ATL alt.legal Innovation Awards Winner: 5 Questions With Fred Cohen
This new technology helps firms be more productive and deliver more value to their clients.
Above The Law launched the alt.legal ATL Innovation Awards last fall to recognize emerging companies that are addressing legal technology. Fifteen finalists pitched their startups at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Judges were Joe Borstein (Thomson Reuters and ATL alt.legal columnist), Mary Juetten (CEO and Founder of Traklight), Nicole “Niki” Black (Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase), and Monica Bay (journalist and ATL columnist).
Following up on the event, ATL has been posing five questions to the winners. Our goal: To show you a quick look at the startups — and the people behind the tech!
Fred Cohen is the founder and CEO of Zola Media. He also describes himself as Chief Product Architect for the Zola Suite. He earned his J.D. at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, and his B.A. in Economics and Political Science at Queens College. The company has 30 employees.
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1. What problem does your startup address, and how?
Law firms have traditionally used a multitude of applications to manage client work, facilitate collaboration within the firm, perform billing and accounting, and administer back-office processes. Using a hodgepodge of applications to manage a law practice presents problems such as siloing of relevant data, not to mention increased cost and ongoing technical maintenance. Zola Suite is an all-in-one legal practice management application that includes built-in capabilities, such as accounting and email. Zola Suite also includes time-tracking, billing, task management and document assembly. It provides management with a single user interface and one point of support. The suite helps firms be more productive and deliver more value to their clients.
2. What is your biggest challenge in attorney adoption of your startup?
Lawyers are nervous about adopting technology that will change their work habits. To assist with this transition, we provide migration services so their existing data is available in Zola Suite. We also provide hands-on training for staff. Zola Suite is designed to be simple, uncluttered and intuitive. Once they understand, and start using the technology, they become comfortable with the system.
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3. Has your startup changed significantly since the very beginning?
We have received interest from firms with more than 30 users, a market that we didn’t initially target. Based on the feedback from this segment of the market, we’ve released a host of features to make Zola Suite a compelling offering for larger firms.
Fred Cohen
4. What do you wish you knew five years ago?
If you know the space, stick to your guns and don’t get easily swayed by “experts.” It’s practically impossible to create a groundbreaking product by following “conventional wisdom.” This is a tricky thing because it’s dangerous to be in your own bubble and consume your own Kool-Aid, so it’s always a good exercise to have someone really smart challenge your assumptions. It’s a bit of a balancing act, but my experience has shown it’s better to give more weight to your gut.
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5. Name one technology commonly used by lawyers today that will be obsolete in 10 years—and one we will be using in 10 years that they don’t have today.
Pen and legal pad. And the clichéd response to the future of legal tech will be artificial intelligence, say for document analysis—but I’m frankly very skeptical of its utility beyond a cursory review. Google, which has an army of the world’s top developers, data scientists and unlimited computing power, still can’t fluidly translate an article from Der Spiegel. A capable virtual assistant is intriguing and doable. Sort of a Siri on steroids that you can just ramble a string of instructions to.
Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX: The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics and a freelance writer for Above The Law and other media. She co-hosts Law Technology Now (Legal Talk Network) and is a member of the California Bar. Monica can frequently be found at Yankee Stadium. Email: monicabay1@gmail.com. Twitter: @MonicaBay.
