100 episodes

Technically Legal is a legal tech podcast about legal innovation and the impact technology is having on the law.

In each episode we interview an innovator in the legal industry about how technology is changing the practice of law, about the companies they are building and how legal tech is changing the way legal departments and law firms work.

The podcast is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled legal services provider. Chad launched Percipient on the belief that when technology is leveraged correctly, it makes legal teams more effective.

Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast Percipient - Chad Main

    • Technology
    • 4.8 • 24 Ratings

Technically Legal is a legal tech podcast about legal innovation and the impact technology is having on the law.

In each episode we interview an innovator in the legal industry about how technology is changing the practice of law, about the companies they are building and how legal tech is changing the way legal departments and law firms work.

The podcast is hosted by Chad Main, an attorney and founder of Percipient, a tech-enabled legal services provider. Chad launched Percipient on the belief that when technology is leveraged correctly, it makes legal teams more effective.

    Colin Levy Discusses His New Book The Legal Tech Ecosystem & the Skills Needed to Succeed in Legal Tech

    Colin Levy Discusses His New Book The Legal Tech Ecosystem & the Skills Needed to Succeed in Legal Tech

    In this episode Colin Levy shares insights from his new book, The Legal Tech Ecosystem, his journey into legal tech, and his role at contract lifecycle management company, Malbek as Head of Legal and Chief Evangelist.
    Conversation highlights:
    Colin’s journey into legal tech: Colin shares how he first got into legal tech during his time as a paralegal at a big law firm in New York, his decision to work for a year before attending law school and his choice to work in an in-house legal department after graduation.
    Colin's role at Malbek: As the Director of Legal and the Chief Evangelist at Malbek, Colin's day-to-day tasks vary from traditional legal work to writing blog posts, participating in webinars, attending events, and assisting with marketing and sales efforts.
    The Legal Tech Ecosystem: Colin talks about his new book, which serves as an accessible, non-technical introduction to the world of legal tech. The book combines Colin's experiences and learnings with anecdotes and quotes from other legal tech leaders.
    Skills needed in legal tech: Colin emphasizes the importance of understanding data, meeting people where they are, and having a clear understanding of why you want to learn about legal tech. He also talks about the need for openness to risk, experimentation, and discomfort.
    Legal tech vs. legal innovation: Colin clarifies that legal tech is not just about AI and robots, it can be more mundane but still helpful tools like billing software. The focus should be on making people's lives easier and increasing productivity and efficiency.
    Learn more about Colin.

    • 32 min
    Professor Tonya Evans (Penn State Dickinson Law) Demystifies Crypto and Debunks Blockchain Myths

    Professor Tonya Evans (Penn State Dickinson Law) Demystifies Crypto and Debunks Blockchain Myths

    Professor Tonya Evans of Penn State Dickinson Law School visits Technically Legal to talk about her book Digital Money Demystified.
    Professor Evans has pretty much held every job in legal from judicial clerk, to Big Law lawyer and now legal educator. She is also the host of the Tech Intersect Podcast which focuses on Web3 and how it will impact the future of work, wealth and creativity. 
    In this episode, Professor Evans talks about her journey from risk averse crypto doubter to blockchain believer. She emphasizes the importance of lawyers staying ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving world of technology and the need for more education and awareness around crypto and blockchain, not only in law schools but also in other professional fields.To those ends, she founded Advantage Evans Academy, a platform designed for non-technologists to understand the new digital economy.
    Professor Evans’ book, Digital Money Demystified, is an excellent starting point for anyone wanting to learn more about cryptocurrencies. The book explains blockchain concepts in plain language and debunks many myths about crypto.
    Such as:
    Myth: Crypto is Mainly for Criminals. Fact: Blockchain data analysis firm Chainanalysis estimates that only .24 of all crypto transactions in 2022 were for illicit purposes.
    Myth: Crypto is untraceable. Fact: Blockchain transactions are pseudonymous, but, if recorded on an open blockchain, such as bitcoin, they are transparent and available to anyone to view..
    Myth: Crypto is terrible for the environment. Fact: Not all blockchains are energy guzzlers, especially those based on proof of stake validation and it should not be overlooked that the energy consumed by traditional financial markets is much greater.
    Professor Evans also explains the need for clear crypto regulation and the risk of the United States falling behind if the regulatory environment is not clarified.
    Learn more about Professor Evans

    • 42 min
    Will This Legal Tech Startup Kill the Billable Hour and Bring Transparency to Legal Billing? (Scott & Digby Leigh - AltFee)

    Will This Legal Tech Startup Kill the Billable Hour and Bring Transparency to Legal Billing? (Scott & Digby Leigh - AltFee)

    Despite much ballyhoo and countless articles about them, alternative fee arrangements, or AFAs, have yet to gain widespread traction and the billable hour still reigns supreme for legal billing.
     
    Enter the Leigh brothers, Scott and Digby, and their new legal tech startup, AltFee. The company’s stated goal is encouraging legal professionals to break free of hourly pricing and move to AFAs by using the app to help scope and price legal projects.
     
    The brothers point out that the traditional billable hour pricing model doesn't provide certainty for clients and that AFAs will become more important with increasing use of AI which will likely reduce billable hours. They explain how Altfee offers a solution by providing a foundation for law firms to operate on an alternative fee model. The app helps users scope, price and audit their fees.
     
    Scott and Digby also delve into the concept of 'value billing', explaining that it involves charging fees based on the value of the service provided to the client, rather than strictly on the time spent. They underline the importance of taking both task-based considerations and value-based considerations into account while pricing.
     
    Learn more about Scott and Digby.



    Things We Talk About in this Episode
    Directory of Law Firms Offering Alternative Fees   Episode Credits Editing and Production: Grant Blackstock
    Theme Music: Home Base (Instrumental Version) by TA2MI

    • 27 min
    How a Start-Up’s Legal Bills Led to Spellbook, an AI Co-Pilot for Transactional Lawyers (Scott Stevenson – Co-Founder)

    How a Start-Up’s Legal Bills Led to Spellbook, an AI Co-Pilot for Transactional Lawyers (Scott Stevenson – Co-Founder)

    This episode is a conversation with Spellbook co-founder Scott Stevenson about intersection of technology and creativity. Spellbook is a AI contract co-pilot for transactional lawyers that plugs into Microsoft Word. Despite founding a legal technology company, Scott is not a lawyer but is computer engineer by training.
    As a kid Scott was into video games and in fourth grade he talked his parents into getting him a computer because he wanted to figure out how to create them. By middle school he was building websites and eventually landed an internship at Electronic Arts.
    Scott is also interested in electronic music and he launched his first start up, Mune, with a music professor, to create a whole new musical instrument that combined the power of digital music with an acoustic instrument. It was during his time at Mune that Scott started to think about building a legal tech company.
    After he got his first legal bill he figured there might be a more efficient and less expensive way to do legal work. So he and lawyer buddy founded Rally, a document automation and templating engine for law firms which later begat Spellbook, but he funny thing about Spellbook, it was originally conceived as a marketing idea to generate leads for Rally.

    • 28 min
    Using Agile Project Management Methodology to ID Bottlenecks and Streamline Legal Workflows (John Grant, The Agile Attorney)

    Using Agile Project Management Methodology to ID Bottlenecks and Streamline Legal Workflows (John Grant, The Agile Attorney)

    John Grant talks about how legal teams can adopt Agile and Kanban project management methodologies to optimize workflows, correct bottlenecks and increase client satisfaction. John is a lawyer and the founder of The Agile Attorney consultancy.
    As John explains, the traditional project management method is waterfall. A technique often used by technology companies, involving a sequential approach where each stage is dependent on the completion of the previous one.
    But John is a proponent of the newer, Agile methodology, which emerged from the software development community. It is a flexible approach where tasks are broken down into small increments with minimal planning, and processes are iterative. Agile is one of John’s favorites because he believes it is well suited for legal work.
    John also talks about the value of a Kanban board, a visual tool used to manage work at various stages of a process. It typically includes columns such as “To Do,” “Doing,” and “Done”.
    So why is he so into project management methodologies? Because despite coming from a long line of lawyers, before he went to law school, he first worked in tech.

    • 48 min
    How a Visual Impairment Led to the Founding of a Contract Drafting Software Company (Feargus MacDaeid, Co-Founder of Definely)

    How a Visual Impairment Led to the Founding of a Contract Drafting Software Company (Feargus MacDaeid, Co-Founder of Definely)

    At an early age, Feargus MacDaeid, the founder of legal tech company Definely, was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which is a rare eye disease that breaks down cells in the retina slowly over time causing vision loss.
    Until he got to college to study computer science, Feargus’ vision was decent, but at university, it began to deteriorate and eventually went blind. 
    After college he landed a couple of tech jobs but ultimately decided to go to law school. 
    After law school, Feargus took jobs at two Magic Circle Firms in London, Allen & Overy and Freshfields where he was working on mergers and acquisitions.  Because of his visual impairment, Feargus had to develop hacks in the software he used, like custom keyboard shortcuts, to get his job done.
    He met his Definely co-founder, Nnamdi Emelifeonwu, at Freshfields when the two of them were working on the same deal. As Feargus explains it, his soon to be co-founder was the first colleague that actually took an interest in how Feargus accomplished his work and marveled that he was getting it done. 
    The two figured there had to be a better way for Feargus to work on contracts, but the duo figured out pretty quickly there really wasn’t and Definely was born.
    Definely is a suite of tools that helps lawyers accomplish the tedious tasks relating to the drafting of contracts. As the company describes it, they create legal tech solutions to free lawyers from frustrating, repetitive tasks, so they can get back to the work that matters.

    • 47 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
24 Ratings

24 Ratings

Lillian Steuben ,

Love this podcast- a must for any legal tech

Stumbled upon this podcast and it is a treasure. As a KM manager at a firm, previous law librarian, this podcast is engaging, relevant, and makes me nod my head while also giving me perspective on what is going on in the legal realm outside my organization. Def worth listening to if you have any sort of interest in legal tech!

Epl858696 ,

Great content

Engaging conversations on legal tech.

crawmacdad ,

Top legal tech podcast

Chad Main provides a unqiue window into the legal tech world by asking engaging questions to interesting people who are breaking new ground in the profession. I can see why it made the ABA Journal 2018 Web 100.

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