The Legalpreneurs Sandbox

In this session, we spoke with Michele DeStefano about how we can approach change, manage it and leverage it for the benefit of lawyer and allied legal professional wellbeing, for our clients, and legal businesses.

Michele knows a thing or two about this from her many roles as law professor, business founder, educator, consultant, and serial entrepreneur. Her work is visionary tempered with a strong dose of reality and, getting stuff done! Michele has been building the foundations, paving the road, and walking the talk of legal ecosystem transformation for many years and, helping others to do that successfully too.

We discussed what it will take to change the legal industry, the BIG pieces of the change puzzle - lawyer mindset, human-centred design, multidisciplinary collaboration and culture. We also chatted about how to combine the pieces in a way that creates sustained agility in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, it can be found in her most recent book (one of many already published with more to come), The Leader Upheaval Handbook: Lead Teams on an Innovation & Collaboration Journey with the 3-4-5 Method.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series, we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].

Generative AI has changed the world of legal work forever! That’s a big statement but, we’re seeing proofs of concept daily in multiple services, products and solutions from all types of legal businesses.

Those engaging with the tech are building the bridges from concept to implementation. It requires work and, in some cases, lots of it. It starts with getting everyone involved and, it won’t end, ever – that’s the exciting, exhausting and amazing part about it, this tech is very much about ongoing change, transformation and improvement/experimentation.

In this session, in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Lisa Kozaris, Chief Innovation and Legal Solutions Officer at Allens in Australia about all things emerging tech and how to implement it in a law firm. Lisa’s background in law and curiosity about how it intersects with tech, has turned into a passion, dedication, and practical approach to inspiring others to embrace it.

We spoke about some of the important factors to consider in the tech implementation journey like the need for clear guidelines about how to use it; the benefits of encouraging everyone, everywhere to engage with it; the opportunity to showcase talent and outcomes using a multi-disciplinary team collaborative approach to solutions; making sure people feel empowered and excited about unlocking their creativity; then taking time to review and reflect on what to take forward.

Lisa and her team have established a blueprint for change, transformation and continuous improvement/experimentation for the firm. It’s an inclusive measured approach, founded on a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities of tech but, at the same time, focussed squarely on next practices and creating a “new digital front door” for their clients. Airlie, Allens recently launched enterprise version of OpenAI's ChatGPT developed with Microsoft and built on Microsoft's Azure platform, is a recent case in point that we spoke about, and we’re sure it definitely won’t be the last!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].

No matter what industry you put under the microscope or where you turn right now, there are gaps in digital literacy. Tech and AI are evolving at an unprecedented pace. Legal has and will come under increased scrutiny to keep up to remain relevant. And what that means is upskilling or reskilling on a scale we have never seen before. The legal world is not ready for this, not by a long shot.

We won’t close the digital literacy gap doing legal education the same way, in the same places – we need to do legal education differently and for a new generation - generation AI!

In this session in the Future 50 Series of the CLI Legalpreneurs Spotlight, we chatted with Abdi Shayesteh, the CEO & Founder of AltaClaro. Abdi’s background as a teenage entrepreneur, lawyer, and innovator led him to think differently about legal education and then, with his team of education, tech, and subject area specialists, reinvent it!

AltaClaro is leading the way in a new type of experiential legal education – a collaboration with industry partners laser focussed on agile program development, leveraging tech and upskilling/reskilling in person, in small groups, at scale. In the example we spoke about, what started as a conversation over coffee has turned into a suite of programs aimed at bridging the gap in digital literacy for lawyers and allied legal professionals.

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected]

In this podcast, the fourth episode of eight in the CLI’s Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series offered through our Legalpreneurs Lab, Women Legalpreneurs Special Interest Group, Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation, facilitated a discussion with three outstanding women founders and leaders from Australia on how they created a change agenda, led their firms (and clients) from A-Z, and what their plans are to sustain this in 2023:

• Genevieve Collins, Chief Executive Partner, Lander & Rogers
• Caryn Sandler, Partner + Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer, Gilbert + Tobin
• Tessa van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader, Moores

Topics covered in this session included:

• How to define innovation and change (it’s different for everyone) AND how the two are intertwined
• The catalyst for and if there is a “secret sauce” that engages people in change/transformation
• Real-life examples of change/innovation projects/initiatives that worked or failed AND what happened next!
• How to value innovation and resource it at any time but especially in the face of a recession
• How do you know innovation/change has become your new BAU, part of your culture, and not just a project
• The importance of developing leadership capabilities in achieving and championing innovation/change

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

In this session, we spoke with Colin Lachance, the Innovator in Residence at the Ontario Bar Association (OBA) and the Principal of law firm coaching and consulting business, PGYA Consulting.

Colin has spent most of his career in the legal industry. He’s worked in publishing, consulting, and legaltech development just to name a few. In all that he has done, and it’s a lot, there’s been a consistent theme – he’s comfortable with challenging the status quo and doing things differently.

He’s been named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers” by Canadian Lawyer Magazine, a “Legal Rebel” by the ABA Journal and is a member of the Fastcase 50 class of legal innovators and visionaries.

Colin’s amazing background both qualifies and recommends him for his role as Innovator in Residence at the OBA. It’s a unique role for legal member organisations. It was launched in 2018. Each innovator is appointed for 12 months and pursues a different focus area, always with a change agenda.

Colin’s focus area could not be more topical...it’s legal AI. His action plan is ambitious, critical, timely and compelling. It comprises a multi-pronged approach to supporting the digital literacy of OBA’s members at scale. His work will impact the 16,000 lawyers OBA represents and influence many, many more. It includes tech demos, weekly information sessions, establishing an interactive learning platform and...he is just getting started!

We spoke about all of this as well as the global and local context that led to Colin’s appointment i.e., how GenAI has become an enabler for significant change in the legal world; how the pace, depth and breadth of that change is reinventing legal practice; and how it is incumbent on us all to embrace that change.

Don’t miss this spotlight, it’s going to excite and inspire you!

If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.

About the Future 50 Series

In the Future 50 Series we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world.

If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].