[00:00:00] Aalia, thanks for joining me this afternoon. Hey. Hey, Ted. Nice to see you again. Actually, it's, uh, evening where you are, isn't it? It's 9:30- Oh my goodness. ... PM. Well, I appreciate you carving out a little bit of time. Um, you and I got connected, I think we were actually in kind of a sales conversation with you all, and- Yes um, I noticed you, you, y- your firm was, is doing some interesting things, which we're gonna talk a little bit about today. Um, and we don't get a chance to talk about, uh, South Africa a lot. W- before we started recording, I told you we have, we have seven people over there. Mm. Um, you guys have great, uh, a great talent pool that we've been able to tap into, and you're more closely aligned with the UK time zones. So yeah, we've had really good luck. Um, but before we jump into the agenda, why don't you, uh, give [00:01:00] us a quick introduction. Tell, tell us who you are, what you do, and where you do it. Thanks. So thanks again for having me. I am a partner at Webber Wentzel, which is a leading law firm, but I also lead our newly launched technology and legal op subsidiary. So it's an exciting time here in South Africa. Very cool. And, um, you know, the last time that we spoke, you were telling me some things about just kind of culturally in South Africa that maybe are a little different than how we do it in the US, and I was hoping you could tell us a little bit more about just, like, kind of the, the cultural approach in South Africa and the, the focus on relationships versus short... Sometimes relationships can be a little more transactional here in the US. Um- Okay ... how, how does the South [00:02:00] African market differ from the US? I think there are some cultural differences. I think it comes down to, I think, our country and personality. Sometimes a little bit of earnestness, a little bit of self-deprecation in South Africa comes from, I think we're trained to try and stay humble, I think, and, and agile. But I also think there are deep relationships, um, that people have with their clients, and those relationships have to be protected. But I think from, in our firm in particular, what we have are people who've been working at Webber Wentzel their whole lives. They, the partners have obtained the licenses to operate for many of, um, the large institutions, often global institutions now, um, you know, decades ago. Um, and so we really try to maintain those relationships over time, maintain relationships with each [00:03:00] other as alumni, you know, cli- um, former partners, lawyers who've been at other institutions who are now in-house. We try and retain those relationships. Um, and I think relationships are gold now. Um, I think we all crave them and need them, and it really creates that currency of trust rather than products or, or just revenue or kind of short-term thinking, I think. Yeah. I think, I feel like we're entering in, into an era where it's gonna matter even more than it does today with technology able to do so much. And I don't know about you, but so we're recording this in late February, very late February. Um, it seems like the world has changed just in, like, the last 90 days. Yes, it does feel that way. Um, do you feel the same? It feels that way. You have to stay sharp. You have to really try and move [00:04:00] very quickly. Um, I think staying humble is part of it, and thankfully is, it's part of the, of who we are. Um, but you really have to think about what keeps you relevant, what, why you get the calls, if you're still gonna get those calls from clients, and how to stay in those conversations. Um, so it's a really important time to not just think about technology, but look three years ahead if you can, if you're as bold enough to do that, um, and, and start anticipating how your client needs are going to change. So tell us a little bit about the firm. Uh, yeah, how big, how old, um, how, how many offices? Uh, tell us a little bit about that. So we're 150 years old, um, so we've been around for a century and a half. Um, we have two offices. We have about 1,000 employees. Um, we're large for, for [00:05:00] our market, so I guess big law, I suppose. Um, but we have many, um, alliance firms throughout Africa. Um, we have an alliance with Linklaters and, and Allens as well in Australia. Interesting. And then, um, what is the-- I have a really good handle on the US market, a decent handle on the UK market when it comes to, like, innovation and technology. Where is, where is your market in terms of, you know, U- the US from my perspective is leading in some areas, like cloud adoption would be an example. It feels like the EU firms are a little bit behind on that. Um, I would say that overall, in terms of innovation function maturity- Mm ... the EU firms are ahead of the US. Um, so it's a little bit of a mixed bag. Like, what, what is it like in the [00:06:00] South African market? You know, it's, it's also a mixed bag. There are a number of, um, ways of looking at innovation. Depends on how you define it. So we do have, um, I think a fairly established alternative legal services market, um, and that's partly because I think, as you rightfully pointed out, there are many outsourced, um, s- service providers in our country. Uh, we have-- We're on the same time zone. We like to think we have good talent. Um, and so we use that experience to service, um, out- markets outside of South Africa. So that's fairly well established. Um, amongst the law firms, though, I think there are different strategies. Um, historically, it's primarily been internal facing, what you would see as knowledge, learning, innovation, really thinking about how do you improve delivery in a law firm, deliver legal solutions in a, a more [00:07:00] well-priced, more effective, more efficient way. Um, so that's grown over time. Um, what is different, though, about what we do is that our function, um, which operates under the brand Fusion and is now a separate subsidiary, but what we have is multiple mandates. So the obvious one is the firm's internal AI strategy, innovation strategy. We also provide alternative legal services. But the two things we do differently is that in addition to being on mandates with partners and f- serving the firm's operations, we also have direct-to-client mandates around innovation for those in-house teams And we also work with technology vendors on their roadmaps and how to implement in-house and, and really just advising on how to make sure that the products are relevant for our market. Um, and also give, I guess, a [00:08:00] different flavor and perspective because we have an EU and UK leaning, um, and we have alliances and networks and clients who are multinational. I think we've been able to be, I guess, uh, fairly well optimized to serve those tech vendors as well. So our clients' tell, if you will, are, of, is fairly diverse, and the inside mandates reinforces the external, enables you to practice what you preach, and really test things in multiple environments and get on the ground very different experience. And from what I understand, I'm not sure how common this particular model is, but it's working for us for now anyway. Interesting. Yeah. You know, so I, um, ALSPs really were getting a lot of attention 10, 15 years ago, and- Yeah ... I think everyone had pretty big expectations in terms of that [00:09:00] model delivering on a sizable portion of overall legal services. That really hasn't come to be, um, here in the US. Uh, ALSPs, I, I mean, I don't know what the percentage is. I, I think it's in the mid-single digits in terms of overall delivering of, of overall legal services. And it's been surprising because it seems like such a logical- Mm-hmm ... approach to kind of the blocking and tackling work, but it just doesn't seem like, at least in the, in the commercial world, um, you know, the high-end commercial world, they're-- Most of this, of that blocking and tackling work still goes to law firms, not ALSPs. Yeah. Um, which doesn't seem like the most efficient approach. Is it different in the, in the South African markets? You know, I think it depends on what kind of work you're talking about. So if we're talking about e-discovery, heavy [00:10:00] data-intensive work where, um, the blending in of lower-cost resources and technology can be d-done defensively at the right price, um, within the right timescales, then there definitely has been, um, you know, growth in those markets. Flexible resourcing as well, uh, certainly from our market i-is fairly big, and we actually re- you know, achieved a, you know, triple-digit growth on that for a period. Um, our thesis though is that that's not necessarily going to continue because of technology, because there are things that you could have used, you know, human leverage for and cost arbitrage for that now, if we're honest, technology can do some of those pieces better, especially if you d- use the kind of ALSP thinking process overlay on top of that. Um, and so some of the learnings you might have taken from e-discovery or digital due [00:11:00] diligences, um, would help you now. And so if you had that kind of d- thinking, it really does bode well for the future. However, the way clients wanna consume those services are different. You'd often send ALSP work also for overflow work, and so you needed that at the right unit economics for the, you know, per contract, et cetera. If I can now do a lot of that myself in-house, of course in-house I'm incentivized to do that. So you have to really fill that, that white space in between and prove your value. Um, and that is part of where our business has naturally evolved. Because we've been on the front lines and on the edge of it, we could anticipate it more, and so we're staying in the conversations and in the engagements with clients for different reasons now. Interesting. What, what-- Are there any unique challenges with your market in terms of, like in the EU, you know, [00:12:00] you have GDPR and data sovern- sovereignty, um, challenge that makes doing business over there a l- adds a little bit more friction. Um, w-what does that space look like in, in your market? Yeah. So there are a couple of things. Firstly, of course, in Africa there are many different countries, so you have many different sets of laws and regulations. And then in South Africa specifically, we have similar challenges to the EU where we have our version of a data protection legislation called POPIA, and it requires certain data residency and data processing, um, obligations that need to be complied with. We of course have similar rules around privilege and confidentiality. Um, and so all those kinds of typical things would apply. Um, the other challenges would be exchange rates. So if you imagine the [00:13:00] fluctuations, I think you will be aware of that in, um, where, you know, in one hand our, our labor is relatively cheap if you take into account the exchange rate at times. At the same time, even if you are a firm or business that benefits from offshore revenue in dollars, your cost base is still in rands. And when you're budgeting for technology, especially new technology, or you're, um, thinking about innovating, you have to present a business case in rands. However, your inputs, especially if you're working with international vendors or you're looking at, you know, API calls to Anthropic in USD, it adds up, right? Um, and you have to multiply by 16 or 20, or in, you know, relative to the pound it's 24. Um, so it's, it's, it's not as easy I think when you have this differentiation between your revenue and, and your cost base. Yeah. Interesting. And then you mentioned, [00:14:00] um, you mentioned a subsidiary. Is that f- you're calling it Fusion? Yes, we are calling it Fusion. Yeah. Tell, tell us about what that is and the motivation, the thinking behind it. Yeah. So Fusion was initially this innovation, um, had clients, mandates, et cetera. Um, but I think you'll know as someone who's been both a technology consultant and the owner of a software vendor, and you work with law firms, you know that the motions and the economics and the incentives are different. Um, and that impacts the pace at which you can innovate, how you package solutions for clients, how you form partnerships, how you incentivize your people, who you're able to attract. Um, and so really by creating a subsidiary with a separate P&L, um, we can now be a little bit more creative and have a different kind of agility in delivering services to our clients. And it-- and really it was client-led. It actually started off, [00:15:00] well, our thesis was we could actually do this internally, and in fact, the name Fusion is about integration, fusion of technology, law, operations. As a group, we still think we have that integration. Um, but we, there's some benefit to separation too, and if we think about the long-term attracting external investments, making investments, um, you know, future valuations of a technology, a more technology company rather than a professional services company, it leaves a lot open, um, it leaves more opportunity open. And in this world where things are moving fast, you wanna give yourself the best possible opportunity to move at pace as well. You know, um, so I know a lot of-- I've been at this a while, so I've been in legal services for about 20 years, and I've had, uh, people who I know who have s- been involved in these [00:16:00] sorts of ventures, and where there has been friction in making them successful is, um, th-this is one, one friction point. I th- I'm sure there are others, but I would say the biggest headwinds to making that work is the partners' willingness in the firms to refer business that they can bill hourly out to, you know, your labs or your, your, your ALSP function. There has just not been strong incentives, and firms here in the US have struggled really getting off the ground. Uh, I would say largely they've stayed small, these, these, these ventures that have spun off from law firms. How are you, how are you managing that? Yeah. Uh, I won't say it's easy across the b-the board. I mean, it's, it's a messy business [00:17:00] thinking, if I'm very honest, about thinking around that business model evolution, um, especially when the billable hour has been so entrenched And especially when relationships have been so entrenched and you want to p-protect those relationships. I think there are a couple of things that, um, are helpful to us as Fusion. First is that in a, in an essence, I'm alive as well. I did have a stint as a COO and, and GC and, and came back, but there's, uh, trust with us as the initial founders, if you will, of Fusion back in the day. Second thing is we got very early traction, and so that traction builds momentum. Um, it creates a little bit of FOMO, I think, if I'm, if I'm honest, and I think they'll admit it as well. But I think culturally more than anything else, we have a culture of saying, um, what is impor- good for the group, or [00:18:00] good in this case, but good for, um, attracting the market and servicing the clients is where we need to be. And if we're honest about where this might be, then we know that there are certain reasons we get the call, that we've served well for many years. But there are many adjacent markets or opportunities, and frankly, we haven't really seen, um, a major concern in terms of partner support, and I don't know if it's because of our particular partnership as well. We could be, be getting lucky because of our particular history. Um, and then the other principle is, um, you, you know your ideal customer. You also know your ideal partner. Um, and there's certain types of practices, certain types of partners who are gonna be more open to this than others. Um, and that's okay. Not everyone needs to necessarily buy into this. Um, but for the most part, [00:19:00] in, in theory, for the most part, we've been so, so fortunate, and hopefully that continues and, and we kind of prove the business case. Yeah. Speaking candidly, here in the US, um, th-the status quo is very sticky, and lawyers and law firms move when they have a gun to their head. Proverbial gun. That's when, that's when change happens. I mean, it really is. Um, and we do have a proverbial gun to our head right now in the industry, so maybe there is, um, maybe there is an impetus here- Yeah for, for things to play out differently. But in the US, I don't know if it's the same in South Africa, but the ABA Model Rules, um, really make non, um, th- they enable lawyers to take their book of business with them. Mm. So there's a tremendous amount of self-interest thinking at the [00:20:00] lawyer level- Yeah ... in Big Law here. So, like, um, it, it's a You know, uh, uh, big law, we jokingly say it's like hotels, a hotel for lawyers. Um, it's very tran- You know, they can move- Yeah ... from one firm to another and take their entire book with them, and they do, uh, from time to time when they become unhappy. But that creates, uh, a very transient relationship between firm and, and lawyer, even partners. Yeah. And, um, it, it creates headwinds towards long-term investment in, and I mean capital investment. Yeah. So if I'm a, if I'm a lawyer and I'm looking at the, you know, there's a, a project initiative up for vote that has a five-year breakeven, and I don't know if I'm gonna be here past year three, I'm gonna vote no on that, which makes, makes it really, uh, 'cause I'm, again, self-interest. And, and it's not irrational, like- No. Yeah ... it's a [00:21:00] v- it's a very rational mindset. It- it's the way the system is set up. Um, and that also creates a, you know, kind of a lone wolf mindset here in the US, and that has been a challenge in getting some of these initiatives successful because they require-- You know, the thinking is we're gonna benefit from the law firm's ability to refer business to the subsidiary, to the lab or, or, you know, however you're framing it up. So I don't-- Do you have... Is it, are the, are the rules there the same way, where a l- a lawyer can take a, his or her book of business and go down the street? Yeah, I mean, um, nuances aside, I think also clients are not assets that can be, you know, held back, right? Your client w- if the client wants to move and it's stuck to a partner- they'll follow that, that particular partner. Um, but I know you subscribe to this, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. [00:22:00] Oh, yeah. Um, and I think if you've gotten the culture right and you've been working on this for many years, which we have, it makes it easier down the line. Um, and so we tr- have tried to make innovation part of our DNA. It's been in our top three strategic priorities for years, even before this huge gen AI, you know, gun to our heads, um, on the, on the mania and panic and FOMO and headlines and noise, frankly. And so it's taken years of, you know, eating this elephant one bite at a time to get to the point where we are. And so, you know, I, I guess the best advice I could give anyone is to start sooner rather than later, and start with people and culture and, and being realistic and honest about the incentives, being realistic and honest and empathetic about what's at stake. Um, and I think what helps as well is if you are a pa- a partnership like ours [00:23:00] where we really try and listen to our clients- And when you hear from your client about what it is they're, they need, and you're willing to do those lessons and have those honest conversations, um, and learn from the feedback always, um, you'll be at the front, the front foot with these kinds of things. Yeah, I mean, y- it's playing the long game, but again, the, the, I think the environment is maybe a little more transactional here. Um, that's not to say that there's not-- Uh, I, I don't wanna oversell that point because I, I, I don't think it would be accurate to do so. There is tremendous amount of loyalty between law firm and client. Yeah. Um, it's just that in, there is so much pressure at the board level within, you know, Fortune 500 companies, which are the largest buyers of legal services, f- to reduce external legal [00:24:00] spend that CLOs, chief legal officers, face tremendous pressure to manage costs- Mm-hmm ... and ha- and can't be to, I can't send you the work, um, Alia, at $1,200 an hour- Yeah if the firm down the street can deliver it for eight. I, I, I- Yes ... gotta go down to the firm down the street. So it's, um, th- that, that pressure really, I guess, limits a certain amount of, uh, loyalty, if you will. Yeah. And I think there's that middle space of work that is seen as same, same, no matter where I go, right? Yes. If I'm doing it because I need an opinion or I wanna benefit from your risk cover, it's very different to I trust your judgment, your negotiation skills, your experience. Um, you know, people are talking about taste now. Um, so it really depends on why you're getting the call and the nature of [00:25:00] the work, if it's strategic, bet the company stuff. And if you have a particular relationship of trust and you're a trusted advisor, it's less easy to displace you. But you also then still need to be real and honest and continue to differentiate yourself and your firm. Yeah, I ha- we-- I had a, a couple-- I had two people on the podcast, um, a couple of weeks ago, and they had a debate on, you know, one, one person who basically said, "We're, we c- this, this technology will allow lawyers to focus on more strategic matters." And, you know, the other side of the argument was, "There's only so much strategic work out there." And, um, it was a great conversation, and I think it's an active debate. There's not infinite bet the company work- No ... out there. There's just not. The majority of legal work is blocking and tackling, and, um, [00:26:00] I don't know to what extent- But I, I know that just in my 30-plus years as an entrepreneur, um, most of the work that we send to outside counsel is not bet the company. It's, it's blocking and tackling, it's contract review- Mm-hmm ... it's, um, labor and employment matters, it's intellectual property. This is not bet the company stuff. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So yeah, I'm wondering how you see the world evolving and, and what lawyers will do when the more blocking and tackling work gets commoditized. Do you have a- Mm-hmm ... do, do you have a theory on that? I have some theories, but of course all bets are off. But I think there needs to be a good reason, I'm sure, why you're sending the work across. Maybe, you know, your AI plus your experience on doing similar things, um, it's not worth your time, right? The opportunity cost of Ted per hour [00:27:00] or, you know, any number of your employees ra- could rather be making a sale. You know, even lawyers can add to the revenue base, um, and ma- and add value differently. So it's a question of saying, "It is still worth my notional hourly rate to send the work to me." I also think the nature of the blo- blocking and tackling could be different. So you may be saying they have access to a better database, they understand what market is. Um, it will come across better and be better for my relationship with the other side if, if my lawyer negotiates this. It could be that the law firm, in our case, a technology subsidiary, is doing something different for you. It's, you know, digitizing your workflows. It's creating the playbooks for you, and so you're still sending work across maybe as a managed service or subscribing to their database or their playbooks. Um, so it's still block and tackle, [00:28:00] tackle work, and it's not the high-end risk stuff. But the how you deliver and the why you deliver, you need to understand, um, and continue to understand 'cause I think that's going to evolve. But it really comes down to value and knowing why Ted wants to send the work to outside counsel, and making sure that you're the fo- the, the law firm that Ted calls is easier said than done. Yeah. You know what's interesting about this transformation? I've been giving a l- this a lot of thought of the, uh... Um, I'm not a lawyer by trade. I went to business school, uh, and, um, studied economics amongst other subjects, and I've been putting a lot of thought into what The economic implications, how our economic structures are going to change as a result of this technology impacting knowledge work, not just lawyers, consultants, accountants, architects, um, it's gonna affect everybody, and the cascading [00:29:00] effects of, of that impacting macroeconomically, um, supply and demand. And y- you know what's interesting, o- one thing that I think the lawyers are gonna have going for them is there's gonna be so much M&A winding down of businesses, all of this change that's going to change the corporate landscape, and it's going to. I mean, the, the time for debate on this is over. Like, jury's in, we are in for some massive change, and you know what? All that change is gonna need advisory. It's not all gonna be just generating contracts that we can- Yeah ... probably do with AI. So I think the, there's gonna be a lot more work as we, as we shift, um, as, uh, as this AI kind of rolls its way through our economic structures. I don't know, do you... Does that make sense from your end? It makes complete sense, and I think you, you triggered another thought and another theory we have, which [00:30:00] is there are some sleeper risks that haven't yet, you know, surfaced in real time, so around governance and litigation. Um, you know, agents are here. You can't outrun these agents. Um, people haven't fully thought through what they've used agents for, what they've allowed agents to do, the guardrails, all the things. Um, I also think that we haven't fully seen, we don't re- yet have enough data where people haven't create, used AI in a way that's always defensible, auditable, or traceable. And so something goes wrong, and you haven't really done that, or the CFOs haven't really, you know, thrown down their hammers about lack of ROI. So people have been thinking about productivity, and I need to stay on top of my inbox. But I haven't thought, "Am I really thinking about skills atrophy or being able to continue to defend my, either the legal position I've taken [00:31:00] or, you know, the advice I've given or the ROI or money I've spent?" Um, and that could lead to a whole lot of different investment decisions for which people will need advice. It could lead to litigation that will need advice, and governance, uh, I don't even think people have scratched the surface of that, of what's needed there. Um, so I think the, the what we do and deliver is going to change, how we package it is going to change, and there are risks that haven't even surfaced yet. And then the other, you know, theory that I think is not irrelevant is that as the pricing changes for different types of work, demand may increase as well for those kinds of work because People also want different quality of life, and so if, if they can do it at a price they're willing to pay and engage with a human, some, some people may find that more appealing. Um... Yeah. No, it's true. I mean, I've, [00:32:00] I've talked about it on this podcast before. We, we have, um, about 25, almost 30% of the Am Law 200 as clients, and th- we have... They're all l- big law firms, and during contract negotiations, like if we're just tweaking a language here and there, I don't... We don't send it outside. When we get thrown curve balls, there's material change, we absolutely do get lawyers involved, but that's rare. Mm. It's usually just small tweaks, and I would love to be able to afford to have lawyers- Exactly ... review everything and every offer letter, and every, review every employment agreement for any new hires that are coming in to evaluate non-compete risk- Mm and all that sort of stuff, but it's just out of reach for a small business. I mean, we're like- Yeah ... 55 employees. We're still relatively small. It's, um... So I think you're right. This, there will be an increase in demand as the service becomes cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, you're paying for peace of mind- [00:33:00] Mm-hmm and freedom and space to not have to worry about a thing, so it's, it's off your desk as well. Um, and, and I also think people haven't fully thought through the way AI, you know... I, I had a v- a couple of interesting conversations with clients about actually AI creating a lot more work for them. Because what's happening is you have someone in procurement or sales, uh, dealing with a question using AI to do a draft response to that issue, and sending it over to legal to verify. And legal may either deal with it itself or send it to their outside counsel, but it's not quite right, but it sounds pretty good. It's also very long now, you know, because somehow people think detail and comprehensiveness is the right thing for law, and often it isn't. Sometimes you can deal with it in a paragraph. And so now it's taking me an hour and a half to verify this thing or ping pong across between essentially [00:34:00] ChatGPTs or agents in the back end, when it could have actually been resolved human to human. Um, and so, you know, I think people are actually in some quarters becoming more tired. Um, so I, I'm very interested to see how this space- Play as art Yeah. You know what's interesting is I, I saw somebody post on LinkedIn who, uh, who started at Big Law, uh, in the early '90s, and this was pre-email, and there used to be a mandate, pick up the damn phone and call- ... because it w- used to be a paper, like redlines, and they'd FedEx them back and forth Yeah ... um, or fax them or whatever it, it was they did very inefficiently, and there was a mandate, pick up the call- phone, call opposing counsel, have a conversation, and work through the items, um, collaboratively to try and avoid this iteration back and forth through snail [00:35:00] mail. So, um, yeah, maybe, maybe there will be a place for that. Um, and what's interesting is where they talk about agent-to-agent negotiations. You know? And, and I think that's a very real scenario, um, especially in contract negotiations where, you know, almost taking k- like a Du- a Dutch auction approach where- Yeah you define your baselines and, um, and have your agents negotiate. Uh, yeah, it really makes you kind of scratch your head and go, "Wow, what's gonna be left for, for lawyers?" But to your point, there's so many things that we just don't know yet. It's not only going to destroy, it's also going to create, and that it's really hard to picture the scenarios that it's gonna create because it's such a transformative technology that we just can't understand how it's gonna shape the economy. Yeah. And we, we need to be creative. And, you know, w- my [00:36:00] observation having been in-house and being inside businesses is that, um, often general counsel can be fairly, and, and their legal teams can be fairly agile 'cause they have to d- be many things, business people, reporting to the board, supporting sales and procurement, uh, deal-making, managing risk, having to make it happen in the least, uh, dangerous way possible. Um, and, you know, everyone has been talking about the lawyer of the future for, like, 20 years, right? So who do, who, who should we be? But I think it's becoming increasingly urgent for us to be well-rounded, creative, commercial, um, become really technology-savvy as well, know the boundaries of it, not shy away from it, use it to be more creative. Um, I think it be- it becomes more urgent to know what your creative and strategic value is and to be agile 'cause I think it's gonna [00:37:00] change. Um... Interesting. Yeah, you know, and, and- I, I, I think our ability to uncover... So I, I spent, I spent some time in financial services doing anti-money laundering work, super interesting work at, uh, Bank of America, one of the largest- Mm financial institutions in the world. Yes. And we would create, my team would create systems to detect money laundering activity, and like, I mean, I'm going back quite a ways now. The technology is primitive compared to what is available today. But, you know, any time you would uncover anything that smelled of money laundering, which comes in a lot of different forms, there's process that has to be initiated. Like I can't- Yes ... imagine the ability of this tech. It probably uncovers 100X, uh, what we were uncovering. Th- And all of that involves legal work. It involves [00:38:00] a- additional investigation most of the time. It involves, um, engagement with, you know, here in the US, it's the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FinCEN. Um, there's all sorts of additional work that gets created once there's additional visibility. So yeah, it's really har- It's, I, I think- Yeah ... it's difficult to understand. I- it, it's easy to get caught up and swept away in the, "AI's gonna take away everybody's jobs," but it's also gonna create a whole new era, a, um, of volume of legal work that was never possible before because the technology just wasn't as capable. Hmm. Yeah, exactly. I agree with you. Tell me about, um, tell me about the, uh, 'cause I got us off track a little bit. Um, tell me about the... You mentioned that you guys have multiple mandates and that you g- at Infusion, you kinda play a dual role, [00:39:00] like tech consulting provider to clients and an implementation part- partner for vendors. Tell, tell me more about what that means. Yeah. So, you know, you're working for an in-house team. Let's say it's an asset manager, a bank, um, a manufacturing company, and depending on the legal department and the extent of their mandate, they'll have, you know, different types of work. What's common right now is it's still a do more and more for the same or less, right? That challenge remains, and now they have this increased pressure to say, "Well, instead of hiring more resources, can you deploy AI?" Not all of them are the same level of tech efficiency, and often they're comparing it against the wrong baseline, ChatGPT or some other kind of model. And so they're also then dealing with the headlines that we're dealing with Um, they [00:40:00] are having to find that signal amongst the noise. They're dealing with thousands of emails from legal tech vendors. Um, they're having to answer for their legal bills of why their hourly rates haven't necessarily decreased and their bills haven't really gone down. Um, and they have to do pilots when they're really, really busy, um, and they don't know who to trust, right? And so what we've been really fortunate is that because of this 150 year history and these trusted relationships, and because, um, we had been advising, in my case, I was a technology and IP partner at the firm before, so I was already having technology type conversations. What should your AI policy be? And so because they knew we were experimenting, they joined on this journey with us, and we've had this kind of like co-creation lab over the last few years where we've tested things together, or they've asked for referrals, or we've built things for them on top of [00:41:00] Microsoft, or we've really just thought about operations and resourcing and process mapping. And so because we've been in the trenches, that momentum really just started growing and growing, where we had to say, "Well, we really need to respond to that structurally." And so the type of person we have in our team needs to include legal engineers and project managers and data specialists. And so essentially what we try and do is a bit of, um, I guess management consulting for legal, I suppose, is how does this function become more efficient? Uh, how do we support you? And then we have the benefit of then having worked and having quite a deep and broad tech stack that is growing, um, and then also trying to, you know, even before vibe coding was a thing, low coding was a thing, right? We all, um, you know, I'm glad we didn't spend years and years training all our lawyers to only code the old way, [00:42:00] because I do-- am quite, uh, bullish on, on vibe coding to a point, which we can discuss. But we know that we need to deliver services potentially differently, so that's the how in-house is different. We are growing in response, and we're actually being client-led through these client conversations. Um, and then what's been really amazing is how open we've been with, uh, the relationships we've had with vendors. I really have a soft spot for startups because I was in one. I know what it's really like to try and sell and build a product and build a sales org and convince clients and try and make roadmap decisions and figure out what to prioritize, and then you have this war with the big competitors, and then only for Microsoft or now Anthropic to kind of wipe away your moat, right? So I really like to, to get on the ground floor with, with founders, and it really changes the game Um, being in the room very early on when those [00:43:00] founders are still doing those demos. Um, and that's been really amazing to indirectly and directly influence roadmap, and then also see the space between, okay, I've bought a tool, worked really good in a demo, worked really well in our very carefully well-orchestrated pilot with the vendor, but now not everyone is on the same journey with us, um, inside the business. Not everyone is willing. The lead who has an incentive to make sure it works because it's now part of his KPI is not gonna be on the same level as this really, really busy in-house lawyer who's just trying to survive the week, um, and, and, and get it through. So you need to support that adoption, and not all legal teams have legal operations functions to support that or the experience of ha- having done it multiple times where it went well and it failed, frankly. Um, and being able to manage [00:44:00] expectations and train and help people sweat what they have, tell them when, when not to invest in AI. Um, so that kind of full suite and supplemented by our supporting the firm and testing inside the firm across our thousand employees means, you know, you have this kind of perspective about what's real and a bit of humility to know that it's gonna, can change very quickly. That's so interesting. And how, uh, um, how exactly do you engage with, with founders? Like, what does, what does that look like? Yeah. So, so often it's, um, uh, it starts with being problem led, right? So often it will be, I feel like my client has this problem, or the cl- we've identified this client as a problem as part of a consulting engagement or inside the firm. Um, opportunity cost-wise, I mean, you now need to, to have this [00:45:00] typical buy, partner, procure, modify decision. And so we will do the horizon scanning. So there will often be an incumbent, sometimes not. If it's not, or if the c- incumbent doesn't necessarily convince us of solving the problem in an elegant way, we'll then have these engagements with the founders. Not all founders are willing to have those conversations. And, and I mean founder, not just necessarily employee number one. I mean, you know, the first 10 employees, let's say. Yeah. And so sometimes you're dealing only with sales, sometimes you're dealing with the product teams And the best engagements we have are when you're engaging with, you know, their forward developers, or you're dealing with the, the product builders, or the lawyers who just loved what the founder was doing and is now building alongside them. Those are our favorite kind of conversations to have. Um- Interesting ... and, yeah, and even now with our vendor [00:46:00] partnerships, we really have great relationships so we can say, "You know, this seemed like a good idea, but it's not quite working and this is really clunky. Have you thought about this button here, or have you thought about changing the way users can upload? Have you thought about rather, you know, architecting it in this way so it's closer to this consumer product? Um, or, you know, the... Help us enable our lawyers to verify more easily and understand reasoning in this particular way." So everything from user experience to functionality, the founders that are open to that, I think are going to, to lead or at least get our business. Interesting. Well, we're almost out of time, but this has been a, a really fascinating conversation. I really enjoy getting to learn about new markets, and you guys are doing some interesting things there. And, um, congratulations on [00:47:00] the, the new venture and you taking the lead. That's, that's gotta feel good. Feels good. It's also scary. A lot of ... It's a lot of responsibility and it's, um, it's a lot of kind of leaning in and scrambling and, uh, uh, just keeping or trying to keep on top of things. And grateful for the... We have a really good team, and so much interest from lawyers and technologists alike in our market trying to get in, um, and really good seeing the growth in our market. So yeah, it's a wonderful time. Yeah. Well, good stuff. We will, uh, we will be following closely on your journey and, um, hopefully we'll get in to bump into each other in person in a conference. We've had several, uh, conversations like this, which I've really enjoyed. But, um, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us this afternoon. All right. Happy to be here, and come visit us in South Africa, Ted. Yes, I will. I'm overdue. I've, [00:48:00] I've-- We've had a team there for three years, maybe m- uh, three and a half years now, and, um, I'm overdue. And when I do, I'll definitely come look you up. Sounds good. All right. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you. Sure. Thanks for listening to Legal Innovation Spotlight. If you found value in this chat, hit the subscribe button to be notified when we release new episodes. We'd also really appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate us and leave us a review wherever you're listening right now. Your feedback helps us provide you with top-notch content.