[00:00:00] Ryan, how are you this afternoon? I am great. Uh, so good to be here, Ted. Lots of exciting stuff, I think, for us to, to talk about today. No doubt. Yeah, we had, uh, we had a really great conversation the first time we, we chatted and talked about AI-native firms and where the industry's headed, and then we had a big announcement, like, literally about an hour ago that we're gonna talk about- Yes which is pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, that, that seems to be the new, the new, the new world is, uh, you know, big announcements getting dropped, uh, every single week that changes, uh, you know, what the trajectory looks like for, uh, legal practice, for law firms, for the folks building legal tech. Uh, so it's, it's a really exciting, exciting time. It is. It's, it's like being on a rollercoaster, man. I can't, um, I can't imagine being a investor in this space and, like, [00:01:00] seeing the shift in-- You know, like wh- when you're watching people play poker and, you know, you see their odds change as cards get flipped over. Um, you know, as investors, I feel like bets that looked certain 12 months ago look v- look different today, and it's, it's just interesting. Um, but before we jump into all that, let's get you introduced because you're the first AI native law firm leader I've had on the pod. I've been trying to get folks for a while, but everybody's so heads down busy, like, building that it's been hard to get people to carve out the time. So I really appreciate you being here and, um, why don't you just do a quick intro and tell us a little bit about General Legal? Absolutely. Uh, yeah, so I, I'm Ryan. I am the CEO and co-founder of General Legal. We're an AI native law firm. We formed, uh, General Legal four months ago. We were [00:02:00] in the, uh, Y Combinator, uh, Winter 2026 class, uh, and have since raised, uh, about 11 million to, uh, operate our, um, our legal tech platform that supports our, uh, our law firm, uh, operations. We focus on providing startups high quality, fast, flat rate legal services across a growing set of practice areas. We started very focused on complex commercial contracting, helping our clients, uh, get their, you know, enterprise deals done fast with a fixed, predictable cost model. Um, and you know, we've, we've, uh, we were very quickly getting all kinds of requests from our clients to start expanding the service into, uh, different, different directions that really matter for startups. They want to see this, you know- AI native future where the service [00:03:00] providers you work with are taking advantage of the, the technology that's out there, which is just truly phenomenal, um, to actually deliver better, better, uh, work product, better outcomes. And, you know, we, we, so we, we got lots of kind of requests and are slowly growing the, the practice areas we support. So we're starting to take on, uh, employment, uh, related, uh, work as well as some corporate, uh, early stage corporate work and, you know, continuing to grow the, the different practices that we support so that we can offer our clients full service, uh, legal at this, with this new pricing model, this new delivery model where you have these lawyers who are able to, um, turn your work around in a couple of hours and are there embedded with you in your, your day-to-day workflow as a company, uh, and, and bringing-- being able to focus their attention [00:04:00] on the places where, you know, the lawyer's judgment really, really matters. And, and that's kind of the goal of, of everything we do at General Legal is building a framework that allows the really excellent attorneys that we bring into the, the, the firm to focus on what they do best. So we recently hired a privacy expert, for example. Our goal with him is to get him to a place where all he does is focus on advising companies on, uh, you know, core privacy issues in their commercial contracts or in their operational, uh, guidance. Uh, I came to this work, um, probably at a very un- unusual path. Uh, my background originally as a math- mathematician. I have PhD in math. I got very, very interested about, um, about 10, 12 years ago in, uh, you know, natural language processing and big data. And I started looking [00:05:00] around for where, where, where does that kind of work come up the most, and where is it most consequential? Uh, and pretty quickly the answer came to me, oh, well, obviously it's, it's legal. And I connected early on with Jake Heller, who is the founder of Casetext, uh, and, you know, s- stayed at Casetext for, for, uh, 10 years, uh, yes, almost 10 years through the, uh, through the acquisition by Thomson Reuters. We built, uh, CoCounsel. CoCounsel was the first, uh, first AI a- assistant for, uh, attorneys, launched it the same day that, that ChatGPT was, was released, and really, uh, believe we were sitting on this kind of pivotal moment where technology was about to very much change the, how, how lawyers practice and the services that clients, clients get. And, you know- Two, two plus years, uh, after that, uh, [00:06:00] you know, experience, I, I think we've certainly seen lawyers get very interested in using AI, and I think they're flirting with different ways to bring AI into the practice. But I think the transformation is only-- I, I think the transformation is in very early, uh, days. And so my co-founders and I decided that, you know, we wanted to find a way to really accelerate how, um, this technology impacts legal service. And our conclusion was that the best way to do that was to really go and reinvent how a law firm, uh, operates. So to structure a company from the ground up with the, the, with technology as the foundation, layering a legal services, uh, operation on top of that so that, that, you know, you can actually have the right incentives in place, have the right kind of, uh, processes and the right kind of people to deliver this next generation of legal [00:07:00] services. Extremely exciting moment for that. No doubt. And I've been waiting for this trend to accelerate, and it seems like it finally is. Uh, I shared with you the last time we talked, I did some work, um, like 12 years ago, maybe longer. Um, I'm a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, was trained at Bank of America, who has really went all in on, um, the methodology and took the, took that process engineering lens to a default services firm in, uh, right shortly after the Great Recession, and their business exploded. Obviously, default services was huge. They subsequently imploded, but during-- that wasn't, um, that was more of market dynamics that shifted and they, they couldn't quite catch their footing. But it was a hell of a run, and like I told you when we chatted, like we took a, [00:08:00] um, process mindset to re-architecting how that work was done, and we organized their, um, people, mostly paralegals, in pods and broke the work up such that we could monitor the flow and identify bottlenecks. And we installed monitors, big, you know, 50-inch, which, you know, fif- 15 years ago, 50 inch was like a big TV. You can go to Sam's Club and get that for like 30 bucks now. But, you know, installed these monitors with control charts, and so everybody had a visual representation. You could just walk out on the floor and see exactly where what needed attention. And it was absolutely transformative and, you know, I thought, "Man, this is the future." And, um, I was about- 15 years too early. Um, it's finally- Yeah ... here, but I'm so glad to see it because, like that [00:09:00] process lens, um, you know, I, I had a LinkedIn post a week or two ago about what we're doing with these co-pilots, uh, if you will, uh, we'll call it legal assistance. In my opinion is we're, we're building a faster horse, as Henry Ford would say. You know, we're, we're accelerating existing processes that largely evolved bespoke and, you know, e-enabling, um, processes that are not consistent, that don't-- weren't built for scale and quality control, and now we're in a world where we can l- the tech is really changing what's possible. Um, so do you-- Are, are-- So do you guys compete with the Gundersons and the Cooley's and the traditional law firms? Like is that who y-you know, General Legal, uh, is, uh, considers its [00:10:00] competition, or do you compete with different... Who do you compete with? What does that look like? Yeah. Well, so I, I mean, our belief is that we're going to see a major shuffling of the Am Law 200 in the next few years. We are going to see new law firms that emerge and climb those rankings because they will be offering such a differentiated, uh, product, something that's so different that rivals the, the kind of quality and, you know, authority of these, you know, very, very established, uh, brands, um, but is doing so with technology at its core, uh, with an, you know, with, with that kind of AI native lens. And so, so I, I think, yes, we, we, we, we do compete directly with, um, with Uh, law firms. That said, you know, our, our approach is, is different and we think, um, we think that law firms are [00:11:00] also going to evolve and, and are, you know, part of our bigger goal for the business is to push legal to evolve into these new delivery modes. And, you know, we, we do think we will, uh, climb the, the rankings, uh, but we think others will, will also start figuring out how to do, uh, how to-- how legal work should adapt to what's happening. And I, I think, I think we have to embrace that this is going to be a very, very dynamic, uh, market and situation. We're already seeing that. You see that now on the, the tools side. I think we're gonna get into this in a, in a few minutes where, you know, one week it's, uh, you know, Harvey running away, and then it's Legora, and then it's, you know, some other, uh, platform that, that, um, you know, th-this kind of constant shuffling of, you know, who's, um, yeah, who's in the lead, who's, uh, who's taking more of the, you [00:12:00] know, Am Law 200 as their customers. I think we're gonna start seeing the same dynamics play out with this much, much larger market of legal, legal services. It, it's happening across many, many different facets. I think AI native is just one of the places where there are major forces at play that are gonna change what, what legal services look like in the future. And so that, that's our, our bet is that, yeah, that, that Am Law, uh, Am Law 200 is gonna look different in the years to, to come and, and I think that's exciting and I think lots of firms are, are gonna be thinking very, very carefully about what it, what it looks like to, to adapt their, their businesses to that, that new, new world. Yeah. And, and, you know, and the question that comes up in my mind is, are they gonna do it fast enough? Because that's really the million-dollar question, um- Yeah ... because y-you've got, you've got in-house teams that are now tech-enabled. [00:13:00] You've got AI native players who don't have all of that legacy baggage, whether that's, you know, the, the partnership model, um, just the lawyer, traditional lawyer mindset that has to be redirected. You know, they've got people in-- I've talked about this before, um, you know, legal has hand-selected people in business of law functions that are resistant to change because of their resistance- Yeah ... to change. I mean, I know- Yeah. ... I've got CIO friends, one in particular, and, you know, he was like, "Ted, my job is to keep the lights on- And spend as little money as possible. And if I do those two things- Yeah. Yeah, yeah ... I'll have a job. And now that's the, the remit is entirely different. Like that model, that's gone. But you still have people- Yeah ... who literally were hand-selected for embracing that mindset, and it's like, are the-- are they gonna be able to shift? Like, are those [00:14:00] the right leaders for the next iteration? Can they adapt fast enough? Like all the organ-- If the answer's no, there, there's gonna be a lot of organizational turnover that, that is resource-intensive and time-intensive. It's like, you know, my-- the million-dollar question in my mind is, can we m- can the industry move fast enough in the traditional law firm side to get there before, you know, players like General Legal or inside teams just start doing, delivering work in-house? I don't know. Do you have any sense of like, if the-- Does timing seem as big a deal to you as it does to me? It, it does. Um, and I, I think I-- what I see is the, the major challenge that I think firms face and have to reckon with is, you know, y-you mentioned your CIO friend whose job it [00:15:00] is to spend as little money as possible. That's not a, like, one-off example. No. That's how operational functions in law firms have, have long worked. And I think part of what has to happen for transformation here is we'll have to see some of those functions become more empowered and more, uh, you know, more budget will need to be given to them so that, that they can actually start driving some of the changes that, that need to happen. And I think that's the, that is the path to change for law firms, but I think it's a hard road, right? Ul-ultimately, y-you know, that, that comes to the partnership, uh, to, to decide, and the partnership, you know, needs to, um, you know, partnerships are, are large at these firms, and so getting, you know, getting 100 people to agree on much of anything is a, is a major challenge. But as you start to get into these pretty existential questions, what is [00:16:00] law going to look like in 10 years, uh, and do we wanna make an investment now? Do we wanna change our pricing model in ways that might, uh, impact us in the short run but help us in the long run? That's where, that's where I think we're gonna have to see real leadership from, uh, from law firm partners. And I, I think the winners will be the ones who are able to, like, effectively have those, those conversations and have uh, come, come out of those with a renewed idea of what their, their firm is and what its response is to technology, and then back that change up with investments into the, like, functions that will actually unlock that, that possibility. Yeah. And you know, what's interesting is historically, partnerships, law firm partnerships have, uh, you know, the voting has and the, the choices they've made in terms of leadership, both on the practice side and within the business [00:17:00] of law side, have been very self-interested decisions. And, and not illogical, and it doesn't make you a bad person because you're- Right you know, I mean, it's, it's very natural decision-making process to, you know, vote in your self-interest. And now we have scenarios where, you know, many of the large equity holders, their retirement horizon is in sight and it's like, okay, do I forego-- If I'm gonna invest-- if I'm gonna vote for a capital investment that has a five-year break even, but I'm retiring in three, it would go against my self-interest in order to, you know, advocate for that path. And that's exactly what's gonna have to happen, um, because there is going to now be infrastructure, um, investments and a complete rethink of the organizational structure of firms. Like, today in the AM Law, it's almost exactly one to one. Like, if you add up all the lawyers and [00:18:00] all the staff in the AM Law, it's like one to one, right? Yeah. So a thousand attorney firm has around 2,000, uh, employees in the AM Law ranks. That ratio is gonna skew dramatically. You're gonna now need, um, data scientists, you're gonna need product managers, you're gonna need business analysts, you're gonna need AI engineers. You know, roles that historically have been underrepresented or didn't exist at all in law firms, and now we're entering into an era where those are the most important roles in the business, even more than the lawyers in the practice. Um, and that's gonna be a really hard thing for people to wrap their mind around in law firm leadership. Yes. Yes, it is. Yeah, it is. And you know, we, we saw, uh, uh, you know, I think you and I were saying about this when we met originally, you know, we saw-- We both sort of lived through the rise of the, the chief inter- innovation officer, and I, I think that role, you know, started out [00:19:00] as, you know, as, as kind of very aligned to, you know, the library functions of firms, the knowledge, the knowledge services side. But suddenly, like, these are the roles that are gonna become highly strategic and I, I am, you know, slightly encouraged to see Some firms becoming more innovative on this front, like bringing in strong, uh, you know, product and tech-minded leadership into those kinds of functions. But I think the reality is it, it will take a big-- You know, that, that, that person needs to become deeply empowered, uh, by, ultimately by the partnership to, to execute on, on this, this transformation. Yeah. And you know what, an, an unfortunate dynamic that exists, um, is sometimes, you know, the chief innovation officer role is mostly filled by, by lawyers. Um, there are some exceptions to that, but by my count, around 80% are, are [00:20:00] lawyers. And it's almost been like historically like frowned upon from lawyers in the practice. Like, oh, you couldn't make it in the, in the practice, so you went to KM. And, and like some of that i- is like, hey, this is a much better work-life balance than a 2,400 hour- Yeah ... yearly quota. I mean, like, so like that mindset has to shift as well. So lots of work to do there. Um, I wanna jump into today's announcement because it is, uh, I'm gonna fast track this episode so it gets released, uh, real soon so this news is still fresh. So today, Claude, um, Anthropic announced, um, I guess they're calling it Claude Legal Solutions, which, um, is h- hot off the presses. There's a lot we don't know yet, but, um, it is a really interesting like... Honestly, when the Claude Legal plugin came out in February, [00:21:00] like we did a, I did a LinkedIn Live and we dissected it with, I was with Josh Kubicki, um, who's a, um, he's a law school professor and big thought leader, and Rob Socconi, who's a longtime legal tech guy, and we like ripped it apart. Like it's 200 lines of markup or markdown. Okay. And very basic, not a lot to it. In fact, there was no new tech, uh, there. It was really just, um, just some markdown files. And now it, it, I, I thought maybe that was as far as they were gonna go in the near term, um, but it looks like they took, they're taking more steps forward announcing connectors into, you know, Thomson Reuters and NetDocs and iManage and DocuSign. So I don't know, what is your early read on what this means for the industry? So, uh, this is-- I'll, I'll caveat this as, as early. Uh, I, I learned about this just, uh, right before we started the podcast, but I, [00:22:00] I find this extremely encouraging. And if this announcement aligns to, you know, kind of how it, how... If, if the reality of this aligns to how it's being represented, this is a very consequential, uh, development because what it's saying is that, you know, I, I-- you look through the announcement, all of the major vendors that law firms use to execute their work are now represented as connectors that can plug in to Claude, uh, for, for legal. That is, uh, that's extremely transformational, right? We're talking about Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, uh, iManage, NetDocs, um, these huge, huge pieces, these, uh, you know, operational pieces of how legal gets done are now able to be orchestrated by Claude for Legal. That, that means Claude for Legal has suddenly gone from kind of this, you know, experiment that, you [00:23:00] know, is kind of isolated from legal workflows to something that is directly connected to all of the tools that are needed to do true, uh, legal workfor- wor- legal workflows within law firms. This is a very, very big deal, uh, and frankly surprising, right? Um, I, I think it's a, I think it's a strong vote of confidence in Claude that, that these vendors, uh, are interested in opening up, uh, these connectors into their systems. That's a big, big deal that was not on the table, uh, a few y- you know, a few months ago even potentially, right? This, this is pretty revolutionary to see. Yeah, and one other w- uh, again, this is like super early, but like one of the bullets on their announcement is confidentiality by design and, um, they describe it as enterprise security, full audit trails, no training on your data by default. Claude clears the bar for sensitive matters and privileged work. Um, [00:24:00] you know, that has been kind of a, a big value prop of some of the legal specific players like the Harveys and the Goras is like they've, th- they kind of stand behind all of that, and now it sounds like- Yeah ... Anthropic is now delivering on that promise. So I'm wondering like, what does that mean to the, to the legal tech market? Do you have any early reads? I think it's r- I, I, I think, I, I, yeah, I, I'm not sure how I would feel uh, to, if I were sitting today in the seat of the CEO of a legal tech, you know, a legal tech tool platform. I, I'm not sure how this announcement goes. I think there's, there's sort of two, two paths here. So- Now we're talking about a Claude for legal that is truly connected to these, these foundational systems. Um, the, the next step is [00:25:00] actually being able to take this technology and bring it into law firms. And I, I would-- I think we shouldn't underestimate what, you know, Co-Counsel, Harvey, Legora do on that front. Law, law firms are, uh, as you know, Ted, not the easiest, uh, customers to like, to work with, to support, and, you know, rolling out technology to them is always a, a big thing. So, so we, we probably... That, that may be, that may be harder than, uh, the, the folks at Claude are, are anticipating what it will take to actually now take this technology and move it into these, these, these firms. We saw this early on with Co-Counsel, exactly the reasons you mentioned, that, you know, in the beginning, a major part of what we were doing is making it okay for law firms to use AI. We had to set up, you know, um, both, you know, true restrictions and true, um, kind of [00:26:00] compliance frameworks on the back end of our systems, and then on the front end, be able to explain to firms why this technology is okay to use, why their data is, is secure. I think firms have, have moved, um, actually very, to their credit, very rapidly, uh, forward on their willingness to bring in, uh, uh, this kind of technology. Uh, but it, it's still a-- it'll still be an interesting development to see can, can An- can Anthropic actually bring these tools, uh, to firms? And is that, is that their interest? Is that what they will do, or will they just kind of leave this out there and let, let firms kind of decide, is it a Harvey that we want or a, a, you know, Claude for, for legal? I, I think that might be the missing piece for me is what is it-- what's the next step now that you have what's, what appears to be a very, very complete solution for attorneys? What does it take to bring those, that, that capability in-house? Um, [00:27:00] I think also a, a piece to understand is, so this is positioned as a, a tool for, for lawyers or for, for, uh, in-house teams. I think when it comes to, to law firms, you know, I think law firms have another challenge when it comes to AI, which is they need interfaces that allow them to, uh, use AI collaboratively with their clients. Uh, and we, we need to see clients are demanding and expecting that their law firms become more, uh, tech-enabled when it comes to their kind of connection points into their, their, uh, law firm. And so I think we'll-- we, we are seeing, um, you know, the, the other players, the other, the, the, the purpose-built, uh, vertical players in the space have been investing a lot in, in how do we improve the relationship between law firms and their clients. I think that may be another [00:28:00] barrier that, that Claude... That will be really interesting to see how Claude, uh, e-evolves there, 'cause the real value is actually tying these, these two pieces, pieces together and getting to a place where, you know, clients of law firms are, um, y-you know, using, uh, you know, they are becoming themselves much more AI native. Being able to see that same kind of, uh, response reflected in their law firm, I think is, is important, and I think some of that actually comes down to the, the product and the interface between client and firm. You know, that is squarely where InfoDash is focused. So, you know, I-- Here is our thesis. I think it is risky for a law firm to make their practice of law solution client-facing. I think it's really good for the vendors in that space because it makes their solution sticky. But, like, if I'm a law firm leader, I wanna be able to hot [00:29:00] swap whatever practice of law solutions- Mm that I leverage, right? So that's where- Yeah ... InfoDash, like our thesis is stay agnostic. Like take, you know, um, our category, intranets, extranets, AI search, this has been around for 30 years. It's not, it's stable. It's not rapidly changing, right? There's not competitors to InfoDash- Yeah ... popping up left and right. In fact, the legacy players in the space haven't changed at all in, I mean, uh, arguably HighQ hasn't changed since Thomson Reuters bought them in 2019, right? Still really the same product. Yeah. So like our, so that, that's our, um, value prop is like let us be, and we have all the Microsoft connective, connective tissue. So like when a law firm client, if they're an M365, uh, user, which 92% of the Fortune 100 are, they don't even have to have a separate set of credentials, right? They just use their- Mm ... their native [00:30:00] Microsoft and it's like seamless. It's like SSO. So, um, yeah, so that's our thesis and I, I would People ask me all the time, like, "Hey, are you worried about, like, Harvey Shared Spaces or Lagora's Portal?" I'm like, "No," because I-- they're bringing attention to a gap that has existed that we've been w- jumping up and down going, "Hey, like you guys need to interface with your clients better." Like you just dumping documents- Yeah. ... in like, like giving them a Dropbox link which- In email or- Right. Yeah. Or email, has, is, is a terrible, is a terrible experience, but law firms have been able to get away with it. Now that we're entering into this transformation era where the practice is being tech-enabled, the, the customer journey is also gonna have to be tech-enabled, and I'm not talking about email, right? Not 1990s tech- Yeah. ... like modern tech. Um, so- Yeah ... we're excited, man. Like I, it's, um, it's crazy. It's like a rollercoaster, [00:31:00] but it's-- I've never had more fun. I've been in the space 20 years, and like I'm having a blast. I agree. So I, I haven't been in it quite as long. I've been in, uh, 10 plus years or so. But yeah, never a, never a more exciting time to be working in tech and specifically in legal. Uh, it's so, it's so fascinating. I mean, y- you know, for, for folks who have been in the legal space for a while, this used to not be an interesting area, period. Mm-hmm. Right? Nobody, the, uh, you know, the amount of VC dollars that went to any sort of like legal tech solution was practically nothing. Um- Yeah ... and now, uh, you know, the, it's, it's just having such a, such an, such a moment. Uh, and I think, I think there's, you know, obviously hype behind some of that, but there's, there's real truth that you're taking this piece of society, right? The, the social fabric that is just so, uh, [00:32:00] inefficient. There's so much... Anywhere you look in legal, you can find something that is really broken, that looks like it's 20, 30 years behind where it should be. Uh, and you know, I think we're finally, finally at a moment where the technology can actually start to very, very rapidly close up some of those gaps, and that will have a major, major impact. I think that's, that's, that that's the root of the excitement, the, the real root of the excitement is, is there, that this can be a moment where we iron out these deeply broken, deeply structurally inefficient parts of legal delivery, and that will open up access, uh, to many, many more people, uh, and companies for legal services, which is a great, great thing. I think everybody-- I think, I think most people can agree on that at least. Yeah. Um, what about, so, um, jumping into kind of the agenda that we had talked, uh, planned on talking about, you know, [00:33:00] ALSPs. So from an outsider Um, ALSPs and AI native firms seem like there's a lot of overlap, right? And you had a little bit of a different take on that, but, um, I, I-- it feels like ALSPs are very process-oriented, right? They have to be. It's- Yes ... it's, it's machine, right? And a lot of that machine is still people, but now it feels like they have an easier leap because they're already process-oriented, right? Their processes are mapped out and they're judged on very closely on cost and quality and turnaround, turn time. Um, it seems like a fairly, again, from an outsider's perspective, like, okay, you've got the processes already built, throw the tech at it, and it seems like an easier, um, path to scale than a firm who's l- still operating largely on a bespoke basis. Maybe you have a precedent library [00:34:00] that you pull from, maybe you, maybe you don't. Maybe you have your own personal little KM library that you tap into, but there's very little consistency even within the same practice within the same firm. So, um, yeah, how do you see, like, again, from an outsider's view, I see the ALSPs and the, the AI native firms, um, a lot of overlap there. Do you see it the same or do you see it differently? I think we're seeing a couple of different kinds of AI native firms emerging. We are, we are certainly seeing firms, uh, like Crosby, for example, that, that very much align to that sort of ALSP model, which is very, very fast, um, you know, uh, high throughput, but low stakes, uh, legal work. I think we're seeing, uh, AI native firms that are s- are focused on niche specialties that are really, really thriving right now. I think two, two great examples of this. [00:35:00] One is in immigration, uh, practice, so immigration filings, for example. We saw Manifest, uh, uh, raise a, a tremendous amount of money, uh, last, last week, I think that was, right? So like 70 million, uh, raised, something like that. Yeah. Uh, and you know, those are businesses that are just thriving, uh, right now because you can s- take this process that used to take weeks, and because of what you can do with, with, you know, I think a good combination of AI enablement plus just mapping out the process, just like you were doing, uh, in your, your firm with the big, the big monitors in the past. You know, mapping out the processes and, you know, building, uh, software forward systems that, that unlock those capabilities can really, really change, uh, change how things work. So we're seeing these, these firms, uh, emerge there. I, I would say there's similar patterns, uh, we're seeing in like personal injury, uh, IP space. Um, I, I think that's [00:36:00] kinda one class of, of, uh, folks who are, are really focused on a particular, um, kind of niche of, of law and building whole AI native practices around that. And then, uh, I think General Legal is taking a slightly different approach, which is we believe that, um, you know, fundamentally a lot of the, the, the, the, there's, there is tremendous value in the work that law firms do for their clients. But right now, that value is tangled up with a bunch of work that no longer makes any sense. It no longer makes sense for you to get billed for, you know, two hours of drafting time. Shouldn't be that way. Your lawyer should be drafting with AI and then reviewing the results in a tool that helps them to accelerate that- review. Your lawyer should not be doing, uh, unassisted doc review. Your lawyer should not be, um, you know, spending time finding which is the partner that knows about, you know, XYZ legal [00:37:00] issue and turning a bill, uh, uh, around to you for, for them doing internal, like, knowledge digging. That should be available, right? That should be something that is part of the, you know, context of an LLM or the, the, the brain of the LLM that we can go and, and access it. So we see our work as untangling the pieces that are fundamentally those inefficient, uh, processes that exist in law firms. You mapped them out, uh, I think probably in a lot of detail 10 years ago. I went back and read your article. It's, it's really, uh, really worth, worth a read if folks can, can dig it up from the, the, the bowels of the, the internet. Um, but y- so mapping out those processes and squeezing out those places that are inefficient, we think that is a, you know, I think that is the model of AI native firm that will emerge to, to take on pieces of what's, what the, uh, the Amlaw, uh, folks are, are doing today. We hire [00:38:00] really good lawyers, right? Our focus is to hire good lawyers, give them the tools that remove the, the routine parts of process that no longer make sense, that no one should be getting billed for, uh, anymore. And when you squeeze those things out, your attorney is focused on the parts where judgment matters, um, where, you know, their kind of professional expertise matters, and the amount of time that it takes for them to, to provide that work, you can, you know, shrink that down to, to a much, much smaller portion and, and we're billing really only for that, uh, in the end. Uh, we, we figure out how to make that a flat rate, but, but that's the core idea of what we're doing. So you can go high volume, uh, as an ALSP, you can go niche, or you can go, um, kind of knowledge, knowledge driven, uh, like we are, expertise driven. How do we make these great experts that exist better and better and better? I think the analogy is probably, uh, something [00:39:00] like, like in, in medicine. How will medicine transform? We're gonna need doctors to, uh, practice medicine for, for quite a while. Um, but there's certainly a lot of processes that are involved in the healthcare system that are inefficient, are broken, could be tech, uh, e-enabled. I think it's the same story with, with, uh, attorneys. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, so your model it sounds like is find great attorneys and remove the friction, um, within their practice and, and that seems like- Yes ... that seems like a winning formula. To me. Well, we, we hope so. Um, we think there's another interesting, you know, trend that, that we're seeing out in the world. Um, you know, we definitely are seeing, uh, more and more, uh, partners at firms start to recognize that, that, you know, wow, like I can maybe go out and do the same work and not have all the overhead of a firm, and I can take the, the profit for myself. I, we, we've been calling [00:40:00] these, um, like lobster lawyers because they take, you know, Openclaw and, you know, start, start using that to operate a, you know, specialized, um, legal practice. We think it still matters to have, uh, lawyers centralized and have legal, broad legal functions, uh, underneath like a full, a full law firm. But, uh, there's, there's definitely I think some very interesting things that are happening there as well, where partners are saying, "You know what? I, I'm the expert here. I have the valuable knowledge, uh, and I can, I can take that and I can package it up and I can start doing this myself with, with lower, lower overhead." I think that is yet another pressure that, that firms are really gonna feel is, is how do we, how do we retain legal talent in this very, um, you know, this very shifting, uh, world? Yeah. And, you know, backtracking a little bit, a thought popped in my head about like how Harvey [00:41:00] and Ligori are trying to-- They, they are very wisely hiring a lot of legal engineering talent from within law firms, and I think that is gonna be a differentiator for them as well. Like, is it... Now I know Claude and OpenAI just announced big, like consulting k- armies of forward deployed engineers, and they have a lot of funding for that. I'm wondering how much-- Like legal is a, legal's special, man. I mean, it, it, it's, it, it's unique. Yes. Um, and- Yes ... I'm wondering how, how much, like how many McKinsey or BCG, um, or Bain, um, engagements do you hear about in legal? Not a lot. Um- Not, not tons. Yeah. Not tons. I mean, I think there's, there's flirting- Yeah with, with that model. Um, you know, certainly there are specialty practices that, that have focused on, on that sort of work, uh, over the years, but it, it's, it's, y-you know, it is a [00:42:00] really, uh, unique industry. Um, I, I've, you know, in, in both roles I've done a lot of hiring for, uh, for talent that, um, you know, can do that kind of work. Um, I w- I led, uh, forward deployed engineering for a while at Thomson Reuters, um, for, for co-counsel and, you know, we were, we, um- We had to go and find people who could be both legal experts and technology experts at the same, at the same time. And, you know, we were fortunate to be able to find f- some folks who really can do both of those things very, very well. Um, but it, but it's hard. And I think that, that approach, um, you know, I, I do, I do like the forward deploy, uh, model, and I, I do think there's a-- I, I do think that is a, an ingredient of how, um, how, uh, law firms can, can realize, uh, change, [00:43:00] right? It, it is going to take, you know, both the leadership, uh, as well as implementation experts who can really dive into, uh, you know, an area of practice and show lawyers and build alongside lawyers at the firm, you know, new ways to, to execute in the, the areas they practice. Um, but it's hard, right? It's hard work. You, you know, you know what it's like to take on the challenge of just like integrating a firm's knowledge base. You know, who knows, who even knows where that, uh, knowledge base, uh, lives, and how do you, how do you pull that out of, um, you know, these, these organizations? It's, it's not a, not an easy job if, if you wanna take it on, uh, in full. Yeah. You and I talked a little bit about differentiation and, um, you know, the way that law firms differentiate today is, you know, brand, um, practice depth, [00:44:00] um, geographic footprint, their people. But y- o-one element of the differentiation equation that has fairly minimal focus today is like the client service model, right? Yeah. And, and specifically tech, and, and I th- I think that is going to change dramatically. I think that slice of the pie on the pie chart is going to expand where those other things are still gonna matter. Like, the people are still gonna matter, the brand is still gonna matter. I'm not saying they're not gonna matter. They are. But what's gonna matter maybe equally, um, is like how, how cost-effective is your, is, is your service delivery? Um, how quickly can you turn around work? Like how, what sort of quality controls do you have around your delivery process? Um- Yeah ... you know, and like, uh, today, [00:45:00] um, I saw, I, I, I read a lot on this, so I can't remember. Uh, I think it was BTI did a s- they do a lot of inside, uh, legal survey work and, or it may have been Blickstein, um, group, but one of them talked about 80% of buying decisions from inside legal teams are relationship driven today. Which makes a lot of sense. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And, um, you know, like the, they're, they have like procurement has tried to step in and really put process around the external legal spend, um, um, uh, processes, but a lot of times that gets bypassed and it's even documented in one of the studies that I read where, yeah, we go through the, we go through the RFP, but at the end of the day, I pick who I wanna pick. I'm the CLO. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and like, I don't know if that's gonna ha- like, at, at what point is, um, or, or what point are corporate boards going to [00:46:00] really push these inside legal teams to focus on economics instead of just the relationships? And, you know, the relationships- Yeah ... aren't without their value. Like the, the reason that those relationships matter is because there's trust and, you know, that trust translates into risk mitigation. So it's, it's not all bad, but it's like, all right, so when ... I don't, I-- Do you have a sense of like, is the market shifting at all on the buy side with respect to like asking questions about tech enablement? I, I, I think so. I think it, I think it has to. Um, and I, I think it's just because I, I think you will get to a place where if things continue the way that they are, the price points become so absurd compared to the alternatives that, you know, at, at some point it must overwhelm like the strength of that relationship based buying. It has to come back to economics. [00:47:00] I, I mean, I, I think you, you probably saw this earlier this year, the like, you know, the $10,000, uh, you know, billable is, is on the horizon, right? I think that-- I, I, I worry for firms that pushing in that direction is going to drive them to this, this breaking point where the, um, y- you know, buyers start to say like, "We just, this just, just can't, like we can't, we can't make, we can't responsibly make a decision based just on relationship. We need-- or just on prestige or just on these factors. We need to see real, uh, evidence that you're doing this work efficiently, that you're doing it well, um, that, that, you know, the money we give to you is tied to outcomes that, that, you know, we can see." I, I, I do think that change is in the air because, um, you know, one, I think, I think firms are actually going a bit in the wrong direction, uh, on their, their pricing, and I think expectations that, [00:48:00] um, you know, B2B buyers have are changing, changing rapidly. We hear a trend of, uh, you know, CEOs top down- demanding that, you know, providers are AI native, right? From, we see this at the startups primarily today, but I, I've, I've heard rumors of it at other, um, you know, at, at much larger organizations. I think that's a trend that's gonna continue to push into bigger and bigger organizations because the startups are doing this because it is way more cost efficient to rely on AI native services, and you can do way more stuff, right? That's, that's the amazing thing. We've seen, you see this, for example, with, um, you know, things like, uh, um, you know, outbound, uh, you know, marketing outreach, right? Companies that invest in AI native approaches to, uh, you know, uh, marketing outreach are able to do 100X more campaigns, right? You're able to see these [00:49:00] crazy changes in what you can do, and I think that is going to put real pressure on the, the later stages of the, the market to say, "You know what? We demand to see AI native services. Every other company I work with is showing me that they can, like, do 10 times as much as they could do last year. Why can't, why can't you, law firm, do the same thing?" I think that's the, that's the, the watershed, uh, moment that, that's either here or coming soon. Yeah. Well, I hate that we're out of time. We only got to, like, 25%- Oh my gosh ... of our agenda. And apparently this was only five minutes. We could've talked for another two or three hours. Totally. This was great. And what a day, what a day to talk about, uh- No doubt ... talk about legal tech. I'm so excited. Yeah. It's a great time. I know. It's, uh, the, the action never stops, man. It's, um, there's always something new. It's just the-- It seems like it's, and it seems like it's accelerating, which I don't know how much faster we can go, but, um, yeah. This- There must [00:50:00] come a point where our brains just stop being able to process the, the information that's coming to us and, and maybe at that point, you know, that's, that's where we really need the AI to just take over and deal with, uh, you know, processing the change, uh, for us. I don't know. Yeah, no doubt. Well, um, how do people, before we wrap up here, um, how do people find out more about you and General Legal? Uh, first thing they can do is visit our website. We are general.legal. You know, just type that right into your browser, general.legal. Uh, and folks can absolutely reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm very active, uh, there and, and happy to engage with others who are, are as interested and, and excited about this space as, as I am. Awesome. Well, thank you again for carving out some time. I know you guys are-- I, I know what it is. I know what it's like at the early days of a startup. Uh, you're moving a million miles an hour, and you have a lot of plates [00:51:00] spinning. So, um, yeah, thanks for, uh, thanks for making time for us. Well, thank you, Ted. This was great. Awesome. All right, we'll chat soon. All right. Take care. Bye. Thanks for listening to Legal Innovation Spotlight. If you found value in this chat, hit the subscribe button to be notified when we release new episodes. We'd also really appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate us and leave us a review wherever you're listening right now. Your feedback helps us provide you with top-notch content.