1 00:00:02,186 --> 00:00:04,126 Trudy, how are you today? 2 00:00:04,726 --> 00:00:07,509 very well thank you I'm on the road to Christmas. 3 00:00:07,509 --> 00:00:09,592 Yes, we're not too far away. 4 00:00:09,592 --> 00:00:18,495 This episode will air I think in mid January, um but it is uh in the late stages of December. 5 00:00:18,495 --> 00:00:24,703 And I don't know about you, but my calendar doesn't feel like it's late December. 6 00:00:25,612 --> 00:00:30,442 No, it feels like it's very much the throngs of the middle of the year. 7 00:00:30,442 --> 00:00:35,404 But I've just been told it's our team Christmas lunch tomorrow, so that's good news. 8 00:00:35,787 --> 00:00:36,758 Good stuff. 9 00:00:36,758 --> 00:00:39,099 Well, I appreciate you joining. 10 00:00:39,099 --> 00:00:48,886 um You and I had a chance to hang out a little bit at TLT, the summit in Austin and had some good conversations. 11 00:00:48,886 --> 00:00:58,232 I got a chance to talk to you a little bit about Fuse and I attended one of your sessions, which we'll talk about in just a second. 12 00:00:58,232 --> 00:01:02,355 But before we jump in, why don't you introduce yourself? 13 00:01:02,355 --> 00:01:05,627 Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and where you do it. 14 00:01:05,934 --> 00:01:06,534 Sure. 15 00:01:06,534 --> 00:01:08,314 So I'm Sreetajit Saria. 16 00:01:08,314 --> 00:01:10,054 I'm a partner at ANO Sherman. 17 00:01:10,054 --> 00:01:11,974 I'm based in our London office. 18 00:01:12,094 --> 00:01:16,694 The background is I actually was a credit derivatives lawyer for many, years. 19 00:01:16,694 --> 00:01:30,014 And in 2015, I was on a maternity leave, had an idea to open a legal tech space of some description, which we then opened in my firm in 2017. 20 00:01:30,771 --> 00:01:33,319 awesome and that is 21 00:01:33,356 --> 00:01:34,539 And that is Fuse. 22 00:01:34,539 --> 00:01:38,719 Sorry, you teed me up to say I am the head of Fuse and I failed you miserably, Ted. 23 00:01:38,719 --> 00:01:40,364 I failed at the first hurdle. 24 00:01:40,364 --> 00:01:41,121 Look at that. 25 00:01:41,121 --> 00:01:41,771 It's all good. 26 00:01:41,771 --> 00:01:42,542 It's all good. 27 00:01:42,542 --> 00:01:46,164 so and that's we're going to we're going to talk about fuse quite a bit on the episode. 28 00:01:46,164 --> 00:01:47,645 So I think it's fascinating. 29 00:01:47,645 --> 00:01:57,711 I've seen there are a lot of fuse like concepts out in the legal world, but what you're doing to my knowledge is somewhat unique. 30 00:01:57,711 --> 00:02:01,113 Um, and I find it fascinating and great for the ecosystem. 31 00:02:01,113 --> 00:02:08,977 Um, so why don't you give us a little bit of background on, on, on what fuse is, what's your remit and a little bit of background. 32 00:02:09,164 --> 00:02:17,976 Yeah, I'll try and skip through, just sort of to context set, the history is really that when we first started Fuse, nobody was talking about legal tech. 33 00:02:17,976 --> 00:02:22,778 I remember really, you people talking about defining, you know, defining a vertical. 34 00:02:22,818 --> 00:02:25,919 didn't even really know what legal tech looked like as a word. 35 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:26,859 So was it capital L? 36 00:02:26,859 --> 00:02:28,219 Was it all one word? 37 00:02:28,219 --> 00:02:29,760 You know, how would we make it look? 38 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:33,101 Those were the sorts of the discussions we were having when we opened. 39 00:02:33,101 --> 00:02:35,041 So really genuinely, it was not a thing. 40 00:02:35,041 --> 00:02:38,306 And so what we were trying to do back then was to help. 41 00:02:38,306 --> 00:02:47,414 the sorts of founders who had been young associates who had quit their job because they found it very frustrating and they had an idea, but they didn't have any ability to break 42 00:02:47,414 --> 00:02:54,219 into the legal market, trying to give them a home and trying to understand how we might use their technology to make ourselves more efficient. 43 00:02:54,540 --> 00:03:00,305 If you sort of forward to where we are now, the legal tech landscape is entirely different. 44 00:03:00,305 --> 00:03:03,387 Actually, it's attracting a lot of investment. 45 00:03:03,387 --> 00:03:05,669 The law firms are actually 46 00:03:05,696 --> 00:03:09,408 All lawyers, think, are generally a bit more minded to try new things. 47 00:03:09,408 --> 00:03:11,128 There's a bit more of a culture of acceptance. 48 00:03:11,128 --> 00:03:22,632 So really for us, it's a bit more about figuring out what our lawyers need doing better and trying to find companies in a bit more of targeted way that will fill the gap. 49 00:03:23,758 --> 00:03:28,188 And how do you identify these companies and vet them? 50 00:03:28,716 --> 00:03:28,996 Yeah. 51 00:03:28,996 --> 00:03:33,889 So every single year we have a process. 52 00:03:33,889 --> 00:03:39,379 So the process this year will be kicking off around about the time, hopefully that this podcast drops. 53 00:03:39,379 --> 00:03:44,746 So in mid January and anyone who's doing legal tech can apply. 54 00:03:44,746 --> 00:03:52,390 The idea is that we look at all of the applications and then we bunch them together and then we show them to partners in the firm. 55 00:03:52,390 --> 00:03:56,482 So for example, if we have a whole lot of stuff, which is for litigation, 56 00:03:56,482 --> 00:04:02,496 we'll show it to a variety of litigation partners and say, well, what of these do you think would be helpful or interesting or useful? 57 00:04:02,496 --> 00:04:11,002 And then once we've done that, we have a selection day, which last year actually went across three days because we saw quite a few. 58 00:04:11,002 --> 00:04:12,934 I think we had over 250 applicants. 59 00:04:12,934 --> 00:04:18,377 I think we narrowed it down to around 30 to see over the three days. 60 00:04:18,498 --> 00:04:19,182 But in that, 61 00:04:19,182 --> 00:04:21,704 m selection process, we have a variety of different voices. 62 00:04:21,704 --> 00:04:30,491 So we'll have a client, we'll have someone like someone in venture who can help us really assess the business from a bit more of a agnostic standpoint. 63 00:04:30,491 --> 00:04:36,696 We'll have someone, a partner in our firm who would be the person who would support or use the tool. 64 00:04:36,696 --> 00:04:43,942 So we have a variety of different perspectives in the room as well as our often our CTO and our head of legal tech. 65 00:04:45,159 --> 00:04:55,030 And from there, we narrow it down even further so that we take in legal tech companies that are solving a problem that we really have, that we, at least from an initial 66 00:04:55,030 --> 00:05:02,658 assessment, think that we will be able to use in the firm or at least pilot and that we know that there is partner support for. 67 00:05:04,196 --> 00:05:10,677 And um so you're looking for horses for courses, right? 68 00:05:11,817 --> 00:05:13,718 I had to get that in there. 69 00:05:15,638 --> 00:05:30,101 So for those that don't know, if you happen to attend Shruti's session at TLTF, there was a very enlightening uh portion of the presentation where Shruti used the metaphor horses 70 00:05:30,101 --> 00:05:32,761 for courses and um 71 00:05:32,829 --> 00:05:34,792 actually called somebody out in the audience. 72 00:05:34,792 --> 00:05:38,707 Um, cause I think this is a, this is a British thing, right? 73 00:05:39,238 --> 00:05:42,658 Okay, can I just be honest and tell you, I am not very good at... 74 00:05:42,658 --> 00:05:47,818 The thing that makes this all the funnier is that I am so bad at sayings. 75 00:05:47,818 --> 00:05:50,558 I almost always get them wrong. 76 00:05:50,558 --> 00:05:55,258 I have like about a 1 % success rate with sayings. 77 00:05:55,258 --> 00:05:55,398 Yeah. 78 00:05:55,398 --> 00:06:02,358 And so as it came out of my mouth, I thought, everyone's sort of in the audience in Austin is looking at me like, what's she talking about? 79 00:06:02,358 --> 00:06:04,098 I thought, Oh God, I've done it again. 80 00:06:04,098 --> 00:06:05,656 I've done it wrong, but I don't know. 81 00:06:05,656 --> 00:06:11,380 quite what I'm trying to say because I don't know the correct, know, it, it, you know, cows for courses? 82 00:06:11,380 --> 00:06:12,611 Like, what have I done wrong here? 83 00:06:12,611 --> 00:06:21,358 So I thought I'd try and dig myself out of trouble by asking the British people in the room to put their hand up and explain the saying. 84 00:06:21,358 --> 00:06:24,911 And the first person that I saw with a hand up was someone who had been in the Fuse cohort. 85 00:06:24,911 --> 00:06:27,052 He's one of our founders and so was like, that's easy. 86 00:06:27,052 --> 00:06:27,883 You you can explain it. 87 00:06:27,883 --> 00:06:30,985 And they looked at me and they were like, I don't know the saying. 88 00:06:32,206 --> 00:06:35,086 I was like, all right, I've definitely definitely messes up them. 89 00:06:35,086 --> 00:06:39,926 But then luckily the person next to him also was another Fuse founder, also British. 90 00:06:39,926 --> 00:06:42,386 And he was like, no, no, it means this. 91 00:06:42,386 --> 00:06:47,906 And what it really means is you choose the right tool for the right moment effectively. 92 00:06:47,906 --> 00:06:54,306 you choose, you know, just because something fits a particular moment or a particular problem, it doesn't mean it's going to fit all problems. 93 00:06:54,306 --> 00:06:58,946 It's about really understanding the problem you have in front of you and choosing the correct solution. 94 00:06:59,126 --> 00:07:01,246 That's that's sort of the that's 95 00:07:01,246 --> 00:07:02,210 meaning behind it. 96 00:07:02,210 --> 00:07:07,041 So yes, I'll try and stop myself from using sayings in talks in the future. 97 00:07:07,041 --> 00:07:11,304 Well, no, I thought it was a great lighthearted moment. 98 00:07:11,304 --> 00:07:22,330 those things, when you get into these, legal tech conversations on stage, they can sometimes need a little lightheartedness to reengage people. 99 00:07:22,330 --> 00:07:24,071 So I thought it worked well. 100 00:07:24,071 --> 00:07:27,153 And I haven't used the metaphor yet outside of this, but I might. 101 00:07:27,153 --> 00:07:33,617 Because I feel like when you use equestrian metaphors, you just sound smart and sophisticated. 102 00:07:34,094 --> 00:07:43,634 Well, actually, so we did the one in Austin and then I, the week later, was in New York doing a talk, sort of a similar panel, and somebody on my panel must have been in the room 103 00:07:43,634 --> 00:07:48,114 in Austin because then they said something about, well, it's like, Horses for Courses, isn't it, Shruti? 104 00:07:48,114 --> 00:07:51,094 And like the whole thing kind of unfolded again. 105 00:07:51,094 --> 00:07:53,314 I was just like, it's the saying that will never leave me. 106 00:07:53,314 --> 00:07:57,194 And I'm still not completely sure that it was right in the first place. 107 00:07:58,027 --> 00:08:05,164 Yes, I think that you are um that saying is going to be associated with you and the legal tech community for a while. 108 00:08:05,164 --> 00:08:06,886 So it's all good. 109 00:08:06,886 --> 00:08:17,497 Well, um going back to the selection process for these cohort startups, what revenue size are they generally? 110 00:08:17,497 --> 00:08:20,430 Are they pre-revenue or they post product market fit? 111 00:08:20,430 --> 00:08:21,671 What does that look like? 112 00:08:22,086 --> 00:08:23,838 it's actually always been a whole range. 113 00:08:23,838 --> 00:08:34,046 think that's one of the things I love the most about the job is we, because we're not taking an investment stake and because the metrics aren't really anything other than is it 114 00:08:34,046 --> 00:08:40,962 solving for a problem that we think we have or that our clients have and are we going to learn something by engaging with them? 115 00:08:40,962 --> 00:08:42,583 It's actually quite fluid. 116 00:08:42,583 --> 00:08:50,830 So, um, we have, in fact, one of the founders who I think was in the room during the talk would have had something where they. 117 00:08:50,830 --> 00:08:53,310 like pre-product when they started with Fuse. 118 00:08:53,310 --> 00:08:58,870 Really it was just like some wire frames and a good idea about what they wanted to do. 119 00:08:59,830 --> 00:09:12,250 And actually, interestingly, we've now got a license, a global firm wide license with them because they got in so early, we were able really to help them to sort of structure what 120 00:09:12,250 --> 00:09:15,090 they were going to do along the needs of our lawyers. 121 00:09:15,090 --> 00:09:19,670 really, you know, they'd get people from Germany saying, oh, well actually, 122 00:09:19,830 --> 00:09:20,770 this works differently here. 123 00:09:20,770 --> 00:09:27,695 So we need it to look like this, or you'd get a bunch of people from a particular department saying, actually in my line of work, I need to be able to do X. 124 00:09:27,695 --> 00:09:30,407 So could you please make the next bit to functionality look like Y. 125 00:09:30,407 --> 00:09:39,083 So I think quite a lot of their product roadmap has come from commentary from our global sort of across, across departments or feedback, which is great. 126 00:09:39,083 --> 00:09:42,345 So on the one hand, it's actually very useful to have very early stage companies. 127 00:09:42,345 --> 00:09:44,052 On the other hand, I think 128 00:09:44,052 --> 00:09:52,605 all law firms have become slightly more sophisticated around onboarding, what they're prepared to use, how they're to use them, m how to run pilots. 129 00:09:52,605 --> 00:10:00,467 so often we also have um later stage companies, which is sort of easier to pilot, easier to give a go to. 130 00:10:00,467 --> 00:10:07,609 But I mean, this year, for example, we have a company which is very early stage. 131 00:10:07,609 --> 00:10:11,040 It's a guy who's based in Sydney and he has 132 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:14,791 made this amazing product, which basically black lines emails. 133 00:10:14,791 --> 00:10:21,803 And it's the sort of thing where if you were going to be taking an investment stake in it, you'd be looking at it thinking, well, it's a very, very early stage. 134 00:10:21,803 --> 00:10:25,322 But actually for us, we just want to see, is this a problem people recognise? 135 00:10:25,322 --> 00:10:27,133 Do people actually want to black line their emails? 136 00:10:27,133 --> 00:10:32,656 And if they do, is this the way that they would like to interact with the process? 137 00:10:32,656 --> 00:10:34,887 So for us, it's been an enormous learning experience. 138 00:10:34,887 --> 00:10:40,268 We've really enjoyed having the company and actually the flexibility to be able to learn about what it is we're missing. 139 00:10:40,268 --> 00:10:44,716 in our suite of tools and what it is that will help our lawyers is actually very helpful. 140 00:10:44,961 --> 00:10:48,141 What is the difference between red line and black line? 141 00:10:49,134 --> 00:10:51,242 eh I don't know, that's a great question. 142 00:10:51,242 --> 00:10:53,811 Maybe one is the strikethrough and one is the addition. 143 00:10:53,811 --> 00:10:55,483 I say interesting. 144 00:10:55,484 --> 00:11:02,022 So um how important is the economic viability of the startup? 145 00:11:02,022 --> 00:11:05,747 How closely do you vet based on that criteria? 146 00:11:06,466 --> 00:11:14,479 Well, that's one of the reasons why we have someone with a venture background in our selection day is whilst we're not making an investment stake, what we do want to know is 147 00:11:14,479 --> 00:11:21,034 that if we're piloting a company, if we're thinking about using them in the firm, that they are going to be stable and that they have longevity. 148 00:11:21,034 --> 00:11:27,498 So it's important, you know, from the perspective of is this company going to survive and do well and flourish? 149 00:11:27,498 --> 00:11:35,852 It is important, but from making it, you know, is, the valuation of the company, the appropriate one for us, it is kind of irrelevant. 150 00:11:36,457 --> 00:11:37,397 I see. 151 00:11:37,979 --> 00:11:49,080 And then what, how, how are you partnering with TLTF if you are, that seems like a great mechanism to source opportunities. 152 00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:50,281 Is there a partnership there? 153 00:11:50,281 --> 00:11:52,173 Is that something that's in flight? 154 00:11:52,514 --> 00:12:01,358 Yeah, we're very fortunate in that I've known Zach and Rebecca and the team quite a long while now and I actually respect them enormously. 155 00:12:01,358 --> 00:12:03,339 I think they do a great job. 156 00:12:03,339 --> 00:12:14,514 And so for us, it's sort of what I would call an informal sort of partnership in that when we are looking to start the process, I'll always give one of them a call and just sort of 157 00:12:14,514 --> 00:12:15,695 say, have you seen this year? 158 00:12:15,695 --> 00:12:16,635 Who do you think is excellent? 159 00:12:16,635 --> 00:12:18,816 Who should we be thinking about? 160 00:12:19,083 --> 00:12:25,208 We were very lucky to have someone from their team join our selection panel last year, so that was really helpful. 161 00:12:25,208 --> 00:12:34,337 um I would expect to be able to cross-refer him things to look at as well if we came across things that we thought would be of interest to them, so it's a really great 162 00:12:34,337 --> 00:12:35,467 relationship. 163 00:12:35,529 --> 00:12:46,633 Yeah, I mean, the concept of having design partners in all of technology, oh I've spent most of my career in legal tech. 164 00:12:46,734 --> 00:12:54,917 It is an essential component in having a successful outcome as a legal tech startup, really. 165 00:12:55,237 --> 00:13:01,620 A bunch of founders sitting in a room with a whiteboard figuring out what the client needs are is not a good process. 166 00:13:01,620 --> 00:13:04,831 Having design partners, it sounds like you guys have 167 00:13:04,948 --> 00:13:11,116 formalized kind of the intake and management of where you invest time because it is a time investment. 168 00:13:11,116 --> 00:13:12,497 that accurate? 169 00:13:12,975 --> 00:13:19,178 It's a huge time investment and one of the things that I think people always ask me, know, why is Fuse not taking off in other law firms? 170 00:13:19,258 --> 00:13:31,494 I think one of the reasons is it's much less to do with Fuse and me than it is to do with the fact that our partnership as a whole are generally very collaborative, um quite 171 00:13:31,494 --> 00:13:34,808 entrepreneurial, very giving. 172 00:13:34,808 --> 00:13:45,081 So, you if you are the partner sponsor of one of these companies that we've chosen, you're committing to help some pilot something without knowing that there's going to be a good 173 00:13:45,081 --> 00:13:45,832 outcome. 174 00:13:45,832 --> 00:13:47,975 You you're sort of taking a bit of a chance. 175 00:13:47,975 --> 00:13:50,582 And when you take it in, you 176 00:13:50,582 --> 00:13:59,027 you'll often find these partners really helping them along saying, okay, we should speak to my associate here because they'll have a perspective on this or actually let's get X 177 00:13:59,027 --> 00:14:01,699 number of people to come into your product because they'll be able to help you. 178 00:14:01,699 --> 00:14:11,948 really, it never ceases to amaze me how amazing our partners are from across the globe actually, sort of allowing the companies infused to really test their products and to get 179 00:14:11,948 --> 00:14:13,036 a sense of what's good. 180 00:14:13,036 --> 00:14:17,048 the one part of that is opening the door to other people. 181 00:14:17,048 --> 00:14:21,250 But the other which I think is even more impressive still is that we are quite helpful with our feedback. 182 00:14:21,250 --> 00:14:22,300 We're honest. 183 00:14:22,300 --> 00:14:29,330 And for lawyers, that's not always the easiest thing to do is to give like brutal mean feedback, especially British lawyers were also like nice and polite and we like to be kind 184 00:14:29,330 --> 00:14:29,983 of like kind. 185 00:14:29,983 --> 00:14:38,907 But actually I think it's really helpful that people understand the process and they understand that it's actually more helpful to say to somebody, this doesn't work because I 186 00:14:38,907 --> 00:14:45,829 really need this because I would like to have X because you know, to be able to have a frank conversation is actually more helpful. 187 00:14:46,010 --> 00:14:47,070 mostly 188 00:14:47,246 --> 00:14:54,206 our firm does that very well with the cohort companies in a really very nice respectful helpful way. 189 00:14:54,791 --> 00:15:05,208 Do you provide any other support like incubator style support in terms of kind of business coaching, like feedback on pricing, like go to market strategy, that sort of stuff? 190 00:15:05,517 --> 00:15:12,357 So it does depend on the company and as you sort of alluded to at the beginning, where they're up to in their journey. 191 00:15:12,357 --> 00:15:16,777 So for many companies that we have, and they have a very set pricing structure, they know exactly what they're doing. 192 00:15:16,777 --> 00:15:20,037 They don't really need that kind of thing for others that are a bit earlier. 193 00:15:20,037 --> 00:15:23,537 Sometimes they really don't even know what their elevator pitch looks like. 194 00:15:23,537 --> 00:15:30,537 So when you join the Fuse program, we spend a bit of time at the very beginning, really getting to know the company, but we help them develop a five minute elevator pitch, which 195 00:15:30,537 --> 00:15:32,757 will speak to our lawyers and our clients. 196 00:15:32,757 --> 00:15:34,722 And you forget sometimes that 197 00:15:34,722 --> 00:15:46,177 when you start a business and you have got your team and you can become quite introverted and quite introspective and you forget what people actually understand or know about the 198 00:15:46,177 --> 00:15:52,230 problem or how they feel about the problem or how you can articulate yourself to really land with an audience. 199 00:15:52,230 --> 00:16:00,553 And so that I always think is one of the most helpful things we do is the articulation of the problem and your solution and how you might be able to help people. 200 00:16:01,222 --> 00:16:02,644 And following on from that. 201 00:16:03,020 --> 00:16:08,342 We have office space, which is available in London and San Francisco for people to use if they're in the cohort. 202 00:16:08,342 --> 00:16:08,943 So that's great. 203 00:16:08,943 --> 00:16:11,183 I love having a busy London views. 204 00:16:11,183 --> 00:16:12,494 That's awesome. 205 00:16:12,494 --> 00:16:15,265 And then we have the dedicated partner sponsor. 206 00:16:15,265 --> 00:16:22,378 So that's each person's part of point of main point of contact who is typically within the area in which they operate. 207 00:16:22,538 --> 00:16:28,641 And then depending on who the company is and what they do and what their customer base is and what they're trying to achieve. 208 00:16:28,641 --> 00:16:31,682 will also sometimes make client instructions. 209 00:16:31,682 --> 00:16:41,489 So oftentimes, if you think about some of the original fuse cohort companies, their technologies were applicable to us in law firm, but also to in-house counsel. 210 00:16:41,489 --> 00:16:50,535 And so, you know, often people have managed to get into this quite big contracts with some of our biggest clients because a partner has said, you've got to see this tool that we've 211 00:16:50,535 --> 00:16:50,895 got here. 212 00:16:50,895 --> 00:16:51,476 It's amazing. 213 00:16:51,476 --> 00:16:52,527 And they've been like, it's amazing. 214 00:16:52,527 --> 00:16:53,457 I'd like that. 215 00:16:53,457 --> 00:16:57,080 And so then, then we put them in touch and then lo and behold, there they are. 216 00:16:57,080 --> 00:16:59,441 So we try and really. 217 00:16:59,441 --> 00:17:00,742 um 218 00:17:01,046 --> 00:17:04,852 encourage people to share the network if that makes sense to everyone's benefit. 219 00:17:05,045 --> 00:17:12,458 Yeah, so how do you think about tools that might ultimately displace law firm revenue? 220 00:17:12,458 --> 00:17:14,669 AI is a great example. 221 00:17:14,669 --> 00:17:27,194 If you look at the valuations of the Harveys and Lagoras of the world, it's very clear that the only way the math works is for them to take some meaningful piece of the services 222 00:17:27,194 --> 00:17:30,835 um pie chart, if you will. 223 00:17:30,835 --> 00:17:35,257 um 224 00:17:35,393 --> 00:17:44,535 about a $1 trillion legal services market of that about 3 % is 30 billion is legal tech. 225 00:17:44,756 --> 00:17:56,759 And if you look at Harvey's latest round, they're gonna need, you know, 50 to $80 million IPO in order to make these venture investors happy. 226 00:17:56,759 --> 00:18:05,281 So when you're deciding, when you have a product that could potentially displace 227 00:18:05,569 --> 00:18:09,209 revenue of law firms, how do you think about that? 228 00:18:09,209 --> 00:18:10,409 Or do you? 229 00:18:10,712 --> 00:18:20,106 I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, of course we do, but I do think the question is somewhat misplaced in the nicest way because it suggests that law firm revenues are coming from 230 00:18:20,106 --> 00:18:29,620 static sources, you know, and it's kind of sort of saying, here's the train that's moving in one direction, but here's the sort of piece of chewing gum that got left behind and 231 00:18:29,620 --> 00:18:30,360 that's going to stay there. 232 00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:31,431 It's not quite right. 233 00:18:31,431 --> 00:18:39,436 You know, actually as clients progress and they are able to do different things using different tools, or we are able to do different things using different tools. 234 00:18:39,436 --> 00:18:44,049 To me, the sort of natural progression is that the work type will also change. 235 00:18:44,049 --> 00:18:49,752 So it might be the case that we at the moment are focused on highly complex multi-jurisdictional work. 236 00:18:49,752 --> 00:18:56,936 Actually using a Harvey type tool might open up different revenue streams for us. 237 00:18:56,936 --> 00:19:08,340 you know, I feel like this kind of idea of m always categorizing law firm revenues as being displaced by legal tech, it's not. 238 00:19:08,340 --> 00:19:11,001 like necessarily the right perspective. 239 00:19:11,001 --> 00:19:15,873 think what you have to sort of be ready for is the shifting sands. 240 00:19:16,373 --> 00:19:19,345 But the shifting sands are not just negative. 241 00:19:19,345 --> 00:19:28,859 They also provide a huge opportunity for us and for everyone, frankly, to look at a different client base, look at different ways of working, look at different types of work 242 00:19:28,859 --> 00:19:29,819 that we could be doing. 243 00:19:29,819 --> 00:19:37,082 And actually, I don't know if I draw on my own experience, just the basics of doing derivatives transactions. 244 00:19:39,559 --> 00:19:47,762 Part of my job when I did derivatives was to create a book of standard definitions which kind of had like the Lego pieces of a contract. 245 00:19:47,762 --> 00:19:59,147 Each sort of definition was a sort of a different Lego brick but it meant that once you had published the actual booklet the complexity of the house that you could build with the 246 00:19:59,147 --> 00:20:05,789 Lego was far greater than if you didn't have any Lego and you were just trying to do it out of pieces of don't know paper with scissors. 247 00:20:05,789 --> 00:20:06,657 you see what it means? 248 00:20:06,657 --> 00:20:07,513 Hmm. 249 00:20:07,790 --> 00:20:21,290 And I wonder whether actually the use of Harvey and Legora and, you know, the other tools that you mentioned, whether the work itself will change, whether the types of deals that 250 00:20:21,290 --> 00:20:26,590 are done will change and lead to more complex documents or in some cases more standard documents. 251 00:20:26,590 --> 00:20:32,370 so I think, as I say, I think it's about recognizing that the sounds are shifting and being ready for that. 252 00:20:32,550 --> 00:20:37,056 like honestly, having opened Fuse in 2017 and being a firm that has 253 00:20:37,056 --> 00:20:40,321 really always embraced legal tech, AI and everything else. 254 00:20:40,321 --> 00:20:45,698 I think we are sort of as well positioned to do it as anyone, if not really the best. 255 00:20:46,207 --> 00:20:46,477 Yeah. 256 00:20:46,477 --> 00:20:48,278 And I think that's the right way to look at it. 257 00:20:48,278 --> 00:20:54,191 So it's less about, it's not Harvey or Legora that's displacing the legal work. 258 00:20:54,191 --> 00:20:56,493 It's the underlying technology, right? 259 00:20:56,493 --> 00:21:08,569 It's, it's AI and whether it's them or some other AI tool or something that the GCs build the work that's at risk is at risk because of the technology and who, who fills that gap 260 00:21:08,569 --> 00:21:10,030 is really irrelevant. 261 00:21:10,030 --> 00:21:15,935 I think that law firms need to recognize what is, you know, 262 00:21:15,935 --> 00:21:27,106 what, where they're going to play and where revenue is defensible and where it's not and focusing on what's defensible and what makes sense for them to deliver in this new tech 263 00:21:27,106 --> 00:21:28,017 enabled world. 264 00:21:28,017 --> 00:21:29,288 So I completely agree with you. 265 00:21:29,288 --> 00:21:40,048 don't, I don't get hung up on, if I were sitting in a, in a, on a law firm XCOM, I wouldn't get hung up on, Hey, is this tool or that tool going to displace our revenue? 266 00:21:40,048 --> 00:21:41,045 I would look at 267 00:21:41,045 --> 00:21:46,949 Hey, what is the underlying tech going to do to the underlying economics of this firm and how do we adapt to that? 268 00:21:47,374 --> 00:21:49,089 Yeah, and where's the new opportunities? 269 00:21:49,089 --> 00:21:50,429 Right. 270 00:21:50,769 --> 00:21:51,709 Exactly. 271 00:21:51,829 --> 00:22:05,229 So with Fuse, you have with as part of these cohorts, do you have themes for incoming, you know, where, hey, we're going to do an AI cohort or, you know, a e-discovery cohort or 272 00:22:05,229 --> 00:22:06,649 what does that look like? 273 00:22:06,784 --> 00:22:08,785 Yeah, we, um, we do have themes. 274 00:22:08,785 --> 00:22:10,697 The themes are slightly different actually. 275 00:22:10,697 --> 00:22:17,692 So when we first started Puse, the idea was entirely related to finding legal tech companies that would help us work better. 276 00:22:17,692 --> 00:22:26,968 Um, I suppose because of my derivatives background, I was always sort of tangentially interested in what my derivatives colleagues in the various different financial 277 00:22:26,968 --> 00:22:27,869 institutions were doing. 278 00:22:27,869 --> 00:22:30,331 And quite a lot of them were moving into digital assets. 279 00:22:30,331 --> 00:22:33,253 And so I sort of interested to know a bit more about that. 280 00:22:33,253 --> 00:22:35,114 And, um, 281 00:22:35,510 --> 00:22:46,759 I've had a very interesting conversation one day with someone who said, it wouldn't it be great if you could use Fuse as a vehicle to help your lawyers to come on this learning 282 00:22:46,759 --> 00:22:53,384 journey with us whilst we're doing it in all these areas of emerging sort of legal work. 283 00:22:53,625 --> 00:23:02,032 Say for example, when the world's first blockchain bond was em issued, that was done using a company that had been in Fuse and we were able to advise on it. 284 00:23:02,032 --> 00:23:04,942 And the reason why it was obvious that we would be 285 00:23:04,942 --> 00:23:11,302 the advisor is because we'd spent quite a lot of time with the provider of the technology. 286 00:23:11,302 --> 00:23:16,602 So we actually understood what the difference was between a piece of paper and a digital bond. 287 00:23:16,602 --> 00:23:27,902 And so I think that kind of in-depth, sort of behind the scenes experience really helps you to sort of finesse your understanding of the law and like practically what's going on 288 00:23:27,902 --> 00:23:32,602 so that you can give legal advice on the practical realities of what is happening. 289 00:23:32,878 --> 00:23:39,398 And so over the years we have done a thematic cohort as well, which is done by, by, by virtue of a client nomination. 290 00:23:39,398 --> 00:23:44,778 So we ask them a small number of clients of the firm to nominate into the theme. 291 00:23:44,778 --> 00:23:55,598 And then we choose the companies based on those nominations that we think will teach us new things or doing really cutting edge work or looking at themes which are of new 292 00:23:55,598 --> 00:24:00,498 interest to our clients or we think they might want to know about. 293 00:24:00,498 --> 00:24:02,118 So that. 294 00:24:03,192 --> 00:24:10,868 cohort this year had a theme called, it was called, it was technically called Transformation and Resilience. 295 00:24:10,868 --> 00:24:14,562 In my head, it was called Thrive in 25. 296 00:24:14,631 --> 00:24:17,153 Not a saying, but snappy nonetheless. 297 00:24:17,153 --> 00:24:23,918 em And we had a really interesting variety of different types of company in that. 298 00:24:23,918 --> 00:24:27,641 So some things looking at sustainability, one looking at cyber. 299 00:24:27,641 --> 00:24:28,726 em 300 00:24:28,726 --> 00:24:33,876 something looking at tokenization, one which was focused on stable coin clearing. 301 00:24:33,876 --> 00:24:37,292 So very different, different variety. 302 00:24:37,473 --> 00:24:45,025 Do you ever take head-to-head like competitive offerings and evaluate them? 303 00:24:45,446 --> 00:24:46,586 Yes, we have done that. 304 00:24:46,586 --> 00:24:57,639 So in the legal tech space, you know, I see my job as being making sure that we find the best tools for our lawyers. 305 00:24:57,639 --> 00:25:06,052 kind of, I try really hard to support the cohort members that we have, but we every so often have to do an evaluation and ask ourselves, is this really still the best in the 306 00:25:06,052 --> 00:25:06,712 market? 307 00:25:06,712 --> 00:25:15,446 m And so we have on occasion m tested one or two or three against one another. 308 00:25:15,446 --> 00:25:24,061 And again, like the last time we did it, think we had something like a hundred of our lawyers testing three different tools that sort of fell within the same overarching 309 00:25:24,061 --> 00:25:25,171 bucket. 310 00:25:25,242 --> 00:25:33,717 we took feedback, both qualitative and quantitative from those testers and made a decision based on the feedback that we got. 311 00:25:33,717 --> 00:25:36,290 So what I like about that process is. 312 00:25:36,290 --> 00:25:41,273 when I at least was in this firm, those sorts of decisions weren't really being made by the lawyers. 313 00:25:41,273 --> 00:25:50,278 They were being made by perhaps a mixture of someone in the IT team and someone in procurement and, you know, perhaps like a conversation with like one or two lawyers who 314 00:25:50,278 --> 00:25:53,569 were like maybe partners who didn't actually do the work that was being tested. 315 00:25:53,569 --> 00:25:58,522 And I feel like this is like a much more. 316 00:25:59,384 --> 00:26:03,551 sort of interesting way of making those selections, which is just genuinely to ask the users. 317 00:26:03,551 --> 00:26:06,606 And it's quite difficult to organize it, which is why think more people don't do it. 318 00:26:06,606 --> 00:26:07,949 It's quite time consuming. 319 00:26:07,949 --> 00:26:12,135 It's quite a big, sort of a heavy lift, but I think it's a really good way of doing things. 320 00:26:12,135 --> 00:26:13,738 It's a really good discipline. 321 00:26:13,771 --> 00:26:20,396 Well, that leads me into my next question, which is, how do you measure success? 322 00:26:20,396 --> 00:26:22,538 The firm is making a significant investment. 323 00:26:22,538 --> 00:26:24,209 Is it purely qualitative? 324 00:26:24,209 --> 00:26:25,010 Like, hey, you know what? 325 00:26:25,010 --> 00:26:27,051 We found these good tools and they're great. 326 00:26:27,051 --> 00:26:29,573 Or do you have quantitative KPIs? 327 00:26:30,188 --> 00:26:30,418 Yeah. 328 00:26:30,418 --> 00:26:32,620 So the thing I actually want to start a few. 329 00:26:32,620 --> 00:26:38,144 So I said to the senior partner then with whom we kind of put the whole thing together. 330 00:26:38,344 --> 00:26:45,559 This will never work if I have preset KPIs because we don't really know what's around the corner. 331 00:26:45,559 --> 00:26:57,294 And if I'm always chasing the thing that you thought last year, the beginning of last year that I ought to be chasing will never be future looking or future, you know, sort of. 332 00:26:57,294 --> 00:27:00,654 entrepreneurial or forward thinking enough. 333 00:27:01,534 --> 00:27:05,714 And so there are some things that I obviously know I should be doing. 334 00:27:06,354 --> 00:27:14,454 And one of them, interestingly, is using Fuse to really help our clients in a differentiated way. 335 00:27:14,454 --> 00:27:22,314 And so when we first opened in 2017, the idea really was this would be a place in which our lawyers could learn. 336 00:27:22,394 --> 00:27:25,258 Well, I don't think we ever really anticipated was the amount. 337 00:27:25,258 --> 00:27:30,803 of client interests that we would have and how sustained that client interest would be. 338 00:27:30,803 --> 00:27:39,272 m And one of the things that I've really enjoyed the most is knowing that clients are really interested in who we choose. 339 00:27:39,272 --> 00:27:43,236 They're interested in hearing our opinions on the legal tech that we've brought in. 340 00:27:43,236 --> 00:27:50,066 Often the legal tech in which we have no stake, no particular, you know, no... 341 00:27:50,066 --> 00:27:51,428 no, was going to tell them stuck. 342 00:27:51,428 --> 00:27:52,198 What's the saying? 343 00:27:52,198 --> 00:27:53,299 No acts to grind. 344 00:27:53,299 --> 00:27:54,701 It's not that it's something else. 345 00:27:54,701 --> 00:27:57,433 There's another saying, but you no vested interest. 346 00:27:57,433 --> 00:28:03,680 Um, and they just want to like hear an agnostic perspective or they want to hear about the market. 347 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,743 What, what we see in the market, what have we seen that does X, Y, Z. 348 00:28:06,743 --> 00:28:13,869 So actually the client interactions on legal tech have been really enormously interesting as have the client. 349 00:28:14,132 --> 00:28:23,099 sort of interactions on the client nominated theme because for the client nominated theme, because there's an opportunity every year really to go to big clients of the firm and say, 350 00:28:23,099 --> 00:28:25,642 well, what are you interested in? 351 00:28:25,911 --> 00:28:27,927 What are the big topics that we ought to be looking at? 352 00:28:27,927 --> 00:28:29,024 What are you investing in? 353 00:28:29,024 --> 00:28:30,715 Who are you partnering with? 354 00:28:30,715 --> 00:28:31,926 What will you be piloting? 355 00:28:31,926 --> 00:28:33,347 What will you be focused on this year? 356 00:28:33,347 --> 00:28:39,852 And that's actually part of how we come up with the theme every year is through those discussions often with 357 00:28:39,870 --> 00:28:48,680 strategic venture head or the head of fintech or the head of innovation or the head of digital assets or whoever it might be a variety of different clients and sort of hearing 358 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:56,719 what's going on in the market not from lawyers but from the people whose job it is within those institutions to spot the trends and know what the firm is going to be looking at 359 00:28:56,719 --> 00:28:57,890 down the road. 360 00:28:58,177 --> 00:29:03,529 So do you feel that Fuse is contributing to better client retention? 361 00:29:04,002 --> 00:29:15,219 Yeah, I think it's, I think it's definitely contributing to strengthening client relationships in an entirely differentiated way, because what we're not doing is waiting 362 00:29:15,219 --> 00:29:17,510 for a quote to come in for a particular matter. 363 00:29:17,510 --> 00:29:25,405 eh But what we are being is a strategic partner and what we are being is a really genuinely useful sounding board. 364 00:29:25,405 --> 00:29:30,082 And I think that's the thing that I've most enjoyed actually about my role, because when I 365 00:29:30,082 --> 00:29:31,102 did credit derivatives. 366 00:29:31,102 --> 00:29:39,582 remember like year after year in my appraisal, I'd get this feedback, which was, you know, wouldn't it be great if you were, you know, you can do the work, but wouldn't it be great 367 00:29:39,582 --> 00:29:41,927 if you were a strategic partner to the client? 368 00:29:41,927 --> 00:29:46,049 And I used to sort of scratch my head a bit and be like, I don't really understand what that means. 369 00:29:46,049 --> 00:29:47,329 I'm a credit derivatives lawyer. 370 00:29:47,329 --> 00:29:47,939 What does that mean? 371 00:29:47,939 --> 00:29:49,452 Like I'm not going to make up. 372 00:29:49,452 --> 00:29:52,305 I don't know, JP Morgan strategy, am I that silly? 373 00:29:52,305 --> 00:29:55,048 So what is it you exactly expect of me? 374 00:29:55,048 --> 00:30:00,893 And I could never quite figure out how to be that sounding board or how to provide that support. 375 00:30:01,034 --> 00:30:05,008 And I think it's actually very difficult as a lawyer to be a strategic partner to a client. 376 00:30:05,008 --> 00:30:13,304 actually think it's a lot harder done than said, but what has been amazing about this role is legal tech is so front of mind. 377 00:30:13,304 --> 00:30:18,979 to so many in-house council that you do get to provide that strategic support. 378 00:30:18,979 --> 00:30:20,630 You do get to be a trusted voice. 379 00:30:20,630 --> 00:30:30,068 You do get to have them use you as a sounding board in a way that when they just want sort of transactional on-deal advice, it isn't the same relationship at all. 380 00:30:30,068 --> 00:30:37,874 So I mean, having experienced both and the sort of strength and quality of both relationships, I'd say this has been amazing for me. 381 00:30:38,109 --> 00:30:45,592 You know, we just participated with Consilio in their innovation labs that they had last week in Miami. 382 00:30:45,592 --> 00:30:49,404 It was our first time participating and it's a similar strategy there. 383 00:30:49,404 --> 00:30:58,317 They essentially bring new innovative legal tech companies and share their story and their capabilities with their clients. 384 00:30:58,437 --> 00:31:03,319 And uh I did not attend, Adam, who you met and somebody else from the team went. 385 00:31:03,319 --> 00:31:07,551 And just there was such a high level of engagement that 386 00:31:07,551 --> 00:31:15,205 We were thoroughly impressed with just how, to your point, how much clients are interested in this sort of thing. 387 00:31:15,896 --> 00:31:18,456 Do you mean Adam who had the fabulous trainers? 388 00:31:18,491 --> 00:31:20,312 Exactly, exactly. 389 00:31:20,312 --> 00:31:23,023 The info dash Jordans. 390 00:31:23,384 --> 00:31:29,938 What's funny is, em yeah, my wife and kids want these Jordans now too. 391 00:31:29,938 --> 00:31:32,070 And I'm like, look, you're not in our ICP. 392 00:31:32,070 --> 00:31:35,852 So, but I am buying my wife some, my kids will trash them. 393 00:31:38,099 --> 00:31:40,346 What kind of amazing present giver are you? 394 00:31:40,346 --> 00:31:43,947 I know, I know, what's better than a vacuum cleaner, right? 395 00:31:43,947 --> 00:31:46,430 I might get slapped if I do that, but. 396 00:31:46,430 --> 00:31:50,350 Ted, I think we can all agree that a vacuum cleaner would be a bad idea. 397 00:31:50,350 --> 00:31:51,690 I'm just looking at my own trainers. 398 00:31:51,690 --> 00:31:56,670 I've got a pretty good pair of trainers on, they're not personalized Jordans. 399 00:31:56,875 --> 00:31:58,206 Well, maybe we'll get you a pair. 400 00:31:58,206 --> 00:32:01,817 um they, uh, yeah, they're, they're bright green. 401 00:32:01,817 --> 00:32:02,845 had the idea. 402 00:32:02,845 --> 00:32:12,878 It was actually Mary O'Connell from Goodwin who I saw her Goodwin Jordans and I was like, they were a little bit different, but I hit her up on LinkedIn. 403 00:32:12,878 --> 00:32:13,973 was like, where did you get those? 404 00:32:13,973 --> 00:32:14,973 Cause those are awesome. 405 00:32:14,973 --> 00:32:19,095 Um, and then we bought them for the whole team at Ilta con last year. 406 00:32:19,095 --> 00:32:22,026 had eight people and I can't tell you how many people stopped. 407 00:32:22,026 --> 00:32:23,467 Cause again, they're 408 00:32:23,467 --> 00:32:27,606 kind of bright green, they stand out and you can't buy them this color. 409 00:32:27,728 --> 00:32:29,593 And they were a great conversation piece. 410 00:32:29,593 --> 00:32:31,563 So it's good marketing fodder. 411 00:32:31,563 --> 00:32:36,448 this is clearly I need a pair of ajeet sari or Jordans is what I've taken from this conversation. 412 00:32:36,448 --> 00:32:38,040 So you'll have to send me set. 413 00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:42,017 You'll have to pass on Mary's link to me so that I can do the same. 414 00:32:42,017 --> 00:32:42,817 There you go. 415 00:32:42,817 --> 00:32:43,037 Okay. 416 00:32:43,037 --> 00:32:44,877 We can work that out. 417 00:32:45,097 --> 00:32:47,217 Um, let me ask you a question. 418 00:32:47,217 --> 00:32:49,237 Why do you not take equity? 419 00:32:49,237 --> 00:32:50,537 What's the strategy there? 420 00:32:50,537 --> 00:32:52,313 Cause you're investing time. 421 00:32:52,611 --> 00:33:02,900 Yeah, so I think you alluded earlier to the fact that we will sometimes compare different companies and switch in and out. 422 00:33:02,900 --> 00:33:11,167 And I suppose when we first started, really what I had in mind was that we would be very purist about how we make the decisions. 423 00:33:11,167 --> 00:33:17,432 And over time, you know, there are some things where I thought, gosh, we should have taken a stake in that and we haven't done. 424 00:33:17,432 --> 00:33:19,974 m 425 00:33:20,556 --> 00:33:32,413 I think the thing that not having an equity stake in some of the companies has allowed us to do is to genuinely take an agnostic perspective on who is the right fit for this firm 426 00:33:32,413 --> 00:33:39,722 at this moment without any sort of sense of pull or, you know, maybe we should do this without anything sort of muddying that water. 427 00:33:39,722 --> 00:33:43,780 You can make a real assessment about what the right thing is to use. 428 00:33:43,780 --> 00:33:46,982 You know, what is the correct horse for the course, if you like, 429 00:33:47,497 --> 00:33:49,038 I do like, I do like. 430 00:33:49,038 --> 00:33:52,220 um Well, and that makes a lot of sense. 431 00:33:52,220 --> 00:34:04,196 So the fact that you don't take equity allows you to communicate to your clients in a very objective way. 432 00:34:04,196 --> 00:34:16,273 Maintaining that level of objectivity is key and it gives you flexibility in that you may not select a startup based on 433 00:34:16,681 --> 00:34:23,709 an economic outcome and rather on the potential capabilities that they can deliver to the firm. 434 00:34:24,526 --> 00:34:29,889 And that's not to say, know, it is perfectly possible, you know, lots of, lots of others do it. 435 00:34:29,889 --> 00:34:37,382 It's perfectly possible to take a in something, you know, with the, with the kind of intention of building a strategic partnership. 436 00:34:37,382 --> 00:34:45,236 But if it's not the right company for your firm or institution to switch out with them, things that, that is completely, you know, it's quite normal, I think, for some. 437 00:34:45,236 --> 00:34:49,646 But I suppose from when I started this, I... 438 00:34:49,646 --> 00:34:52,826 wanted to do it without the additional complexity that that might bring. 439 00:34:52,826 --> 00:34:58,986 And I wanted to do it in a way that felt sort of an easier way to do it. 440 00:34:58,986 --> 00:35:03,986 And actually just, you have to remember again, in 2017, absolutely nobody was doing this. 441 00:35:03,986 --> 00:35:11,706 And so every layer of complexity that you added made it slightly harder for people to understand what we were doing and why. 442 00:35:11,706 --> 00:35:15,746 And so actually this just felt cleaner, neater, easier, simpler. 443 00:35:16,701 --> 00:35:20,624 So there's a lot of, I'm sure you've seen it on LinkedIn. 444 00:35:20,624 --> 00:35:21,826 You're a busy person. 445 00:35:21,826 --> 00:35:27,271 So maybe, I don't know how closely you've been following the chatter around vibe coding. 446 00:35:27,271 --> 00:35:29,981 there is, have you seen, like Jamie Tau? 447 00:35:29,981 --> 00:35:30,732 I tell you? 448 00:35:30,732 --> 00:35:41,875 No, I tell you who talks to me about vibe coding, funnily enough, is my 10 year old at the same time as he's sort of pestering me for a book on vibe coding. 449 00:35:41,875 --> 00:35:44,698 And also the other thing he wants me to get is something for his raspberry pie. 450 00:35:44,698 --> 00:35:46,129 You've just reminded me. 451 00:35:47,047 --> 00:35:49,203 Interesting, yeah. 452 00:35:49,203 --> 00:35:52,652 I have not, I didn't even realize raspberry pies were still around, but that's... 453 00:35:52,652 --> 00:35:53,250 uh 454 00:35:53,250 --> 00:36:00,053 no, well the only reason he knows that they're sitting around is because I and my wisdom thought it would be a nice birthday present for him but I obviously bought the wrong thing 455 00:36:00,053 --> 00:36:03,054 and I haven't brought the correct starter kit or something. 456 00:36:04,010 --> 00:36:11,228 They're almost every day met with coming home from work to, but mummy, mummy, have you ordered my correct starter kit yet? 457 00:36:11,228 --> 00:36:12,539 No, not today. 458 00:36:12,539 --> 00:36:14,859 Why don't you wait until next Christmas? 459 00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,721 This year you're getting a vacuum cleaner my darling. 460 00:36:21,913 --> 00:36:22,554 that's great. 461 00:36:22,554 --> 00:36:26,598 ah Raspberry Pi's used to be pretty cheap, but... 462 00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:29,325 totally. 463 00:36:29,325 --> 00:36:37,561 a cool thing for a kid to learn about, know, it's all, it's also about, sorry, total aside, but it's all very interesting to think about what children need to learn today. 464 00:36:37,561 --> 00:36:47,367 But actually in terms of providing them with a fundamental base knowledge and just really giving them something that they can use as a base and learn from and expand from, which is 465 00:36:47,367 --> 00:36:49,811 slightly differentiated to what everyone else in their year is doing. 466 00:36:49,811 --> 00:36:52,480 I actually think it's still quite, quite interesting. 467 00:36:52,821 --> 00:36:55,883 Yeah, well with with vibe coding, 468 00:36:55,883 --> 00:37:06,131 the reality is that while it's really neat to demonstrate that these aren't, you're not going to be able to take the output of an exercise like that and roll it across firm wide. 469 00:37:06,131 --> 00:37:15,397 They're not, it's not a, these aren't production ready applications and it's going to be quite some time before AI is in a place where it can do that. 470 00:37:15,397 --> 00:37:20,370 So we have been, um, doing vibe coding here at info dash as well. 471 00:37:20,370 --> 00:37:24,239 And I had a post on LinkedIn where I outlined our process. 472 00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:29,540 And the reality is you very much need a human in a loop that has engineering chops. 473 00:37:29,561 --> 00:37:34,962 It's not, you can't go take a vibe coded app, slam it in production and scale it. 474 00:37:35,102 --> 00:37:45,475 that's true almost all the time at this point, but how do you, like, how has vibe coding affected your process? 475 00:37:45,475 --> 00:37:53,076 In other words, are you seeing founders with a pitch deck and a vibe coded prototype and then, or, or not. 476 00:37:53,076 --> 00:37:57,936 No, not yet, but our application process is kind of an interesting point. 477 00:37:57,936 --> 00:38:00,936 Really our application process will open this January. 478 00:38:01,156 --> 00:38:04,496 And so it will be interesting to see what comes out of that. 479 00:38:04,496 --> 00:38:07,756 You know, the last time we did the application rounds, it was last year, January. 480 00:38:07,756 --> 00:38:16,536 And so we didn't see anything that referred to vibe coding, but I don't, know, why would we have done it would have been before it's time, if you like. 481 00:38:16,956 --> 00:38:18,956 Um, so no, not. 482 00:38:19,250 --> 00:38:26,212 We haven't done yet, but I'll look out and I'll drop you an email after sometime around mid January to let you know. 483 00:38:26,212 --> 00:38:27,902 It'll be interesting to see what comes out. 484 00:38:27,902 --> 00:38:43,297 I'm genuinely really interested to see how much everything has moved on since last year, because last year it was still quite a lot of, oh, we're using Gen.ai for, but not very 485 00:38:43,297 --> 00:38:45,947 well thought out, some of them. 486 00:38:46,108 --> 00:38:48,108 Quite over ambitious. 487 00:38:48,340 --> 00:38:56,220 quite a lot of all sort of fell within the bucket of feels the same as Harvey, but like quite a bit later. 488 00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,720 So difficult bucket, I would say. 489 00:39:00,180 --> 00:39:07,140 and so, yeah, I'd be really interested to see what comes out this year and how, you know, what the themes are that come out. 490 00:39:07,140 --> 00:39:11,400 So yeah, I'll have a much better perspective on this once we've, once we've had the applications in. 491 00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,700 And I also look forward to listening to your podcast with Jamie. 492 00:39:16,361 --> 00:39:21,053 yes, that should be, I would say maybe two weeks after after this releases. 493 00:39:21,053 --> 00:39:24,255 So I would, I'm guessing late late January. 494 00:39:24,255 --> 00:39:27,256 Yeah, it's been amazing what he's been able to do. 495 00:39:27,396 --> 00:39:34,882 And it's really created a ground swell of interest in the process. 496 00:39:34,882 --> 00:39:36,735 look him up on LinkedIn. 497 00:39:36,735 --> 00:39:40,664 you can see, I can't actually see properly because I'm so old that my eyes don't work. 498 00:39:40,664 --> 00:39:43,464 But I'm going to look him up right now so that I can. 499 00:39:43,940 --> 00:39:48,344 is, I'm assuming that's how you pronounce it, like General Tao's chicken. 500 00:39:48,344 --> 00:39:59,032 um So yeah, he has, you'll have to look at some of his posts, like, mean, completely viral, like thousands of likes, like hundreds of comments. 501 00:39:59,553 --> 00:40:04,197 If I had to guess, he's probably had quarter of a million or a half million impressions. 502 00:40:04,197 --> 00:40:08,751 um And it's been amazing what he's been able to do. 503 00:40:08,751 --> 00:40:11,123 But again, it's still prototype fade. 504 00:40:11,123 --> 00:40:11,725 mean, 505 00:40:11,725 --> 00:40:19,060 Nobody that I know who's credible is saying, hey, take this five coded app and roll it out across your firm. 506 00:40:19,060 --> 00:40:21,782 There's a ton of technical debt. 507 00:40:21,782 --> 00:40:28,727 there's different AI is still in its infancy with in terms of what it's able to deliver through five coding. 508 00:40:28,978 --> 00:40:32,969 Right, I'm going to look forward, that would be my evening's job. 509 00:40:32,969 --> 00:40:34,161 I look forward. 510 00:40:34,161 --> 00:40:34,791 There you go. 511 00:40:34,791 --> 00:40:40,073 um How do you, how does the firm evaluate? 512 00:40:40,073 --> 00:40:45,234 And I was teeing you up for this question, which is like enterprise ready. 513 00:40:45,234 --> 00:40:56,817 Like when you look at where a startup is and your ability, like if somebody were to come to you with a pitch deck and a vibe coded prototype, how, how would you get that in front 514 00:40:56,817 --> 00:40:57,878 of your lawyers? 515 00:40:57,878 --> 00:40:59,588 Because it's, it's not production ready. 516 00:40:59,588 --> 00:41:03,489 Like where do they need to be in their technical maturity for this to work? 517 00:41:04,050 --> 00:41:13,964 Yeah, we have, I mean, will depend on what they are, what the application is looking to do, what information it needs access to, who would use it for what purpose. 518 00:41:14,184 --> 00:41:15,925 We have whole teams. 519 00:41:15,925 --> 00:41:24,959 So anytime we onboard any form of technology, we have in-house legal working hand in hand with our IT team, working hand in hand with our procurement team. 520 00:41:24,959 --> 00:41:27,380 have an AI governance structure. 521 00:41:27,380 --> 00:41:32,360 There's a lot of different pieces of the red tape puzzle that 522 00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:36,493 have to be gotten through before we will use anything in this firm. 523 00:41:36,493 --> 00:41:42,507 And as I there's not really, uh I really do hope this thing is right, but it is horses for courses. 524 00:41:42,507 --> 00:41:52,963 If what you are looking to do accesses very, very sensitive information and will be used for XYZ type of work, do you know what I mean? 525 00:41:52,963 --> 00:41:57,816 The assessment, the risk assessment is maybe slightly different to, I don't know. 526 00:41:58,307 --> 00:42:04,608 read the internet and give me a summary of what's happening in this particular area of interest. 527 00:42:04,608 --> 00:42:05,708 Do you see what I mean? 528 00:42:05,748 --> 00:42:14,508 So we look at what the use case is, we look at all of the factors going into it, and then we make appropriate recommendations about what is required. 529 00:42:15,141 --> 00:42:19,013 All right, we're almost out of time, but I did want to bounce one last thing off of you. 530 00:42:19,013 --> 00:42:31,631 The last time you and I spoke, you said something that was really interesting and you talked about moving beyond waiting for social proof to being the social proof, which 531 00:42:31,631 --> 00:42:37,504 social proof is so I say this all the time, like law firms don't buy tech, they buy social proof. 532 00:42:37,504 --> 00:42:42,967 So how have you been able to make that jump from waiting for it to being it? 533 00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:57,070 the whole premise of Fuse really, the whole premise of Fuse and again when we opened it we were so fortunate in that we were able to do it with a mindset of being entrepreneurial 534 00:42:57,070 --> 00:43:05,096 and trying things for the first time, know being the first firm of our size to open a legal tech incubator. 535 00:43:05,530 --> 00:43:15,670 it was quite freeing really because there was no model to follow, there was no expectations of success and so it meant we could do whatever we wanted and what we wanted 536 00:43:15,670 --> 00:43:28,572 was to experiment and find genuinely find horses for courses, find technology tools that were going to help our lawyers and the facts were it was a very small team so there wasn't 537 00:43:28,572 --> 00:43:30,664 time for like a big production around it. 538 00:43:30,664 --> 00:43:34,725 We just had to kind of hustle the way you would do if you were a startup, do you know what mean? 539 00:43:34,725 --> 00:43:39,309 And just try and sort of move through the various different stages as best you could. 540 00:43:39,309 --> 00:43:50,165 And what that enabled us to do was to try some really amazing things really early on, um, without worrying about what everybody else was doing. 541 00:43:50,165 --> 00:43:52,676 Cause everybody else is basically doing nothing. 542 00:43:52,696 --> 00:43:58,084 And because we started in that way, we've kind of continued in that way. 543 00:43:58,084 --> 00:43:59,750 We don't worry about what others are doing. 544 00:43:59,750 --> 00:44:00,276 get. 545 00:44:00,276 --> 00:44:04,717 to worry about what we're doing, which is enormously freeing, I have to say. 546 00:44:04,717 --> 00:44:19,051 m But I think the thing that really holds it all together is the appetite of our partners globally to support the initiatives that we have and the sort of the mindset that I'm 547 00:44:19,051 --> 00:44:21,142 gonna give this a go and if it doesn't work, it doesn't really matter. 548 00:44:21,142 --> 00:44:24,953 But if it does work, that's gonna be brilliant and I'm gonna support it and I'm gonna try my best for it. 549 00:44:24,953 --> 00:44:28,958 And for that I am enormously grateful that I'm at a firm. 550 00:44:28,958 --> 00:44:39,278 full of brilliant people who will give up their time and energy and sometimes political capital to try things that they don't know will be a success. 551 00:44:39,278 --> 00:44:43,722 And I don't think that that would be true of everywhere, but it is certainly true of A &O Sherman. 552 00:44:43,722 --> 00:44:51,068 And genuinely, I think that has really played the most enormous part in Fuse's longevity and success. 553 00:44:51,109 --> 00:44:51,840 That's awesome. 554 00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:57,595 uh has has this is a complete uh pivot here. 555 00:44:57,595 --> 00:45:01,098 Have you heard of six seven that kids say? 556 00:45:01,098 --> 00:45:03,240 Have you heard this? 557 00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:04,956 Are your kids of that age where? 558 00:45:04,956 --> 00:45:12,202 Well, I don't know if you're going to be able to see this, but I'm going to show you what I just most recently bought from Amazon. 559 00:45:12,336 --> 00:45:21,610 If I can access my, I seriously cannot see very well, but my most recent order from Amazon was hilariously this. 560 00:45:21,871 --> 00:45:24,516 Hang on, let's just get it up for you. 561 00:45:27,396 --> 00:45:28,477 you can't see it, can you? 562 00:45:28,477 --> 00:45:29,168 It's a mug. 563 00:45:29,168 --> 00:45:32,288 It's an amazing mug that says, there you go. 564 00:45:32,517 --> 00:45:33,360 yeah. 565 00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:35,012 It's a Christmas mug. 566 00:45:35,012 --> 00:45:36,618 It's a Christmas 6-7 mug. 567 00:45:37,243 --> 00:45:41,065 Well, so the reason I ask is we're going to make. 568 00:45:42,287 --> 00:45:44,648 Well, I didn't know if it was a UK thing. 569 00:45:44,648 --> 00:45:55,796 I know it's rampant here in the US and I'm frankly really tired of it, but um because my kids every time I can't imagine what poor school teachers are dealing with. 570 00:45:55,796 --> 00:46:01,300 But my goal we're going to make horses for courses as big as 6-7. 571 00:46:01,300 --> 00:46:02,601 We're going to do that. 572 00:46:02,601 --> 00:46:05,953 Horses for courses is going to be the 6-7 in legal tech. 573 00:46:06,534 --> 00:46:09,398 It's going to be the 6th of July of 2026. 574 00:46:09,398 --> 00:46:17,649 My kid is going come home with a letter from the headmaster saying the children are no longer allowed to say horses with horses because it's becoming disruptive in the 575 00:46:17,649 --> 00:46:18,631 classroom. 576 00:46:18,631 --> 00:46:19,932 I can't wait. 577 00:46:19,944 --> 00:46:20,846 We're gonna do it. 578 00:46:20,846 --> 00:46:27,597 em Okay, before we wrap up, how do folks find out more about Fuse and the work that you're doing there? 579 00:46:28,202 --> 00:46:33,467 so as I say, this podcast will, launch the most perfectly timed time. 580 00:46:33,467 --> 00:46:44,087 If you are a legal tech startup or scale up or interested in working with, um, a no Sherman or interested in accessing our clients and, and, understanding the problems that 581 00:46:44,087 --> 00:46:44,788 we all they have. 582 00:46:44,788 --> 00:46:51,220 Um, there will be an application process, which will be open for about three weeks, probably from mid January onwards. 583 00:46:51,220 --> 00:46:57,606 m And so you can either email me or anyone in the team or look on the ANO Sherman website for further details. 584 00:46:57,613 --> 00:46:58,123 Awesome. 585 00:46:58,123 --> 00:47:06,889 Well, it has been uh great getting to know you through this process and I've really enjoyed hearing and learning about Fuse and I'm sure our audience is as well. 586 00:47:06,889 --> 00:47:10,361 So uh thank you and have a great holiday. 587 00:47:10,714 --> 00:47:11,296 and to you. 588 00:47:11,296 --> 00:47:12,730 Thank you so much for having me. 589 00:47:12,730 --> 00:47:14,091 All right, take care. 00:00:04,126 Trudy, how are you today? 2 00:00:04,726 --> 00:00:07,509 very well thank you I'm on the road to Christmas. 3 00:00:07,509 --> 00:00:09,592 Yes, we're not too far away. 4 00:00:09,592 --> 00:00:18,495 This episode will air I think in mid January, um but it is uh in the late stages of December. 5 00:00:18,495 --> 00:00:24,703 And I don't know about you, but my calendar doesn't feel like it's late December. 6 00:00:25,612 --> 00:00:30,442 No, it feels like it's very much the throngs of the middle of the year. 7 00:00:30,442 --> 00:00:35,404 But I've just been told it's our team Christmas lunch tomorrow, so that's good news. 8 00:00:35,787 --> 00:00:36,758 Good stuff. 9 00:00:36,758 --> 00:00:39,099 Well, I appreciate you joining. 10 00:00:39,099 --> 00:00:48,886 um You and I had a chance to hang out a little bit at TLT, the summit in Austin and had some good conversations. 11 00:00:48,886 --> 00:00:58,232 I got a chance to talk to you a little bit about Fuse and I attended one of your sessions, which we'll talk about in just a second. 12 00:00:58,232 --> 00:01:02,355 But before we jump in, why don't you introduce yourself? 13 00:01:02,355 --> 00:01:05,627 Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and where you do it. 14 00:01:05,934 --> 00:01:06,534 Sure. 15 00:01:06,534 --> 00:01:08,314 So I'm Sreetajit Saria. 16 00:01:08,314 --> 00:01:10,054 I'm a partner at ANO Sherman. 17 00:01:10,054 --> 00:01:11,974 I'm based in our London office. 18 00:01:12,094 --> 00:01:16,694 The background is I actually was a credit derivatives lawyer for many, years. 19 00:01:16,694 --> 00:01:30,014 And in 2015, I was on a maternity leave, had an idea to open a legal tech space of some description, which we then opened in my firm in 2017. 20 00:01:30,771 --> 00:01:33,319 awesome and that is 21 00:01:33,356 --> 00:01:34,539 And that is Fuse. 22 00:01:34,539 --> 00:01:38,719 Sorry, you teed me up to say I am the head of Fuse and I failed you miserably, Ted. 23 00:01:38,719 --> 00:01:40,364 I failed at the first hurdle. 24 00:01:40,364 --> 00:01:41,121 Look at that. 25 00:01:41,121 --> 00:01:41,771 It's all good. 26 00:01:41,771 --> 00:01:42,542 It's all good. 27 00:01:42,542 --> 00:01:46,164 so and that's we're going to we're going to talk about fuse quite a bit on the episode. 28 00:01:46,164 --> 00:01:47,645 So I think it's fascinating. 29 00:01:47,645 --> 00:01:57,711 I've seen there are a lot of fuse like concepts out in the legal world, but what you're doing to my knowledge is somewhat unique. 30 00:01:57,711 --> 00:02:01,113 Um, and I find it fascinating and great for the ecosystem. 31 00:02:01,113 --> 00:02:08,977 Um, so why don't you give us a little bit of background on, on, on what fuse is, what's your remit and a little bit of background. 32 00:02:09,164 --> 00:02:17,976 Yeah, I'll try and skip through, just sort of to context set, the history is really that when we first started Fuse, nobody was talking about legal tech. 33 00:02:17,976 --> 00:02:22,778 I remember really, you people talking about defining, you know, defining a vertical. 34 00:02:22,818 --> 00:02:25,919 didn't even really know what legal tech looked like as a word. 35 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:26,859 So was it capital L? 36 00:02:26,859 --> 00:02:28,219 Was it all one word? 37 00:02:28,219 --> 00:02:29,760 You know, how would we make it look? 38 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:33,101 Those were the sorts of the discussions we were having when we opened. 39 00:02:33,101 --> 00:02:35,041 So really genuinely, it was not a thing. 40 00:02:35,041 --> 00:02:38,306 And so what we were trying to do back then was to help. 41 00:02:38,306 --> 00:02:47,414 the sorts of founders who had been young associates who had quit their job because they found it very frustrating and they had an idea, but they didn't have any ability to break 42 00:02:47,414 --> 00:02:54,219 into the legal market, trying to give them a home and trying to understand how we might use their technology to make ourselves more efficient. 43 00:02:54,540 --> 00:03:00,305 If you sort of forward to where we are now, the legal tech landscape is entirely different. 44 00:03:00,305 --> 00:03:03,387 Actually, it's attracting a lot of investment. 45 00:03:03,387 --> 00:03:05,669 The law firms are actually 46 00:03:05,696 --> 00:03:09,408 All lawyers, think, are generally a bit more minded to try new things. 47 00:03:09,408 --> 00:03:11,128 There's a bit more of a culture of acceptance. 48 00:03:11,128 --> 00:03:22,632 So really for us, it's a bit more about figuring out what our lawyers need doing better and trying to find companies in a bit more of targeted way that will fill the gap. 49 00:03:23,758 --> 00:03:28,188 And how do you identify these companies and vet them? 50 00:03:28,716 --> 00:03:28,996 Yeah. 51 00:03:28,996 --> 00:03:33,889 So every single year we have a process. 52 00:03:33,889 --> 00:03:39,379 So the process this year will be kicking off around about the time, hopefully that this podcast drops. 53 00:03:39,379 --> 00:03:44,746 So in mid January and anyone who's doing legal tech can apply. 54 00:03:44,746 --> 00:03:52,390 The idea is that we look at all of the applications and then we bunch them together and then we show them to partners in the firm. 55 00:03:52,390 --> 00:03:56,482 So for example, if we have a whole lot of stuff, which is for litigation, 56 00:03:56,482 --> 00:04:02,496 we'll show it to a variety of litigation partners and say, well, what of these do you think would be helpful or interesting or useful? 57 00:04:02,496 --> 00:04:11,002 And then once we've done that, we have a selection day, which last year actually went across three days because we saw quite a few. 58 00:04:11,002 --> 00:04:12,934 I think we had over 250 applicants. 59 00:04:12,934 --> 00:04:18,377 I think we narrowed it down to around 30 to see over the three days. 60 00:04:18,498 --> 00:04:19,182 But in that, 61 00:04:19,182 --> 00:04:21,704 m selection process, we have a variety of different voices. 62 00:04:21,704 --> 00:04:30,491 So we'll have a client, we'll have someone like someone in venture who can help us really assess the business from a bit more of a agnostic standpoint. 63 00:04:30,491 --> 00:04:36,696 We'll have someone, a partner in our firm who would be the person who would support or use the tool. 64 00:04:36,696 --> 00:04:43,942 So we have a variety of different perspectives in the room as well as our often our CTO and our head of legal tech. 65 00:04:45,159 --> 00:04:55,030 And from there, we narrow it down even further so that we take in legal tech companies that are solving a problem that we really have, that we, at least from an initial 66 00:04:55,030 --> 00:05:02,658 assessment, think that we will be able to use in the firm or at least pilot and that we know that there is partner support for. 67 00:05:04,196 --> 00:05:10,677 And um so you're looking for horses for courses, right? 68 00:05:11,817 --> 00:05:13,718 I had to get that in there. 69 00:05:15,638 --> 00:05:30,101 So for those that don't know, if you happen to attend Shruti's session at TLTF, there was a very enlightening uh portion of the presentation where Shruti used the metaphor horses 70 00:05:30,101 --> 00:05:32,761 for courses and um 71 00:05:32,829 --> 00:05:34,792 actually called somebody out in the audience. 72 00:05:34,792 --> 00:05:38,707 Um, cause I think this is a, this is a British thing, right? 73 00:05:39,238 --> 00:05:42,658 Okay, can I just be honest and tell you, I am not very good at... 74 00:05:42,658 --> 00:05:47,818 The thing that makes this all the funnier is that I am so bad at sayings. 75 00:05:47,818 --> 00:05:50,558 I almost always get them wrong. 76 00:05:50,558 --> 00:05:55,258 I have like about a 1 % success rate with sayings. 77 00:05:55,258 --> 00:05:55,398 Yeah. 78 00:05:55,398 --> 00:06:02,358 And so as it came out of my mouth, I thought, everyone's sort of in the audience in Austin is looking at me like, what's she talking about? 79 00:06:02,358 --> 00:06:04,098 I thought, Oh God, I've done it again. 80 00:06:04,098 --> 00:06:05,656 I've done it wrong, but I don't know. 81 00:06:05,656 --> 00:06:11,380 quite what I'm trying to say because I don't know the correct, know, it, it, you know, cows for courses? 82 00:06:11,380 --> 00:06:12,611 Like, what have I done wrong here? 83 00:06:12,611 --> 00:06:21,358 So I thought I'd try and dig myself out of trouble by asking the British people in the room to put their hand up and explain the saying. 84 00:06:21,358 --> 00:06:24,911 And the first person that I saw with a hand up was someone who had been in the Fuse cohort. 85 00:06:24,911 --> 00:06:27,052 He's one of our founders and so was like, that's easy. 86 00:06:27,052 --> 00:06:27,883 You you can explain it. 87 00:06:27,883 --> 00:06:30,985 And they looked at me and they were like, I don't know the saying. 88 00:06:32,206 --> 00:06:35,086 I was like, all right, I've definitely definitely messes up them. 89 00:06:35,086 --> 00:06:39,926 But then luckily the person next to him also was another Fuse founder, also British. 90 00:06:39,926 --> 00:06:42,386 And he was like, no, no, it means this. 91 00:06:42,386 --> 00:06:47,906 And what it really means is you choose the right tool for the right moment effectively. 92 00:06:47,906 --> 00:06:54,306 you choose, you know, just because something fits a particular moment or a particular problem, it doesn't mean it's going to fit all problems. 93 00:06:54,306 --> 00:06:58,946 It's about really understanding the problem you have in front of you and choosing the correct solution. 94 00:06:59,126 --> 00:07:01,246 That's that's sort of the that's 95 00:07:01,246 --> 00:07:02,210 meaning behind it. 96 00:07:02,210 --> 00:07:07,041 So yes, I'll try and stop myself from using sayings in talks in the future. 97 00:07:07,041 --> 00:07:11,304 Well, no, I thought it was a great lighthearted moment. 98 00:07:11,304 --> 00:07:22,330 those things, when you get into these, legal tech conversations on stage, they can sometimes need a little lightheartedness to reengage people. 99 00:07:22,330 --> 00:07:24,071 So I thought it worked well. 100 00:07:24,071 --> 00:07:27,153 And I haven't used the metaphor yet outside of this, but I might. 101 00:07:27,153 --> 00:07:33,617 Because I feel like when you use equestrian metaphors, you just sound smart and sophisticated. 102 00:07:34,094 --> 00:07:43,634 Well, actually, so we did the one in Austin and then I, the week later, was in New York doing a talk, sort of a similar panel, and somebody on my panel must have been in the room 103 00:07:43,634 --> 00:07:48,114 in Austin because then they said something about, well, it's like, Horses for Courses, isn't it, Shruti? 104 00:07:48,114 --> 00:07:51,094 And like the whole thing kind of unfolded again. 105 00:07:51,094 --> 00:07:53,314 I was just like, it's the saying that will never leave me. 106 00:07:53,314 --> 00:07:57,194 And I'm still not completely sure that it was right in the first place. 107 00:07:58,027 --> 00:08:05,164 Yes, I think that you are um that saying is going to be associated with you and the legal tech community for a while. 108 00:08:05,164 --> 00:08:06,886 So it's all good. 109 00:08:06,886 --> 00:08:17,497 Well, um going back to the selection process for these cohort startups, what revenue size are they generally? 110 00:08:17,497 --> 00:08:20,430 Are they pre-revenue or they post product market fit? 111 00:08:20,430 --> 00:08:21,671 What does that look like? 112 00:08:22,086 --> 00:08:23,838 it's actually always been a whole range. 113 00:08:23,838 --> 00:08:34,046 think that's one of the things I love the most about the job is we, because we're not taking an investment stake and because the metrics aren't really anything other than is it 114 00:08:34,046 --> 00:08:40,962 solving for a problem that we think we have or that our clients have and are we going to learn something by engaging with them? 115 00:08:40,962 --> 00:08:42,583 It's actually quite fluid. 116 00:08:42,583 --> 00:08:50,830 So, um, we have, in fact, one of the founders who I think was in the room during the talk would have had something where they. 117 00:08:50,830 --> 00:08:53,310 like pre-product when they started with Fuse. 118 00:08:53,310 --> 00:08:58,870 Really it was just like some wire frames and a good idea about what they wanted to do. 119 00:08:59,830 --> 00:09:12,250 And actually, interestingly, we've now got a license, a global firm wide license with them because they got in so early, we were able really to help them to sort of structure what 120 00:09:12,250 --> 00:09:15,090 they were going to do along the needs of our lawyers. 121 00:09:15,090 --> 00:09:19,670 really, you know, they'd get people from Germany saying, oh, well actually, 122 00:09:19,830 --> 00:09:20,770 this works differently here. 123 00:09:20,770 --> 00:09:27,695 So we need it to look like this, or you'd get a bunch of people from a particular department saying, actually in my line of work, I need to be able to do X. 124 00:09:27,695 --> 00:09:30,407 So could you please make the next bit to functionality look like Y. 125 00:09:30,407 --> 00:09:39,083 So I think quite a lot of their product roadmap has come from commentary from our global sort of across, across departments or feedback, which is great. 126 00:09:39,083 --> 00:09:42,345 So on the one hand, it's actually very useful to have very early stage companies. 127 00:09:42,345 --> 00:09:44,052 On the other hand, I think 128 00:09:44,052 --> 00:09:52,605 all law firms have become slightly more sophisticated around onboarding, what they're prepared to use, how they're to use them, m how to run pilots. 129 00:09:52,605 --> 00:10:00,467 so often we also have um later stage companies, which is sort of easier to pilot, easier to give a go to. 130 00:10:00,467 --> 00:10:07,609 But I mean, this year, for example, we have a company which is very early stage. 131 00:10:07,609 --> 00:10:11,040 It's a guy who's based in Sydney and he has 132 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:14,791 made this amazing product, which basically black lines emails. 133 00:10:14,791 --> 00:10:21,803 And it's the sort of thing where if you were going to be taking an investment stake in it, you'd be looking at it thinking, well, it's a very, very early stage. 134 00:10:21,803 --> 00:10:25,322 But actually for us, we just want to see, is this a problem people recognise? 135 00:10:25,322 --> 00:10:27,133 Do people actually want to black line their emails? 136 00:10:27,133 --> 00:10:32,656 And if they do, is this the way that they would like to interact with the process? 137 00:10:32,656 --> 00:10:34,887 So for us, it's been an enormous learning experience. 138 00:10:34,887 --> 00:10:40,268 We've really enjoyed having the company and actually the flexibility to be able to learn about what it is we're missing. 139 00:10:40,268 --> 00:10:44,716 in our suite of tools and what it is that will help our lawyers is actually very helpful. 140 00:10:44,961 --> 00:10:48,141 What is the difference between red line and black line? 141 00:10:49,134 --> 00:10:51,242 eh I don't know, that's a great question. 142 00:10:51,242 --> 00:10:53,811 Maybe one is the strikethrough and one is the addition. 143 00:10:53,811 --> 00:10:55,483 I say interesting. 144 00:10:55,484 --> 00:11:02,022 So um how important is the economic viability of the startup? 145 00:11:02,022 --> 00:11:05,747 How closely do you vet based on that criteria? 146 00:11:06,466 --> 00:11:14,479 Well, that's one of the reasons why we have someone with a venture background in our selection day is whilst we're not making an investment stake, what we do want to know is 147 00:11:14,479 --> 00:11:21,034 that if we're piloting a company, if we're thinking about using them in the firm, that they are going to be stable and that they have longevity. 148 00:11:21,034 --> 00:11:27,498 So it's important, you know, from the perspective of is this company going to survive and do well and flourish? 149 00:11:27,498 --> 00:11:35,852 It is important, but from making it, you know, is, the valuation of the company, the appropriate one for us, it is kind of irrelevant. 150 00:11:36,457 --> 00:11:37,397 I see. 151 00:11:37,979 --> 00:11:49,080 And then what, how, how are you partnering with TLTF if you are, that seems like a great mechanism to source opportunities. 152 00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:50,281 Is there a partnership there? 153 00:11:50,281 --> 00:11:52,173 Is that something that's in flight? 154 00:11:52,514 --> 00:12:01,358 Yeah, we're very fortunate in that I've known Zach and Rebecca and the team quite a long while now and I actually respect them enormously. 155 00:12:01,358 --> 00:12:03,339 I think they do a great job. 156 00:12:03,339 --> 00:12:14,514 And so for us, it's sort of what I would call an informal sort of partnership in that when we are looking to start the process, I'll always give one of them a call and just sort of 157 00:12:14,514 --> 00:12:15,695 say, have you seen this year? 158 00:12:15,695 --> 00:12:16,635 Who do you think is excellent? 159 00:12:16,635 --> 00:12:18,816 Who should we be thinking about? 160 00:12:19,083 --> 00:12:25,208 We were very lucky to have someone from their team join our selection panel last year, so that was really helpful. 161 00:12:25,208 --> 00:12:34,337 um I would expect to be able to cross-refer him things to look at as well if we came across things that we thought would be of interest to them, so it's a really great 162 00:12:34,337 --> 00:12:35,467 relationship. 163 00:12:35,529 --> 00:12:46,633 Yeah, I mean, the concept of having design partners in all of technology, oh I've spent most of my career in legal tech. 164 00:12:46,734 --> 00:12:54,917 It is an essential component in having a successful outcome as a legal tech startup, really. 165 00:12:55,237 --> 00:13:01,620 A bunch of founders sitting in a room with a whiteboard figuring out what the client needs are is not a good process. 166 00:13:01,620 --> 00:13:04,831 Having design partners, it sounds like you guys have 167 00:13:04,948 --> 00:13:11,116 formalized kind of the intake and management of where you invest time because it is a time investment. 168 00:13:11,116 --> 00:13:12,497 that accurate? 169 00:13:12,975 --> 00:13:19,178 It's a huge time investment and one of the things that I think people always ask me, know, why is Fuse not taking off in other law firms? 170 00:13:19,258 --> 00:13:31,494 I think one of the reasons is it's much less to do with Fuse and me than it is to do with the fact that our partnership as a whole are generally very collaborative, um quite 171 00:13:31,494 --> 00:13:34,808 entrepreneurial, very giving. 172 00:13:34,808 --> 00:13:45,081 So, you if you are the partner sponsor of one of these companies that we've chosen, you're committing to help some pilot something without knowing that there's going to be a good 173 00:13:45,081 --> 00:13:45,832 outcome. 174 00:13:45,832 --> 00:13:47,975 You you're sort of taking a bit of a chance. 175 00:13:47,975 --> 00:13:50,582 And when you take it in, you 176 00:13:50,582 --> 00:13:59,027 you'll often find these partners really helping them along saying, okay, we should speak to my associate here because they'll have a perspective on this or actually let's get X 177 00:13:59,027 --> 00:14:01,699 number of people to come into your product because they'll be able to help you. 178 00:14:01,699 --> 00:14:11,948 really, it never ceases to amaze me how amazing our partners are from across the globe actually, sort of allowing the companies infused to really test their products and to get 179 00:14:11,948 --> 00:14:13,036 a sense of what's good. 180 00:14:13,036 --> 00:14:17,048 the one part of that is opening the door to other people. 181 00:14:17,048 --> 00:14:21,250 But the other which I think is even more impressive still is that we are quite helpful with our feedback. 182 00:14:21,250 --> 00:14:22,300 We're honest. 183 00:14:22,300 --> 00:14:29,330 And for lawyers, that's not always the easiest thing to do is to give like brutal mean feedback, especially British lawyers were also like nice and polite and we like to be kind 184 00:14:29,330 --> 00:14:29,983 of like kind. 185 00:14:29,983 --> 00:14:38,907 But actually I think it's really helpful that people understand the process and they understand that it's actually more helpful to say to somebody, this doesn't work because I 186 00:14:38,907 --> 00:14:45,829 really need this because I would like to have X because you know, to be able to have a frank conversation is actually more helpful. 187 00:14:46,010 --> 00:14:47,070 mostly 188 00:14:47,246 --> 00:14:54,206 our firm does that very well with the cohort companies in a really very nice respectful helpful way. 189 00:14:54,791 --> 00:15:05,208 Do you provide any other support like incubator style support in terms of kind of business coaching, like feedback on pricing, like go to market strategy, that sort of stuff? 190 00:15:05,517 --> 00:15:12,357 So it does depend on the company and as you sort of alluded to at the beginning, where they're up to in their journey. 191 00:15:12,357 --> 00:15:16,777 So for many companies that we have, and they have a very set pricing structure, they know exactly what they're doing. 192 00:15:16,777 --> 00:15:20,037 They don't really need that kind of thing for others that are a bit earlier. 193 00:15:20,037 --> 00:15:23,537 Sometimes they really don't even know what their elevator pitch looks like. 194 00:15:23,537 --> 00:15:30,537 So when you join the Fuse program, we spend a bit of time at the very beginning, really getting to know the company, but we help them develop a five minute elevator pitch, which 195 00:15:30,537 --> 00:15:32,757 will speak to our lawyers and our clients. 196 00:15:32,757 --> 00:15:34,722 And you forget sometimes that 197 00:15:34,722 --> 00:15:46,177 when you start a business and you have got your team and you can become quite introverted and quite introspective and you forget what people actually understand or know about the 198 00:15:46,177 --> 00:15:52,230 problem or how they feel about the problem or how you can articulate yourself to really land with an audience. 199 00:15:52,230 --> 00:16:00,553 And so that I always think is one of the most helpful things we do is the articulation of the problem and your solution and how you might be able to help people. 200 00:16:01,222 --> 00:16:02,644 And following on from that. 201 00:16:03,020 --> 00:16:08,342 We have office space, which is available in London and San Francisco for people to use if they're in the cohort. 202 00:16:08,342 --> 00:16:08,943 So that's great. 203 00:16:08,943 --> 00:16:11,183 I love having a busy London views. 204 00:16:11,183 --> 00:16:12,494 That's awesome. 205 00:16:12,494 --> 00:16:15,265 And then we have the dedicated partner sponsor. 206 00:16:15,265 --> 00:16:22,378 So that's each person's part of point of main point of contact who is typically within the area in which they operate. 207 00:16:22,538 --> 00:16:28,641 And then depending on who the company is and what they do and what their customer base is and what they're trying to achieve. 208 00:16:28,641 --> 00:16:31,682 will also sometimes make client instructions. 209 00:16:31,682 --> 00:16:41,489 So oftentimes, if you think about some of the original fuse cohort companies, their technologies were applicable to us in law firm, but also to in-house counsel. 210 00:16:41,489 --> 00:16:50,535 And so, you know, often people have managed to get into this quite big contracts with some of our biggest clients because a partner has said, you've got to see this tool that we've 211 00:16:50,535 --> 00:16:50,895 got here. 212 00:16:50,895 --> 00:16:51,476 It's amazing. 213 00:16:51,476 --> 00:16:52,527 And they've been like, it's amazing. 214 00:16:52,527 --> 00:16:53,457 I'd like that. 215 00:16:53,457 --> 00:16:57,080 And so then, then we put them in touch and then lo and behold, there they are. 216 00:16:57,080 --> 00:16:59,441 So we try and really. 217 00:16:59,441 --> 00:17:00,742 um 218 00:17:01,046 --> 00:17:04,852 encourage people to share the network if that makes sense to everyone's benefit. 219 00:17:05,045 --> 00:17:12,458 Yeah, so how do you think about tools that might ultimately displace law firm revenue? 220 00:17:12,458 --> 00:17:14,669 AI is a great example. 221 00:17:14,669 --> 00:17:27,194 If you look at the valuations of the Harveys and Lagoras of the world, it's very clear that the only way the math works is for them to take some meaningful piece of the services 222 00:17:27,194 --> 00:17:30,835 um pie chart, if you will. 223 00:17:30,835 --> 00:17:35,257 um 224 00:17:35,393 --> 00:17:44,535 about a $1 trillion legal services market of that about 3 % is 30 billion is legal tech. 225 00:17:44,756 --> 00:17:56,759 And if you look at Harvey's latest round, they're gonna need, you know, 50 to $80 million IPO in order to make these venture investors happy. 226 00:17:56,759 --> 00:18:05,281 So when you're deciding, when you have a product that could potentially displace 227 00:18:05,569 --> 00:18:09,209 revenue of law firms, how do you think about that? 228 00:18:09,209 --> 00:18:10,409 Or do you? 229 00:18:10,712 --> 00:18:20,106 I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, of course we do, but I do think the question is somewhat misplaced in the nicest way because it suggests that law firm revenues are coming from 230 00:18:20,106 --> 00:18:29,620 static sources, you know, and it's kind of sort of saying, here's the train that's moving in one direction, but here's the sort of piece of chewing gum that got left behind and 231 00:18:29,620 --> 00:18:30,360 that's going to stay there. 232 00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:31,431 It's not quite right. 233 00:18:31,431 --> 00:18:39,436 You know, actually as clients progress and they are able to do different things using different tools, or we are able to do different things using different tools. 234 00:18:39,436 --> 00:18:44,049 To me, the sort of natural progression is that the work type will also change. 235 00:18:44,049 --> 00:18:49,752 So it might be the case that we at the moment are focused on highly complex multi-jurisdictional work. 236 00:18:49,752 --> 00:18:56,936 Actually using a Harvey type tool might open up different revenue streams for us. 237 00:18:56,936 --> 00:19:08,340 you know, I feel like this kind of idea of m always categorizing law firm revenues as being displaced by legal tech, it's not. 238 00:19:08,340 --> 00:19:11,001 like necessarily the right perspective. 239 00:19:11,001 --> 00:19:15,873 think what you have to sort of be ready for is the shifting sands. 240 00:19:16,373 --> 00:19:19,345 But the shifting sands are not just negative. 241 00:19:19,345 --> 00:19:28,859 They also provide a huge opportunity for us and for everyone, frankly, to look at a different client base, look at different ways of working, look at different types of work 242 00:19:28,859 --> 00:19:29,819 that we could be doing. 243 00:19:29,819 --> 00:19:37,082 And actually, I don't know if I draw on my own experience, just the basics of doing derivatives transactions. 244 00:19:39,559 --> 00:19:47,762 Part of my job when I did derivatives was to create a book of standard definitions which kind of had like the Lego pieces of a contract. 245 00:19:47,762 --> 00:19:59,147 Each sort of definition was a sort of a different Lego brick but it meant that once you had published the actual booklet the complexity of the house that you could build with the 246 00:19:59,147 --> 00:20:05,789 Lego was far greater than if you didn't have any Lego and you were just trying to do it out of pieces of don't know paper with scissors. 247 00:20:05,789 --> 00:20:06,657 you see what it means? 248 00:20:06,657 --> 00:20:07,513 Hmm. 249 00:20:07,790 --> 00:20:21,290 And I wonder whether actually the use of Harvey and Legora and, you know, the other tools that you mentioned, whether the work itself will change, whether the types of deals that 250 00:20:21,290 --> 00:20:26,590 are done will change and lead to more complex documents or in some cases more standard documents. 251 00:20:26,590 --> 00:20:32,370 so I think, as I say, I think it's about recognizing that the sounds are shifting and being ready for that. 252 00:20:32,550 --> 00:20:37,056 like honestly, having opened Fuse in 2017 and being a firm that has 253 00:20:37,056 --> 00:20:40,321 really always embraced legal tech, AI and everything else. 254 00:20:40,321 --> 00:20:45,698 I think we are sort of as well positioned to do it as anyone, if not really the best. 255 00:20:46,207 --> 00:20:46,477 Yeah. 256 00:20:46,477 --> 00:20:48,278 And I think that's the right way to look at it. 257 00:20:48,278 --> 00:20:54,191 So it's less about, it's not Harvey or Legora that's displacing the legal work. 258 00:20:54,191 --> 00:20:56,493 It's the underlying technology, right? 259 00:20:56,493 --> 00:21:08,569 It's, it's AI and whether it's them or some other AI tool or something that the GCs build the work that's at risk is at risk because of the technology and who, who fills that gap 260 00:21:08,569 --> 00:21:10,030 is really irrelevant. 261 00:21:10,030 --> 00:21:15,935 I think that law firms need to recognize what is, you know, 262 00:21:15,935 --> 00:21:27,106 what, where they're going to play and where revenue is defensible and where it's not and focusing on what's defensible and what makes sense for them to deliver in this new tech 263 00:21:27,106 --> 00:21:28,017 enabled world. 264 00:21:28,017 --> 00:21:29,288 So I completely agree with you. 265 00:21:29,288 --> 00:21:40,048 don't, I don't get hung up on, if I were sitting in a, in a, on a law firm XCOM, I wouldn't get hung up on, Hey, is this tool or that tool going to displace our revenue? 266 00:21:40,048 --> 00:21:41,045 I would look at 267 00:21:41,045 --> 00:21:46,949 Hey, what is the underlying tech going to do to the underlying economics of this firm and how do we adapt to that? 268 00:21:47,374 --> 00:21:49,089 Yeah, and where's the new opportunities? 269 00:21:49,089 --> 00:21:50,429 Right. 270 00:21:50,769 --> 00:21:51,709 Exactly. 271 00:21:51,829 --> 00:22:05,229 So with Fuse, you have with as part of these cohorts, do you have themes for incoming, you know, where, hey, we're going to do an AI cohort or, you know, a e-discovery cohort or 272 00:22:05,229 --> 00:22:06,649 what does that look like? 273 00:22:06,784 --> 00:22:08,785 Yeah, we, um, we do have themes. 274 00:22:08,785 --> 00:22:10,697 The themes are slightly different actually. 275 00:22:10,697 --> 00:22:17,692 So when we first started Puse, the idea was entirely related to finding legal tech companies that would help us work better. 276 00:22:17,692 --> 00:22:26,968 Um, I suppose because of my derivatives background, I was always sort of tangentially interested in what my derivatives colleagues in the various different financial 277 00:22:26,968 --> 00:22:27,869 institutions were doing. 278 00:22:27,869 --> 00:22:30,331 And quite a lot of them were moving into digital assets. 279 00:22:30,331 --> 00:22:33,253 And so I sort of interested to know a bit more about that. 280 00:22:33,253 --> 00:22:35,114 And, um, 281 00:22:35,510 --> 00:22:46,759 I've had a very interesting conversation one day with someone who said, it wouldn't it be great if you could use Fuse as a vehicle to help your lawyers to come on this learning 282 00:22:46,759 --> 00:22:53,384 journey with us whilst we're doing it in all these areas of emerging sort of legal work. 283 00:22:53,625 --> 00:23:02,032 Say for example, when the world's first blockchain bond was em issued, that was done using a company that had been in Fuse and we were able to advise on it. 284 00:23:02,032 --> 00:23:04,942 And the reason why it was obvious that we would be 285 00:23:04,942 --> 00:23:11,302 the advisor is because we'd spent quite a lot of time with the provider of the technology. 286 00:23:11,302 --> 00:23:16,602 So we actually understood what the difference was between a piece of paper and a digital bond. 287 00:23:16,602 --> 00:23:27,902 And so I think that kind of in-depth, sort of behind the scenes experience really helps you to sort of finesse your understanding of the law and like practically what's going on 288 00:23:27,902 --> 00:23:32,602 so that you can give legal advice on the practical realities of what is happening. 289 00:23:32,878 --> 00:23:39,398 And so over the years we have done a thematic cohort as well, which is done by, by, by virtue of a client nomination. 290 00:23:39,398 --> 00:23:44,778 So we ask them a small number of clients of the firm to nominate into the theme. 291 00:23:44,778 --> 00:23:55,598 And then we choose the companies based on those nominations that we think will teach us new things or doing really cutting edge work or looking at themes which are of new 292 00:23:55,598 --> 00:24:00,498 interest to our clients or we think they might want to know about. 293 00:24:00,498 --> 00:24:02,118 So that. 294 00:24:03,192 --> 00:24:10,868 cohort this year had a theme called, it was called, it was technically called Transformation and Resilience. 295 00:24:10,868 --> 00:24:14,562 In my head, it was called Thrive in 25. 296 00:24:14,631 --> 00:24:17,153 Not a saying, but snappy nonetheless. 297 00:24:17,153 --> 00:24:23,918 em And we had a really interesting variety of different types of company in that. 298 00:24:23,918 --> 00:24:27,641 So some things looking at sustainability, one looking at cyber. 299 00:24:27,641 --> 00:24:28,726 em 300 00:24:28,726 --> 00:24:33,876 something looking at tokenization, one which was focused on stable coin clearing. 301 00:24:33,876 --> 00:24:37,292 So very different, different variety. 302 00:24:37,473 --> 00:24:45,025 Do you ever take head-to-head like competitive offerings and evaluate them? 303 00:24:45,446 --> 00:24:46,586 Yes, we have done that. 304 00:24:46,586 --> 00:24:57,639 So in the legal tech space, you know, I see my job as being making sure that we find the best tools for our lawyers. 305 00:24:57,639 --> 00:25:06,052 kind of, I try really hard to support the cohort members that we have, but we every so often have to do an evaluation and ask ourselves, is this really still the best in the 306 00:25:06,052 --> 00:25:06,712 market? 307 00:25:06,712 --> 00:25:15,446 m And so we have on occasion m tested one or two or three against one another. 308 00:25:15,446 --> 00:25:24,061 And again, like the last time we did it, think we had something like a hundred of our lawyers testing three different tools that sort of fell within the same overarching 309 00:25:24,061 --> 00:25:25,171 bucket. 310 00:25:25,242 --> 00:25:33,717 we took feedback, both qualitative and quantitative from those testers and made a decision based on the feedback that we got. 311 00:25:33,717 --> 00:25:36,290 So what I like about that process is. 312 00:25:36,290 --> 00:25:41,273 when I at least was in this firm, those sorts of decisions weren't really being made by the lawyers. 313 00:25:41,273 --> 00:25:50,278 They were being made by perhaps a mixture of someone in the IT team and someone in procurement and, you know, perhaps like a conversation with like one or two lawyers who 314 00:25:50,278 --> 00:25:53,569 were like maybe partners who didn't actually do the work that was being tested. 315 00:25:53,569 --> 00:25:58,522 And I feel like this is like a much more. 316 00:25:59,384 --> 00:26:03,551 sort of interesting way of making those selections, which is just genuinely to ask the users. 317 00:26:03,551 --> 00:26:06,606 And it's quite difficult to organize it, which is why think more people don't do it. 318 00:26:06,606 --> 00:26:07,949 It's quite time consuming. 319 00:26:07,949 --> 00:26:12,135 It's quite a big, sort of a heavy lift, but I think it's a really good way of doing things. 320 00:26:12,135 --> 00:26:13,738 It's a really good discipline. 321 00:26:13,771 --> 00:26:20,396 Well, that leads me into my next question, which is, how do you measure success? 322 00:26:20,396 --> 00:26:22,538 The firm is making a significant investment. 323 00:26:22,538 --> 00:26:24,209 Is it purely qualitative? 324 00:26:24,209 --> 00:26:25,010 Like, hey, you know what? 325 00:26:25,010 --> 00:26:27,051 We found these good tools and they're great. 326 00:26:27,051 --> 00:26:29,573 Or do you have quantitative KPIs? 327 00:26:30,188 --> 00:26:30,418 Yeah. 328 00:26:30,418 --> 00:26:32,620 So the thing I actually want to start a few. 329 00:26:32,620 --> 00:26:38,144 So I said to the senior partner then with whom we kind of put the whole thing together. 330 00:26:38,344 --> 00:26:45,559 This will never work if I have preset KPIs because we don't really know what's around the corner. 331 00:26:45,559 --> 00:26:57,294 And if I'm always chasing the thing that you thought last year, the beginning of last year that I ought to be chasing will never be future looking or future, you know, sort of. 332 00:26:57,294 --> 00:27:00,654 entrepreneurial or forward thinking enough. 333 00:27:01,534 --> 00:27:05,714 And so there are some things that I obviously know I should be doing. 334 00:27:06,354 --> 00:27:14,454 And one of them, interestingly, is using Fuse to really help our clients in a differentiated way. 335 00:27:14,454 --> 00:27:22,314 And so when we first opened in 2017, the idea really was this would be a place in which our lawyers could learn. 336 00:27:22,394 --> 00:27:25,258 Well, I don't think we ever really anticipated was the amount. 337 00:27:25,258 --> 00:27:30,803 of client interests that we would have and how sustained that client interest would be. 338 00:27:30,803 --> 00:27:39,272 m And one of the things that I've really enjoyed the most is knowing that clients are really interested in who we choose. 339 00:27:39,272 --> 00:27:43,236 They're interested in hearing our opinions on the legal tech that we've brought in. 340 00:27:43,236 --> 00:27:50,066 Often the legal tech in which we have no stake, no particular, you know, no... 341 00:27:50,066 --> 00:27:51,428 no, was going to tell them stuck. 342 00:27:51,428 --> 00:27:52,198 What's the saying? 343 00:27:52,198 --> 00:27:53,299 No acts to grind. 344 00:27:53,299 --> 00:27:54,701 It's not that it's something else. 345 00:27:54,701 --> 00:27:57,433 There's another saying, but you no vested interest. 346 00:27:57,433 --> 00:28:03,680 Um, and they just want to like hear an agnostic perspective or they want to hear about the market. 347 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,743 What, what we see in the market, what have we seen that does X, Y, Z. 348 00:28:06,743 --> 00:28:13,869 So actually the client interactions on legal tech have been really enormously interesting as have the client. 349 00:28:14,132 --> 00:28:23,099 sort of interactions on the client nominated theme because for the client nominated theme, because there's an opportunity every year really to go to big clients of the firm and say, 350 00:28:23,099 --> 00:28:25,642 well, what are you interested in? 351 00:28:25,911 --> 00:28:27,927 What are the big topics that we ought to be looking at? 352 00:28:27,927 --> 00:28:29,024 What are you investing in? 353 00:28:29,024 --> 00:28:30,715 Who are you partnering with? 354 00:28:30,715 --> 00:28:31,926 What will you be piloting? 355 00:28:31,926 --> 00:28:33,347 What will you be focused on this year? 356 00:28:33,347 --> 00:28:39,852 And that's actually part of how we come up with the theme every year is through those discussions often with 357 00:28:39,870 --> 00:28:48,680 strategic venture head or the head of fintech or the head of innovation or the head of digital assets or whoever it might be a variety of different clients and sort of hearing 358 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:56,719 what's going on in the market not from lawyers but from the people whose job it is within those institutions to spot the trends and know what the firm is going to be looking at 359 00:28:56,719 --> 00:28:57,890 down the road. 360 00:28:58,177 --> 00:29:03,529 So do you feel that Fuse is contributing to better client retention? 361 00:29:04,002 --> 00:29:15,219 Yeah, I think it's, I think it's definitely contributing to strengthening client relationships in an entirely differentiated way, because what we're not doing is waiting 362 00:29:15,219 --> 00:29:17,510 for a quote to come in for a particular matter. 363 00:29:17,510 --> 00:29:25,405 eh But what we are being is a strategic partner and what we are being is a really genuinely useful sounding board. 364 00:29:25,405 --> 00:29:30,082 And I think that's the thing that I've most enjoyed actually about my role, because when I 365 00:29:30,082 --> 00:29:31,102 did credit derivatives. 366 00:29:31,102 --> 00:29:39,582 remember like year after year in my appraisal, I'd get this feedback, which was, you know, wouldn't it be great if you were, you know, you can do the work, but wouldn't it be great 367 00:29:39,582 --> 00:29:41,927 if you were a strategic partner to the client? 368 00:29:41,927 --> 00:29:46,049 And I used to sort of scratch my head a bit and be like, I don't really understand what that means. 369 00:29:46,049 --> 00:29:47,329 I'm a credit derivatives lawyer. 370 00:29:47,329 --> 00:29:47,939 What does that mean? 371 00:29:47,939 --> 00:29:49,452 Like I'm not going to make up. 372 00:29:49,452 --> 00:29:52,305 I don't know, JP Morgan strategy, am I that silly? 373 00:29:52,305 --> 00:29:55,048 So what is it you exactly expect of me? 374 00:29:55,048 --> 00:30:00,893 And I could never quite figure out how to be that sounding board or how to provide that support. 375 00:30:01,034 --> 00:30:05,008 And I think it's actually very difficult as a lawyer to be a strategic partner to a client. 376 00:30:05,008 --> 00:30:13,304 actually think it's a lot harder done than said, but what has been amazing about this role is legal tech is so front of mind. 377 00:30:13,304 --> 00:30:18,979 to so many in-house council that you do get to provide that strategic support. 378 00:30:18,979 --> 00:30:20,630 You do get to be a trusted voice. 379 00:30:20,630 --> 00:30:30,068 You do get to have them use you as a sounding board in a way that when they just want sort of transactional on-deal advice, it isn't the same relationship at all. 380 00:30:30,068 --> 00:30:37,874 So I mean, having experienced both and the sort of strength and quality of both relationships, I'd say this has been amazing for me. 381 00:30:38,109 --> 00:30:45,592 You know, we just participated with Consilio in their innovation labs that they had last week in Miami. 382 00:30:45,592 --> 00:30:49,404 It was our first time participating and it's a similar strategy there. 383 00:30:49,404 --> 00:30:58,317 They essentially bring new innovative legal tech companies and share their story and their capabilities with their clients. 384 00:30:58,437 --> 00:31:03,319 And uh I did not attend, Adam, who you met and somebody else from the team went. 385 00:31:03,319 --> 00:31:07,551 And just there was such a high level of engagement that 386 00:31:07,551 --> 00:31:15,205 We were thoroughly impressed with just how, to your point, how much clients are interested in this sort of thing. 387 00:31:15,896 --> 00:31:18,456 Do you mean Adam who had the fabulous trainers? 388 00:31:18,491 --> 00:31:20,312 Exactly, exactly. 389 00:31:20,312 --> 00:31:23,023 The info dash Jordans. 390 00:31:23,384 --> 00:31:29,938 What's funny is, em yeah, my wife and kids want these Jordans now too. 391 00:31:29,938 --> 00:31:32,070 And I'm like, look, you're not in our ICP. 392 00:31:32,070 --> 00:31:35,852 So, but I am buying my wife some, my kids will trash them. 393 00:31:38,099 --> 00:31:40,346 What kind of amazing present giver are you? 394 00:31:40,346 --> 00:31:43,947 I know, I know, what's better than a vacuum cleaner, right? 395 00:31:43,947 --> 00:31:46,430 I might get slapped if I do that, but. 396 00:31:46,430 --> 00:31:50,350 Ted, I think we can all agree that a vacuum cleaner would be a bad idea. 397 00:31:50,350 --> 00:31:51,690 I'm just looking at my own trainers. 398 00:31:51,690 --> 00:31:56,670 I've got a pretty good pair of trainers on, they're not personalized Jordans. 399 00:31:56,875 --> 00:31:58,206 Well, maybe we'll get you a pair. 400 00:31:58,206 --> 00:32:01,817 um they, uh, yeah, they're, they're bright green. 401 00:32:01,817 --> 00:32:02,845 had the idea. 402 00:32:02,845 --> 00:32:12,878 It was actually Mary O'Connell from Goodwin who I saw her Goodwin Jordans and I was like, they were a little bit different, but I hit her up on LinkedIn. 403 00:32:12,878 --> 00:32:13,973 was like, where did you get those? 404 00:32:13,973 --> 00:32:14,973 Cause those are awesome. 405 00:32:14,973 --> 00:32:19,095 Um, and then we bought them for the whole team at Ilta con last year. 406 00:32:19,095 --> 00:32:22,026 had eight people and I can't tell you how many people stopped. 407 00:32:22,026 --> 00:32:23,467 Cause again, they're 408 00:32:23,467 --> 00:32:27,606 kind of bright green, they stand out and you can't buy them this color. 409 00:32:27,728 --> 00:32:29,593 And they were a great conversation piece. 410 00:32:29,593 --> 00:32:31,563 So it's good marketing fodder. 411 00:32:31,563 --> 00:32:36,448 this is clearly I need a pair of ajeet sari or Jordans is what I've taken from this conversation. 412 00:32:36,448 --> 00:32:38,040 So you'll have to send me set. 413 00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:42,017 You'll have to pass on Mary's link to me so that I can do the same. 414 00:32:42,017 --> 00:32:42,817 There you go. 415 00:32:42,817 --> 00:32:43,037 Okay. 416 00:32:43,037 --> 00:32:44,877 We can work that out. 417 00:32:45,097 --> 00:32:47,217 Um, let me ask you a question. 418 00:32:47,217 --> 00:32:49,237 Why do you not take equity? 419 00:32:49,237 --> 00:32:50,537 What's the strategy there? 420 00:32:50,537 --> 00:32:52,313 Cause you're investing time. 421 00:32:52,611 --> 00:33:02,900 Yeah, so I think you alluded earlier to the fact that we will sometimes compare different companies and switch in and out. 422 00:33:02,900 --> 00:33:11,167 And I suppose when we first started, really what I had in mind was that we would be very purist about how we make the decisions. 423 00:33:11,167 --> 00:33:17,432 And over time, you know, there are some things where I thought, gosh, we should have taken a stake in that and we haven't done. 424 00:33:17,432 --> 00:33:19,974 m 425 00:33:20,556 --> 00:33:32,413 I think the thing that not having an equity stake in some of the companies has allowed us to do is to genuinely take an agnostic perspective on who is the right fit for this firm 426 00:33:32,413 --> 00:33:39,722 at this moment without any sort of sense of pull or, you know, maybe we should do this without anything sort of muddying that water. 427 00:33:39,722 --> 00:33:43,780 You can make a real assessment about what the right thing is to use. 428 00:33:43,780 --> 00:33:46,982 You know, what is the correct horse for the course, if you like, 429 00:33:47,497 --> 00:33:49,038 I do like, I do like. 430 00:33:49,038 --> 00:33:52,220 um Well, and that makes a lot of sense. 431 00:33:52,220 --> 00:34:04,196 So the fact that you don't take equity allows you to communicate to your clients in a very objective way. 432 00:34:04,196 --> 00:34:16,273 Maintaining that level of objectivity is key and it gives you flexibility in that you may not select a startup based on 433 00:34:16,681 --> 00:34:23,709 an economic outcome and rather on the potential capabilities that they can deliver to the firm. 434 00:34:24,526 --> 00:34:29,889 And that's not to say, know, it is perfectly possible, you know, lots of, lots of others do it. 435 00:34:29,889 --> 00:34:37,382 It's perfectly possible to take a in something, you know, with the, with the kind of intention of building a strategic partnership. 436 00:34:37,382 --> 00:34:45,236 But if it's not the right company for your firm or institution to switch out with them, things that, that is completely, you know, it's quite normal, I think, for some. 437 00:34:45,236 --> 00:34:49,646 But I suppose from when I started this, I... 438 00:34:49,646 --> 00:34:52,826 wanted to do it without the additional complexity that that might bring. 439 00:34:52,826 --> 00:34:58,986 And I wanted to do it in a way that felt sort of an easier way to do it. 440 00:34:58,986 --> 00:35:03,986 And actually just, you have to remember again, in 2017, absolutely nobody was doing this. 441 00:35:03,986 --> 00:35:11,706 And so every layer of complexity that you added made it slightly harder for people to understand what we were doing and why. 442 00:35:11,706 --> 00:35:15,746 And so actually this just felt cleaner, neater, easier, simpler. 443 00:35:16,701 --> 00:35:20,624 So there's a lot of, I'm sure you've seen it on LinkedIn. 444 00:35:20,624 --> 00:35:21,826 You're a busy person. 445 00:35:21,826 --> 00:35:27,271 So maybe, I don't know how closely you've been following the chatter around vibe coding. 446 00:35:27,271 --> 00:35:29,981 there is, have you seen, like Jamie Tau? 447 00:35:29,981 --> 00:35:30,732 I tell you? 448 00:35:30,732 --> 00:35:41,875 No, I tell you who talks to me about vibe coding, funnily enough, is my 10 year old at the same time as he's sort of pestering me for a book on vibe coding. 449 00:35:41,875 --> 00:35:44,698 And also the other thing he wants me to get is something for his raspberry pie. 450 00:35:44,698 --> 00:35:46,129 You've just reminded me. 451 00:35:47,047 --> 00:35:49,203 Interesting, yeah. 452 00:35:49,203 --> 00:35:52,652 I have not, I didn't even realize raspberry pies were still around, but that's... 453 00:35:52,652 --> 00:35:53,250 uh 454 00:35:53,250 --> 00:36:00,053 no, well the only reason he knows that they're sitting around is because I and my wisdom thought it would be a nice birthday present for him but I obviously bought the wrong thing 455 00:36:00,053 --> 00:36:03,054 and I haven't brought the correct starter kit or something. 456 00:36:04,010 --> 00:36:11,228 They're almost every day met with coming home from work to, but mummy, mummy, have you ordered my correct starter kit yet? 457 00:36:11,228 --> 00:36:12,539 No, not today. 458 00:36:12,539 --> 00:36:14,859 Why don't you wait until next Christmas? 459 00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,721 This year you're getting a vacuum cleaner my darling. 460 00:36:21,913 --> 00:36:22,554 that's great. 461 00:36:22,554 --> 00:36:26,598 ah Raspberry Pi's used to be pretty cheap, but... 462 00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:29,325 totally. 463 00:36:29,325 --> 00:36:37,561 a cool thing for a kid to learn about, know, it's all, it's also about, sorry, total aside, but it's all very interesting to think about what children need to learn today. 464 00:36:37,561 --> 00:36:47,367 But actually in terms of providing them with a fundamental base knowledge and just really giving them something that they can use as a base and learn from and expand from, which is 465 00:36:47,367 --> 00:36:49,811 slightly differentiated to what everyone else in their year is doing. 466 00:36:49,811 --> 00:36:52,480 I actually think it's still quite, quite interesting. 467 00:36:52,821 --> 00:36:55,883 Yeah, well with with vibe coding, 468 00:36:55,883 --> 00:37:06,131 the reality is that while it's really neat to demonstrate that these aren't, you're not going to be able to take the output of an exercise like that and roll it across firm wide. 469 00:37:06,131 --> 00:37:15,397 They're not, it's not a, these aren't production ready applications and it's going to be quite some time before AI is in a place where it can do that. 470 00:37:15,397 --> 00:37:20,370 So we have been, um, doing vibe coding here at info dash as well. 471 00:37:20,370 --> 00:37:24,239 And I had a post on LinkedIn where I outlined our process. 472 00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:29,540 And the reality is you very much need a human in a loop that has engineering chops. 473 00:37:29,561 --> 00:37:34,962 It's not, you can't go take a vibe coded app, slam it in production and scale it. 474 00:37:35,102 --> 00:37:45,475 that's true almost all the time at this point, but how do you, like, how has vibe coding affected your process? 475 00:37:45,475 --> 00:37:53,076 In other words, are you seeing founders with a pitch deck and a vibe coded prototype and then, or, or not. 476 00:37:53,076 --> 00:37:57,936 No, not yet, but our application process is kind of an interesting point. 477 00:37:57,936 --> 00:38:00,936 Really our application process will open this January. 478 00:38:01,156 --> 00:38:04,496 And so it will be interesting to see what comes out of that. 479 00:38:04,496 --> 00:38:07,756 You know, the last time we did the application rounds, it was last year, January. 480 00:38:07,756 --> 00:38:16,536 And so we didn't see anything that referred to vibe coding, but I don't, know, why would we have done it would have been before it's time, if you like. 481 00:38:16,956 --> 00:38:18,956 Um, so no, not. 482 00:38:19,250 --> 00:38:26,212 We haven't done yet, but I'll look out and I'll drop you an email after sometime around mid January to let you know. 483 00:38:26,212 --> 00:38:27,902 It'll be interesting to see what comes out. 484 00:38:27,902 --> 00:38:43,297 I'm genuinely really interested to see how much everything has moved on since last year, because last year it was still quite a lot of, oh, we're using Gen.ai for, but not very 485 00:38:43,297 --> 00:38:45,947 well thought out, some of them. 486 00:38:46,108 --> 00:38:48,108 Quite over ambitious. 487 00:38:48,340 --> 00:38:56,220 quite a lot of all sort of fell within the bucket of feels the same as Harvey, but like quite a bit later. 488 00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,720 So difficult bucket, I would say. 489 00:39:00,180 --> 00:39:07,140 and so, yeah, I'd be really interested to see what comes out this year and how, you know, what the themes are that come out. 490 00:39:07,140 --> 00:39:11,400 So yeah, I'll have a much better perspective on this once we've, once we've had the applications in. 491 00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,700 And I also look forward to listening to your podcast with Jamie. 492 00:39:16,361 --> 00:39:21,053 yes, that should be, I would say maybe two weeks after after this releases. 493 00:39:21,053 --> 00:39:24,255 So I would, I'm guessing late late January. 494 00:39:24,255 --> 00:39:27,256 Yeah, it's been amazing what he's been able to do. 495 00:39:27,396 --> 00:39:34,882 And it's really created a ground swell of interest in the process. 496 00:39:34,882 --> 00:39:36,735 look him up on LinkedIn. 497 00:39:36,735 --> 00:39:40,664 you can see, I can't actually see properly because I'm so old that my eyes don't work. 498 00:39:40,664 --> 00:39:43,464 But I'm going to look him up right now so that I can. 499 00:39:43,940 --> 00:39:48,344 is, I'm assuming that's how you pronounce it, like General Tao's chicken. 500 00:39:48,344 --> 00:39:59,032 um So yeah, he has, you'll have to look at some of his posts, like, mean, completely viral, like thousands of likes, like hundreds of comments. 501 00:39:59,553 --> 00:40:04,197 If I had to guess, he's probably had quarter of a million or a half million impressions. 502 00:40:04,197 --> 00:40:08,751 um And it's been amazing what he's been able to do. 503 00:40:08,751 --> 00:40:11,123 But again, it's still prototype fade. 504 00:40:11,123 --> 00:40:11,725 mean, 505 00:40:11,725 --> 00:40:19,060 Nobody that I know who's credible is saying, hey, take this five coded app and roll it out across your firm. 506 00:40:19,060 --> 00:40:21,782 There's a ton of technical debt. 507 00:40:21,782 --> 00:40:28,727 there's different AI is still in its infancy with in terms of what it's able to deliver through five coding. 508 00:40:28,978 --> 00:40:32,969 Right, I'm going to look forward, that would be my evening's job. 509 00:40:32,969 --> 00:40:34,161 I look forward. 510 00:40:34,161 --> 00:40:34,791 There you go. 511 00:40:34,791 --> 00:40:40,073 um How do you, how does the firm evaluate? 512 00:40:40,073 --> 00:40:45,234 And I was teeing you up for this question, which is like enterprise ready. 513 00:40:45,234 --> 00:40:56,817 Like when you look at where a startup is and your ability, like if somebody were to come to you with a pitch deck and a vibe coded prototype, how, how would you get that in front 514 00:40:56,817 --> 00:40:57,878 of your lawyers? 515 00:40:57,878 --> 00:40:59,588 Because it's, it's not production ready. 516 00:40:59,588 --> 00:41:03,489 Like where do they need to be in their technical maturity for this to work? 517 00:41:04,050 --> 00:41:13,964 Yeah, we have, I mean, will depend on what they are, what the application is looking to do, what information it needs access to, who would use it for what purpose. 518 00:41:14,184 --> 00:41:15,925 We have whole teams. 519 00:41:15,925 --> 00:41:24,959 So anytime we onboard any form of technology, we have in-house legal working hand in hand with our IT team, working hand in hand with our procurement team. 520 00:41:24,959 --> 00:41:27,380 have an AI governance structure. 521 00:41:27,380 --> 00:41:32,360 There's a lot of different pieces of the red tape puzzle that 522 00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:36,493 have to be gotten through before we will use anything in this firm. 523 00:41:36,493 --> 00:41:42,507 And as I there's not really, uh I really do hope this thing is right, but it is horses for courses. 524 00:41:42,507 --> 00:41:52,963 If what you are looking to do accesses very, very sensitive information and will be used for XYZ type of work, do you know what I mean? 525 00:41:52,963 --> 00:41:57,816 The assessment, the risk assessment is maybe slightly different to, I don't know. 526 00:41:58,307 --> 00:42:04,608 read the internet and give me a summary of what's happening in this particular area of interest. 527 00:42:04,608 --> 00:42:05,708 Do you see what I mean? 528 00:42:05,748 --> 00:42:14,508 So we look at what the use case is, we look at all of the factors going into it, and then we make appropriate recommendations about what is required. 529 00:42:15,141 --> 00:42:19,013 All right, we're almost out of time, but I did want to bounce one last thing off of you. 530 00:42:19,013 --> 00:42:31,631 The last time you and I spoke, you said something that was really interesting and you talked about moving beyond waiting for social proof to being the social proof, which 531 00:42:31,631 --> 00:42:37,504 social proof is so I say this all the time, like law firms don't buy tech, they buy social proof. 532 00:42:37,504 --> 00:42:42,967 So how have you been able to make that jump from waiting for it to being it? 533 00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:57,070 the whole premise of Fuse really, the whole premise of Fuse and again when we opened it we were so fortunate in that we were able to do it with a mindset of being entrepreneurial 534 00:42:57,070 --> 00:43:05,096 and trying things for the first time, know being the first firm of our size to open a legal tech incubator. 535 00:43:05,530 --> 00:43:15,670 it was quite freeing really because there was no model to follow, there was no expectations of success and so it meant we could do whatever we wanted and what we wanted 536 00:43:15,670 --> 00:43:28,572 was to experiment and find genuinely find horses for courses, find technology tools that were going to help our lawyers and the facts were it was a very small team so there wasn't 537 00:43:28,572 --> 00:43:30,664 time for like a big production around it. 538 00:43:30,664 --> 00:43:34,725 We just had to kind of hustle the way you would do if you were a startup, do you know what mean? 539 00:43:34,725 --> 00:43:39,309 And just try and sort of move through the various different stages as best you could. 540 00:43:39,309 --> 00:43:50,165 And what that enabled us to do was to try some really amazing things really early on, um, without worrying about what everybody else was doing. 541 00:43:50,165 --> 00:43:52,676 Cause everybody else is basically doing nothing. 542 00:43:52,696 --> 00:43:58,084 And because we started in that way, we've kind of continued in that way. 543 00:43:58,084 --> 00:43:59,750 We don't worry about what others are doing. 544 00:43:59,750 --> 00:44:00,276 get. 545 00:44:00,276 --> 00:44:04,717 to worry about what we're doing, which is enormously freeing, I have to say. 546 00:44:04,717 --> 00:44:19,051 m But I think the thing that really holds it all together is the appetite of our partners globally to support the initiatives that we have and the sort of the mindset that I'm 547 00:44:19,051 --> 00:44:21,142 gonna give this a go and if it doesn't work, it doesn't really matter. 548 00:44:21,142 --> 00:44:24,953 But if it does work, that's gonna be brilliant and I'm gonna support it and I'm gonna try my best for it. 549 00:44:24,953 --> 00:44:28,958 And for that I am enormously grateful that I'm at a firm. 550 00:44:28,958 --> 00:44:39,278 full of brilliant people who will give up their time and energy and sometimes political capital to try things that they don't know will be a success. 551 00:44:39,278 --> 00:44:43,722 And I don't think that that would be true of everywhere, but it is certainly true of A &O Sherman. 552 00:44:43,722 --> 00:44:51,068 And genuinely, I think that has really played the most enormous part in Fuse's longevity and success. 553 00:44:51,109 --> 00:44:51,840 That's awesome. 554 00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:57,595 uh has has this is a complete uh pivot here. 555 00:44:57,595 --> 00:45:01,098 Have you heard of six seven that kids say? 556 00:45:01,098 --> 00:45:03,240 Have you heard this? 557 00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:04,956 Are your kids of that age where? 558 00:45:04,956 --> 00:45:12,202 Well, I don't know if you're going to be able to see this, but I'm going to show you what I just most recently bought from Amazon. 559 00:45:12,336 --> 00:45:21,610 If I can access my, I seriously cannot see very well, but my most recent order from Amazon was hilariously this. 560 00:45:21,871 --> 00:45:24,516 Hang on, let's just get it up for you. 561 00:45:27,396 --> 00:45:28,477 you can't see it, can you? 562 00:45:28,477 --> 00:45:29,168 It's a mug. 563 00:45:29,168 --> 00:45:32,288 It's an amazing mug that says, there you go. 564 00:45:32,517 --> 00:45:33,360 yeah. 565 00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:35,012 It's a Christmas mug. 566 00:45:35,012 --> 00:45:36,618 It's a Christmas 6-7 mug. 567 00:45:37,243 --> 00:45:41,065 Well, so the reason I ask is we're going to make. 568 00:45:42,287 --> 00:45:44,648 Well, I didn't know if it was a UK thing. 569 00:45:44,648 --> 00:45:55,796 I know it's rampant here in the US and I'm frankly really tired of it, but um because my kids every time I can't imagine what poor school teachers are dealing with. 570 00:45:55,796 --> 00:46:01,300 But my goal we're going to make horses for courses as big as 6-7. 571 00:46:01,300 --> 00:46:02,601 We're going to do that. 572 00:46:02,601 --> 00:46:05,953 Horses for courses is going to be the 6-7 in legal tech. 573 00:46:06,534 --> 00:46:09,398 It's going to be the 6th of July of 2026. 574 00:46:09,398 --> 00:46:17,649 My kid is going come home with a letter from the headmaster saying the children are no longer allowed to say horses with horses because it's becoming disruptive in the 575 00:46:17,649 --> 00:46:18,631 classroom. 576 00:46:18,631 --> 00:46:19,932 I can't wait. 577 00:46:19,944 --> 00:46:20,846 We're gonna do it. 578 00:46:20,846 --> 00:46:27,597 em Okay, before we wrap up, how do folks find out more about Fuse and the work that you're doing there? 579 00:46:28,202 --> 00:46:33,467 so as I say, this podcast will, launch the most perfectly timed time. 580 00:46:33,467 --> 00:46:44,087 If you are a legal tech startup or scale up or interested in working with, um, a no Sherman or interested in accessing our clients and, and, understanding the problems that 581 00:46:44,087 --> 00:46:44,788 we all they have. 582 00:46:44,788 --> 00:46:51,220 Um, there will be an application process, which will be open for about three weeks, probably from mid January onwards. 583 00:46:51,220 --> 00:46:57,606 m And so you can either email me or anyone in the team or look on the ANO Sherman website for further details. 584 00:46:57,613 --> 00:46:58,123 Awesome. 585 00:46:58,123 --> 00:47:06,889 Well, it has been uh great getting to know you through this process and I've really enjoyed hearing and learning about Fuse and I'm sure our audience is as well. 586 00:47:06,889 --> 00:47:10,361 So uh thank you and have a great holiday. 587 00:47:10,714 --> 00:47:11,296 and to you. 588 00:47:11,296 --> 00:47:12,730 Thank you so much for having me. 589 00:47:12,730 --> 00:47:14,091 All right, take care. -->