1 00:00:01,947 --> 00:00:03,746 Geoff, how are you this afternoon? 2 00:00:03,746 --> 00:00:05,467 Hey Ted, how are you doing today? 3 00:00:05,467 --> 00:00:06,578 I'm doing great, man. 4 00:00:06,578 --> 00:00:07,647 I'm doing great. 5 00:00:07,647 --> 00:00:15,253 I appreciate you spending a few minutes with me to talk about the legal tech job market. 6 00:00:15,327 --> 00:00:18,906 I looked at your background. 7 00:00:18,906 --> 00:00:25,600 You spent a lot of time in the staffing world, and it sounds like you're really legal focused. 8 00:00:25,761 --> 00:00:33,686 And I looked at some of the jobs that you guys fill in the legal space, and I think it aligns perfectly to our audience. 9 00:00:35,271 --> 00:00:43,295 I think you'll have some great insights to share for folks, but before we jump in, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and where you do it. 10 00:00:43,542 --> 00:00:44,492 Absolutely, absolutely. 11 00:00:44,492 --> 00:00:46,283 I appreciate it, Ted. 12 00:00:46,444 --> 00:00:52,768 I've been in the legal technology industry more or less since 2007, 2006. 13 00:00:52,768 --> 00:01:08,539 I started out at the Glenmont Group with Michael Potters, worked my way up there and then spent a good decade there and then moved over to Russell Tobin. 14 00:01:08,879 --> 00:01:13,048 And finally, I've been at Pearl since 2016. 15 00:01:13,048 --> 00:01:15,659 heading up our legal technology division. 16 00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:20,561 When you say I work extensively with law firms, you weren't kidding. 17 00:01:20,561 --> 00:01:32,426 I I work with AmLaw 200 firms building out their technology organizations from chief level and on down, working with stakeholders all across the globe. 18 00:01:32,426 --> 00:01:34,647 So it's so much fun. 19 00:01:35,368 --> 00:01:36,948 you know what makes it fun? 20 00:01:37,169 --> 00:01:40,550 Growing up, I always wanted to be a sports agent, right? 21 00:01:41,294 --> 00:01:47,654 The one thing that was holding me back from being a sports agent is the fact that you actually need a law degree in order to do that. 22 00:01:47,934 --> 00:01:54,534 And funny enough, now I'm in the legal industry placing attorneys and people with that type of background and I'm not a sports agent. 23 00:01:54,534 --> 00:01:56,274 So there we go. 24 00:01:56,274 --> 00:01:59,334 But that's how I've gotten to where I am today. 25 00:01:59,654 --> 00:02:06,292 And I've been at Pearl and it's a great group over here and I really enjoy working in this industry. 26 00:02:06,545 --> 00:02:08,816 Yeah, it's good stuff. 27 00:02:08,936 --> 00:02:12,678 so you, the last time you and I spoke, we chatted a little bit. 28 00:02:12,799 --> 00:02:26,066 I think it was right around the end of this or November, which was like the second anniversary of chat GPT, which seems like a million years ago, it's generative AI is like 29 00:02:26,066 --> 00:02:35,141 overtaken the headlines these days, especially in legal, which is understandable given that, you know, it's a, it's a language based. 30 00:02:35,195 --> 00:02:41,441 technology innovation and we haven't seen a ton of that in quite some time. 31 00:02:41,441 --> 00:02:48,487 like what really has changed in terms of invest attitudes towards investment? 32 00:02:48,487 --> 00:02:58,635 Have you seen purse strings open up at all since the advent of chat GPT and firms really trying to wrap their head about what, what to do with the tech? 33 00:02:59,082 --> 00:03:00,273 Oh, absolutely. 34 00:03:00,273 --> 00:03:00,703 Absolutely. 35 00:03:00,703 --> 00:03:09,241 I was going to say, you know, one of the things first and foremost are that firms are looking to invest in, you know, AI, you know, the chat GBTs. 36 00:03:09,241 --> 00:03:17,478 Once chat GBT was queued up, I feel like law firms felt like they had to take that and move it to the next level. 37 00:03:17,478 --> 00:03:21,902 Now, whether it's with a Microsoft product or whether it's with a Gemini. 38 00:03:22,014 --> 00:03:30,399 whether it's with OpenAI, there's so many different options out there that firms are really, really deciding what they want to do and how to implement it. 39 00:03:30,440 --> 00:03:34,322 And I feel like, know, Chatchi BT obviously was the springboard for that. 40 00:03:34,823 --> 00:03:49,383 Yeah, it seems like the Goldman report, is, I seem to reference in every podcast that came out and said that 44 % of legal tasks could be automated by gen AI really scared the hell 41 00:03:49,383 --> 00:03:56,043 out of people at the most senior levels, know, like executive committee level in law firms. 42 00:03:56,603 --> 00:04:01,343 know, historically law firms have underspent in, in tech. 43 00:04:01,425 --> 00:04:04,097 But by a pretty significant margin, that's not an opinion. 44 00:04:04,097 --> 00:04:05,738 There's data on this. 45 00:04:05,738 --> 00:04:16,605 When you compare the percentage of revenue that law firms spend versus other industries like financial services, it is dramatic. 46 00:04:18,927 --> 00:04:25,771 I feel like now there's a little bit of an attitude shift around that. 47 00:04:26,212 --> 00:04:31,565 Historically, it has felt like firms have really looked at 48 00:04:32,252 --> 00:04:39,300 looked at technology as a cost they need to manage rather than a strategic differentiator. 49 00:04:39,301 --> 00:04:42,896 And I don't know, it seems from where I sit that has changed. 50 00:04:42,896 --> 00:04:44,377 Is that your perspective? 51 00:04:44,974 --> 00:04:56,304 100 % I feel like especially when you're talking about the AmLaw law 100 you know and some of the you know boutique firms that are really doing very well. 52 00:04:56,304 --> 00:05:06,164 I feel like they they feel like they have to up the ante, take the next steps really differentiate themselves by investing in technology. 53 00:05:06,164 --> 00:05:13,446 Keeping the lights on isn't enough for these firms now so they want to make sure that they're doing something in order to 54 00:05:13,506 --> 00:05:20,695 you know, differentiate themselves, like I said, and make sure that they're sort of setting the standard from that perspective. 55 00:05:20,756 --> 00:05:28,766 And I feel like there are some firms that are definitely standing out and firms that are making huge investments in this area in order to make do on 56 00:05:28,999 --> 00:05:45,239 Yeah, you know, I'm still not seeing a ton of C-suite roles that have AI in the title, which I don't even know that that's necessarily needed, but I have seen a few. 57 00:05:45,979 --> 00:05:48,719 There's one firm that has a chief AI officer. 58 00:05:48,719 --> 00:05:52,579 I'm not sure, they might be AMLO 200, but not huge. 59 00:05:52,579 --> 00:05:55,689 I see a lot of like chief knowledge and AI officer. 60 00:05:55,689 --> 00:05:57,259 I see a lot of... 61 00:05:58,597 --> 00:06:02,684 roles with the title AI in it, but really not in the C-suite. 62 00:06:02,684 --> 00:06:03,885 What are you seeing? 63 00:06:04,088 --> 00:06:06,219 Yeah, that's a very good point. 64 00:06:06,219 --> 00:06:07,901 I'm seeing the same exact thing. 65 00:06:07,901 --> 00:06:18,148 I feel like when it comes to the chief title, firms, unless you really have a group that's dedicated and the whole group is dedicated to AI alone, you're probably not going to have 66 00:06:18,148 --> 00:06:19,569 that sort of title. 67 00:06:19,569 --> 00:06:21,670 You're more so going to have the innovation. 68 00:06:21,670 --> 00:06:29,376 I see innovation with the chief a lot more than you're seeing like knowledge management because innovation opens up the possibilities. 69 00:06:29,376 --> 00:06:33,258 Knowledge management is a little bit boxed in as far as the title is concerned. 70 00:06:33,474 --> 00:06:38,770 So a lot of firms are going Chief Innovation and Knowledge Solutions or Chief Innovation Officer. 71 00:06:38,770 --> 00:06:41,022 You're seeing a lot more CNOs. 72 00:06:41,584 --> 00:06:50,353 But yeah, you don't see too many firms that have the AI just because there's not enough bodies that are underneath that dedicated to AI in order to do that. 73 00:06:51,111 --> 00:07:06,131 Yeah, I just read an article today on law.com about a survey that was done by the Blixene group, Brad Blixene and FTI Consulting. 74 00:07:06,131 --> 00:07:19,439 And in the report, 62 % of inside counsel either mostly disagreed or strongly disagreed that their law firms are innovative, which 75 00:07:19,483 --> 00:07:20,904 Doesn't surprise me. 76 00:07:20,904 --> 00:07:31,733 Um, you know, I feel like there's been a lot of innovation theater in, in legal where, and, and, know, I'm, I've been in, in the cam space for a long time. 77 00:07:31,733 --> 00:07:41,481 Have a lot of good friends who are on the law firm side and know a few where the word innovation popped up and, but the role really didn't change. 78 00:07:41,481 --> 00:07:48,647 Um, so I, I feel like law firms are battling, they have a perception battle. 79 00:07:48,647 --> 00:07:53,317 on their hands with because things move so slow and legal. 80 00:07:53,317 --> 00:07:57,957 So it sounds like, you know, maybe maybe that's starting to change. 81 00:07:57,957 --> 00:08:01,527 Maybe some of this innovation theater that's been taking place will turn it. 82 00:08:01,527 --> 00:08:03,927 And that's obviously not true across the board. 83 00:08:03,927 --> 00:08:12,807 There are innovation teams within the Amlo that are doing really amazing, innovative things to transform the practice of law. 84 00:08:12,807 --> 00:08:17,839 But historically, I mean, that's been the perception is law firms don't 85 00:08:17,839 --> 00:08:18,634 aren't innovative. 86 00:08:18,634 --> 00:08:20,290 Do you agree with that? 87 00:08:21,314 --> 00:08:32,697 But that's a, you I think you made some really good points on whether firms are, I feel like firms are taking the steps now to take the innovation ideas that were out there or 88 00:08:32,697 --> 00:08:36,779 sort of road mapped and now sort of deploying these. 89 00:08:37,398 --> 00:08:43,501 taken a while, but I feel like firms are definitely taking the steps towards actually doing something about it. 90 00:08:44,661 --> 00:08:47,872 You know, there's been a lot of changes that I feel like. 91 00:08:48,014 --> 00:08:54,634 due to some stuff that's going on with the economy now and some of the rising in that area. 92 00:08:54,634 --> 00:08:58,474 I feel like firms feel a little bit more secure in the investment. 93 00:08:59,174 --> 00:09:10,064 When we were coming in 2022 or 2023, firms were a little remiss to make that huge investment because once you delve in, it's hard to back out. 94 00:09:10,064 --> 00:09:12,954 So you need to be 100 % sure that you're going all in. 95 00:09:12,954 --> 00:09:18,036 It's like poker, if you're going all in, you better believe that you have the cards to win. 96 00:09:18,036 --> 00:09:19,171 If not, you're not going to do it. 97 00:09:19,171 --> 00:09:21,128 You'll lose all your money quick. 98 00:09:21,595 --> 00:09:24,096 Yeah, I mean, that's a good segue. 99 00:09:24,096 --> 00:09:34,902 One of the things I wanted to talk about was how the economic conditions out there have influenced law firm budgets and tech budgets and staffing. 100 00:09:34,902 --> 00:09:43,967 And law firms are highly sensitive to, and rightly so, to head and tail winds in the economy. 101 00:09:43,967 --> 00:09:51,511 Because when things start to tighten up, one of the first areas that big 102 00:09:51,783 --> 00:09:54,965 corporations that are the big buyers of legal services. 103 00:09:54,965 --> 00:10:01,129 One of the places they look to for savings is on outside council. 104 00:10:02,070 --> 00:10:17,561 But it feels like the pendulum has swung back a little bit, like 20, post COVID when the Fed dumped trillions of dollars of liquidity into the markets or into the economy. 105 00:10:17,561 --> 00:10:21,447 And we had kind of the growth at all costs. 106 00:10:21,447 --> 00:10:31,577 with, you know, SaaS companies like us spending tons of money on go-to-market activities without really managing expenses. 107 00:10:31,577 --> 00:10:39,667 And then inflation hit, pendulum swung back in the other direction, things really tightened up in late 22 and early 23. 108 00:10:39,667 --> 00:10:47,567 And now I feel like we're somewhere in the middle, maybe even trending towards a more bullish scenario. 109 00:10:47,607 --> 00:10:50,833 And that impacts 110 00:10:50,833 --> 00:10:54,028 hiring and is it, are you seeing that? 111 00:10:54,656 --> 00:10:55,547 Absolutely. 112 00:10:55,547 --> 00:10:57,548 I mean, you couldn't have said it better. 113 00:10:57,548 --> 00:11:01,731 I feel like the pendulum sort of swung in the direction. 114 00:11:02,066 --> 00:11:13,161 I would say, you know, the second half of this past year, you know, even past like Q1 of this year where it's trending, where firms are opening up a lot more positions. 115 00:11:13,902 --> 00:11:18,526 There's a lot more, you know, mobility that's going on, promotion from within. 116 00:11:18,526 --> 00:11:23,192 You're seeing a lot of that, which is creating new positions within the firms itself. 117 00:11:23,192 --> 00:11:25,973 can't promote from within without opening up a new position. 118 00:11:25,973 --> 00:11:29,415 So that's always a beautiful thing when firms have the ability to do that. 119 00:11:29,415 --> 00:11:38,615 So you're seeing that you're seeing vertical moves, you know, within the within the industry, you're seeing lateral moves, which is always nice, which means there's something 120 00:11:38,615 --> 00:11:48,442 that's driving someone to move, you know, whether it's compensation increases, whether it's, you know, new technologies that are being brought by by the new firm that a person 121 00:11:48,442 --> 00:11:53,034 might go to new opportunities, whenever whenever there's movement. 122 00:11:53,068 --> 00:11:56,460 and people not getting let go, that's a great thing. 123 00:11:56,460 --> 00:12:01,823 When you see people getting let go and positions not being backfilled, that's when there's trouble. 124 00:12:01,823 --> 00:12:06,363 But you're seeing the second half of this year, a lot of good mobility. 125 00:12:06,363 --> 00:12:06,864 Yeah. 126 00:12:06,864 --> 00:12:14,023 Well, and you know, I had a short stint, like I told you in the staff hog world with tech systems. 127 00:12:14,023 --> 00:12:16,992 I mean, it was literally, what's that? 128 00:12:18,213 --> 00:12:20,215 No, it's no, it's not. 129 00:12:20,215 --> 00:12:26,810 you know, they like it's a, you know, it flows downhill, right? 130 00:12:26,810 --> 00:12:34,767 So corporations tighten up, they, they start to manage outside legal spend law firms tighten up. 131 00:12:34,767 --> 00:12:38,191 I would imagine placements go down significantly. 132 00:12:38,191 --> 00:12:45,149 So you're on the front edge of seeing how bullish or bearish these firms are. 133 00:12:45,149 --> 00:12:51,366 And it sounds like they're starting to move in the direction of optimism. 134 00:12:51,366 --> 00:12:53,067 Is that accurate? 135 00:12:53,742 --> 00:12:55,003 Absolutely, absolutely. 136 00:12:55,003 --> 00:13:02,590 We've been getting calls lately, you know, from clients or potential clients, you know, that are demoing AI tools. 137 00:13:02,590 --> 00:13:06,893 So they're looking for adoption of AI tools and machine learning. 138 00:13:06,893 --> 00:13:11,267 And, you know, here's what we're looking for, very specific stuff. 139 00:13:11,267 --> 00:13:17,462 So when you have the specifics out there, that means probably that they purchase these tools, which is always a good thing. 140 00:13:17,462 --> 00:13:22,826 So that shows that obviously, when projects are going on and programs and 141 00:13:22,990 --> 00:13:26,133 different deployments, the staffing has to come behind that. 142 00:13:26,133 --> 00:13:27,654 You can't do it without the bodies. 143 00:13:27,654 --> 00:13:37,383 Of course, you could have an MSP or an augment, but a lot of times you want to keep the knowledge, especially when it's AI and new next generation stuff, you want to keep that 144 00:13:37,383 --> 00:13:41,286 knowledge in house if you can and just really hold on to it. 145 00:13:41,735 --> 00:13:42,316 That makes sense. 146 00:13:42,316 --> 00:13:45,641 What areas of tech are you seeing the most growth? 147 00:13:45,641 --> 00:13:47,123 Like you mentioned machine learning. 148 00:13:47,123 --> 00:13:49,887 would imagine data science. 149 00:13:49,887 --> 00:13:52,591 I'm seeing a lot more data teams. 150 00:13:52,591 --> 00:13:55,555 What's growing in legal right now? 151 00:13:55,618 --> 00:13:58,169 Yeah, data science is a huge area. 152 00:13:58,169 --> 00:14:00,419 mean, and that's an area I love recruiting in as well. 153 00:14:00,419 --> 00:14:08,181 It's like a lot of fun because there's so many different directions within data science that you could actually like take a different department. 154 00:14:08,181 --> 00:14:15,664 You have the analytics aspect where you're really visualizing the information, you're intaking it, you're calling the data. 155 00:14:15,664 --> 00:14:19,825 You have the data science part where you're actually modeling it. 156 00:14:19,825 --> 00:14:24,962 You're making business decisions and you're forecasting. 157 00:14:24,962 --> 00:14:26,523 based upon data. 158 00:14:26,523 --> 00:14:33,717 mean, how incredible is that that you have the opportunity to do that and you have people that can actually do that and technology that can assist in that. 159 00:14:33,717 --> 00:14:45,134 So, you know, to have that in-house where you can help and almost have a McKinsey or a Deloitte where you don't necessarily need, you know, the third party to help you. 160 00:14:45,134 --> 00:14:48,502 You have your own staff that's going to help make these decisions. 161 00:14:48,502 --> 00:14:50,438 You know, that's a beautiful thing right there. 162 00:14:50,438 --> 00:14:51,318 So, 163 00:14:52,050 --> 00:15:00,935 To answer your question without being too long-winded, we're seeing data science, that's a huge area, to build out of that. 164 00:15:00,935 --> 00:15:02,837 Cloud is a big area, of course. 165 00:15:02,837 --> 00:15:11,842 Everybody's taking the infrastructure, the applications, they're slowly but surely moving that to the cloud, whether it's Azure or AWS. 166 00:15:11,842 --> 00:15:14,774 And there's just a lot of great things happening within the industry. 167 00:15:14,774 --> 00:15:19,202 Call me an optimist, but I can feel that sort of fluff. 168 00:15:19,591 --> 00:15:23,992 Yeah, I mean we, so we launched, we used to be a consulting organization called Acrowire. 169 00:15:23,992 --> 00:15:31,734 We rebranded and launched as a product company three years ago and we only run in the cloud. 170 00:15:31,734 --> 00:15:34,505 We literally can't run on prem. 171 00:15:34,505 --> 00:15:34,985 Yeah. 172 00:15:34,985 --> 00:15:38,036 So, uh, and that's, that's the way of the future. 173 00:15:38,036 --> 00:15:43,998 And we've had to say no, I mean a couple of times to be some big firms who wanted us to run on prem. 174 00:15:43,998 --> 00:15:47,571 And it's like, you know, it's, it's not where the puck is going. 175 00:15:47,571 --> 00:15:48,647 So, 176 00:15:48,647 --> 00:15:56,756 you know, all our chips are on the future and the cloud is it, but man, it took way longer than it should have. 177 00:15:56,756 --> 00:16:05,417 Like I was out beating the cloud drum literally in like 2013 I did, or maybe it was 2014, a bunch of road shows. 178 00:16:05,417 --> 00:16:12,687 was doing webinars on back then it was called office 365, why you needed to move to SharePoint online and exchange online. 179 00:16:12,687 --> 00:16:17,675 And that went exactly nowhere until literally 180 00:16:17,675 --> 00:16:21,527 shortly after COVID big Amla firm started to move in earnest. 181 00:16:21,527 --> 00:16:27,622 There were a few who moved messaging into the cloud earlier because I'm sure there's people out there saying, wait a second. 182 00:16:27,622 --> 00:16:28,042 would, yeah. 183 00:16:28,042 --> 00:16:28,442 Okay. 184 00:16:28,442 --> 00:16:36,728 You had exchange pre COVID, but firms are really just now moving those ancillary workloads and it's not all the firm's fault. 185 00:16:36,728 --> 00:16:43,813 A lot of the vendors, like on the practice management side, those solutions are still on prem elite, elite and adorant expert are still on prem. 186 00:16:43,813 --> 00:16:47,205 They are now starting to move. 187 00:16:47,299 --> 00:16:48,620 in earnest to the cloud. 188 00:16:48,620 --> 00:16:52,822 yeah, so our chips are on the table, man. 189 00:16:52,822 --> 00:16:54,723 It's cloud or bust for us. 190 00:16:54,723 --> 00:16:55,524 And you know what? 191 00:16:55,524 --> 00:16:57,084 Business is good. 192 00:16:57,084 --> 00:16:59,055 So we're growing like leaps and bounds. 193 00:16:59,055 --> 00:17:02,307 So it's happening for real, finally. 194 00:17:02,392 --> 00:17:05,076 Well, you're definitely practicing what you're preaching, right? 195 00:17:05,076 --> 00:17:12,948 So if you're telling your clients, listen, let's integrate, let's innovate, and then you're on-prem. 196 00:17:12,948 --> 00:17:14,940 I mean, what does that say in itself? 197 00:17:15,463 --> 00:17:16,303 It's a great point. 198 00:17:16,303 --> 00:17:17,103 It's a great point. 199 00:17:17,103 --> 00:17:30,153 In fact, I'm not going to say any names, but, um, there's a law firm who has a subsidiary that's really focused on innovation and they're, they're on prem. 200 00:17:30,153 --> 00:17:33,943 Um, they're finally moving to the cloud, but for a good bit they weren't. 201 00:17:33,943 --> 00:17:38,343 And I was like, man, that's a bit of a, that's a bit of a conflict. 202 00:17:38,343 --> 00:17:42,521 Um, but they did a lot of work in financial services. 203 00:17:42,559 --> 00:17:46,391 And financial services is, which I spent 10 years at Bank of America. 204 00:17:46,391 --> 00:17:49,902 know that world, that world really well. 205 00:17:49,902 --> 00:18:00,947 And in fact, I was in like corporate audit, anti-money laundering, regulatory relations, consumer risk, all on the risk side of the house and regulators and are, just make things 206 00:18:00,947 --> 00:18:02,808 really difficult for big banks. 207 00:18:02,808 --> 00:18:08,070 So managing third party counter risk, which law firms fall into that category. 208 00:18:08,070 --> 00:18:11,681 A lot of times it was the clients holding them back from going to the cloud. 209 00:18:12,322 --> 00:18:20,627 Absolutely, yeah, you see it time and time again, depending upon who your client is, depends upon how innovative you might be able to get. 210 00:18:20,627 --> 00:18:28,912 You see some of the firms that are working with the big financial services companies, and they're probably a little less likely to get a little bit innovative as opposed to 211 00:18:28,912 --> 00:18:40,458 organizations that are working with venture capital firms or pre-IPOs where you don't have necessarily FINRA or the SEC looking at things. 212 00:18:40,596 --> 00:18:44,372 sort of, you know, let's go with the flow and let's develop some stuff. 213 00:18:44,721 --> 00:18:49,644 Yeah, the regulated industries make it difficult. 214 00:18:49,644 --> 00:18:51,655 They present challenges. 215 00:18:51,655 --> 00:18:59,520 How much of competitive pressures between firms are driving the innovation? 216 00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:03,222 We talked earlier about firms trying to differentiate themselves. 217 00:19:03,222 --> 00:19:05,073 Eventually, Gen. 218 00:19:05,073 --> 00:19:06,844 AI is going to be table stakes. 219 00:19:06,844 --> 00:19:10,286 It's not yet today, but it will be at some point. 220 00:19:10,387 --> 00:19:11,633 are you seeing 221 00:19:11,633 --> 00:19:19,983 competition among firms in terms of trying to compete and waving that innovation flag. 222 00:19:20,578 --> 00:19:23,460 Yeah, I feel like firms don't want to get left behind. 223 00:19:23,460 --> 00:19:32,925 They don't want to be named, you know, as far as like, you know, the organization that just hasn't gotten around to doing it, or they haven't come up with the with the right 224 00:19:32,925 --> 00:19:33,785 sauce yet. 225 00:19:33,785 --> 00:19:42,010 I feel like, especially, you know, it's not competitive apples to apples where you have firm A wanting to compete with firm B. 226 00:19:42,010 --> 00:19:49,494 But when you're dealing with different tiers of firms, or, you know, firms that are in life sciences or 227 00:19:49,840 --> 00:19:58,866 &A work, you know, they're going to want to keep up with firms that are, you know, may be in competition for the same clients or, you know, different caseloads because I think that 228 00:19:58,866 --> 00:20:01,110 that could be a differentiator right now. 229 00:20:01,110 --> 00:20:09,607 In the future it might not be once it becomes more of a template as opposed to like, you know, a differentiator, but for right now I do feel like it could be a differentiator. 230 00:20:09,607 --> 00:20:10,427 Yeah. 231 00:20:10,427 --> 00:20:25,167 What about what, what you mentioned data science and obviously gen AI, but like looking forward, maybe let's say to the first half of 2025, like for, folks that are maybe on the 232 00:20:25,167 --> 00:20:37,223 business of law side, um, what are some areas that you anticipate continued or expanded growth for new roles, for new opportunities? 233 00:20:38,126 --> 00:20:45,646 So I think firms that really play in the high tech area. 234 00:20:45,646 --> 00:20:55,146 think that if you're working in the high tech area and you have practice groups surrounding that, you're going to need to keep up with the Joneses. 235 00:20:55,146 --> 00:21:03,766 It's just plain and simple where if you don't do that, that's where it can cost you a potential client if you're considered cutting edge. 236 00:21:04,046 --> 00:21:08,238 If you're working with Big Bank, 237 00:21:08,238 --> 00:21:09,599 It's not gonna matter so much. 238 00:21:09,599 --> 00:21:12,081 It's really not gonna be a differentiator. 239 00:21:12,081 --> 00:21:14,683 They're gonna look at the attorneys they've always worked with. 240 00:21:14,683 --> 00:21:16,715 Hey, let's continue to work with this firm. 241 00:21:16,715 --> 00:21:28,354 But when you're talking about high tech, you're talking about intellectual property stuff where it does rely upon a lot of data. 242 00:21:28,375 --> 00:21:37,662 Any industry that relies upon a ton of data being input and filtered out, those are gonna be the areas where the firms are gonna rely upon more on the high techs. 243 00:21:38,023 --> 00:21:49,973 Well, for like, let's say somebody in KM or innovation and they're looking for lateral or upward mobility, like what, sort of skills should they be developing besides the obvious, 244 00:21:49,973 --> 00:21:50,313 right? 245 00:21:50,313 --> 00:21:58,479 Like, I mean, obviously you need to be familiar with AI, but I mean, are you still seeing like, but you know, it's funny machine learning has been around forever. 246 00:21:58,580 --> 00:22:07,667 And you know, we don't hear about it as much, but like, I'm sure there's still opportunities in that realm too, or, 247 00:22:07,936 --> 00:22:12,466 What sort of skills should like individuals be thinking about for mobility purposes? 248 00:22:12,654 --> 00:22:23,018 So if I'm a person that's growing in my career and I really like data and I like data science, you really want the scripting and the automation there. 249 00:22:23,379 --> 00:22:27,000 I think that, you know, Python's become such a big thing. 250 00:22:27,701 --> 00:22:38,926 You know, that whole stack that PyTorch, you know, like there's just a ton of stuff within there where, you know, if you really get a feel on like the actual coding and the 251 00:22:38,926 --> 00:22:40,086 automation. 252 00:22:40,408 --> 00:22:43,099 there's going to be a lot of opportunities in front of you. 253 00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:52,945 Plain and simple, think that that's an area where I've seen, you know, we've placed people in this area specifically with, you know, AmLaw 50 firms, where if they have that skill 254 00:22:52,945 --> 00:23:02,424 set and they're working with AI and ML, you know, and that's an area where you can learn or you can raise your hand in your organization and say, hey, listen, no one's doing this 255 00:23:02,424 --> 00:23:03,591 right now at the firm. 256 00:23:03,591 --> 00:23:05,411 I'd love to take a course. 257 00:23:05,492 --> 00:23:09,794 You want to align yourself with people that have these sort of skill sets as well. 258 00:23:09,816 --> 00:23:15,942 that are in the community that you may know and find out how they've gotten from point A to point B. 259 00:23:16,465 --> 00:23:17,186 That's okay. 260 00:23:17,186 --> 00:23:21,620 That's a great segue into my next question, which is at Bank of America. 261 00:23:21,620 --> 00:23:25,103 I always had a mentor, right? 262 00:23:25,103 --> 00:23:31,629 Um, so I was there almost 10 years and, I'm just naturally a good networker. 263 00:23:31,629 --> 00:23:33,811 know not everybody is. 264 00:23:33,832 --> 00:23:35,893 It's a genuine, like I love to meet people. 265 00:23:35,893 --> 00:23:38,826 That's why I'm good at a pod hosting a podcast. 266 00:23:38,826 --> 00:23:40,688 Like I don't have any training in this. 267 00:23:40,688 --> 00:23:41,989 Like I, 268 00:23:41,989 --> 00:23:49,886 I, and it was never a goal of mine, but I genuinely enjoy conversations like this and getting to know people. 269 00:23:49,907 --> 00:23:51,548 And that makes it easy for me. 270 00:23:51,548 --> 00:23:53,350 It's not easy for everybody though. 271 00:23:53,350 --> 00:23:54,050 You know what I mean? 272 00:23:54,050 --> 00:23:56,653 It's like some people get super anxious. 273 00:23:56,653 --> 00:24:03,460 Um, but you know, from where I sit is you really need to push yourself. 274 00:24:03,460 --> 00:24:07,703 If you want to grow, grow comes from being uncomfortable. 275 00:24:07,771 --> 00:24:09,743 growth comes from being uncomfortable, right? 276 00:24:09,743 --> 00:24:12,676 If you stay in your comfort zone, you're, you're, you're not growing. 277 00:24:13,037 --> 00:24:15,139 my wife and I own five gyms here in St. 278 00:24:15,139 --> 00:24:19,824 Louis and that's like on the wall at all five of these gyms, right? 279 00:24:19,824 --> 00:24:24,830 Like growth is growth is in your, growth is not in your comfort zone. 280 00:24:24,830 --> 00:24:26,133 Um, 281 00:24:26,133 --> 00:24:26,624 absolutely. 282 00:24:26,624 --> 00:24:30,288 Not everybody has it their DNA to, you know, to do that. 283 00:24:30,288 --> 00:24:39,228 But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, it's something that like, even if you're uncomfortable, and, you know, even if you're a little bit of an introvert, you know, that 284 00:24:39,228 --> 00:24:42,852 doesn't mean that you necessarily need to avoid this, right? 285 00:24:43,845 --> 00:24:44,255 Yeah. 286 00:24:44,255 --> 00:24:45,006 And you know what? 287 00:24:45,006 --> 00:24:46,837 I'm not like a full extrovert. 288 00:24:46,837 --> 00:24:51,928 Like, you know, it's a spectrum that you've got introvert and I think they call them ambiverts or omnivert. 289 00:24:51,928 --> 00:24:52,062 Yeah. 290 00:24:52,062 --> 00:24:54,594 I think it's ambiverts, but I'm kind of in the middle. 291 00:24:54,594 --> 00:24:56,575 Like I really enjoy this kind of stuff. 292 00:24:56,575 --> 00:25:04,882 But after I go to like Ilta con, for example, like I want to be in a dark room by myself for like three days. 293 00:25:04,882 --> 00:25:06,813 Like it just drains me. 294 00:25:06,813 --> 00:25:09,485 Some people come back energized from that. 295 00:25:09,585 --> 00:25:19,953 but you know, it's like a ton of meetings and I'm usually presenting and there's parties after the show and I'm, I'm wiped out, man. 296 00:25:19,953 --> 00:25:20,743 So. 297 00:25:20,870 --> 00:25:21,723 Yeah, absolutely. 298 00:25:21,723 --> 00:25:25,485 You need to be in like an Aaron Rodgers dark room or something like that. 299 00:25:25,783 --> 00:25:26,443 Exactly. 300 00:25:26,443 --> 00:25:26,643 Yeah. 301 00:25:26,643 --> 00:25:31,165 I tell my wife, I'm like, don't like, please take care of the kids. 302 00:25:31,165 --> 00:25:36,646 Like I'm going to go just decompress for a little bit, but it, do think it's really important. 303 00:25:36,646 --> 00:25:47,640 Um, where I was headed with that was like, I think it's important to have mentors and you know, I always did when I was the period of time where I was in the corporate world, how 304 00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:53,111 important is that in the legal space and how to, how would people go about finding one? 305 00:25:53,326 --> 00:25:58,836 Yeah, I mean if you ask most people that are at the C level now, they'll say that they had a mentor. 306 00:25:58,836 --> 00:26:01,965 So that just shows how important it is. 307 00:26:02,066 --> 00:26:04,266 It's not the easiest thing to find a mentor. 308 00:26:04,266 --> 00:26:06,436 I mean, they don't grow on trees. 309 00:26:06,436 --> 00:26:09,386 There's not people that are always willing to do it. 310 00:26:09,386 --> 00:26:20,186 I think that you need to find someone that's like-minded and it's as easy as sending an email on LinkedIn or connecting with someone and just saying, know, hey, I love your work 311 00:26:20,186 --> 00:26:22,086 or great article and... 312 00:26:22,210 --> 00:26:29,312 people understand if you're genuine about something, I think they'll put the time aside to make the time to take you under their wing. 313 00:26:30,151 --> 00:26:37,594 You know, and I feel like a lot of people, especially in the legal technology industry, and this is part of the reason why I love recruiting in it, a lot of people are selfless, 314 00:26:37,594 --> 00:26:42,335 where they do want to take time to give back or pay forward. 315 00:26:42,335 --> 00:26:50,858 And you know, that's a great thing, you know, and I feel like the best way to find a mentor is just to take a chance, reach out to someone that maybe you look up to, whether 316 00:26:50,858 --> 00:26:52,128 you know them or not. 317 00:26:52,248 --> 00:26:57,340 You know, I think it's probably better if you're in the same city as someone or if you're part of a group. 318 00:26:57,340 --> 00:27:05,044 I know that different cities have innovation groups or, you know, legal technology like, you know, coffee or whatever the case may be. 319 00:27:05,044 --> 00:27:07,675 You know, I've seen some stuff for the holidays out there. 320 00:27:07,675 --> 00:27:13,428 You so there are groups out there that exist where you can find someone that will want to take you under their wing. 321 00:27:13,428 --> 00:27:18,470 But first things first is identifying what you want to be and then you can find a mentor that way. 322 00:27:18,747 --> 00:27:19,147 Yeah. 323 00:27:19,147 --> 00:27:26,353 And you know, I've always found a good approach for engaging is finding common ground. 324 00:27:26,353 --> 00:27:29,596 could be something as simple as where you went to school. 325 00:27:29,596 --> 00:27:35,881 Like, um, I was talking to, um, Avani, she's the CEO at Laterra. 326 00:27:35,881 --> 00:27:44,028 He was, we just recorded an episode, so he, he, will have been released by the time, um, this episode gets released. 327 00:27:44,028 --> 00:27:47,781 And then we, he, he's a big UNC fan. 328 00:27:48,011 --> 00:27:53,816 And, you know, it was just common ground that we had and, know, that common ground goes pretty deep. 329 00:27:53,816 --> 00:27:56,768 Like I went to school there, I got married on campus. 330 00:27:56,768 --> 00:28:03,333 Like I watch every basketball game, even if I don't see it live, I record it and I watch every play. 331 00:28:03,372 --> 00:28:05,493 I'm a UNC basketball fan too, actually. 332 00:28:05,493 --> 00:28:06,544 So there you go. 333 00:28:06,544 --> 00:28:08,944 Yeah, there you go. 334 00:28:08,965 --> 00:28:14,777 Back from the Hubert Davis days, know, Stackhouse, Wallace, Vince Carter. 335 00:28:14,777 --> 00:28:21,300 mean, they, you know, I can't say I was a fan when MJ was there, but otherwise, you know. 336 00:28:21,767 --> 00:28:24,969 actually was, but I was young. 337 00:28:24,969 --> 00:28:25,630 let's see. 338 00:28:25,630 --> 00:28:27,709 So he, they, they want it. 339 00:28:27,709 --> 00:28:29,492 That was like 82. 340 00:28:29,492 --> 00:28:31,193 So I was 10. 341 00:28:31,193 --> 00:28:37,418 So I got into the heels because I, I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia and you're either a Virginia or a North Carolina fan. 342 00:28:37,418 --> 00:28:39,759 It's like right, literally right on the border. 343 00:28:39,759 --> 00:28:48,736 So I do remember, um, that championship against Georgetown, but you know, it was always a dream to go to school there. 344 00:28:48,736 --> 00:28:51,577 And when I did, it was amazing, but you know, 345 00:28:51,577 --> 00:28:54,268 It doesn't have to be like where you went to school. 346 00:28:54,268 --> 00:28:57,680 could be a common interest that you have, right? 347 00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:06,994 Like, you know, there's so much, I, you know, I, I sometimes get called an AI expert, like, but I'm, really not, I'm, I'm, I'm an enthusiast. 348 00:29:06,994 --> 00:29:09,835 I read about it a ton, right? 349 00:29:09,835 --> 00:29:14,337 So I'm always reading new papers when they come out, I follow the thought leaders in the space. 350 00:29:14,337 --> 00:29:17,928 I'm always experimenting with it, um, which is a good time. 351 00:29:17,928 --> 00:29:19,491 It could be something like that. 352 00:29:19,491 --> 00:29:28,675 as well to find common ground to just say, Hey man, I saw that post you, you did about, you know, the new version of llama three. 353 00:29:28,675 --> 00:29:30,766 And I think that's some really cool stuff that you're doing. 354 00:29:30,766 --> 00:29:33,371 I'd love to learn more about it, strike up a conversation. 355 00:29:33,371 --> 00:29:39,939 And then once you build some rapport, you can, you can ask if they'd be willing to meet with you periodically. 356 00:29:40,578 --> 00:29:48,663 Absolutely, yeah that stuff doesn't happen overnight, but if you put the time in there is the common interest You know you will definitely like strike a chord with someone that 357 00:29:48,663 --> 00:29:58,009 does have some common interest some common values And that's how relationships are built up, but I couldn't agree more that like it's open in this industry You know if you if you 358 00:29:58,009 --> 00:29:59,227 find the right person 359 00:29:59,227 --> 00:29:59,677 Totally. 360 00:29:59,677 --> 00:30:00,458 Yeah. 361 00:30:00,458 --> 00:30:14,570 What about like folks who are thinking about again, lateral or upward mobility and finding whatever could be practice areas or firms that what's the, like, how should people be 362 00:30:14,570 --> 00:30:16,862 thinking about the next step? 363 00:30:16,862 --> 00:30:24,589 Like, is it, you know, I, I don't think like just finding a bigger law firm to work for is the right approach. 364 00:30:24,589 --> 00:30:27,271 I mean, yeah, you might be able to 365 00:30:27,277 --> 00:30:31,533 learn a few new things as law firms scale. 366 00:30:31,915 --> 00:30:35,742 like, I don't know, personally, I think culture is really important. 367 00:30:35,742 --> 00:30:41,941 What should people be thinking about when they're charting their mobility path? 368 00:30:42,128 --> 00:30:42,718 absolutely. 369 00:30:42,718 --> 00:30:50,423 I I think it's a matter of who you're going to be working for and who you're going to be working with. 370 00:30:51,083 --> 00:30:56,126 That's the biggest question you always have to ask yourself when you're interviewing is, would I want to work with this group? 371 00:30:56,126 --> 00:31:00,979 But not only that, say that you're, for example, in the AI team, right? 372 00:31:00,979 --> 00:31:03,190 You're the so-called AI team. 373 00:31:03,651 --> 00:31:06,552 What are the developers like that I would be working with? 374 00:31:06,712 --> 00:31:10,104 What are the applications manager that's work, you know, that's 375 00:31:10,104 --> 00:31:17,356 you know, the peripheral teams that you have to deal with on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, am I going to enjoy working with them? 376 00:31:17,516 --> 00:31:25,908 And I would even go as far as saying like during an interview process, you don't want the process to be too long, but you do want to meet with some people that, you know, you may 377 00:31:25,908 --> 00:31:36,241 not work with daily, you know, they may be peers, but people that like your happiness is going to depend upon like, you know, your interactions with them or not. 378 00:31:36,261 --> 00:31:38,744 So I would say the people. 379 00:31:38,744 --> 00:31:48,007 you know, the firm culture, you know, just like, you know, every firm is a bit different, you know, each sham law 10 firms a bit different, you know, every firm has their own 380 00:31:48,007 --> 00:31:48,397 flavor. 381 00:31:48,397 --> 00:31:52,278 So it's finding, you know, what you're looking for in your next step. 382 00:31:52,498 --> 00:31:54,609 know, compensation doesn't do everything. 383 00:31:54,609 --> 00:32:02,931 So you want to look at, know, once, once you get your paycheck at the end of the week, what's driving you, what's going to make you happy, you know, what's going to you spend so 384 00:32:02,931 --> 00:32:05,688 much time at work, you know, what's going to, you know, 385 00:32:05,688 --> 00:32:12,552 put you in a good mood going home on a given day, know, versus like, hey, like I need my day bright enough, you know, that sort of scenario. 386 00:32:12,967 --> 00:32:13,567 Yeah. 387 00:32:13,567 --> 00:32:22,727 What, how much variation are you seeing in like organizational design and titles across firms? 388 00:32:22,727 --> 00:32:23,967 Like from where I sit. 389 00:32:23,967 --> 00:32:32,887 in the 16 years that I've been selling in the KM and, and, and IT, uh, we've worked with over 110 AM law firms. 390 00:32:32,887 --> 00:32:36,207 So a huge number more than more than half. 391 00:32:36,857 --> 00:32:43,653 It seems like everybody does it different, like from an organizational design perspective, like sometimes AI sits in cam. 392 00:32:43,653 --> 00:32:46,095 Sometimes AI sits in innovation. 393 00:32:46,095 --> 00:32:49,878 Sometimes AI sits in it, which does not make sense to me. 394 00:32:49,878 --> 00:33:01,057 Like maybe the infrastructure management needs to live in it, but people, whoever's managing AI has to be close to the user to understand the use cases and to be that conduit 395 00:33:01,057 --> 00:33:05,891 between tech and, but yeah, how much variation do you see? 396 00:33:06,108 --> 00:33:09,628 You see it more than me because that's your, that's your full-time job. 397 00:33:09,628 --> 00:33:14,520 Do you see a ton of variation in role titles and all that sort of stuff? 398 00:33:14,634 --> 00:33:15,315 a ton. 399 00:33:15,315 --> 00:33:23,650 mean, it's, it's unquestionably like, you know, something that I deal with every day, you know, different, different titles, different boxes, different groups. 400 00:33:23,650 --> 00:33:34,268 So I'd say this that firms that are in the, in the growth stage, as far as like AI is concerned, or dealing with innovation, it will probably sit under IT. 401 00:33:34,268 --> 00:33:39,772 I feel like there's not enough of a deviation between IT and AI at that point. 402 00:33:39,772 --> 00:33:43,672 But then once you have a bigger team and a bigger organization, 403 00:33:43,672 --> 00:33:50,610 you're going to be forced to make a separate AI innovation team that's separate from IT. 404 00:33:50,610 --> 00:33:52,455 And it may sit under a managing partner. 405 00:33:52,455 --> 00:33:54,471 It may sit under the COO. 406 00:33:54,471 --> 00:33:56,002 You have a chief innovation officer. 407 00:33:56,002 --> 00:33:58,014 You have a CIO. 408 00:33:58,014 --> 00:34:00,856 Two different people reporting up to the same person. 409 00:34:00,856 --> 00:34:05,840 then that way, both sides of the organization, equal playing field. 410 00:34:06,261 --> 00:34:13,446 And then also they're reporting to the same person, which obviously is working closely with the stakeholders and the users and the client. 411 00:34:13,735 --> 00:34:14,405 Yeah. 412 00:34:14,405 --> 00:34:15,995 Yeah, that makes sense. 413 00:34:15,995 --> 00:34:25,955 What, um, we, did a, I moderated a panel, uh, actually it was this year, 20 spring of 2024 with some heavy hitters in the space. 414 00:34:25,955 --> 00:34:34,695 was like Meredith Williams from Gibson, Dunn, Christie, Benz from Norton Rose, uh, Peter Giovanni's from McGuire woods. 415 00:34:34,695 --> 00:34:43,363 And we talked about like organizational design and how AI is going to influence that organ, you know, 416 00:34:43,363 --> 00:34:46,244 And they all had different answers. 417 00:34:46,244 --> 00:34:58,127 And what we figured out is through that dialogue is that culture is really what dictates like some firms, even big firms, I know some AMLaw 50 firms, they don't have knowledge 418 00:34:58,127 --> 00:34:59,167 management. 419 00:34:59,168 --> 00:35:08,640 And sometimes the reason is because KM has a bad name, like attorney, you know, the, culture there doesn't see the value in KM for whatever reason. 420 00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:12,151 was probably, you know, some failed experiment. 421 00:35:12,391 --> 00:35:14,872 10, 20 years ago, whatever. 422 00:35:15,093 --> 00:35:21,467 And the law firm leadership still has that in their memory banks and they're still doing cam stuff. 423 00:35:21,467 --> 00:35:25,340 They're just calling it something else like practice innovation or practice solutions. 424 00:35:25,340 --> 00:35:38,419 Um, so, but how, how are, how are you seeing, um, like from a compensation perspective, which is related to organizational design, like, are you seeing things trend up? 425 00:35:38,419 --> 00:35:41,591 Like, is this a good time for people to be thinking about? 426 00:35:41,785 --> 00:35:43,685 Lateral or upward moves. 427 00:35:44,078 --> 00:35:46,958 Yeah, this would be a great time. 428 00:35:46,958 --> 00:35:56,098 Once everybody receives their bonuses and all that, it's a good time to look because the bar is getting set higher and higher. 429 00:35:56,118 --> 00:36:10,578 Everybody, aside from the organizations that do the reporting or they do the reports on compensation, I personally see the trends bucking upward where... 430 00:36:10,786 --> 00:36:13,107 you're seeing it from the engineering level upwards. 431 00:36:13,107 --> 00:36:19,349 So you can imagine, you know, once you get into the management and C-suite, you know, how much compensation is going up. 432 00:36:19,349 --> 00:36:29,789 And it's just, you know, a lot of people know, you know, what the industry is paying, you know, per like, you know, different groups, you know, what level, you know, size of firms. 433 00:36:29,789 --> 00:36:36,104 So firms have to stay intact with that, or they're not going to be able to get the talent that's going to be able to take their firm over the top. 434 00:36:36,623 --> 00:36:37,144 Interesting. 435 00:36:37,144 --> 00:36:46,687 What, so because you have visibility on the compensation side, like what are the, what are some of the, what are some of the more lucrative roles in the, the business of law side? 436 00:36:46,687 --> 00:36:51,824 You know, is it KMs and innovation, obviously emerging skills like AI, like what, what is it? 437 00:36:51,824 --> 00:36:54,317 What, what's paying the best out there? 438 00:36:54,924 --> 00:37:05,732 I think innovation, know, that term innovation, because it does include AI, does include client centric solutions that are being, you know, developed for, you know, for the 439 00:37:05,732 --> 00:37:10,325 different, you know, companies that the firms are working with. 440 00:37:10,325 --> 00:37:17,630 So if you're in a situation like that, where you're actually bringing business potentially, like either directly or indirectly to an organization, a firm is going to pay 441 00:37:17,630 --> 00:37:18,870 more for that. 442 00:37:19,031 --> 00:37:23,790 So if you're developing solutions in house, either for your attorneys, 443 00:37:23,790 --> 00:37:27,733 or for the clients, that's where it gets pretty lucrative. 444 00:37:28,135 --> 00:37:37,374 If you're just doing quote unquote, you know, practice solutions where you're building out for some practices or you're taking third party tools out of the box and you're 445 00:37:37,374 --> 00:37:47,554 customizing it, you know, there's obviously a cap on that, but you know, an amazing area to be in is when you are developing solutions from scratch that you can make your own and 446 00:37:47,554 --> 00:37:48,394 sort of. 447 00:37:48,522 --> 00:37:54,120 know, awards, you peer awards and all that stuff, you know, that really is pretty big time right now. 448 00:37:54,567 --> 00:37:57,087 All right, so let's look at the flip side of that. 449 00:37:57,087 --> 00:38:09,661 Where are areas where people may want to take chips off the table in terms of skills and what roles are on the decline? 450 00:38:10,338 --> 00:38:20,371 Yeah, I mean, I hate to say this, know, I mean, it's, it's, but it's not, nothing's completely off the table, but I think like the pure old school app development side is a 451 00:38:20,371 --> 00:38:21,701 little bit off the table. 452 00:38:21,701 --> 00:38:31,164 Um, a lot of people are using power apps, you know, they're using, you know, the, the share points of the world, uh, power automate, they're using all those tools instead of 453 00:38:31,164 --> 00:38:38,954 like the.net, you know, JavaScript, you know, the stack that everybody knows and grew up with, you know, that sort of fallen by the wayside. 454 00:38:38,954 --> 00:38:47,104 Now we're looking at more of the innovative, quick-hitting tools where you can develop things a lot quicker and code than we used to be able to do. 455 00:38:47,227 --> 00:38:53,612 Well, you we talk about bill versus buy all the time, so we don't really have any competition on the intranet side of the house. 456 00:38:53,612 --> 00:38:55,743 There used to be a player in the space. 457 00:38:55,743 --> 00:39:05,750 I won't say their name, but people know who they are and they got bought by a much bigger company, um, seven years ago and they're there. 458 00:39:05,750 --> 00:39:07,582 They've just, they're not even trying. 459 00:39:07,582 --> 00:39:12,115 So it's really just us or custom dev, right? 460 00:39:12,115 --> 00:39:14,919 Which is makes zero sense. 461 00:39:14,919 --> 00:39:18,321 for a law firm when there's an off the shelf solution. 462 00:39:18,321 --> 00:39:22,994 But law firms get caught up in this. 463 00:39:22,994 --> 00:39:25,086 Devs want a dev, right? 464 00:39:25,086 --> 00:39:29,979 So if you've got a dev team, they're going to pitch, hey, we can build this for this amount of dollars. 465 00:39:29,979 --> 00:39:30,790 OK, great. 466 00:39:30,790 --> 00:39:32,481 That's your development. 467 00:39:32,481 --> 00:39:34,392 Your initial development cost is discrete. 468 00:39:34,392 --> 00:39:35,653 It has a beginning and an end. 469 00:39:35,653 --> 00:39:42,368 Support and maintenance and enhancements, that goes on for the lifetime of the platform. 470 00:39:42,368 --> 00:39:44,609 And that is a huge component. 471 00:39:44,611 --> 00:39:46,794 of total cost of ownership for an app. 472 00:39:46,794 --> 00:39:54,220 But I see firms still making this mistake after there's been so many failures and I don't understand it. 473 00:39:54,220 --> 00:39:56,893 Yeah, I'm just seeing a little bit less of that. 474 00:39:56,893 --> 00:39:59,825 That was one area that definitely stuck out to me. 475 00:39:59,825 --> 00:40:12,657 mean, everything else, when you're talking about InfoSec, when you're talking about infrastructure, cloud, governance, all these things are still super hot, and there's 476 00:40:12,657 --> 00:40:14,909 different ways to do it and new things. 477 00:40:14,909 --> 00:40:20,413 But App Dev is definitely an area that I think they're finding newer ways. 478 00:40:21,195 --> 00:40:25,883 less positions that are specific with the staff that we're used to. 479 00:40:25,883 --> 00:40:26,443 Yeah. 480 00:40:26,443 --> 00:40:37,249 I mean, when there's an off the shelf solution, I don't care if it's internet or whatever building your own is just a law firms are not really structured. 481 00:40:37,249 --> 00:40:40,231 They're not built for developing software. 482 00:40:40,231 --> 00:40:42,122 It's, um, it is a tough business. 483 00:40:42,122 --> 00:40:48,536 had a, I had a post recently where I, I outlined just stream of consciousness, all the things you got to be good at. 484 00:40:48,536 --> 00:40:50,857 You got to be good at gathering requirements. 485 00:40:50,857 --> 00:40:53,919 You got to be good at designing system architecture. 486 00:40:53,919 --> 00:40:55,043 You got to be good at. 487 00:40:55,043 --> 00:40:56,879 engineering actually building the solution. 488 00:40:56,879 --> 00:40:58,393 You got to be good at QA. 489 00:40:58,393 --> 00:40:59,917 You got to be good at support. 490 00:40:59,917 --> 00:41:01,743 Got to be good at documentation. 491 00:41:01,743 --> 00:41:03,547 Like it. 492 00:41:03,547 --> 00:41:05,287 yeah, you need a PMO to do that. 493 00:41:05,287 --> 00:41:15,049 yeah, those are some positions, obviously, you we see those as well, you know, a little bit less on the PMO side, but yeah, PMO, you know, a lot of the PMO projects are 494 00:41:15,049 --> 00:41:16,010 surrounding development. 495 00:41:16,010 --> 00:41:22,107 So that makes a lot of sense, you know, with the documentation, the QA requirements gathering, the whole nine. 496 00:41:22,107 --> 00:41:24,450 Yeah, it's a lot. 497 00:41:24,450 --> 00:41:26,074 Yeah, absolutely. 498 00:41:26,074 --> 00:41:27,196 is a lot. 499 00:41:27,196 --> 00:41:30,653 But yeah, it seems like the industry is healthy. 500 00:41:30,653 --> 00:41:32,477 It's on the uptick. 501 00:41:32,477 --> 00:41:34,470 It's an exciting time to be in it. 502 00:41:34,694 --> 00:41:36,734 Yeah, it really is. 503 00:41:36,994 --> 00:41:37,734 all right. 504 00:41:37,734 --> 00:41:39,954 So final question for you here. 505 00:41:39,954 --> 00:41:45,174 So how can candidates best position themselves in the marketplace? 506 00:41:45,174 --> 00:41:54,774 If somebody is, um, I think I told you the story again, I won't say the names, but I had a guest on the, so this is, this is one way you can position yourself. 507 00:41:54,774 --> 00:42:01,329 Get on a podcast like this, because I had, I had someone who a guest 508 00:42:01,329 --> 00:42:06,181 who was talking about all the amazing process work she was doing at her law firm. 509 00:42:06,182 --> 00:42:13,266 I had a previous guest of the podcast, like 20 episodes earlier, who became a fan and a listener. 510 00:42:13,266 --> 00:42:20,190 He heard that, went and sniped her and now she works with him and they both sent me thank you notes. 511 00:42:20,190 --> 00:42:27,694 I don't want the firm mad at me that she came from, so I won't say the name, but you know, that's obviously one thing is getting your name out there. 512 00:42:27,694 --> 00:42:29,883 What are some other things people can do to 513 00:42:29,883 --> 00:42:31,663 best position themselves. 514 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:33,141 Yeah, absolutely. 515 00:42:33,141 --> 00:42:42,115 I feel like take part in an IELTA, you know, even if you're part of like planning, you know, even if you don't want to speak that that's totally fine. 516 00:42:42,115 --> 00:42:43,635 You know, be part of that. 517 00:42:43,635 --> 00:42:57,431 Be part of, you know, any sort of group that's going to, you know, really put yourself out there, you know, where you're thinking, you know what, well, I can I can sort of maximize 518 00:42:57,431 --> 00:42:59,150 here and, you know, 519 00:42:59,150 --> 00:43:02,370 position myself as a potential candidate in the market. 520 00:43:02,490 --> 00:43:08,790 I always tell candidates the best time to make a move is when you're not actually looking. 521 00:43:09,950 --> 00:43:13,530 It's a scenario where connect with people on LinkedIn. 522 00:43:13,530 --> 00:43:15,900 You see what firms are hiring a lot. 523 00:43:15,900 --> 00:43:20,370 Connect with the CIO there so they know that you're out there and you're potentially willing to take a look. 524 00:43:20,370 --> 00:43:22,570 That's a good way to position yourself as well. 525 00:43:22,570 --> 00:43:25,460 It's just see what's going out there in the industry. 526 00:43:25,460 --> 00:43:28,421 Talk to individuals like myself, of course, because we 527 00:43:28,574 --> 00:43:37,877 we get the current before it hits and just really decide, listen, maybe I want a little bit of a more thorough LinkedIn profile. 528 00:43:37,978 --> 00:43:46,821 I think that's something like, get some of the keywords out there, even if you're not active that way, like you can be identified as potentially a good target for some people. 529 00:43:46,821 --> 00:43:50,632 And all it takes is one right opportunity and it makes it all worthwhile. 530 00:43:50,929 --> 00:43:51,490 Exactly. 531 00:43:51,490 --> 00:43:52,291 All right. 532 00:43:52,291 --> 00:43:59,650 So along those lines, since we're wrapping up here, how do people get in touch, find out more about what you do, that sort of stuff. 533 00:43:59,650 --> 00:44:00,530 Yeah, definitely. 534 00:44:00,530 --> 00:44:04,273 Hey, the best way, because as a recruiter, you always have to be on LinkedIn. 535 00:44:04,273 --> 00:44:05,644 Connect with me on LinkedIn. 536 00:44:05,644 --> 00:44:11,217 It's Jeff Zota, G-E-O-F-F, Zota, Z-O-D-D-A. 537 00:44:11,378 --> 00:44:12,319 Invite me to connect. 538 00:44:12,319 --> 00:44:14,220 I will happily connect with you. 539 00:44:14,220 --> 00:44:15,720 Reach out whenever you want. 540 00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:18,783 I always respond to messages. 541 00:44:18,783 --> 00:44:23,796 And yeah, I'm out and about, so feel free to reach out. 542 00:44:24,135 --> 00:44:24,775 stuff, man. 543 00:44:24,775 --> 00:44:27,015 Well, hey, I've really enjoyed the conversation. 544 00:44:27,015 --> 00:44:29,415 I appreciate you taking the time. 545 00:44:29,495 --> 00:44:31,338 Let's stay in touch. 546 00:44:31,338 --> 00:44:31,742 Absolutely. 547 00:44:31,742 --> 00:44:33,659 Let's talk some UNC hoops soon. 548 00:44:33,659 --> 00:44:34,701 Yeah, exactly. 549 00:44:34,701 --> 00:44:37,025 Good stuff, All right. 550 00:44:37,627 --> 00:44:37,988 All right. 551 00:44:37,988 --> 00:44:39,109 Have a good one. 552 00:44:39,531 --> 00:44:40,042 Take care. 553 00:44:40,042 --> 00:44:40,933 Bye bye. 00:00:03,746 Geoff, how are you this afternoon? 2 00:00:03,746 --> 00:00:05,467 Hey Ted, how are you doing today? 3 00:00:05,467 --> 00:00:06,578 I'm doing great, man. 4 00:00:06,578 --> 00:00:07,647 I'm doing great. 5 00:00:07,647 --> 00:00:15,253 I appreciate you spending a few minutes with me to talk about the legal tech job market. 6 00:00:15,327 --> 00:00:18,906 I looked at your background. 7 00:00:18,906 --> 00:00:25,600 You spent a lot of time in the staffing world, and it sounds like you're really legal focused. 8 00:00:25,761 --> 00:00:33,686 And I looked at some of the jobs that you guys fill in the legal space, and I think it aligns perfectly to our audience. 9 00:00:35,271 --> 00:00:43,295 I think you'll have some great insights to share for folks, but before we jump in, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and where you do it. 10 00:00:43,542 --> 00:00:44,492 Absolutely, absolutely. 11 00:00:44,492 --> 00:00:46,283 I appreciate it, Ted. 12 00:00:46,444 --> 00:00:52,768 I've been in the legal technology industry more or less since 2007, 2006. 13 00:00:52,768 --> 00:01:08,539 I started out at the Glenmont Group with Michael Potters, worked my way up there and then spent a good decade there and then moved over to Russell Tobin. 14 00:01:08,879 --> 00:01:13,048 And finally, I've been at Pearl since 2016. 15 00:01:13,048 --> 00:01:15,659 heading up our legal technology division. 16 00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:20,561 When you say I work extensively with law firms, you weren't kidding. 17 00:01:20,561 --> 00:01:32,426 I I work with AmLaw 200 firms building out their technology organizations from chief level and on down, working with stakeholders all across the globe. 18 00:01:32,426 --> 00:01:34,647 So it's so much fun. 19 00:01:35,368 --> 00:01:36,948 you know what makes it fun? 20 00:01:37,169 --> 00:01:40,550 Growing up, I always wanted to be a sports agent, right? 21 00:01:41,294 --> 00:01:47,654 The one thing that was holding me back from being a sports agent is the fact that you actually need a law degree in order to do that. 22 00:01:47,934 --> 00:01:54,534 And funny enough, now I'm in the legal industry placing attorneys and people with that type of background and I'm not a sports agent. 23 00:01:54,534 --> 00:01:56,274 So there we go. 24 00:01:56,274 --> 00:01:59,334 But that's how I've gotten to where I am today. 25 00:01:59,654 --> 00:02:06,292 And I've been at Pearl and it's a great group over here and I really enjoy working in this industry. 26 00:02:06,545 --> 00:02:08,816 Yeah, it's good stuff. 27 00:02:08,936 --> 00:02:12,678 so you, the last time you and I spoke, we chatted a little bit. 28 00:02:12,799 --> 00:02:26,066 I think it was right around the end of this or November, which was like the second anniversary of chat GPT, which seems like a million years ago, it's generative AI is like 29 00:02:26,066 --> 00:02:35,141 overtaken the headlines these days, especially in legal, which is understandable given that, you know, it's a, it's a language based. 30 00:02:35,195 --> 00:02:41,441 technology innovation and we haven't seen a ton of that in quite some time. 31 00:02:41,441 --> 00:02:48,487 like what really has changed in terms of invest attitudes towards investment? 32 00:02:48,487 --> 00:02:58,635 Have you seen purse strings open up at all since the advent of chat GPT and firms really trying to wrap their head about what, what to do with the tech? 33 00:02:59,082 --> 00:03:00,273 Oh, absolutely. 34 00:03:00,273 --> 00:03:00,703 Absolutely. 35 00:03:00,703 --> 00:03:09,241 I was going to say, you know, one of the things first and foremost are that firms are looking to invest in, you know, AI, you know, the chat GBTs. 36 00:03:09,241 --> 00:03:17,478 Once chat GBT was queued up, I feel like law firms felt like they had to take that and move it to the next level. 37 00:03:17,478 --> 00:03:21,902 Now, whether it's with a Microsoft product or whether it's with a Gemini. 38 00:03:22,014 --> 00:03:30,399 whether it's with OpenAI, there's so many different options out there that firms are really, really deciding what they want to do and how to implement it. 39 00:03:30,440 --> 00:03:34,322 And I feel like, know, Chatchi BT obviously was the springboard for that. 40 00:03:34,823 --> 00:03:49,383 Yeah, it seems like the Goldman report, is, I seem to reference in every podcast that came out and said that 44 % of legal tasks could be automated by gen AI really scared the hell 41 00:03:49,383 --> 00:03:56,043 out of people at the most senior levels, know, like executive committee level in law firms. 42 00:03:56,603 --> 00:04:01,343 know, historically law firms have underspent in, in tech. 43 00:04:01,425 --> 00:04:04,097 But by a pretty significant margin, that's not an opinion. 44 00:04:04,097 --> 00:04:05,738 There's data on this. 45 00:04:05,738 --> 00:04:16,605 When you compare the percentage of revenue that law firms spend versus other industries like financial services, it is dramatic. 46 00:04:18,927 --> 00:04:25,771 I feel like now there's a little bit of an attitude shift around that. 47 00:04:26,212 --> 00:04:31,565 Historically, it has felt like firms have really looked at 48 00:04:32,252 --> 00:04:39,300 looked at technology as a cost they need to manage rather than a strategic differentiator. 49 00:04:39,301 --> 00:04:42,896 And I don't know, it seems from where I sit that has changed. 50 00:04:42,896 --> 00:04:44,377 Is that your perspective? 51 00:04:44,974 --> 00:04:56,304 100 % I feel like especially when you're talking about the AmLaw law 100 you know and some of the you know boutique firms that are really doing very well. 52 00:04:56,304 --> 00:05:06,164 I feel like they they feel like they have to up the ante, take the next steps really differentiate themselves by investing in technology. 53 00:05:06,164 --> 00:05:13,446 Keeping the lights on isn't enough for these firms now so they want to make sure that they're doing something in order to 54 00:05:13,506 --> 00:05:20,695 you know, differentiate themselves, like I said, and make sure that they're sort of setting the standard from that perspective. 55 00:05:20,756 --> 00:05:28,766 And I feel like there are some firms that are definitely standing out and firms that are making huge investments in this area in order to make do on 56 00:05:28,999 --> 00:05:45,239 Yeah, you know, I'm still not seeing a ton of C-suite roles that have AI in the title, which I don't even know that that's necessarily needed, but I have seen a few. 57 00:05:45,979 --> 00:05:48,719 There's one firm that has a chief AI officer. 58 00:05:48,719 --> 00:05:52,579 I'm not sure, they might be AMLO 200, but not huge. 59 00:05:52,579 --> 00:05:55,689 I see a lot of like chief knowledge and AI officer. 60 00:05:55,689 --> 00:05:57,259 I see a lot of... 61 00:05:58,597 --> 00:06:02,684 roles with the title AI in it, but really not in the C-suite. 62 00:06:02,684 --> 00:06:03,885 What are you seeing? 63 00:06:04,088 --> 00:06:06,219 Yeah, that's a very good point. 64 00:06:06,219 --> 00:06:07,901 I'm seeing the same exact thing. 65 00:06:07,901 --> 00:06:18,148 I feel like when it comes to the chief title, firms, unless you really have a group that's dedicated and the whole group is dedicated to AI alone, you're probably not going to have 66 00:06:18,148 --> 00:06:19,569 that sort of title. 67 00:06:19,569 --> 00:06:21,670 You're more so going to have the innovation. 68 00:06:21,670 --> 00:06:29,376 I see innovation with the chief a lot more than you're seeing like knowledge management because innovation opens up the possibilities. 69 00:06:29,376 --> 00:06:33,258 Knowledge management is a little bit boxed in as far as the title is concerned. 70 00:06:33,474 --> 00:06:38,770 So a lot of firms are going Chief Innovation and Knowledge Solutions or Chief Innovation Officer. 71 00:06:38,770 --> 00:06:41,022 You're seeing a lot more CNOs. 72 00:06:41,584 --> 00:06:50,353 But yeah, you don't see too many firms that have the AI just because there's not enough bodies that are underneath that dedicated to AI in order to do that. 73 00:06:51,111 --> 00:07:06,131 Yeah, I just read an article today on law.com about a survey that was done by the Blixene group, Brad Blixene and FTI Consulting. 74 00:07:06,131 --> 00:07:19,439 And in the report, 62 % of inside counsel either mostly disagreed or strongly disagreed that their law firms are innovative, which 75 00:07:19,483 --> 00:07:20,904 Doesn't surprise me. 76 00:07:20,904 --> 00:07:31,733 Um, you know, I feel like there's been a lot of innovation theater in, in legal where, and, and, know, I'm, I've been in, in the cam space for a long time. 77 00:07:31,733 --> 00:07:41,481 Have a lot of good friends who are on the law firm side and know a few where the word innovation popped up and, but the role really didn't change. 78 00:07:41,481 --> 00:07:48,647 Um, so I, I feel like law firms are battling, they have a perception battle. 79 00:07:48,647 --> 00:07:53,317 on their hands with because things move so slow and legal. 80 00:07:53,317 --> 00:07:57,957 So it sounds like, you know, maybe maybe that's starting to change. 81 00:07:57,957 --> 00:08:01,527 Maybe some of this innovation theater that's been taking place will turn it. 82 00:08:01,527 --> 00:08:03,927 And that's obviously not true across the board. 83 00:08:03,927 --> 00:08:12,807 There are innovation teams within the Amlo that are doing really amazing, innovative things to transform the practice of law. 84 00:08:12,807 --> 00:08:17,839 But historically, I mean, that's been the perception is law firms don't 85 00:08:17,839 --> 00:08:18,634 aren't innovative. 86 00:08:18,634 --> 00:08:20,290 Do you agree with that? 87 00:08:21,314 --> 00:08:32,697 But that's a, you I think you made some really good points on whether firms are, I feel like firms are taking the steps now to take the innovation ideas that were out there or 88 00:08:32,697 --> 00:08:36,779 sort of road mapped and now sort of deploying these. 89 00:08:37,398 --> 00:08:43,501 taken a while, but I feel like firms are definitely taking the steps towards actually doing something about it. 90 00:08:44,661 --> 00:08:47,872 You know, there's been a lot of changes that I feel like. 91 00:08:48,014 --> 00:08:54,634 due to some stuff that's going on with the economy now and some of the rising in that area. 92 00:08:54,634 --> 00:08:58,474 I feel like firms feel a little bit more secure in the investment. 93 00:08:59,174 --> 00:09:10,064 When we were coming in 2022 or 2023, firms were a little remiss to make that huge investment because once you delve in, it's hard to back out. 94 00:09:10,064 --> 00:09:12,954 So you need to be 100 % sure that you're going all in. 95 00:09:12,954 --> 00:09:18,036 It's like poker, if you're going all in, you better believe that you have the cards to win. 96 00:09:18,036 --> 00:09:19,171 If not, you're not going to do it. 97 00:09:19,171 --> 00:09:21,128 You'll lose all your money quick. 98 00:09:21,595 --> 00:09:24,096 Yeah, I mean, that's a good segue. 99 00:09:24,096 --> 00:09:34,902 One of the things I wanted to talk about was how the economic conditions out there have influenced law firm budgets and tech budgets and staffing. 100 00:09:34,902 --> 00:09:43,967 And law firms are highly sensitive to, and rightly so, to head and tail winds in the economy. 101 00:09:43,967 --> 00:09:51,511 Because when things start to tighten up, one of the first areas that big 102 00:09:51,783 --> 00:09:54,965 corporations that are the big buyers of legal services. 103 00:09:54,965 --> 00:10:01,129 One of the places they look to for savings is on outside council. 104 00:10:02,070 --> 00:10:17,561 But it feels like the pendulum has swung back a little bit, like 20, post COVID when the Fed dumped trillions of dollars of liquidity into the markets or into the economy. 105 00:10:17,561 --> 00:10:21,447 And we had kind of the growth at all costs. 106 00:10:21,447 --> 00:10:31,577 with, you know, SaaS companies like us spending tons of money on go-to-market activities without really managing expenses. 107 00:10:31,577 --> 00:10:39,667 And then inflation hit, pendulum swung back in the other direction, things really tightened up in late 22 and early 23. 108 00:10:39,667 --> 00:10:47,567 And now I feel like we're somewhere in the middle, maybe even trending towards a more bullish scenario. 109 00:10:47,607 --> 00:10:50,833 And that impacts 110 00:10:50,833 --> 00:10:54,028 hiring and is it, are you seeing that? 111 00:10:54,656 --> 00:10:55,547 Absolutely. 112 00:10:55,547 --> 00:10:57,548 I mean, you couldn't have said it better. 113 00:10:57,548 --> 00:11:01,731 I feel like the pendulum sort of swung in the direction. 114 00:11:02,066 --> 00:11:13,161 I would say, you know, the second half of this past year, you know, even past like Q1 of this year where it's trending, where firms are opening up a lot more positions. 115 00:11:13,902 --> 00:11:18,526 There's a lot more, you know, mobility that's going on, promotion from within. 116 00:11:18,526 --> 00:11:23,192 You're seeing a lot of that, which is creating new positions within the firms itself. 117 00:11:23,192 --> 00:11:25,973 can't promote from within without opening up a new position. 118 00:11:25,973 --> 00:11:29,415 So that's always a beautiful thing when firms have the ability to do that. 119 00:11:29,415 --> 00:11:38,615 So you're seeing that you're seeing vertical moves, you know, within the within the industry, you're seeing lateral moves, which is always nice, which means there's something 120 00:11:38,615 --> 00:11:48,442 that's driving someone to move, you know, whether it's compensation increases, whether it's, you know, new technologies that are being brought by by the new firm that a person 121 00:11:48,442 --> 00:11:53,034 might go to new opportunities, whenever whenever there's movement. 122 00:11:53,068 --> 00:11:56,460 and people not getting let go, that's a great thing. 123 00:11:56,460 --> 00:12:01,823 When you see people getting let go and positions not being backfilled, that's when there's trouble. 124 00:12:01,823 --> 00:12:06,363 But you're seeing the second half of this year, a lot of good mobility. 125 00:12:06,363 --> 00:12:06,864 Yeah. 126 00:12:06,864 --> 00:12:14,023 Well, and you know, I had a short stint, like I told you in the staff hog world with tech systems. 127 00:12:14,023 --> 00:12:16,992 I mean, it was literally, what's that? 128 00:12:18,213 --> 00:12:20,215 No, it's no, it's not. 129 00:12:20,215 --> 00:12:26,810 you know, they like it's a, you know, it flows downhill, right? 130 00:12:26,810 --> 00:12:34,767 So corporations tighten up, they, they start to manage outside legal spend law firms tighten up. 131 00:12:34,767 --> 00:12:38,191 I would imagine placements go down significantly. 132 00:12:38,191 --> 00:12:45,149 So you're on the front edge of seeing how bullish or bearish these firms are. 133 00:12:45,149 --> 00:12:51,366 And it sounds like they're starting to move in the direction of optimism. 134 00:12:51,366 --> 00:12:53,067 Is that accurate? 135 00:12:53,742 --> 00:12:55,003 Absolutely, absolutely. 136 00:12:55,003 --> 00:13:02,590 We've been getting calls lately, you know, from clients or potential clients, you know, that are demoing AI tools. 137 00:13:02,590 --> 00:13:06,893 So they're looking for adoption of AI tools and machine learning. 138 00:13:06,893 --> 00:13:11,267 And, you know, here's what we're looking for, very specific stuff. 139 00:13:11,267 --> 00:13:17,462 So when you have the specifics out there, that means probably that they purchase these tools, which is always a good thing. 140 00:13:17,462 --> 00:13:22,826 So that shows that obviously, when projects are going on and programs and 141 00:13:22,990 --> 00:13:26,133 different deployments, the staffing has to come behind that. 142 00:13:26,133 --> 00:13:27,654 You can't do it without the bodies. 143 00:13:27,654 --> 00:13:37,383 Of course, you could have an MSP or an augment, but a lot of times you want to keep the knowledge, especially when it's AI and new next generation stuff, you want to keep that 144 00:13:37,383 --> 00:13:41,286 knowledge in house if you can and just really hold on to it. 145 00:13:41,735 --> 00:13:42,316 That makes sense. 146 00:13:42,316 --> 00:13:45,641 What areas of tech are you seeing the most growth? 147 00:13:45,641 --> 00:13:47,123 Like you mentioned machine learning. 148 00:13:47,123 --> 00:13:49,887 would imagine data science. 149 00:13:49,887 --> 00:13:52,591 I'm seeing a lot more data teams. 150 00:13:52,591 --> 00:13:55,555 What's growing in legal right now? 151 00:13:55,618 --> 00:13:58,169 Yeah, data science is a huge area. 152 00:13:58,169 --> 00:14:00,419 mean, and that's an area I love recruiting in as well. 153 00:14:00,419 --> 00:14:08,181 It's like a lot of fun because there's so many different directions within data science that you could actually like take a different department. 154 00:14:08,181 --> 00:14:15,664 You have the analytics aspect where you're really visualizing the information, you're intaking it, you're calling the data. 155 00:14:15,664 --> 00:14:19,825 You have the data science part where you're actually modeling it. 156 00:14:19,825 --> 00:14:24,962 You're making business decisions and you're forecasting. 157 00:14:24,962 --> 00:14:26,523 based upon data. 158 00:14:26,523 --> 00:14:33,717 mean, how incredible is that that you have the opportunity to do that and you have people that can actually do that and technology that can assist in that. 159 00:14:33,717 --> 00:14:45,134 So, you know, to have that in-house where you can help and almost have a McKinsey or a Deloitte where you don't necessarily need, you know, the third party to help you. 160 00:14:45,134 --> 00:14:48,502 You have your own staff that's going to help make these decisions. 161 00:14:48,502 --> 00:14:50,438 You know, that's a beautiful thing right there. 162 00:14:50,438 --> 00:14:51,318 So, 163 00:14:52,050 --> 00:15:00,935 To answer your question without being too long-winded, we're seeing data science, that's a huge area, to build out of that. 164 00:15:00,935 --> 00:15:02,837 Cloud is a big area, of course. 165 00:15:02,837 --> 00:15:11,842 Everybody's taking the infrastructure, the applications, they're slowly but surely moving that to the cloud, whether it's Azure or AWS. 166 00:15:11,842 --> 00:15:14,774 And there's just a lot of great things happening within the industry. 167 00:15:14,774 --> 00:15:19,202 Call me an optimist, but I can feel that sort of fluff. 168 00:15:19,591 --> 00:15:23,992 Yeah, I mean we, so we launched, we used to be a consulting organization called Acrowire. 169 00:15:23,992 --> 00:15:31,734 We rebranded and launched as a product company three years ago and we only run in the cloud. 170 00:15:31,734 --> 00:15:34,505 We literally can't run on prem. 171 00:15:34,505 --> 00:15:34,985 Yeah. 172 00:15:34,985 --> 00:15:38,036 So, uh, and that's, that's the way of the future. 173 00:15:38,036 --> 00:15:43,998 And we've had to say no, I mean a couple of times to be some big firms who wanted us to run on prem. 174 00:15:43,998 --> 00:15:47,571 And it's like, you know, it's, it's not where the puck is going. 175 00:15:47,571 --> 00:15:48,647 So, 176 00:15:48,647 --> 00:15:56,756 you know, all our chips are on the future and the cloud is it, but man, it took way longer than it should have. 177 00:15:56,756 --> 00:16:05,417 Like I was out beating the cloud drum literally in like 2013 I did, or maybe it was 2014, a bunch of road shows. 178 00:16:05,417 --> 00:16:12,687 was doing webinars on back then it was called office 365, why you needed to move to SharePoint online and exchange online. 179 00:16:12,687 --> 00:16:17,675 And that went exactly nowhere until literally 180 00:16:17,675 --> 00:16:21,527 shortly after COVID big Amla firm started to move in earnest. 181 00:16:21,527 --> 00:16:27,622 There were a few who moved messaging into the cloud earlier because I'm sure there's people out there saying, wait a second. 182 00:16:27,622 --> 00:16:28,042 would, yeah. 183 00:16:28,042 --> 00:16:28,442 Okay. 184 00:16:28,442 --> 00:16:36,728 You had exchange pre COVID, but firms are really just now moving those ancillary workloads and it's not all the firm's fault. 185 00:16:36,728 --> 00:16:43,813 A lot of the vendors, like on the practice management side, those solutions are still on prem elite, elite and adorant expert are still on prem. 186 00:16:43,813 --> 00:16:47,205 They are now starting to move. 187 00:16:47,299 --> 00:16:48,620 in earnest to the cloud. 188 00:16:48,620 --> 00:16:52,822 yeah, so our chips are on the table, man. 189 00:16:52,822 --> 00:16:54,723 It's cloud or bust for us. 190 00:16:54,723 --> 00:16:55,524 And you know what? 191 00:16:55,524 --> 00:16:57,084 Business is good. 192 00:16:57,084 --> 00:16:59,055 So we're growing like leaps and bounds. 193 00:16:59,055 --> 00:17:02,307 So it's happening for real, finally. 194 00:17:02,392 --> 00:17:05,076 Well, you're definitely practicing what you're preaching, right? 195 00:17:05,076 --> 00:17:12,948 So if you're telling your clients, listen, let's integrate, let's innovate, and then you're on-prem. 196 00:17:12,948 --> 00:17:14,940 I mean, what does that say in itself? 197 00:17:15,463 --> 00:17:16,303 It's a great point. 198 00:17:16,303 --> 00:17:17,103 It's a great point. 199 00:17:17,103 --> 00:17:30,153 In fact, I'm not going to say any names, but, um, there's a law firm who has a subsidiary that's really focused on innovation and they're, they're on prem. 200 00:17:30,153 --> 00:17:33,943 Um, they're finally moving to the cloud, but for a good bit they weren't. 201 00:17:33,943 --> 00:17:38,343 And I was like, man, that's a bit of a, that's a bit of a conflict. 202 00:17:38,343 --> 00:17:42,521 Um, but they did a lot of work in financial services. 203 00:17:42,559 --> 00:17:46,391 And financial services is, which I spent 10 years at Bank of America. 204 00:17:46,391 --> 00:17:49,902 know that world, that world really well. 205 00:17:49,902 --> 00:18:00,947 And in fact, I was in like corporate audit, anti-money laundering, regulatory relations, consumer risk, all on the risk side of the house and regulators and are, just make things 206 00:18:00,947 --> 00:18:02,808 really difficult for big banks. 207 00:18:02,808 --> 00:18:08,070 So managing third party counter risk, which law firms fall into that category. 208 00:18:08,070 --> 00:18:11,681 A lot of times it was the clients holding them back from going to the cloud. 209 00:18:12,322 --> 00:18:20,627 Absolutely, yeah, you see it time and time again, depending upon who your client is, depends upon how innovative you might be able to get. 210 00:18:20,627 --> 00:18:28,912 You see some of the firms that are working with the big financial services companies, and they're probably a little less likely to get a little bit innovative as opposed to 211 00:18:28,912 --> 00:18:40,458 organizations that are working with venture capital firms or pre-IPOs where you don't have necessarily FINRA or the SEC looking at things. 212 00:18:40,596 --> 00:18:44,372 sort of, you know, let's go with the flow and let's develop some stuff. 213 00:18:44,721 --> 00:18:49,644 Yeah, the regulated industries make it difficult. 214 00:18:49,644 --> 00:18:51,655 They present challenges. 215 00:18:51,655 --> 00:18:59,520 How much of competitive pressures between firms are driving the innovation? 216 00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:03,222 We talked earlier about firms trying to differentiate themselves. 217 00:19:03,222 --> 00:19:05,073 Eventually, Gen. 218 00:19:05,073 --> 00:19:06,844 AI is going to be table stakes. 219 00:19:06,844 --> 00:19:10,286 It's not yet today, but it will be at some point. 220 00:19:10,387 --> 00:19:11,633 are you seeing 221 00:19:11,633 --> 00:19:19,983 competition among firms in terms of trying to compete and waving that innovation flag. 222 00:19:20,578 --> 00:19:23,460 Yeah, I feel like firms don't want to get left behind. 223 00:19:23,460 --> 00:19:32,925 They don't want to be named, you know, as far as like, you know, the organization that just hasn't gotten around to doing it, or they haven't come up with the with the right 224 00:19:32,925 --> 00:19:33,785 sauce yet. 225 00:19:33,785 --> 00:19:42,010 I feel like, especially, you know, it's not competitive apples to apples where you have firm A wanting to compete with firm B. 226 00:19:42,010 --> 00:19:49,494 But when you're dealing with different tiers of firms, or, you know, firms that are in life sciences or 227 00:19:49,840 --> 00:19:58,866 &A work, you know, they're going to want to keep up with firms that are, you know, may be in competition for the same clients or, you know, different caseloads because I think that 228 00:19:58,866 --> 00:20:01,110 that could be a differentiator right now. 229 00:20:01,110 --> 00:20:09,607 In the future it might not be once it becomes more of a template as opposed to like, you know, a differentiator, but for right now I do feel like it could be a differentiator. 230 00:20:09,607 --> 00:20:10,427 Yeah. 231 00:20:10,427 --> 00:20:25,167 What about what, what you mentioned data science and obviously gen AI, but like looking forward, maybe let's say to the first half of 2025, like for, folks that are maybe on the 232 00:20:25,167 --> 00:20:37,223 business of law side, um, what are some areas that you anticipate continued or expanded growth for new roles, for new opportunities? 233 00:20:38,126 --> 00:20:45,646 So I think firms that really play in the high tech area. 234 00:20:45,646 --> 00:20:55,146 think that if you're working in the high tech area and you have practice groups surrounding that, you're going to need to keep up with the Joneses. 235 00:20:55,146 --> 00:21:03,766 It's just plain and simple where if you don't do that, that's where it can cost you a potential client if you're considered cutting edge. 236 00:21:04,046 --> 00:21:08,238 If you're working with Big Bank, 237 00:21:08,238 --> 00:21:09,599 It's not gonna matter so much. 238 00:21:09,599 --> 00:21:12,081 It's really not gonna be a differentiator. 239 00:21:12,081 --> 00:21:14,683 They're gonna look at the attorneys they've always worked with. 240 00:21:14,683 --> 00:21:16,715 Hey, let's continue to work with this firm. 241 00:21:16,715 --> 00:21:28,354 But when you're talking about high tech, you're talking about intellectual property stuff where it does rely upon a lot of data. 242 00:21:28,375 --> 00:21:37,662 Any industry that relies upon a ton of data being input and filtered out, those are gonna be the areas where the firms are gonna rely upon more on the high techs. 243 00:21:38,023 --> 00:21:49,973 Well, for like, let's say somebody in KM or innovation and they're looking for lateral or upward mobility, like what, sort of skills should they be developing besides the obvious, 244 00:21:49,973 --> 00:21:50,313 right? 245 00:21:50,313 --> 00:21:58,479 Like, I mean, obviously you need to be familiar with AI, but I mean, are you still seeing like, but you know, it's funny machine learning has been around forever. 246 00:21:58,580 --> 00:22:07,667 And you know, we don't hear about it as much, but like, I'm sure there's still opportunities in that realm too, or, 247 00:22:07,936 --> 00:22:12,466 What sort of skills should like individuals be thinking about for mobility purposes? 248 00:22:12,654 --> 00:22:23,018 So if I'm a person that's growing in my career and I really like data and I like data science, you really want the scripting and the automation there. 249 00:22:23,379 --> 00:22:27,000 I think that, you know, Python's become such a big thing. 250 00:22:27,701 --> 00:22:38,926 You know, that whole stack that PyTorch, you know, like there's just a ton of stuff within there where, you know, if you really get a feel on like the actual coding and the 251 00:22:38,926 --> 00:22:40,086 automation. 252 00:22:40,408 --> 00:22:43,099 there's going to be a lot of opportunities in front of you. 253 00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:52,945 Plain and simple, think that that's an area where I've seen, you know, we've placed people in this area specifically with, you know, AmLaw 50 firms, where if they have that skill 254 00:22:52,945 --> 00:23:02,424 set and they're working with AI and ML, you know, and that's an area where you can learn or you can raise your hand in your organization and say, hey, listen, no one's doing this 255 00:23:02,424 --> 00:23:03,591 right now at the firm. 256 00:23:03,591 --> 00:23:05,411 I'd love to take a course. 257 00:23:05,492 --> 00:23:09,794 You want to align yourself with people that have these sort of skill sets as well. 258 00:23:09,816 --> 00:23:15,942 that are in the community that you may know and find out how they've gotten from point A to point B. 259 00:23:16,465 --> 00:23:17,186 That's okay. 260 00:23:17,186 --> 00:23:21,620 That's a great segue into my next question, which is at Bank of America. 261 00:23:21,620 --> 00:23:25,103 I always had a mentor, right? 262 00:23:25,103 --> 00:23:31,629 Um, so I was there almost 10 years and, I'm just naturally a good networker. 263 00:23:31,629 --> 00:23:33,811 know not everybody is. 264 00:23:33,832 --> 00:23:35,893 It's a genuine, like I love to meet people. 265 00:23:35,893 --> 00:23:38,826 That's why I'm good at a pod hosting a podcast. 266 00:23:38,826 --> 00:23:40,688 Like I don't have any training in this. 267 00:23:40,688 --> 00:23:41,989 Like I, 268 00:23:41,989 --> 00:23:49,886 I, and it was never a goal of mine, but I genuinely enjoy conversations like this and getting to know people. 269 00:23:49,907 --> 00:23:51,548 And that makes it easy for me. 270 00:23:51,548 --> 00:23:53,350 It's not easy for everybody though. 271 00:23:53,350 --> 00:23:54,050 You know what I mean? 272 00:23:54,050 --> 00:23:56,653 It's like some people get super anxious. 273 00:23:56,653 --> 00:24:03,460 Um, but you know, from where I sit is you really need to push yourself. 274 00:24:03,460 --> 00:24:07,703 If you want to grow, grow comes from being uncomfortable. 275 00:24:07,771 --> 00:24:09,743 growth comes from being uncomfortable, right? 276 00:24:09,743 --> 00:24:12,676 If you stay in your comfort zone, you're, you're, you're not growing. 277 00:24:13,037 --> 00:24:15,139 my wife and I own five gyms here in St. 278 00:24:15,139 --> 00:24:19,824 Louis and that's like on the wall at all five of these gyms, right? 279 00:24:19,824 --> 00:24:24,830 Like growth is growth is in your, growth is not in your comfort zone. 280 00:24:24,830 --> 00:24:26,133 Um, 281 00:24:26,133 --> 00:24:26,624 absolutely. 282 00:24:26,624 --> 00:24:30,288 Not everybody has it their DNA to, you know, to do that. 283 00:24:30,288 --> 00:24:39,228 But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, it's something that like, even if you're uncomfortable, and, you know, even if you're a little bit of an introvert, you know, that 284 00:24:39,228 --> 00:24:42,852 doesn't mean that you necessarily need to avoid this, right? 285 00:24:43,845 --> 00:24:44,255 Yeah. 286 00:24:44,255 --> 00:24:45,006 And you know what? 287 00:24:45,006 --> 00:24:46,837 I'm not like a full extrovert. 288 00:24:46,837 --> 00:24:51,928 Like, you know, it's a spectrum that you've got introvert and I think they call them ambiverts or omnivert. 289 00:24:51,928 --> 00:24:52,062 Yeah. 290 00:24:52,062 --> 00:24:54,594 I think it's ambiverts, but I'm kind of in the middle. 291 00:24:54,594 --> 00:24:56,575 Like I really enjoy this kind of stuff. 292 00:24:56,575 --> 00:25:04,882 But after I go to like Ilta con, for example, like I want to be in a dark room by myself for like three days. 293 00:25:04,882 --> 00:25:06,813 Like it just drains me. 294 00:25:06,813 --> 00:25:09,485 Some people come back energized from that. 295 00:25:09,585 --> 00:25:19,953 but you know, it's like a ton of meetings and I'm usually presenting and there's parties after the show and I'm, I'm wiped out, man. 296 00:25:19,953 --> 00:25:20,743 So. 297 00:25:20,870 --> 00:25:21,723 Yeah, absolutely. 298 00:25:21,723 --> 00:25:25,485 You need to be in like an Aaron Rodgers dark room or something like that. 299 00:25:25,783 --> 00:25:26,443 Exactly. 300 00:25:26,443 --> 00:25:26,643 Yeah. 301 00:25:26,643 --> 00:25:31,165 I tell my wife, I'm like, don't like, please take care of the kids. 302 00:25:31,165 --> 00:25:36,646 Like I'm going to go just decompress for a little bit, but it, do think it's really important. 303 00:25:36,646 --> 00:25:47,640 Um, where I was headed with that was like, I think it's important to have mentors and you know, I always did when I was the period of time where I was in the corporate world, how 304 00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:53,111 important is that in the legal space and how to, how would people go about finding one? 305 00:25:53,326 --> 00:25:58,836 Yeah, I mean if you ask most people that are at the C level now, they'll say that they had a mentor. 306 00:25:58,836 --> 00:26:01,965 So that just shows how important it is. 307 00:26:02,066 --> 00:26:04,266 It's not the easiest thing to find a mentor. 308 00:26:04,266 --> 00:26:06,436 I mean, they don't grow on trees. 309 00:26:06,436 --> 00:26:09,386 There's not people that are always willing to do it. 310 00:26:09,386 --> 00:26:20,186 I think that you need to find someone that's like-minded and it's as easy as sending an email on LinkedIn or connecting with someone and just saying, know, hey, I love your work 311 00:26:20,186 --> 00:26:22,086 or great article and... 312 00:26:22,210 --> 00:26:29,312 people understand if you're genuine about something, I think they'll put the time aside to make the time to take you under their wing. 313 00:26:30,151 --> 00:26:37,594 You know, and I feel like a lot of people, especially in the legal technology industry, and this is part of the reason why I love recruiting in it, a lot of people are selfless, 314 00:26:37,594 --> 00:26:42,335 where they do want to take time to give back or pay forward. 315 00:26:42,335 --> 00:26:50,858 And you know, that's a great thing, you know, and I feel like the best way to find a mentor is just to take a chance, reach out to someone that maybe you look up to, whether 316 00:26:50,858 --> 00:26:52,128 you know them or not. 317 00:26:52,248 --> 00:26:57,340 You know, I think it's probably better if you're in the same city as someone or if you're part of a group. 318 00:26:57,340 --> 00:27:05,044 I know that different cities have innovation groups or, you know, legal technology like, you know, coffee or whatever the case may be. 319 00:27:05,044 --> 00:27:07,675 You know, I've seen some stuff for the holidays out there. 320 00:27:07,675 --> 00:27:13,428 You so there are groups out there that exist where you can find someone that will want to take you under their wing. 321 00:27:13,428 --> 00:27:18,470 But first things first is identifying what you want to be and then you can find a mentor that way. 322 00:27:18,747 --> 00:27:19,147 Yeah. 323 00:27:19,147 --> 00:27:26,353 And you know, I've always found a good approach for engaging is finding common ground. 324 00:27:26,353 --> 00:27:29,596 could be something as simple as where you went to school. 325 00:27:29,596 --> 00:27:35,881 Like, um, I was talking to, um, Avani, she's the CEO at Laterra. 326 00:27:35,881 --> 00:27:44,028 He was, we just recorded an episode, so he, he, will have been released by the time, um, this episode gets released. 327 00:27:44,028 --> 00:27:47,781 And then we, he, he's a big UNC fan. 328 00:27:48,011 --> 00:27:53,816 And, you know, it was just common ground that we had and, know, that common ground goes pretty deep. 329 00:27:53,816 --> 00:27:56,768 Like I went to school there, I got married on campus. 330 00:27:56,768 --> 00:28:03,333 Like I watch every basketball game, even if I don't see it live, I record it and I watch every play. 331 00:28:03,372 --> 00:28:05,493 I'm a UNC basketball fan too, actually. 332 00:28:05,493 --> 00:28:06,544 So there you go. 333 00:28:06,544 --> 00:28:08,944 Yeah, there you go. 334 00:28:08,965 --> 00:28:14,777 Back from the Hubert Davis days, know, Stackhouse, Wallace, Vince Carter. 335 00:28:14,777 --> 00:28:21,300 mean, they, you know, I can't say I was a fan when MJ was there, but otherwise, you know. 336 00:28:21,767 --> 00:28:24,969 actually was, but I was young. 337 00:28:24,969 --> 00:28:25,630 let's see. 338 00:28:25,630 --> 00:28:27,709 So he, they, they want it. 339 00:28:27,709 --> 00:28:29,492 That was like 82. 340 00:28:29,492 --> 00:28:31,193 So I was 10. 341 00:28:31,193 --> 00:28:37,418 So I got into the heels because I, I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia and you're either a Virginia or a North Carolina fan. 342 00:28:37,418 --> 00:28:39,759 It's like right, literally right on the border. 343 00:28:39,759 --> 00:28:48,736 So I do remember, um, that championship against Georgetown, but you know, it was always a dream to go to school there. 344 00:28:48,736 --> 00:28:51,577 And when I did, it was amazing, but you know, 345 00:28:51,577 --> 00:28:54,268 It doesn't have to be like where you went to school. 346 00:28:54,268 --> 00:28:57,680 could be a common interest that you have, right? 347 00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:06,994 Like, you know, there's so much, I, you know, I, I sometimes get called an AI expert, like, but I'm, really not, I'm, I'm, I'm an enthusiast. 348 00:29:06,994 --> 00:29:09,835 I read about it a ton, right? 349 00:29:09,835 --> 00:29:14,337 So I'm always reading new papers when they come out, I follow the thought leaders in the space. 350 00:29:14,337 --> 00:29:17,928 I'm always experimenting with it, um, which is a good time. 351 00:29:17,928 --> 00:29:19,491 It could be something like that. 352 00:29:19,491 --> 00:29:28,675 as well to find common ground to just say, Hey man, I saw that post you, you did about, you know, the new version of llama three. 353 00:29:28,675 --> 00:29:30,766 And I think that's some really cool stuff that you're doing. 354 00:29:30,766 --> 00:29:33,371 I'd love to learn more about it, strike up a conversation. 355 00:29:33,371 --> 00:29:39,939 And then once you build some rapport, you can, you can ask if they'd be willing to meet with you periodically. 356 00:29:40,578 --> 00:29:48,663 Absolutely, yeah that stuff doesn't happen overnight, but if you put the time in there is the common interest You know you will definitely like strike a chord with someone that 357 00:29:48,663 --> 00:29:58,009 does have some common interest some common values And that's how relationships are built up, but I couldn't agree more that like it's open in this industry You know if you if you 358 00:29:58,009 --> 00:29:59,227 find the right person 359 00:29:59,227 --> 00:29:59,677 Totally. 360 00:29:59,677 --> 00:30:00,458 Yeah. 361 00:30:00,458 --> 00:30:14,570 What about like folks who are thinking about again, lateral or upward mobility and finding whatever could be practice areas or firms that what's the, like, how should people be 362 00:30:14,570 --> 00:30:16,862 thinking about the next step? 363 00:30:16,862 --> 00:30:24,589 Like, is it, you know, I, I don't think like just finding a bigger law firm to work for is the right approach. 364 00:30:24,589 --> 00:30:27,271 I mean, yeah, you might be able to 365 00:30:27,277 --> 00:30:31,533 learn a few new things as law firms scale. 366 00:30:31,915 --> 00:30:35,742 like, I don't know, personally, I think culture is really important. 367 00:30:35,742 --> 00:30:41,941 What should people be thinking about when they're charting their mobility path? 368 00:30:42,128 --> 00:30:42,718 absolutely. 369 00:30:42,718 --> 00:30:50,423 I I think it's a matter of who you're going to be working for and who you're going to be working with. 370 00:30:51,083 --> 00:30:56,126 That's the biggest question you always have to ask yourself when you're interviewing is, would I want to work with this group? 371 00:30:56,126 --> 00:31:00,979 But not only that, say that you're, for example, in the AI team, right? 372 00:31:00,979 --> 00:31:03,190 You're the so-called AI team. 373 00:31:03,651 --> 00:31:06,552 What are the developers like that I would be working with? 374 00:31:06,712 --> 00:31:10,104 What are the applications manager that's work, you know, that's 375 00:31:10,104 --> 00:31:17,356 you know, the peripheral teams that you have to deal with on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, am I going to enjoy working with them? 376 00:31:17,516 --> 00:31:25,908 And I would even go as far as saying like during an interview process, you don't want the process to be too long, but you do want to meet with some people that, you know, you may 377 00:31:25,908 --> 00:31:36,241 not work with daily, you know, they may be peers, but people that like your happiness is going to depend upon like, you know, your interactions with them or not. 378 00:31:36,261 --> 00:31:38,744 So I would say the people. 379 00:31:38,744 --> 00:31:48,007 you know, the firm culture, you know, just like, you know, every firm is a bit different, you know, each sham law 10 firms a bit different, you know, every firm has their own 380 00:31:48,007 --> 00:31:48,397 flavor. 381 00:31:48,397 --> 00:31:52,278 So it's finding, you know, what you're looking for in your next step. 382 00:31:52,498 --> 00:31:54,609 know, compensation doesn't do everything. 383 00:31:54,609 --> 00:32:02,931 So you want to look at, know, once, once you get your paycheck at the end of the week, what's driving you, what's going to make you happy, you know, what's going to you spend so 384 00:32:02,931 --> 00:32:05,688 much time at work, you know, what's going to, you know, 385 00:32:05,688 --> 00:32:12,552 put you in a good mood going home on a given day, know, versus like, hey, like I need my day bright enough, you know, that sort of scenario. 386 00:32:12,967 --> 00:32:13,567 Yeah. 387 00:32:13,567 --> 00:32:22,727 What, how much variation are you seeing in like organizational design and titles across firms? 388 00:32:22,727 --> 00:32:23,967 Like from where I sit. 389 00:32:23,967 --> 00:32:32,887 in the 16 years that I've been selling in the KM and, and, and IT, uh, we've worked with over 110 AM law firms. 390 00:32:32,887 --> 00:32:36,207 So a huge number more than more than half. 391 00:32:36,857 --> 00:32:43,653 It seems like everybody does it different, like from an organizational design perspective, like sometimes AI sits in cam. 392 00:32:43,653 --> 00:32:46,095 Sometimes AI sits in innovation. 393 00:32:46,095 --> 00:32:49,878 Sometimes AI sits in it, which does not make sense to me. 394 00:32:49,878 --> 00:33:01,057 Like maybe the infrastructure management needs to live in it, but people, whoever's managing AI has to be close to the user to understand the use cases and to be that conduit 395 00:33:01,057 --> 00:33:05,891 between tech and, but yeah, how much variation do you see? 396 00:33:06,108 --> 00:33:09,628 You see it more than me because that's your, that's your full-time job. 397 00:33:09,628 --> 00:33:14,520 Do you see a ton of variation in role titles and all that sort of stuff? 398 00:33:14,634 --> 00:33:15,315 a ton. 399 00:33:15,315 --> 00:33:23,650 mean, it's, it's unquestionably like, you know, something that I deal with every day, you know, different, different titles, different boxes, different groups. 400 00:33:23,650 --> 00:33:34,268 So I'd say this that firms that are in the, in the growth stage, as far as like AI is concerned, or dealing with innovation, it will probably sit under IT. 401 00:33:34,268 --> 00:33:39,772 I feel like there's not enough of a deviation between IT and AI at that point. 402 00:33:39,772 --> 00:33:43,672 But then once you have a bigger team and a bigger organization, 403 00:33:43,672 --> 00:33:50,610 you're going to be forced to make a separate AI innovation team that's separate from IT. 404 00:33:50,610 --> 00:33:52,455 And it may sit under a managing partner. 405 00:33:52,455 --> 00:33:54,471 It may sit under the COO. 406 00:33:54,471 --> 00:33:56,002 You have a chief innovation officer. 407 00:33:56,002 --> 00:33:58,014 You have a CIO. 408 00:33:58,014 --> 00:34:00,856 Two different people reporting up to the same person. 409 00:34:00,856 --> 00:34:05,840 then that way, both sides of the organization, equal playing field. 410 00:34:06,261 --> 00:34:13,446 And then also they're reporting to the same person, which obviously is working closely with the stakeholders and the users and the client. 411 00:34:13,735 --> 00:34:14,405 Yeah. 412 00:34:14,405 --> 00:34:15,995 Yeah, that makes sense. 413 00:34:15,995 --> 00:34:25,955 What, um, we, did a, I moderated a panel, uh, actually it was this year, 20 spring of 2024 with some heavy hitters in the space. 414 00:34:25,955 --> 00:34:34,695 was like Meredith Williams from Gibson, Dunn, Christie, Benz from Norton Rose, uh, Peter Giovanni's from McGuire woods. 415 00:34:34,695 --> 00:34:43,363 And we talked about like organizational design and how AI is going to influence that organ, you know, 416 00:34:43,363 --> 00:34:46,244 And they all had different answers. 417 00:34:46,244 --> 00:34:58,127 And what we figured out is through that dialogue is that culture is really what dictates like some firms, even big firms, I know some AMLaw 50 firms, they don't have knowledge 418 00:34:58,127 --> 00:34:59,167 management. 419 00:34:59,168 --> 00:35:08,640 And sometimes the reason is because KM has a bad name, like attorney, you know, the, culture there doesn't see the value in KM for whatever reason. 420 00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:12,151 was probably, you know, some failed experiment. 421 00:35:12,391 --> 00:35:14,872 10, 20 years ago, whatever. 422 00:35:15,093 --> 00:35:21,467 And the law firm leadership still has that in their memory banks and they're still doing cam stuff. 423 00:35:21,467 --> 00:35:25,340 They're just calling it something else like practice innovation or practice solutions. 424 00:35:25,340 --> 00:35:38,419 Um, so, but how, how are, how are you seeing, um, like from a compensation perspective, which is related to organizational design, like, are you seeing things trend up? 425 00:35:38,419 --> 00:35:41,591 Like, is this a good time for people to be thinking about? 426 00:35:41,785 --> 00:35:43,685 Lateral or upward moves. 427 00:35:44,078 --> 00:35:46,958 Yeah, this would be a great time. 428 00:35:46,958 --> 00:35:56,098 Once everybody receives their bonuses and all that, it's a good time to look because the bar is getting set higher and higher. 429 00:35:56,118 --> 00:36:10,578 Everybody, aside from the organizations that do the reporting or they do the reports on compensation, I personally see the trends bucking upward where... 430 00:36:10,786 --> 00:36:13,107 you're seeing it from the engineering level upwards. 431 00:36:13,107 --> 00:36:19,349 So you can imagine, you know, once you get into the management and C-suite, you know, how much compensation is going up. 432 00:36:19,349 --> 00:36:29,789 And it's just, you know, a lot of people know, you know, what the industry is paying, you know, per like, you know, different groups, you know, what level, you know, size of firms. 433 00:36:29,789 --> 00:36:36,104 So firms have to stay intact with that, or they're not going to be able to get the talent that's going to be able to take their firm over the top. 434 00:36:36,623 --> 00:36:37,144 Interesting. 435 00:36:37,144 --> 00:36:46,687 What, so because you have visibility on the compensation side, like what are the, what are some of the, what are some of the more lucrative roles in the, the business of law side? 436 00:36:46,687 --> 00:36:51,824 You know, is it KMs and innovation, obviously emerging skills like AI, like what, what is it? 437 00:36:51,824 --> 00:36:54,317 What, what's paying the best out there? 438 00:36:54,924 --> 00:37:05,732 I think innovation, know, that term innovation, because it does include AI, does include client centric solutions that are being, you know, developed for, you know, for the 439 00:37:05,732 --> 00:37:10,325 different, you know, companies that the firms are working with. 440 00:37:10,325 --> 00:37:17,630 So if you're in a situation like that, where you're actually bringing business potentially, like either directly or indirectly to an organization, a firm is going to pay 441 00:37:17,630 --> 00:37:18,870 more for that. 442 00:37:19,031 --> 00:37:23,790 So if you're developing solutions in house, either for your attorneys, 443 00:37:23,790 --> 00:37:27,733 or for the clients, that's where it gets pretty lucrative. 444 00:37:28,135 --> 00:37:37,374 If you're just doing quote unquote, you know, practice solutions where you're building out for some practices or you're taking third party tools out of the box and you're 445 00:37:37,374 --> 00:37:47,554 customizing it, you know, there's obviously a cap on that, but you know, an amazing area to be in is when you are developing solutions from scratch that you can make your own and 446 00:37:47,554 --> 00:37:48,394 sort of. 447 00:37:48,522 --> 00:37:54,120 know, awards, you peer awards and all that stuff, you know, that really is pretty big time right now. 448 00:37:54,567 --> 00:37:57,087 All right, so let's look at the flip side of that. 449 00:37:57,087 --> 00:38:09,661 Where are areas where people may want to take chips off the table in terms of skills and what roles are on the decline? 450 00:38:10,338 --> 00:38:20,371 Yeah, I mean, I hate to say this, know, I mean, it's, it's, but it's not, nothing's completely off the table, but I think like the pure old school app development side is a 451 00:38:20,371 --> 00:38:21,701 little bit off the table. 452 00:38:21,701 --> 00:38:31,164 Um, a lot of people are using power apps, you know, they're using, you know, the, the share points of the world, uh, power automate, they're using all those tools instead of 453 00:38:31,164 --> 00:38:38,954 like the.net, you know, JavaScript, you know, the stack that everybody knows and grew up with, you know, that sort of fallen by the wayside. 454 00:38:38,954 --> 00:38:47,104 Now we're looking at more of the innovative, quick-hitting tools where you can develop things a lot quicker and code than we used to be able to do. 455 00:38:47,227 --> 00:38:53,612 Well, you we talk about bill versus buy all the time, so we don't really have any competition on the intranet side of the house. 456 00:38:53,612 --> 00:38:55,743 There used to be a player in the space. 457 00:38:55,743 --> 00:39:05,750 I won't say their name, but people know who they are and they got bought by a much bigger company, um, seven years ago and they're there. 458 00:39:05,750 --> 00:39:07,582 They've just, they're not even trying. 459 00:39:07,582 --> 00:39:12,115 So it's really just us or custom dev, right? 460 00:39:12,115 --> 00:39:14,919 Which is makes zero sense. 461 00:39:14,919 --> 00:39:18,321 for a law firm when there's an off the shelf solution. 462 00:39:18,321 --> 00:39:22,994 But law firms get caught up in this. 463 00:39:22,994 --> 00:39:25,086 Devs want a dev, right? 464 00:39:25,086 --> 00:39:29,979 So if you've got a dev team, they're going to pitch, hey, we can build this for this amount of dollars. 465 00:39:29,979 --> 00:39:30,790 OK, great. 466 00:39:30,790 --> 00:39:32,481 That's your development. 467 00:39:32,481 --> 00:39:34,392 Your initial development cost is discrete. 468 00:39:34,392 --> 00:39:35,653 It has a beginning and an end. 469 00:39:35,653 --> 00:39:42,368 Support and maintenance and enhancements, that goes on for the lifetime of the platform. 470 00:39:42,368 --> 00:39:44,609 And that is a huge component. 471 00:39:44,611 --> 00:39:46,794 of total cost of ownership for an app. 472 00:39:46,794 --> 00:39:54,220 But I see firms still making this mistake after there's been so many failures and I don't understand it. 473 00:39:54,220 --> 00:39:56,893 Yeah, I'm just seeing a little bit less of that. 474 00:39:56,893 --> 00:39:59,825 That was one area that definitely stuck out to me. 475 00:39:59,825 --> 00:40:12,657 mean, everything else, when you're talking about InfoSec, when you're talking about infrastructure, cloud, governance, all these things are still super hot, and there's 476 00:40:12,657 --> 00:40:14,909 different ways to do it and new things. 477 00:40:14,909 --> 00:40:20,413 But App Dev is definitely an area that I think they're finding newer ways. 478 00:40:21,195 --> 00:40:25,883 less positions that are specific with the staff that we're used to. 479 00:40:25,883 --> 00:40:26,443 Yeah. 480 00:40:26,443 --> 00:40:37,249 I mean, when there's an off the shelf solution, I don't care if it's internet or whatever building your own is just a law firms are not really structured. 481 00:40:37,249 --> 00:40:40,231 They're not built for developing software. 482 00:40:40,231 --> 00:40:42,122 It's, um, it is a tough business. 483 00:40:42,122 --> 00:40:48,536 had a, I had a post recently where I, I outlined just stream of consciousness, all the things you got to be good at. 484 00:40:48,536 --> 00:40:50,857 You got to be good at gathering requirements. 485 00:40:50,857 --> 00:40:53,919 You got to be good at designing system architecture. 486 00:40:53,919 --> 00:40:55,043 You got to be good at. 487 00:40:55,043 --> 00:40:56,879 engineering actually building the solution. 488 00:40:56,879 --> 00:40:58,393 You got to be good at QA. 489 00:40:58,393 --> 00:40:59,917 You got to be good at support. 490 00:40:59,917 --> 00:41:01,743 Got to be good at documentation. 491 00:41:01,743 --> 00:41:03,547 Like it. 492 00:41:03,547 --> 00:41:05,287 yeah, you need a PMO to do that. 493 00:41:05,287 --> 00:41:15,049 yeah, those are some positions, obviously, you we see those as well, you know, a little bit less on the PMO side, but yeah, PMO, you know, a lot of the PMO projects are 494 00:41:15,049 --> 00:41:16,010 surrounding development. 495 00:41:16,010 --> 00:41:22,107 So that makes a lot of sense, you know, with the documentation, the QA requirements gathering, the whole nine. 496 00:41:22,107 --> 00:41:24,450 Yeah, it's a lot. 497 00:41:24,450 --> 00:41:26,074 Yeah, absolutely. 498 00:41:26,074 --> 00:41:27,196 is a lot. 499 00:41:27,196 --> 00:41:30,653 But yeah, it seems like the industry is healthy. 500 00:41:30,653 --> 00:41:32,477 It's on the uptick. 501 00:41:32,477 --> 00:41:34,470 It's an exciting time to be in it. 502 00:41:34,694 --> 00:41:36,734 Yeah, it really is. 503 00:41:36,994 --> 00:41:37,734 all right. 504 00:41:37,734 --> 00:41:39,954 So final question for you here. 505 00:41:39,954 --> 00:41:45,174 So how can candidates best position themselves in the marketplace? 506 00:41:45,174 --> 00:41:54,774 If somebody is, um, I think I told you the story again, I won't say the names, but I had a guest on the, so this is, this is one way you can position yourself. 507 00:41:54,774 --> 00:42:01,329 Get on a podcast like this, because I had, I had someone who a guest 508 00:42:01,329 --> 00:42:06,181 who was talking about all the amazing process work she was doing at her law firm. 509 00:42:06,182 --> 00:42:13,266 I had a previous guest of the podcast, like 20 episodes earlier, who became a fan and a listener. 510 00:42:13,266 --> 00:42:20,190 He heard that, went and sniped her and now she works with him and they both sent me thank you notes. 511 00:42:20,190 --> 00:42:27,694 I don't want the firm mad at me that she came from, so I won't say the name, but you know, that's obviously one thing is getting your name out there. 512 00:42:27,694 --> 00:42:29,883 What are some other things people can do to 513 00:42:29,883 --> 00:42:31,663 best position themselves. 514 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:33,141 Yeah, absolutely. 515 00:42:33,141 --> 00:42:42,115 I feel like take part in an IELTA, you know, even if you're part of like planning, you know, even if you don't want to speak that that's totally fine. 516 00:42:42,115 --> 00:42:43,635 You know, be part of that. 517 00:42:43,635 --> 00:42:57,431 Be part of, you know, any sort of group that's going to, you know, really put yourself out there, you know, where you're thinking, you know what, well, I can I can sort of maximize 518 00:42:57,431 --> 00:42:59,150 here and, you know, 519 00:42:59,150 --> 00:43:02,370 position myself as a potential candidate in the market. 520 00:43:02,490 --> 00:43:08,790 I always tell candidates the best time to make a move is when you're not actually looking. 521 00:43:09,950 --> 00:43:13,530 It's a scenario where connect with people on LinkedIn. 522 00:43:13,530 --> 00:43:15,900 You see what firms are hiring a lot. 523 00:43:15,900 --> 00:43:20,370 Connect with the CIO there so they know that you're out there and you're potentially willing to take a look. 524 00:43:20,370 --> 00:43:22,570 That's a good way to position yourself as well. 525 00:43:22,570 --> 00:43:25,460 It's just see what's going out there in the industry. 526 00:43:25,460 --> 00:43:28,421 Talk to individuals like myself, of course, because we 527 00:43:28,574 --> 00:43:37,877 we get the current before it hits and just really decide, listen, maybe I want a little bit of a more thorough LinkedIn profile. 528 00:43:37,978 --> 00:43:46,821 I think that's something like, get some of the keywords out there, even if you're not active that way, like you can be identified as potentially a good target for some people. 529 00:43:46,821 --> 00:43:50,632 And all it takes is one right opportunity and it makes it all worthwhile. 530 00:43:50,929 --> 00:43:51,490 Exactly. 531 00:43:51,490 --> 00:43:52,291 All right. 532 00:43:52,291 --> 00:43:59,650 So along those lines, since we're wrapping up here, how do people get in touch, find out more about what you do, that sort of stuff. 533 00:43:59,650 --> 00:44:00,530 Yeah, definitely. 534 00:44:00,530 --> 00:44:04,273 Hey, the best way, because as a recruiter, you always have to be on LinkedIn. 535 00:44:04,273 --> 00:44:05,644 Connect with me on LinkedIn. 536 00:44:05,644 --> 00:44:11,217 It's Jeff Zota, G-E-O-F-F, Zota, Z-O-D-D-A. 537 00:44:11,378 --> 00:44:12,319 Invite me to connect. 538 00:44:12,319 --> 00:44:14,220 I will happily connect with you. 539 00:44:14,220 --> 00:44:15,720 Reach out whenever you want. 540 00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:18,783 I always respond to messages. 541 00:44:18,783 --> 00:44:23,796 And yeah, I'm out and about, so feel free to reach out. 542 00:44:24,135 --> 00:44:24,775 stuff, man. 543 00:44:24,775 --> 00:44:27,015 Well, hey, I've really enjoyed the conversation. 544 00:44:27,015 --> 00:44:29,415 I appreciate you taking the time. 545 00:44:29,495 --> 00:44:31,338 Let's stay in touch. 546 00:44:31,338 --> 00:44:31,742 Absolutely. 547 00:44:31,742 --> 00:44:33,659 Let's talk some UNC hoops soon. 548 00:44:33,659 --> 00:44:34,701 Yeah, exactly. 549 00:44:34,701 --> 00:44:37,025 Good stuff, All right. 550 00:44:37,627 --> 00:44:37,988 All right. 551 00:44:37,988 --> 00:44:39,109 Have a good one. 552 00:44:39,531 --> 00:44:40,042 Take care. 553 00:44:40,042 --> 00:44:40,933 Bye bye. -->