[00:00:00] Bert, thanks for joining me today. Uh, thank you for the invite, Ted. Absolutely. So, um, why don't we start with intros? Uh, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about who you are, what you do, and where you do it? Yes, uh, my name is, uh, Bert Fries, and I'm heading up, uh, innovation, knowledge and technology for CMS Netherlands. Uh, I have a background in consulting, went to, uh, IT management in the other side in a big retailer. And, uh, almost nine years ago, I l- uh, started my job at CMS Netherlands. Uh, so that's already, uh, uh, quite a lot of years, uh, in, in the legal space, which was for me before CMS, a whole new world. Yeah. Nine years in legal sometimes feels like 20. So, um, I hear you on that. I've been-- I'm-- This is-- I'm [00:01:00] getting close to 20 years, and I used to have hair. Uh . Okay. That's a, that's a good, uh, uh, prospect for me. Yeah. I had hair when I started, uh, not so much anymore. It actually wasn't, um, legal that did it, genetics, but, oh, well. Well, um, you and I had a really good first conversation, and we talked about a topic that's near and dear to my heart, which is kind of the build versus buy, um, argument. And, you know, my first business in legal was a consulting business, and we were builders, so we would help law firms, you know, build custom intranets, extranets. And, you know, one of the struggles that we had was, you know, we would work with knowledge management. IT would be, you know, popping in here and there, but largely KM and innovation [00:02:00] led projects. And then we'd get to the end and there was a lot of stumbling in the handoff. It was just a struggle for-- 'cause we deploy in the client's tenant, so, you know, they have to understand the tech stack. They have to wire it into all the Azure components and Entra and, you know, back then it was a lot of on-prem stuff, so AD and, um... And it was, it was a real struggle. So we decided to productize in 2018, and it took us about four years to get across the goal line with it. But life has been better as a product company. We don't have that same dynamic where if the law firm doesn't have either the internal chops, they may not have the skill sets, like have React developers, or because it's a product, it's been a much smoother process getting clients up and running. Um, but [00:03:00] y-you, you had a take that I thought was, um, interesting. W-and we're gonna talk a little bit about it, but, um, I mean, what has been your experience, kind of the build versus buy in the legal space? Yes. Uh, I, I would say I'm, uh, now I've been working for 30 years, always, uh, in the area of business and IT, and I, uh, had a lot of experience with, uh, all kinds of industry where we started building and at the end we ended up, uh, buying a product, a commercial off-the-shelf, uh, software product. And, uh, it's, it's always interesting if something new pops up, then, uh, especially those people who have, uh, the skills to build, they love to build. So if you have a lot of those people in your law firm, uh, then there's a tendency to create your own stuff, and it's exciting to create your own stuff, and you get creative, and you are thinking [00:04:00] out loud what could be possible. And, uh, I've seen that also in, in law firms that, uh, people are starting to build a pro-- uh, I wouldn't say a product, but to build a, a tool, a technology. And, uh, it's always great to do it at first time, but it's getting harder if you need to, uh, make another release and another release, and you get into the, the nasty thing of connecting other tools to it, uh, connecting AD, single sign-on. Uh, and then sort of the, uh, you realize that creating software is a profession. And in general, I would say, uh, law firms are not very good in that profession. I, uh, once in a while say that, uh, the, the path of building is littered, is full of tombstones, where it is, uh, rest in peace, uh, with a certain name of a, [00:05:00] of a project, a product, uh, that was created by law firms. So I see a lot of enthusiasm, uh, on creating stuff. Uh, it's getting, for most lawyers, boring if you get into the, let's say, uh, developing through the product to the next version, to the next version. And there you see the law firms, uh, sort of, uh, stop, hand over the product, sell it off to real software companies. Yeah. You know, uh, the, uh, the DIY mindset also tends to sometimes spiral in unhealthy directions. I-- You know, if there is a solution that provides a competitive differentiator in the marketplace and an off-the-shelf solution doesn't exist, then there's a case to be made as to why it may make business sense. That's rarely the case, though, and especially with all of this money flowing into legal [00:06:00] tech, you know, problem-- Uh, like right now, I feel like there are more solutions than there are problems. Um, you know, my buddy Zach Posner at the Legal Tech Fund has like 40 conversations a week with new startups seeking funding and, you know, you, you got a lot of like young lawyers who have an idea and they go out and for the past five years now, we've been in a very capital friendly environment and a lot of products have been built. Um, I think we're gonna have a correction. Um, a lot of projects, products have been built that probably shouldn't have. Um, so when you have this surplus of capital flowing into a solutions market like legal tech, the odds that whatever problem you're trying to solve hasn't been dealt with before [00:07:00] are lower than they are otherwise. But, um, yeah, like you had an interesting stat about Harvey and, um, why don't you talk a little bit about kind of the, the feedback numbers game and, and what your thoughts are around that? Yeah. So, uh, if you are, uh, on the verge to make a decision whether you are going to buy or you're going to build, uh, then-- and, uh, as we said before, if you have a bunch of builders in your law firm, then it's feels attractive to, to build something. But you also need to keep in mind this feedback, uh, numbers game. And what I mean with that is that, uh, suppose you are, uh, quite a big law firm, you have 2,000 lawyers, and it sounds, uh, great to create your own stuff. And, uh, of course, these lawyers will work with the tool, and they will give feedback to the developers at saying, "Oh, you need to add this," and, [00:08:00] "This functionality doesn't work that great." So that's, that's pretty cool and, uh, and awesome that you get, uh, a lot of feedback. But if you would buy something which is commercial off-the-shelf, so let's say Harvey, uh, then, uh, there are, at these days, around 100,000 people using the product. So it means that, uh, you are outnumbered by factor of 50 if everybody would give the same amount of software-- uh, feedback on the software. Uh, so that's quite, uh, a, a big gap between building your own software and, uh, leveraging, uh, the strength of, of, uh, software vendor. So, uh, even for the biggest law firms, uh, they have something like, uh, 7 to 10,000 max lawyers. Uh, it's-- uh, the, the numbers game is not very positive, uh, compared to commercial-to-shelf software vendor. [00:09:00] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, where, where it gets hard, it's fun, like doing-- Like, I was a developer. I came from Microsoft years ago. And, um, as I like to say, devs like to dev. And, you know, there is a inclination, if you've got a development team with the chops and the appetite to build things, there is a inclination that sometimes the long-term kind of TCO, total cost of ownership, gets, um, looked over and sometimes firms, and this isn't just law firms, companies in general, over-index on, you know, what the gen one release cost is. And the thing about when you look at total cost of ownership The initial release is discrete. It has a beginning and an end. The support, maintenance, [00:10:00] enhancements, all of those things have no end. They last as long as that piece of software is in existence. And as a result, if you look at, you know, the average life cycle of an enterprise solution, seven to 10 years, the, the-- those non-discrete ongoing costs are far exceed typically whatever your, you know, your gen one release costs are. But I don't know, it seems like, I don't know if you would agree, but it seems like a lot of stakeholders that head down that path over-index on what is our upfront cost and fail to factor in the ongoing costs. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, in general, also based on my consulting experience, uh, when it was for working for the Big Four consultancy companies, uh, I've seen that in general, uh, costs are underestimated and, uh, the benefits are mostly overestimated. Uh, and that's in [00:11:00] general, I would say, uh, because people want to get their project going. So there's this tendency to overestimate benefits and underestimate cost to get a green business case. And, uh, so if you don't have a benefits realization plan where you are going to cash in the benefits, then, uh, you get, uh, the green flag, the money is coming in, and you start your project party. And whether it is, uh, implementing, uh, uh, commercial-to-shelf software or, uh, even worse in my perspective, building your own software, then, uh, the party is starting. And, uh, at the end, uh, mostly what I see is that, uh, all software solutions developed by law firms, they are either stopped or sold off to software vendors. So it's, uh, at the end, people are getting it that, uh, the money they pour into these, uh, adventures, uh, it has negative return, uh, mostly. [00:12:00] Yeah. How do you think vibe coding has impacted the calculus around all this? Yeah, I think vibe coding is very excited. I was, uh, a couple of months ago, I was, uh, in an event where we were together with, uh, many lawyers, uh, and general counsels, and we did a vibe coding, uh, hackathon, and that was great, uh, to, to play with it. And I think, uh, vibe coding also played it, uh, with vibe coding myself, and it's, it's quite exciting, uh, to see how easy it is to create something which feels like a software application and that it is doing stuff, and it has a great UX and, um, you really think, "Okay, this is, uh, this is working." And for, for me, uh, although it, it is like vibe coding is an, uh, very, uh, good tool to get an [00:13:00] understanding of whether a certain concept, business concept, whatever it is, uh, could be, uh, uh, something which has value in itself. So it's, it's great to, uh, use it as proof of concept, uh, tool, uh, so that the ideas of the lawyers are, uh, being visualized, not only being put on paper in a, in a great Word document, but actually being visualized by the lawyer what they are meaning, so they can better, um, uh, get their problem definition Uh, transform it into something like a mock-up, uh, of a, a real application and, and show it to other people to say, "Okay, this is the problem we have, and this is how we are thinking to either, uh, resolve the pain or, uh, pick the gain," uh, so to say. Uh, so that is, that is great and exciting, but in general, uh, my perspective if, [00:14:00] uh, is that good lawyers should be, uh, should stay good lawyers and, and for other, uh, things like developing software, you should use, uh, software developers. So for me, it is something like, okay, uh, the lawyer is, is visualizing his, uh, ideas, then it is being discussed, and the firm people are thinking, "Oh, this could be potentially great." And if it's great, then they could decide to, uh, make, for example, a low-code/no-code application developed by, uh, software developers or even go for a very sophisticated, more sophisticated, robust, uh, programming language. But, uh, it would be a shame if good lawyers are, are wasting their valuable time in, uh, figuring out how to, uh, create single sign on, on their application, how they could connect AD to their application, et cetera. So all the, the stuff you would do as a software [00:15:00] developer and, uh, which of course, if you are doing vibe coding for a personal application, just like you are doing Excel, eh? You create a n-nice Excel that's for personal usage, it's great. But if it's becoming part of the primary process of a lawyer, so of the legal service delivery, then I would say, "Okay, we need to stop here and hand it over to people who understand how to code." Yeah. A lot of things get looked over as part of vibe coding. Uh, all the ilities, usability, scalability, maintainability, uh, supportability, all of those ilities tend to get neglected and, um, you know, people get hung up on The fact that the cost of writing code is going to zero, that is true. What's not true is the cost of developing enterprise software is going to zero.[00:16:00] It's not, and anybody that tells you it is isn't grasping the full picture of what, of what's required. And again, kind of going back to that TCO, for systems that are integrated especially, you know, ones that don't operate on an island, the, the, the environment, the, the technical environment is moving around that s- solution, and that has to be dealt with, you know, whether that's, you know, integrations. Um, uh, like we have a very highly integrated system. APIs change all the time, and who are you gonna call at two o'clock in the morning when there's a big M&A deal On the line and something breaks, who's on the hook for that? Um, you have to staff appropriately for that and have a service desk and have systems and SLAs and all those sorts of things that aren't fun to talk about when you just wanna get in there and build something new and exciting. [00:17:00] And I think that gets lost in the, in the early conversations. Yeah, fully agree. So, uh, having done this hackathon, Vibe Coding hackathon was exciting. You saw all the lawyers, like, being really excited what the technology is making possible for them. So they could say, "Okay, I want to create a, let's say, a, a pricing tool for my proposals," and they could create a pricing tool, uh, in half an hour. So the UX l- looks great, and it, it feels like, oh, I can, uh, have a rate card in it, so whoop, a new rate card module in it. So it was all, all quite, uh, easy to create, uh, in essence, this UX, this presentation layer. But of course, uh, let's say, and, and you could say there's also part of the business layer in there, but the data layer and all the integration layers, they weren't there. So yeah, f- for me it's, it's, uh, [00:18:00] it- it's a great way to, uh, do a proof of concept, uh, to visualize a certain idea that the lawyer has. And if, uh, everybody agrees on it, that it is a great idea, uh, then we would like to, uh, create a, a real application out of it and, and give some funding to this, uh, endeavor, uh, but let, uh, real coders do the coding work. Yeah, because there's all sorts of alignment to process, like processes that exist for sometimes, you know, ISO or SOC 2 certification that have to be met. There are-- There is alignment that needs to be created around tech stack and patterns and practices that are built into these custom solutions so that they're supportable, so that your existing tech team can actually support it. Because if a human needs to go in there and crack it open and fix something at two o'clock in the morning, [00:19:00] they have to have some semblance of consistency, um, otherwise y- you're gonna need a, a bunch of specialized resources, and that just doesn't scale So, um- Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and I think, uh, that, uh, uh, we also get these, uh, client, uh, surveys on information security where clients are saying, "Oh, could you show us that you, uh, have solid IT, uh, security, uh, huh, posture? And, uh, by the way, if you are doing software development, could you, uh, show us that the, the software development is, uh, done according to, uh, certain standards, uh, secure coding standards?" And, uh, of course, if you talk about vibe coding, then, uh, most people who are doing vibe coding don't understand these, uh, requirements. Uh, and, uh, therefore, the software is also not compliant with the requirements that clients are demanding, uh, especially for, [00:20:00] uh, from the bigger law firms, uh, where they think this should be, uh, in order. Yeah. And what, what happens when a CV, you know, critical vulnerability is identified in a component, you know, a JavaScript library, for example, um, how is that dealt with, right? Are you gonna have your vibe coders go swap that out and make sure that you're up to snuff and remediated? Um, no, I think you want an engineering team to do that. Yeah. So yeah, yes, so we also have our first vibe coders, and we are, uh, we are trying to, uh, embrace that, uh, and also, uh, guide that to something which is secure, which is, uh, all the abilities you said, yeah. So it's scalable, it's secure, uh, it's supportable, et cetera, et cetera. And don't lose, uh, the, yeah, the enthusiasm of, of the lawyers to be [00:21:00] creative and innovative. Yeah. It ha- it has its place. I'm definitely not anti-vibe coding. I'm very pro-vibe coding, but I think it has its place, and as long as it stays there, then it's a net positive. Um, well, speaking of like tools You and I talked a little bit last time about differentiation, and, you know, I've heard a lot of interesting anecdotes about how law firms are gonna differentiate post-transformation. I've heard some people say, "Oh, well, it's gonna be the technology. Oh, it's gonna be the data." Well, um, "Oh, it's gonna be our people. Uh, oh, it's our footprint. Oh, it's our practice depth." Um, I think the reality of what is going to make law firms different in the-- If you look at the pie chart of the type of legal work that external counsel delivers, roughly eighty percent of it is operate the company work. Uh, twenty percent is bet the company. And nobody owns those definitions. [00:22:00] We could debate that ratio- Yeah ... but let's, let's assume that that's true. In that eighty percent, there is a significant amount, um, that is subject to automation, either outright automation or with minimal human in the loop, um, intervention. And the question becomes: how does-- how do firms differentiate themselves in the marketplace? I'm gonna tell you my idea on that and, um, and then I'd like to hear your thoughts. So it's n- it's not the data. Um, everybody's like, "Data's the new oil." Data's important, but is th-the transactional data from, you know, Kirkland and Latham & Watkins, is the delta that wide such that, you know, it's going to the offering that, you know, Kirkland puts forward is gonna be significantly more effective as a result of their [00:23:00] data than another big transactional firm, like, let's say, a Latham & Watkins? And I think the answer to that question is no. I think there is a critical mass of data that is necessary to inform these systems, and once that critical mass is met, you have a, um, diminishing returns on additional data. Exactly. Now, w-what I do think is going to be, uh, a differentiator is two things. One is the implementation, right? How effectively these law firms incorporate learning loops and capture knowledge, wisdom of their lawyers and systematize it. And then the second one is how they package that up and go to market. I think those two things are going to be-- You could really make yourself stand out by building really good systems, processes, learning loops, um, [00:24:00] re-engineered workflows from first principles, and then how you package that up and sell it into the marketplace. I think that's gonna be the differentiator. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think, uh, there are, uh, a couple things, uh, and so, uh, it's like you said, it's either, uh, the bet company or operate the company perspective, eh, on the different types of work. Uh, and, uh, what I would say is that these different types of work have also different needs. So if you are doing high- high-end advisory, uh, then I would say, uh, what is really differentiating you is, uh, the people and, uh, I would say also their approaches to work, and I would say that it is also, uh, the culture. So, uh, is the, the type of culture, does that fit, uh, the culture of the client? And, uh, that's also my experience when I was back in consulting, [00:25:00] that clients are sort of mirroring, uh, their, uh, advisors, uh, to their own culture. So if that is not, uh, uh, fitting, then they, they are not going to do that, or you'd need to be very, very good, and, uh, then they will, uh, pick you. So, uh, culture is an important one, uh, for the high-end consulting, uh, or, uh, legal advisory. If you are, uh, sort of more on the operate, uh, your company type of work, uh, then I think, uh, it is your ability to constantly optimize your way of working, and that's, uh, one side from the process and the other side also from embedding new technological developments. And it's, it's like how fast can you implement new technology in the organization, which is optimizing, uh, your legal delivery either [00:26:00] by, uh, making the throughput time shorter, by improving the quality of output or the productivity of, of the lawyers. So that is, uh, really, uh, differentiating, uh, companies. And in general, uh, I, uh, I would say, uh, maybe something overarching is also like Uh, the ability to unlearn. So if you are very successful in it, you are sort of mentally programmed what the success formula is, uh, and you believe in those, uh, things. Uh, but if then technology is hitting the market and is changing the rule of the game, then it's also are you able to, uh, unlearn your success formula which you have in your mind, yeah? And, and it's, this, this stuff is also remembering to, uh, a book I have been reading somewhere in the early '90s, uh, from Peter Senge, [00:27:00] uh, the guy who, uh, wrote about the learning organization. Uh, and there was, uh, a- actually a lot about not only learning new things, but also on unlearning the existing things. Can you get rid of the success formulas in your firm, and, uh, can you be open, uh, uh, to new things? Uh, and, and that's a hard one. But the law firms who are really good in that and are, uh, adaptive, agile, whatever word you wanna use for that, uh, they are quickly to incorporate new things in their technology and the processes in- into the minds of the people. Uh, those will be, in my perspective, uh, the, the, the leaders, uh, for the future. You know, uh, how do you think that translates into big law? Because, um, my experience in big law is, um, there is a fair amount of, um, tradition that's built [00:28:00] into the culture. You know, this is the way we do things here. This is the Cravath way or, you know, this is the XYZ firm way. And, um, historically, I've not seen a firm that has had, or many firms I should say, that have, have really had embraced like continuous improvement or Kaizen, where there's a culture of, um, challenge and curiosity and questioning. Uh, I spent 10 years at Bank of America. My, uh, listeners, uh, have, have heard me talk about it. They, um, Bank of America was, uh, a pretty early adopter of Lean Six Sigma methodologies, and they really promoted the, you know, the training and the certification of their [00:29:00] people and you would get rewarded. I got, I got more recognition from my Lean Six Sigma Black Belt than I did my MBA, and I got both of them while I was there. But it was very much a, oh, you're a black belt. Um, you know, nobody ever said that about my MBA. I didn't even get a cup of coffee for that. At least I got a plaque somewhere around here for the, for the black belt. But, um, they really adopted it, and this was in the late '90s. So, you know, that was still fairly early in services companies. Lean Six Sigma's been around in manufacturing since the '80s, but for services businesses it was pretty new. Um, so how do you think law firms are going to Embrace that continuous improvement. It seems like it might be a bit of a jump for some firms. Yeah. You are saying that, uh, there are law firms who have, uh, uh, their way of working. I would say, uh, that's a [00:30:00] minority and, uh, maybe even minority is, uh, too big. But, uh, I would say that most law firms, they are, uh, uh, very much, uh, artisan organization where you are working together in small groups of people and, uh, you align to the way of working of the partner you are working for. And I've seen this, uh, in, in a lot of law firms where they are saying, "Yeah, uh, we do this kind of work." And if you don't ask them, "Okay, and, uh, how do you do the work?" And, uh, most of the times you get back, uh, "I work like the partner likes me to work, do the work." And, um, uh, in consulting where I came from, it's totally different. It also has to do with the type of work that consultants are doing. They are trying to improve these manufacturing companies or let's say retail companies who are-- have, uh, very highly efficient, uh, or need to have highly efficient supply [00:31:00] chain. So they were used to processes, and it also made them think about their own delivery. Like, oh, if we go into a, a client, uh, uh, how are we going to sell our services? And there, uh, for example, when I was working in Accenture, we had our Accenture delivery methods, which was a proven approach based on experiences out of the field, which were documented in phases, key activities, uh, main deliverables, uh, supporting tools, et cetera, et cetera, uh, which really helped to professionalize and, and optimize the way of working, and which were, by the way, also great sales tools because you could show these, uh, brochures of clients, uh, where you're saying, "Okay, this is type of work, uh, what I'm doing." I, I was just looking whether I have something here, but it's, it's a little bit like this, uh, out of the '80s or what was it, 2000. Uh, this is, uh, something, [00:32:00] uh, from, from Deloitte. But, uh, consulting firms have invested quite a lot in their delivery, how they are delivering the services. And I think, uh, law firms are just starting to do that, that they are saying, "Okay, we have, uh, a proven approach how to do, uh, a, a, a restructuring, uh, of company," yeah? So if we have a big reorganization, we need to, uh, reorganize the company and, uh, uh, let a lot of people, uh, go, yeah, out of the company. Um, then it is great if you have a methodology and you have, uh, this phased approach. Then, uh, it also becomes easier to add technology to the equation. Then you can say, "Okay, uh, this is phase one. These are the key steps in this, and, uh, I use for this, uh, piece of work, I use Harvey. For that piece of work, I, I use a document [00:33:00] automation tool," et cetera, et cetera. Uh, without a, a delivery methods, uh, um, process, whatever you wanna call it, it is also hard to do these incremental improvements. If you don't know how you work, how are you going to improve the-- what you are doing in this work? So, uh, we are working quite a lot now on, uh, drafting these, uh, legal delivery methods, as we call them, uh, as they are the foundation for everything in our perspective. So also, uh, for, uh, for sales, uh, for onboarding new people, for adding technology to the process, uh, it is really, uh, the foundation for everything, uh, if you want to grow your delivery capability. You used a, um, aircraft carrier and destroyers portfolio metaphor last time we spoke. What, what-- Uh, tell us a little bit about that. [00:34:00] Yeah, that has to do also with, uh, um, uh, let's say, uh, your f- uh, what kind of software are you using in your delivery, yeah, of services. And, uh, maybe, uh, the, the listeners know that CMS, uh, is, uh, is a big client of Harvey. So you could say in, in the space, uh, uh, of Gen AI, uh, Harvey is our aircraft carrier. It's not that we put all our bets on Harvey. We also have additional, uh, software solutions, uh, which are, for example, very industry specific or, uh, service specific, uh, which are doing a certain type of work better than, uh, Harvey does it at the moment. So it means we have a, a portfolio of, uh, tools, uh, and we look to the type of work, uh, in, in the industry we are working in, uh, uh, and decide what tool are we going to use [00:35:00] for that type of work. So that is helpful. Uh, we are-- It's a dynamic, uh, thing. It is not static. So, uh, yes, uh, currently Harvey's aircraft carrier, and we think we will, uh, uh, not, uh, make Harvey very soon obsolete, but we will replace certainly some of the smaller parts of our fleet where we're saying, "Okay, we see a better solution there," uh, which is really improving, uh, the quality of service we are delivering to our clients. Interesting. Um, what about kind of white space where-- How do you think about how to fill gaps in the white space where vendors don't necessarily have a off-the-shelf solution ready to deploy? Yeah, I, I would say, uh, if you have identified a white space where there is nobody is, uh, delivering software for, [00:36:00] um, then you also need to take that into account. I also learned that if there is nobody doing that stuff, there's, uh, if there's no competition, there's probably no market. So you be-- you need to be careful. But suppose, uh, there is a market still for some very specific niche type of software, uh, I would say if it is client-facing, that could be interesting. And if you think, uh, that has the potential to, let's say, uh, being sold as a, as a product, not, uh, as a standalone product only, but for example, also something which would generate a spin-off to legal services, that could be interesting that you are saying, "Oh, I'm going to create this, uh, this asset, software asset. I sell that for a certain, uh, amount of, uh, euros, uh, with the client is paying, uh, every month and maybe with a, a consumption-based fee on top of that." [00:37:00] And also with the opportunity to upsell to services where the client is saying, "Oh, uh, I use your software. Now this stuff is going on, uh, could you come in and help us with, uh, not the standard stuff which is done by the software, but let's say the deviation of standard where they need s- to have, uh, professional lawyer support?" Interesting. So, um, we talked a little bit about kind of what history has to teach us about these, these waves of transformation that are, that are underway now. You know, I think about the, the current transformation in, in three, three waves. Um, we're in the first wave, which is c- the co-pilot era, and I don't mean Microsoft Co-Pilot, I mean like Harvey or Legora, you know, a, a co-pilot that you bolt on to existing workflows and gain some incremental efficiencies. I think wave two [00:38:00] is going to be, um, where we really examine and unbundle legal work into re-engineered workflows built from first principles and apply technology on these new unbundled workflows and leverage humans where humans need to be in the mix and technology where technology, uh, it needs to be in the mix. And then I think the third wave is really gonna be the agentic wave, which is where much of the existing work is automated, where there's opportunities for that. And what I'm seeing happen is some firms are trying to jump from one, from wave one to wave three and not recognizing that wave two is a necessary intermediate step. Like, I think it's very rational and reasonable [00:39:00] to Go buy a Harvey or Legora and bolt it on to the way lawyers are working, because you can do it right away, and you can get some quick wins on the board and some incremental gains. But that's not gonna get you to the end state. You know, the future state is going to necessitate the need to, um, to re-engineer how the work gets done and, um, that unbundling. I don't know, are there any, um, metaphors, uh, or anecdotes from past transformations that you think about this through? Yeah, I think also, um, we, we have different cycles and also a cycle I was, uh, involved, uh, was, uh, let's say the dot-com boom, uh, around, uh, the year 2000. And, uh, we also have, uh, ha- seen all kinds of, uh, startup popping up, uh, doing stuff. Um, uh, but it, it... So, uh, for the outside [00:40:00] startup, it is more easy, but for, let's say, the bigger firms, uh, whether it's, uh, for example, in food retail, it wasn't that easy to, uh, to adapt to this new world. And, uh, they were fully or- oriented on, let's say, the physical world, eh? The bricks and mortars world, and, uh, it was hard for them to, uh, incorporate this additional channel, eh, of the clicks and, uh, so that was, uh, yeah, quite difficult Uh, uh, I have to say, uh, you had, uh, when I was working in that period, I thought that, uh, all the, the startups and the, the newbies would take over the world. Uh, but what I saw is that, uh, uh, the, the, the corporates, they are a little bit like, uh, diesel engines. I don't know whether this resonates, but it takes a while. Uh, they need to heat up and they [00:41:00] need to-- Or a better metaphor is maybe the oil tanker. Uh, yes, they can turn around, uh, um, uh, like, uh, Lou Gerstner also said, like, "Elephants can dance." Uh, that was also a famous quote. But it, it takes a while for a big company to, uh, to move. And I think that's also for big law, um, to move. It takes a while. It also takes a while that you move from, let's say, I buy, uh, Harvey, and I use it like a ChatGPT towards, uh, I, uh, use Harvey, uh, not only to optimize my personal way of working, but to optimize my team way of working. Uh, until the, let's say, the ultimate phase where you say, "I'm also going to, uh, uh, improve, uh, my legal delivery methods way of working." So I'm [00:42:00] really going to integrate the technology and how we are delivering these services, and I'm going to identify, uh, what these steps are and how I can improve these steps. Can I, uh, cut out certain steps? Can I optimize steps so that, uh, it's a better output, uh, with less time, et cetera, et cetera. And that's a little bit what we also internally are saying. It's a crawl, walk, run And potentially could even fly. But it is not like if you are crawling, that was my experience, my personal experience when I was a toddler, I wasn't able to run at, uh, uh, at, uh, the first moment. So it took me a while to, to come there. And, um, you had a, uh, an example of a grocery store that became a technology provider. What was, what re- what was that about? Yeah, that was also interesting on it. Uh, the company was called Ocado, and it has to do a little bit like... You could also say, uh, if you [00:43:00] take that into account, what is the role of AI first, AI native, uh, law firms, yeah? But you had Ocado entering the British market of, uh, uh, food grocery delivery, yeah, so home delivery service. And, and at first they were very successful, like a sexy startup, uh, delivering, uh, groceries to your home. Uh, and the Tescos and, uh, the Waitrose and all these other, uh, uh, English supermarket chains, they had a hard time to cope with that. Uh, but what the, um, what Ocado learned, that it was quite hard- To copy, uh, the power of the brand. So the power of the Tesco brand, the power of the Waitrose brand, and Ocado wasn't known by the customers, uh, the, the grocery, uh, uh, for, for the grocery shoppers. And, uh, that was a- at the end sort of their, uh, where they lost, uh, [00:44:00] this, this game to the incumbents, uh, because the, the brand wasn't there. And, and at a certain moment, they were not reaching their target and said, "Okay, we are, uh, going to lose this game." But in that journey, that, uh, because they were free of mind to, let's say, they started with a clean sheet, so they could re-engineer or engineer it from, uh, the ground up, uh, they developed some very sophisticated, uh, software and sophisticated grocery picking solutions. Uh, and at the end, they had developed this, this, uh, this, uh, distribution center where robots, uh, guided by AI were driving on, on, uh, a sort of, uh, chessboard and, uh, were dropping certain items they, they picked and, uh, that was the true value of Ocado. They, they morphed, they [00:45:00] transformed theirself from a, a home delivery service to, uh, an high tech company who was delivering these kind of solutions to the incumbents, uh, which they couldn't battle on, on, uh, the home grocery, uh, market. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, you talked about trust and AI native firms. I heard you sneak that in there. Um, you know, the first, uh, generation of AI native firms like the Crosbys and the General Legals and the Garfields, they all have very narrow focus. This new generation of law firms like Norm AI and Irving, um, you know, these companies are bringing tremendous credibility. The, the board of directors at Norm is the who's who, like former SEC chair. You know, they, they brought Mike Schmidt Berger. Uh, he was the-- I think he was the, like, the managing partner of Skadden for 20 plus years. There's a new [00:46:00] generation that bring the credibility that I think is going to create the trust necessary to actually compete with big law. Um, how do you see that? I think, uh, that's, uh, Norm, uh, dot Law is, is probably the most interesting I've seen until so far. Uh, and that has to do with, uh, that they, uh, got a lot of cash, and they were funded by BlackRock, uh, for, I believe, uh, more than a hundred million, hundred fifty million, something like that. And as you said, they have very experienced, uh, leadership people from, from big law firms, uh, into their board, but also they have, uh, very well, uh, trained lawyers, ex-lawyers, uh, who are, uh, delivering part of the services. So it's a, it's an interesting one where, uh, they have, uh, established people, uh, with a good reputation, [00:47:00] uh, on one side, and, and the other side is that they are also developing all kinds of agents, uh, which should, uh, support, uh, let's say, the, the higher layers of the pyramid because they don't have the juniors, they have the more experienced people they are hiring. So that's an interesting one. Uh, and, and I think, uh, they can be successful, uh, if they stay very focused, and I believe currently they are very focused on a certain specific, uh, area of law in a very regulated type of business, uh, which is also, let's say, uh, more process-oriented type of work where you can say, "Okay, here technology can make the difference." I don't think that if we are doing, let's say, a, a very big deal, uh, let's say the merger of, uh, Amazon and, and Walmart, uh, that that is done by agents. That is still [00:48:00] where you are calling up your, uh, your most established, uh, uh, partner, executive partner of your law firm you worked thirty years with, uh, that you are saying, "Okay, this is, uh, you bet my company type of transaction. Uh, I need your best people, uh, fly them in a-and help me making, uh, this deal work." And, uh, but on the other side, there is more process-oriented regulatory work where, uh, like, uh, the, uh, the norms, uh, Norm.Law's, uh, can be very successful. And, uh, I believe, uh, that we shouldn't look to the legal market as one big market. It's a combination of all kinds of separate markets, uh, whether it's, uh, from geography, whether it's from area of law, uh, jurisdiction. So it is far more diverse than, uh, most [00:49:00] people talk about law. It, it's like, oh, it's law, it's legal. Uh, but it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of different, uh, markets Which- Yep ... uh, need different, uh, formulas to be successful. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how this next generation plays out. Um, I think it was, is it Blackstone? Uh, BlackRock. Blackstone maybe that's, um, funding Norm. I saw, uh, when I was over in the UK at the Financial Times event, um, somebody from Blackstone and, um, Mike Schmidberger from Norm were on a panel, and the Blackstone guy was like, "Yeah, they're getting first crack at our work." So not only are they, um, in the cap table, they're a feeder system for, for new work. And they just raised at a Billion [00:50:00] plus dollar valuation, which, uh, they've only existed for, uh, I, I don't know, what, 18 months? Yeah, I, I just, uh, I was looking it up, and it is Blackstone, yeah. Uh, they invested 50 million. Uh, that's what I see here if I key it in, uh, quickly in, uh, in Google. So, uh, it's an interesting one where the investor is also your launching customer, and it makes it easier to, to kickstart your startup, uh, where other AI native law firms have a different, uh, and, and more difficult route to success. Uh, so this is really, uh, that's why I say this is the most interesting I've seen until now, uh, with a high rate of success because if you land a client like, uh, Blackstone, that is really helping you to open doors. It's a little bit like Harvey starting with, uh, a, a law firm like Ellen Aubrey, that, uh, is adding [00:51:00] credibility to your, uh, brand and, uh, the company, uh, which you started. Yep, absolutely. Well, we're out of time. It's been a great conversation. I knew it would be. I, uh, I appreciate you taking a few minutes, um, to share your insights. How do people, um, follow you, get in touch with you, connect with you? Is LinkedIn the best way? Yeah, LinkedIn is the best. I, uh, actually accidentally, uh, just looked up how long I'm already on LinkedIn. It's, uh, I believe, 24 years. Uh, so if you key in my name, you will certainly find me on LinkedIn, uh, and you can read all the stuff I'm doing and also the topics where I'm curious about or, uh, share my thinking about. So feel free to drop, uh, an invite on my LinkedIn profile. That sounds great. Bert, thank you so much for your time today. [00:52:00] Thanks, uh, Ted, again, for, for the invite, and it was great, uh, to be on your show. Absolutely. We'll chat soon. Bye-bye. 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.