Biglaw, Technology

alt.legal: The Cross-Disciplinary Lawyer

He thinks that AI, along with document and workflow automation, is going to change the practice of law.

By  
on

Michael Callier

Meet multi-lingual, multi-disciplinary Biglaw attorney, Michael Callier.

The practice of law is changing, yet few lawyers have studied the cutting-edge information technology and business protocols which will usher in that change. Even fewer have returned back to Biglaw to apply that knowledge.

Inside Davis Wright & Tremaine’s dedicated innovation arm, DWT De Novo, Michael is utilizing business intelligence, root-cause analysis, and process engineering to help the firm’s clients get amazing results (while automating routine tasks).

Sound familiar?  It’s because DWT is working to blaze an alt.legal path and modernize the practice of law from the inside.

And let’s be clear, DWT is leading the way in innovation for Biglaw.  In both 2015 and 2016, DWT was named “Innovative Law Firm of the Year” by members of the ILTA (the International Legal Technology Association).  Michael was their first outside hire!

Besides having one of the most fascinating backstories around (a Division 1 football player and globe-trotting, multilingual in-house attorney), Michael has advice for those trying to change the legal system for the better:  call him!

Sponsored

Joe Borstein: Tell me about your background?  You have been a D1 football player, a lawyer all over the world, and now you work for De Novo at DWT. Tell us quickly about your alt.legal journey. 

MC: I started out on a traditional track — judicial and legislative internships in undergrad, law firm clerkships during law school, and a business associate role at a reputable law firm. A short while after becoming an associate, however, I developed an appetite for understanding the big picture of clients’ business problems. Years later, I went in-house with NIKE to get closer to those problems.

At NIKE, I discovered two things that changed my trajectory: (1) the rise of China, and (2) problem-solving methods like Lean Six Sigma, Knowledge Management, and Information Management — tools that are rare in the legal industry but that businesses rely on to solve everyday problems.

JB:  So tell me a bit about your adventure in China.

MC: My time in China was life-changing.  I first became interested in China when NIKE was preparing for the 2008 Olympics.  The energy around the event was palpable. Soon after, I discovered why NIKE was so excited: China, the “Sleeping Dragon,” had woken up and a major intersection with the Western world was inevitable. I felt absolutely compelled to both understand and operate effectively in that intersection.

Sponsored

After working at NIKE for a few years, I found an institute that offers scholarships to foreigners for immersive language study in China and bought a one-way ticket to Shanghai. After completing the program, I became competent in Chinese language and culture and began working as legal counsel and director of China operations for a European business consultancy that focused on process improvement. My job was to direct operations and provide legal counsel as our European engineers advised our Chinese clients and strategic partners on aluminum manufacturing. That experience taught me three important lessons: 1) good (and bad) project management; 2) process improvement — taught by expert engineers; and 3) change and innovation are about people and culture. As we tried to integrate European manufacturing know-how into the Chinese manufacturing environment, the Chinese resisted the change because they had their own know-how and had not completely bought into the need for change.

Sound familiar? Changing the behavior of smart, successful people who take pride in the status quo, despite the fact that they know they need to change, is no small feat.

JB: And information management?

MC: Clients expect their attorneys to deliver the right law, at the right time, and in the right format to support their objectives.

The law is a form of information. Information Management is the science of facilitating effective information transfer. The law is just a piece of the puzzle that businesses need to solve to be successful — albeit an important piece. I saw Information Management as a path to design and build efficient information systems to help clients accumulate and assemble the additional pieces. I followed that path to the University of Washington’s Information School and completed a Master’s of Science in Information Management. My focus was strategic information initiatives which covered systems design, information structuring (like taxonomy and database design), entrepreneurship, project management, risk management, and data science.

Today, that training helps me to design legal solutions that work for business and bring more value to DWT and its clients.

JB: So then you returned to the US in 2014, how had the legal scene changed?

MC: Legal Tech was in full swing.

Legal departments were insourcing higher volumes of complex legal work as they hired more in-house counsel and outsourcing more low-risk work to LPOs. Contract automation was trying to gain a foothold outside of DTC solutions like Legal Zoom. And a few forward-thinking firms, like DWT, were looking for cross-disciplinary attorneys. In 2014, I was the first outside hire for De Novo. Now, De Novo has three Legal Solutions Architects with JDs from law school innovation programs. Those programs didn’t exist when I was in law school.

So I went pretty full circle but had I not left traditional practice, I never would have accumulated the skills and awareness that I have now. But I’m a perpetual student and continuing to learn how to mobilize people to tackle tough problems and thrive in a changing and challenging environment.

JB: Walk us through De Novo. What is its mission and how do you fit in?

MC: Our clients want greater efficiency, predictability, and flexibility. They want legal work product that’s easier to access and service providers who identify, understand, and creatively address business problems. De Novo’s goal is to meet these challenges and ensure Davis Wright Tremaine stays out front in the industry. We help our clients develop systems that address new and unique legal problems while automating repetitive tasks, and streamlining processes to accelerate decision-making and results.

DWT attorneys already deliver best-in-class traditional service for substantive legal matters. De Novo’s mission is to help DWT partners build the future practice of the firm. We approach our mission from a few different angles, including designing and scaling managed services and helping partners deliver practice-facing or client-facing business solutions.

My role on the team is to provide process and system strategy for large-scale deployments, like our managed services, and to design innovative legal solutions.

JB: We interview a lot of legal startup and legal tech companies. One common complaint is that they simply can’t get the attention of law firms. What advice would you give legal entrepreneurs? How can they get law firms to try new things?

MC:  They should call me to discuss — I’m happy to share! Law firms are adopting innovation (see the Legal Services Innovation Index) but are traditionally risk-averse and structured in a way that can encourage stagnation. Legal entrepreneurs should know the signs of innovation readiness before spending time trying to sell to any particular firm.

JB: What areas of legal innovation excite you most? Any companies or CEOs we should keep our eyes on?

MC: AI, along with document and workflow automation, is going to change the practice of law.

Law firms are sitting on gold mines of unexploited, unstructured, and semi-structured data that could be converted into insights that provide great business value. I don’t think AI is going to replace lawyers, but that lawyers AND AI is a lot better than lawyers OR AI. With advances in automated ETL and data ingestion, along with self-service tools for articulating data analysis, lawyers should embrace AI for legal because it’s going to make their lives easier.

As for companies, I keep my eye on our two biggest clients: Amazon and Microsoft. I’m impressed with Microsoft’s digital transformation efforts, including SQL Server Machine Learning Services which incorporates R and its open source libraries into MS SQL.  Also, check out LexPredict, which just open-sourced its data analytics and machine-learning tool, ContraxSuite.

JB: Thanks Michael, our audience of budding legal entrepreneurs and legal innovation enthusiasts would be wise to reach out and connect with you.  

Thanks for your thoughts!

Joe Borstein Joseph BorsteinJoe Borstein is a Global Director with Thomson Reuters Legal Managed Services, delivering Pangea3 award-winning legal outsourcing services and employing over 1800 full-time legal, compliance, and technology professionals across the globe. He and his co-author Ed Sohn each spent over half a decade as associates in BigLaw and were classmates at Penn Law. (The views expressed in their columns are their own.)

Joe manages a global team dedicated to counseling law firm and corporate clients on how to best leverage Thomson Reuters legal professionals to improve legal results, cut costs, raise profits, and have a social life. He is a frequent speaker on global trends in the legal industry and, specifically, how law firms are leveraging those trends to become more profitable. If you are interested in entrepreneurship and the delivery of legal services, please reach out to Joe directly at joe.borstein@tr.com.

CRM Banner

Topics

, , , , ,