The LegalTech Fund's In Studio Season 3: Own the Skill, Rent the Model - Infodash ft Gowling WLG
In this episode of In Studio, presented by The LegalTech Fund, host Tanner Rogers sits down with Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO and Co-Founder of Infodash, Kameron Berget, Co-Founder and CTO of Infodash, and Al Hounsell, Senior Director of AI, Innovation and Knowledge at Gowling WLG, to explore one of the biggest questions facing law firms today: Should firms build their own AI and knowledge infrastructure or invest in existing solutions?
The conversation dives into how law firms can make smarter build vs buy decisions, identify opportunities for competitive advantage, and move beyond AI experimentation to deliver measurable value to clients.
The group discusses the challenges of scaling custom built solutions, the importance of data security and governance, and how firms can leverage their existing Microsoft 365 investments to accelerate innovation. They also explore how AI is reshaping legal service delivery, why clients care more about tangible improvements in quality, speed, and cost than the tools themselves, and how law firms can maintain flexibility as the legal AI landscape continues to evolve.
Highlights:
- Introductions and what law firm clients actually care about
- Kameron on starting every build from the user story, and how that shaped the Gowling WLG work
- Al on the three cases where Gowling WLG builds instead of buys
- Why in-house builds get risky: cost of ownership, key person risk, technical debt, and the gap between a demo and a product that scales, plus what Infodash handles natively across Microsoft 365, Azure, PMS, DMS, and permissions
- Optionality versus ownership: Ted on skill layers in the firm’s own tenant, Al on why the real question is where competitive advantage sits
- Advice for firms just starting: Al’s four phases from the AI-enabled lawyer to new client offerings, Kameron’s crawl, walk, run, and Ted on why he expects legal engineers to matter as much as lawyers
Watch the full conversation for insights from legal technology leaders on building a foundation for AI innovation while keeping client value and long-term flexibility at the center of the strategy.
