up with the idea that, look, I can monetize this, get us all to agree to it. I know CLOC has tried to do this many, many years ago, so maybe it’s time to reinvent that now that we have more, better tools and systems.”
– Andy Krebs, Senior Director, Head of Legal Operations, Twilio
The Legal Operations Community
“Collaboration is key. Being a partner to your attorneys and embedding yourself into the business, being partners with your IT, all of those things are key, even for what’s now and also for the future. AI, if we don’t get on board we’re going to be left behind.”
– Ashley Adams, Director, Legal Operations, Contentful
And, on how an outside counsel could be a good partner to a legal ops team:
“Make an effort to build the relationship. Be a part of the conversation and the process. We’re not working against you, we’re working for you. We’re one big happy family.”
– Ashley Adams, Director, Legal Operations, Contentful
On what CLOC is all about:
“CLOC is valuable because, as a community, it’s bringing the entire ecosystem together: the vendors, law firms, in-house folks, all working together. But why this is valuable is because of the relationships you form. Whether you’re connecting with your regional folks or whether you’re connecting with a vendor that you might want to buy something from. It’s a vibe. It’s an energy, you can feel it in the hall, it is a vibe and it’s all about relationships. It’s all about connecting with people, asking something, ‘Hey, I’m trying to solve something, can you help me? You’ve done this.’”
– Tommie Tavares-Ferreira, Senior Director, Head of Legal Operations, Cedar
“My big idea is that this is the year of connection, this is the year of community. I’ve been to a bunch of conferences for the first time and hundreds of people are going to conferences for the first time. I think there’s an ignition. There’s a real desire on the part of legal professionals all over the country, all over the world to connect, especially after the past few years when we couldn’t do that. And all the Zooms and virtual networking that’s been going on—people want to meet in real life. That’s my big idea for legal ops: Community-led connection.”
– Shai Mehani, CEO & Co-Founder, In-House Connect
If you weren’t able to attend CLOC Global Institute, follow Priori on LinkedIn to watch our “Tiny Mic, Big Ideas” series live from the show floor.
