Technology

Let’s Hear More About Legal Tech From Lawyers

There's a growing interest for legal tech content from lawyers, but what trends are important to you?

Intersection_Tech_LawToday’s post is short, but that’s because there’s an important call to action at the end.

A little while ago, I realized that there was going to be a growing interest in legal technology. Lawyers would, at the very least, hear from clients whose industries were being transformed by software and innovative business models, not to mention that lawyers’ own personal lives were now running on smart phones. At some points lawyers were going to wonder, “could technology be improving my practice?”

So, I put out a call right here on Above the Law for tech companies to get in touch with me, so I could publish conversations with them and expose Above the Law readers to some of the people behind the these emerging tech companies.

Without patting myself on the back too much, this project has been a success. I have been able to publish conversations with dozens of CEOs, CMOs, investors and general counsels at many of the leading legal tech companies. Last week, I hosted Jack Newton, founder of Clio and, over the next months, I’ll be hosting conversations with Mark Harris, CEO of Axiom, Sanjay Kamlani, founder of Pangea3 (now called Legal Managed Services) and Andrew Sieja, founder of kCura. I’ve seen a growing interest for legal tech content from lawyers, which is part of the reason why I keep writing about it so often. And, to their credit, I even hear from lawyers (many of whom are general counsels or Biglaw partners) by email, Twitter and LinkedIn who are trying to stay ahead of the curve.

But, the truth is when I ask a lot of (maybe even most) lawyers what new technology is driving their practice, they kind of shrug. I even asked a friend of mine at a law firm that represents many tech companies if they are using any new software, and this lawyer told me, “Nothing is different than when you were in Biglaw.”

We’ve heard from the tech companies, now I want to hear from the lawyers.

Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator has a line I really like. He says, “You can fool yourself and you can even fool investors, but you cannot fool your users.” I know what the tech companies are working on, but I want to hear from the users themselves. What do you think of the technology you’re using? Are you harnessing new business models? What’s working and what sucks? What trends are important to you? Talk to me: email me, Tweet at me or send me a request on LinkedIn. Maybe we can even strike up a conversation here on ATL.


Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at [email protected].