by Mark I. Unger

@miunger

It’s been 3 years since I last had the physical ability to last see the many techie lawyers, consultants, entrepreneurs and vendors at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago and drink in the elixirs of TECHSHOW.

It’s been a long three years. That drought came to an end this past March 1-4, 2023

and the water did not disappoint the thirsty.

The presentations were very fluid, so much so that it was difficult to spend any significant time in the Expo Hall. The fast and furious meetups with the vendors of legal tech that we could get to highlight the many acquisitions and mergers that occurred in the legal tech space over the last several years.

Several announcements preceded TECHSHOW, the majority of which appeared to come from Bob Ambrogi, the veteran impresario who was presented at the opening startup pitch competition with the very deserving award for a lifetime of achievement and promotion of the legal tech industry and TECHSHOW.

This trend of acquisition is somewhat ironic as compared to the pre-2008 crash period in legal tech; during which economic depression gave way to a super-infusion of startups in the practice management space (Clio, Rocket Matter, MyCase, etc.).  Much of what seems to be occurring is the buy-up of players in sub-markets, which was a part of the pre-2008 ‘big-law-vendors’ playbook, where the two biggest law vendors would buy up software companies for their market share. However, to counter this irony, the new buyouts tend to be more in line with folding the tech into existing platforms.

Several of the biggest splashes over the last three to four years came after massive cash infusions of VC money into the existing Practice Management System coffers.

In addition, the infusions now appear to be two-fold–with companies being bought not just for their tech but also for the re-branding of some to create umbrella companies and the buy-up of brands within those brands. Thus, there are now several companies that own and/or are positioned to own different Apps within the penumbra of their ‘rights,’ so to speak.

If this trend holds, look for the top 4 or 5 (in my opinion at least) in the startup pitch competition to possibly come into play, something that is not lost on those seeking the winning ticket.  In another twist of irony, the winner of the startup pitch competition was Universal Migrator, which claims to be able to move a law firm’s data from any of approximately 60 different case and practice management systems to any other system.

If these companies and vendors represent the process, the large number of speakers certainly stepped up with the substance. While there were many I didn’t get to see but have certainly followed, including Regina Edwards of Facebook’s Lawyer On The Beach (LOTB) fame, there were many others that competed in sometimes overlapping manners for our attention. This is perhaps a problem that TECHSHOW organizers faced in the past and that had subsided but seemed to make a reappearance, along with the continued problem of materials being relatively unavailable ‘en masse.’ This for me is perhaps like dancing on the head of a needle as TS continues to be a re-education of both my right and left brains.

The first keynote featured Jack Newton (celebrating 15 years of Clio’s launch) doing a Q and A with a number of very visible startup leaders in the recent three years. Those included several startup pitch competitors of past years, all of whom have dynamic personalities with a very high degree of integrity with regard to their products.  Erin Levine (a prior James Keane award winner) launched Hello Divorce several years ago and was one of the first to really propel DIY divorce forward. There are now numerous competitors in the space and I’d expect more, if not hybrids of some lawyers seeking to optimize their efficiency.  This optimization is no more apparent that with Kimberly Bennett, who co-founded Fidu, one of my top 4 in the startup alley/pitch competition this year and the third-place winner in the competition. Fidu is a platform created to allow attorneys to focus on flat fee arrangements by taking advantage of automation within the practice of law.

In addition, Jazz Hampton completed the trifecta of keynote panelists, having also come from a law practice background and also with very personal reasons for doing what he does. He created Turn Signal, which is an app that anyone can have on their phone, and if pulled over in a traffic stop, with the click of a button call up an attorney for advice on what to say and do or more importantly what not to say and do. The price point is approximately $60.00 per year but they will not charge anyone making less than $40k and have marketed to companies as an employee benefit.

While the call for speakers and decisions on the same are typically finalized in the summer for the following spring, the unexpected and massive infusion of Chat GPT, reignited the AI in legal discussion but this time in a way that could be obtained by the masses (intermittently unless you’re on a paid account). There are probably several hundred integrations not the least of which is Google’s Bard and Microsoft (into Bing), though many of these are just really smart people trying to figure out how to add automation into their own products by the AI within ‘chat’ (Open AI).

One of the speakers was Pablo Arredondo, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Casetext, which I believe could be positioned with their new product CoCounsel to counter what I expect to be a massive amount of Chat GPT generated legal work product, either by attorneys simply sending a query and then dumping the output into their documents; or by pro se/self-represented litigants doing something similar. The ability of Judges and even attorneys attempting to counter this will be significantly tested. I write this, one word at a time while on my first of two flights to get home but I intend to run a query in ‘Paul Bunyan’ fashion and see which indicates a better woodchopper. Arredondo was shepherded into this role and presentation by Steve Embry, Chair of the LPM Section of the ABA, who humbly lauded his efforts and highlighted Arredondo’s theoretical jump. Arredondo spoke in historical terms of Walter Pitts of the1940s and early theories of neuron mapping, at one point analogizing “if you want to be smart, do what the smart thing does.”

When transitioning the argument to lawyers’ space he mused “ours is a castle built with language.” By several analogies, he brilliantly wove a pathway (neurons and all) to show us that contextual search will perhaps be everything down the road. When explaining that perhaps Chat GPT shouldn’t be used for anything important right now, he offered “I’m from northern California so there’s a place for hallucinations but it’s not really for litigation”

One of my favorite people (and perhaps the most knowledgeable legal tech presenter I know), Chelsea Lambert, reappeared this year again and presented on a very hot topic as demographics change— that being a guide to succession planning, alongside the very knowledgeable Texas family lawyer, Jordan Turk. This topic is incredibly relevant right now and is the focus of our Texas State Bar President and LPM committee, planning multiple presentations for the State Bar Annual Meeting coming up in June. Their presentation was a great mix of rules, laws (mostly California and Texas, though applicability could cut a wide swath), and practicality, touching on the four C’s of client management and three options for planned transitions and exits from practice.  Hit up one of them or me for materials, if desired. I’m sure it would be obliged.

In the vein of seeing presenters close to home, I was thrilled to be able to attend “No Code, No Problem, with Austin, Texas attorney Alex Shahrestani and Tulsa, Oklahoma attorney Trevor Riddle

In what I previously termed a ‘mind-bending creation’ of spreadsheet backups while pulling via keywords from Gmail using Chat GPT, Alex and Trevor walked the entire audience through a how-to workshop; they combined the use of Zapier with Gmail and Chat GPT to create a Zap in this fashion. While much was above some of our heads, the concept was analogous to all kinds of use-case workflows, and its practicality after the front-end work was illuminating.  While Alex focused on the Google steps, Trevor complimented the same workflow on the Microsoft side.

In a heartwarming twist, Nefra Macdonald, expanded the “Client Centered Law Firm” approach by adding some additional more human-centric accents, citing Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” something that I think ought to be more widely implemented in our business space.

She went on to talk about first order thinking (a more knee jerk reaction) and second order thinking (where one would consider a more deliberate range of options and ask us about the longer-term cause and effect of decisions).  She referenced getting to the root cause of problems as they come up and how flexibility is not a luxury. She then continues on with the extension that flexibility and sustainability might also be in conflict; where being too rigid might prevent you from solving problems and being too flexible might result in too many single points of failure.

She rests on the philosophy that one should diversify to eliminate single points of failure (i.e. one place in your law firm that could end you). She goes on to liken anti-fragile law firms as being ones that think about creating good environments, where fewer people would leave for the work-life balance that has recently become more significant in the last several years.

All of these enlightened points are clarity waiting to happen in our minds. While I question whether this is an actual extension of the original client-centered theory or more of a self-fulfilling and holistic approach of her own, the effect is a warm wrap in an ever-increasing cool business world where too rigid decisions increasingly appear to be in potential conflict with the bottom line. Either way, I’m grateful she stands apart among the crowd.

Please note that there were approximately 80 sessions/talks and the few referenced above are not even a smattering of the knowledge that was presented. But, if you are interested in what else was covered, see www.techshow.com for the complete schedule.

And remember, ABA TECHSHOW will be back again next year, starting on February 14th.  You might even be able to make it a valentine’s weekend, replete with legal tech presents for your significant other if you’re like some of us and legal tech makes your heart throb.

mark i unger

@miunger