Legal Technology Advancements: Past, Present & Future

Angela:

Hi, and welcome to Litigate with Insight, the LMI podcast, a podcast about the intersection of data, analytics, technology, and innovation in the legal industry. In each episode, we bring together experts, thought leaders, and industry pioneers to explore how these cutting edge topics impact litigation. I'm your host, Angela Browning, Chief Strategy Officer at LMI. On today's episode, we'll look at the evolution of legal technology over the last 40 years and what we can expect in the near future. Joining me today is Sonia Vyrant, LMI's CEO, and Megan Peyser, LMI's General Counsel and Chief Data Officer. As CEO of LMI, Sonja Vajorant has kept the company on the leading edge of technology by developing proprietary solutions that have helped our clients streamline internal operations, reduce costs, and improve quality, speed, and security with which projects are implemented for over 30 years. Beyond tech advancements, Sonja has been the driving force behind LMI's diversification and ongoing operational enhancements. Megan Pizer is an experienced attorney with over 20 years of experience working in the legal industry. In her dual roles at LMI, she leverages her legal expertise and data strategy to empower LMI to achieve success as a result of her unique blend of legal acumen and data-driven insights. Sonya and Megan, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having us. Now, I gave a really high-level overview of all of your experience, but we'll start with Sonya. I'll start with the first question. Could you start by telling us a bit about your background and how you got started in the litigation support industry?

Sonya:

Sure. I started out thinking that I wanted to be an attorney at some point in my life. And the way that I started out, I got a paralegal degree with the intention of going to law school. I majored in Spanish as well because my path was, I thought, either in immigration law or international law and started to do some internships with various law firms in different capacities, different areas of law and decided that I loved the law, I loved the problem solving, I loved working with clients and people. And so I was really looking for a different way to take what I'd already learned and what I'd learned about myself, which was that I was really strong at process and finding solutions and helping people to look at things from different perspectives and solve problems. And it was just a weird opportunity that presented itself at the time I was offered a temporary position with LMI at a time where they had gotten their first really large mass tort before mass torts were probably referred to in that way. and came in and got an opportunity to really look at how things were being done. And that was really my start. It was taking a look at how clients were trying to get things done. And it was at a time when there was no technology. So it was very manual and hands-on and really being creative to try and get as much work done as possible with more limited resources and really antiquated, now looking back at it, ways of doing things.

Angela:

Megan, how about you? Tell us about your background and how you got started in the litigation support industry.

Megan:

Believe it or not, I got started in the litigation support industry because of a friend. I was working for a public university at the time in a hybrid role between Human Resources and the Office of General Counsel. And it was a good job. Public higher education was not a great fit for me. And a friend of mine actually was working at litigation management. and said, hey, you know, there's a there's a role here that I think you would be great for. And I had no intention of actually getting the job. I applied for it. And it was interesting. I went through a series of interviews and it was the last interview with Sonya, in fact, that got me very intrigued by the company and the job and what the company was doing. It was Sonia's first day back from maternity leave after having her youngest child, and I just felt like the interview went really well. I was intrigued. I talked a lot with Sonia about her role and what the company did, and ultimately, when I got the job offer, I took it without really any hesitation whatsoever. I did leave briefly for a little while going to a company doing e-discovery. Anyone that knows me knows that I really enjoy anything related to technology, and it was Mid-2000s, it was a good field to be in at the time. I got to learn a lot and ultimately came back to LMI, which is sort of my career home at this point.

Angela:

I love that we all have these nontraditional paths. And I think the nontraditional path is becoming the norm these days. And I think, you know, between 30 and 20 years ago, you know, for both of your careers starting in this space, it's really kind of the pioneering, you know, paving the way for others to look at legal in different ways and to provide services and technology to support the lawyers, companies, plaintiffs that are facing litigation. how can they do it faster and better, managing the data that comes in. We've talked about data in prior episodes, and Megan is our spreadsheet nerd, our spreadsheet guru, as everyone already knows from what we've shared in the past. Now, I love talking about the evolution of litigation support industry, but I think weaving into, Sonya, your evolution at LMI and the different roles you've played. You've played a number of roles here at LMI. I'd love you to talk about that a little bit more and, you know, in conjunction with what you've seen in the legal industry and how that's changed over the years.

Sonya:

Sure. There's been a significant amount of change in the 30 years that I've been doing this and probably more so in the last five to 15, but probably with the most significant changes in the last five When I started, I started out as a what we would call today a litigation manager. So I was really managing projects and interacting with clients about what their needs were and their deadlines. And as I really learned that and could listen to what they were saying and really understand what they were trying to achieve, I started to develop different processes and interests that would allow us to move faster and better. So that led to, which never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined, going into an IT position where I helped to create our proprietary systems. And looking back on that now, I have no idea how that would have even, let's talk about non-traditional paths. I mean, going from Paralegal in Spanish into developing a proprietary system that could handle the kind of litigation that we're handling today is a really significant piece of my background and something that I don't often really appreciate until we have these kinds of discussions actually. From there, I started to work more with our medical team, became the director of the medical division, took over some responsibility for HR and finance, and then finally moved into more of like a chief operating officer role and eventually into the president and now CEO role. So over the 30 years I've had Responsibility for every area of the company, and I've learned a significant amount from that process. And I've seen, as I mentioned, a lot of change in the industry.

Angela:

So Megan, similarly, you have had a number of roles at LMI. Let's talk about what your roles have been through the years and what kind of changes you've seen in the industry that kind of dovetail your path here at LMI.

Megan:

It's funny thinking about how much the industry has changed since I started practicing law. I started at a law firm and then went into the public university that I mentioned. And then at LMI, I also started in a litigation manager, project management role, similar to Sonia. And from there have moved into assorted roles, helping with marketing, helping with sales, continuing with project management, managing the litigation managers, and then finally into my current role, which is general counsel and chief data officer. And it's unbelievable how much the industry has changed in the 20 plus years from my initial graduation from law school. I was doing research in books to today when we talk about artificial intelligence to help manage the sizes and volumes of data that we're dealing with. technology-assisted review. It's just been a very interesting journey from everything in paper to everything online and where the computers are using machine learning to help manage some of the challenges associated with litigation and litigation support. And I think one of the biggest challenges that we've always faced and continue to face is the data volume. Data is unbelievable how much we can produce. And it gets easier the more we interact with technology. And so the tools that are continuing to evolve to help manage that data, I think are one of the biggest challenges and also one of the biggest areas that we've seen a lot of advancement.

Angela:

I think that's a great segue, you know, thinking about how things, you know, how we processed information, records, data for many years and how things have evolved since then. Megan, you touched on challenges and maybe you want to start here. What are some of the challenges you're seeing? Maybe, you know, thinking about where LMI used to be and where we are now and our client demands and how technology has impacted that. I'd love for you to dive a little bit deeper on those challenges.

Megan:

Absolutely. And I think Sonia will have some unique perspectives on this as well. So I'm going to put on my general counsel hat for a few minutes and talk about one of the biggest challenges that keeps me up at night is keeping all of that data secure, making sure that all of that data remains private, confidential, is treated appropriately. As technology evolves, so do the people that are managing it, and so do the bad actors that want to exploit it or use it. And I know increasingly our clients are more and more concerned with how LMI, how other companies are going about not just managing the data volumes, but doing everything to keep that data secure, to keep it confidential, to keep it available, to maintain data integrity, clean data, and really make the data actionable, secure, and something that can be used to gain insight into the specific matters that our clients are facing.

Sonya:

In addition to what Megan said about security, which is definitely on all of our clients' minds, and the other thing that keeps me up at night for sure as well, is that the expectations of what data that will allow you to do and how it can be done has shifted pretty dramatically in probably just the last couple of years with all the talk about AI, what it actually is, what it isn't, but the expectations around what people think you should be able to do just with the push of a button. what's required in order to get to data and how data needs to be formatted. There's a lot of expectations that aren't set or understood early enough, sometimes in a process, to be able to help you to really harness the power of the data, as Megan was talking about with the advances in AI. and the machine learning, things like that, there's still not quite the same understanding of where the technology maybe is or isn't in order to really be able to harness what can happen with the data once you've had it in your possession.

Angela:

in a way that makes sense. Sonia, that's a perfect kind of segue into kind of where my brain is going when we're talking about the evolution of LMI and the mass tort industry and technology and talking about the different technological advancements that you've seen, you know, over the course of your career. And certainly Megan can chime in as well. from her perspective, but I'd love to hear more about some of these changes in the industry and what you've seen and how they've made the impact of either positive or negative on managing mass torts.

Sonya:

Sure, I'd say some of the biggest advances and changes in how things have been impacted, I think back to very early on in my career when we were preparing information, clearly everything was in paper, you were using a word processing system. And we would have to do things that at the time were not really commonplace. Things like what now would probably be considered bookmarking or coding, finding ways to use search functions to quickly filter out data to get to specific pieces of information. And now we can do that through the database setups and the OCRing and the AI components of the applications that allow us to get to that information in a much more efficient and economical way. But also, I think the flip side of that is the expectations that are created around the technology. So you can get to information faster, but the context of the information becomes the issue. In some of the work that we do, you could have a reference to a product say that's a medication in notes that you're looking at, but was it actually a reference because they were discussing the possibility of using it, because they actually used it, or because it was in some piece of their history. So really being able to still find ways to bring context to information is a challenge and kind of important because I think the idea of good is good enough comes into some of this, but really trying to get to how to harness the information now that we have a different way of viewing it is one of the biggest challenges and opportunities as well. I would say the other change when I think about how quickly information is disseminated and created is really mind-boggling to me because there was no email when we first started. And then, you know, you were sending packages all over the country, next day delivery, and now things can be delivered really, really quickly. There are pluses to that and there are definitely minuses to that. I think everybody moves so fast that sometimes there's not enough time taken to think about what it is that's being sent or why it's being sent or how it's being created. And so there's the power of the data is, I don't think we've tapped it yet, But I also don't think we've really figured out how to harness it and manage it and really think about what it is is being created and how it's being used and how it's being shared, which then lends to what Megan is talking about. There's volumes of data that we're creating and storing, trying to secure that. becomes an even greater problem that, you know, just continues to evolve.

Angela:

Megan, I know you have comments on this because I could just see, you know, with the General Counsel, Chief Data Officer, both hats on, the heartburn happening here with some of the things that Sonja is talking about. Can you, you know, share your perspective on some of these challenges and the technology advancements and all the things that Sonja touched on?

Megan:

So I have a lot of things to say in response to your question and also to Sanya's comments, because in addition to the sort of technological explosion that's happened over the last 20 to 30 years, something else that I think, and this is in my words and in my perspective, I'd love to do an analysis of it, that really had a huge impact on the delivery of legal services was in the 2007 to 2010 subprime mortgage crisis that led to an economic recession. And the reason I bring this up is because at the same time we were introducing things such as technology-assisted review and machine learning and predictive coding, and sort of that early AI adoption. We were also facing an industry that previously was somewhat unchecked when it came to legal spent. And now we were looking at how do we spend our money wisely? How do we make do with less? How can we use fewer and fewer people or resources to get the job done at the same time the volumes of data were absolutely exploding? and arguably as mass tort litigation was growing. And I think those two factors combining formed a very, very different industry in a very short amount of time. We went from working on litigation where it was very much a scorched earth approach, get all the records, whether it's in paper or electronic, go after everything, review everything, to suddenly saying, you have X amount of dollars to spend, get whatever you can get done and focused on the most important. And it was a difficult thing to adapt to in a short amount of time. You know, suddenly we had procurement departments that were looking at us. We were dealing with very different people who were buyers of litigation support services. I think law firms were looking at very different buyers of their services. But in the long run, I think it's forced a lot of people to become very creative with the use of technology and also with how to use litigation spend effectively, doing the right things at the right time. So do we really have to look at all of the records or can we look at specific records early and then do a deeper dive later? And I really think it has reformed the litigation support industry and the delivery of legal services in general. So in terms of your specific question with regards to technology adoption, I mentioned technology assisted review. That's a pretty heavily e-discovery term, but I think that was a pretty life-changing moment with that coming out, and it was very short. I think the earliest inception of technology-assisted review, which is, you know, again, a sort of form of machine learning. I think the inception was sometime around 2005, and by 2015, we have, you know, court records that are stating it as black-letter law. So in a matter of 10 years, we've adopted a new technology, and it's become commonplace. And that really, I think, laid a huge foundation for where we are now with AI, which I also think is going to be a little bit game changing for us. It's very early now, Sonia, to your point. I don't think it's ever going to be the push of a button. I think it's going to be over time improving the way that we interact with technology and use it to assist us in our daily jobs. And I think that's going to be a very interesting process to watch as it unfolds over the next five to 10 years.

Sonya:

I think I'd add to what Megan said too, as she was talking, it occurred to me that early on our jobs were to just facilitate what the firms were telling us. So it was, to Megan's point, scorched earth, get everything that you can get, don't leave any stone unturned. And what our jobs and what we've, I think, seen the transition to is we were probably the early what are now known as chief litigation, chief legal officers, right? So we're the ones that are managing budgets and finding different ways to do things, not just with technology, but really advising on how can you meet the budgets? How can you look at things differently? And our role started to really evolve around the same time that Megan was mentioning. where, you know, procurement started to get involved and look at the legal components of the business the same way that they would look at, you know, purchasing any other supplies or managing any other vendor. And it was interesting because I think we were always functioning in that way. We had, you know, dashboards and workflows and other things that we could point to to show people how we could do things. But really, it wasn't I don't think understood the value of that wasn't understood until the actual pressure started to come from other places with procurement, with budgeting departments, with other outside consultants coming in and trying to help the firms or the corporations. bring spend under control. So I think that there's also that component of the technology. We spend a lot of time talking about the ability to see information in different ways, but that's not just about the records or the data that's available. It's really about the information that's being created about how you're doing things. So dashboarding and bringing transparency to a world that wasn't used to having transparency.

Angela:

I think about this a lot in the conversations that I have with clients and thinking about the management of litigation, you know, LMI, litigation management, that is what we do. How have you seen, you know, thinking about technology, all the things that you touched on, Sonya, procurement and the legal pressures and the budgetary pressures, you know, how have things changed in the way that legal teams manage litigation, either using, you know, the services that we provide, the dashboards that you're talking about, Sonya, or, you know, some of the data that we have, you know, and how things have sped up. I'd love for, you know, Sonia, maybe you start and then and then Megan, you can definitely chime in because I know there's a lot. Again, we got to do Reader's Digest version here, but please, you know, share with us what you've seen.

Sonya:

I think one of the major changes that I've seen, especially with when you're talking about mass tort litigation, a lot of the litigation early on was probably treated more as bet the company litigation. So it was a very different approach or thought and then as and Megan can speak to this more eloquently than I can for sure but as the process started to evolve and you could come to different you could resolve litigation in different ways without having to try every single case or try a hundred cases before you could get to information that you needed in order to come to a settlement. I think that we saw very early on everything was scorched earth and then you could start to see clients shifting more towards they understood the data, they could really rely on the data, they could use that data to formulate plans. And I think our experience in one of the largest litigations that we handled, going through that process with our clients, with that being their first time experiencing that and seeing how they could, how could we use information, bucket it for them and then they could start to apply different formulas to it to see what it would mean for them. Watching that evolve to now where it's not unique or an anomaly, that's the way that it's done. It's really looking at from like the highest level, what do we have? How can we resolve it? What can we look at differently? I think that's a huge shift and a huge change from what we were seeing initially. And you can definitely see that evolving even in how Newer litigations are managed from the courts to the council to the corporations. I think that the other thing that is really different is not to say that there was an open checkbook, because we never treated things like an open checkbook. We're, you know, we're responsible for other people's spends and take that very seriously. But there was a different thought about what it meant to really defend something. You were showing that you were really throwing all of your resources into it. You were trying to defend it. And now it's shifted to, we really need to get these resolved, but we need to resolve more permanently. We don't want the ongoing spend. And we have a finite amount of resources to get to that point. So really being a partner with the firms and with the corporations and helping them to see how you can do things, but also giving them the visibility as they go along.

Angela:

And just I'm going to jump in here because, you know, this is my day to day talking to clients about what can we do? You know, what makes the most sense as far as collection of data? reviewing that data and giving them the information they need to make the decisions that they need to do at that time. We're always thinking ahead and what we can do to make that process more efficient so that they're getting the information they need now, but also contemplating what they need in the future. And that's been a beautiful evolution that I've seen working here at LMI. I've been here close to, I think, 13 years and seeing how litigation was managed when I first started versus now. technology and certainly the things that we're doing here at LMI impact that really positively for our clients. There's that visibility, that predictability, and using the data that we have to inform some of the metrics that they need to make decisions on what their collection and review strategy might be. Megan, I'd love to hear definitely your perspective, your hat on data and what the impact has been from your perspective.

Megan:

Absolutely. So one thing I think is critical to all of this is the data has to be actionable. meaning to have true visibility into the population of data that a legal team is looking at, the data needs to be clean, it needs to be consistent, it needs to be collected in a way that it can be harnessed and utilized to make decisions, to get to those dashboards that Sonia is talking about, to be distilled into the pieces that are truly needed to make the right decisions at the right time. That's a difficult obstacle to overcome, surprisingly so. It sounds so easy to have good, clean, quality data, but it's surprisingly not. There are so many sources of data, and just because you capture a date in month-day-year format here, over here you might be capturing it just in month and year, or it might be day-month-year. and trying to merge all that data into one place or to work with things such as free text fields that don't capture data consistently from one person to the next, putting all of that together and creating a data set that really can deliver the most powerful insight to the clients, whether that be about their litigation spend, whether that be about the services LMI is providing, whether that be about the cases that they are working up and insight into, you know, an entire population's medical history or getting information about different jurisdictions that are, you know, that might be involved in a mass tort. All of that data needs to be some level of quality, some level of consistency. And there are best practices for that. And I think that's one of the areas where I think LMI brings a lot of value, is being able to work with our clients at the very, very early outset of a legal matter of litigation of a large volume of claims to develop best practices at the outset, not just with how to capture data, but what data to even capture. This is the data you're going to need now. But looking ahead down the road, six months from now, a year from now, as you transition into these other phases of litigation, You might want to think about X right now because you might not need it today, but you'll need it in six months to a year. So sort of looking around corners and helping our clients be prepared for all phases of litigation from the early all the way up through trial and post trial.

Angela:

That's a really good point. to make about kind of client expectations and, you know, this fast forward from what we're talking about. It feels very fast forward from that manual review or collection and sending things around like that Sonya was talking about versus where things are now and how technology has impacted that. How do you set client expectations, kind of set the groundwork for, it's not necessarily the push of a button. Some things may be yes, but largely not. And I think Sonia talked about that with the context too. You know, there are still certain aspects that need kind of that human review, that human touch. Megan, for you to kind of dive in a little deeper on those client expectations. I know Sonia is going to have things to say, but let's start with Megan.

Megan:

I think the biggest area with the client expectations, well, the two biggest are number one, what I just talked about, not necessarily always appreciating just how difficult it can be and some of the challenges that can pop up. when you have a large variety of data sources, data is captured differently across all of those sources, you know, just because medical provider A captures data in this format doesn't mean medical provider B does, just because, you know, plaintiff A fills out, you know, maybe a an interrogatory or a questionnaire in one way doesn't mean without having specific parameters in place that, you know, PlayDiff B is going to do it the same. There are technological tools that can help with some of this. There are ways of managing data. But I think one of the things that we really try to do is work with our clients as early as possible and say, don't wait. Don't wait until you've hit you know, a later stage of the litigation to engage us. At the very least, you know, you may not need our medical record collection and analysis services today, but you may want to work with us on what types of questionnaires you're developing for the plaintiffs or claimants in a litigation, and there are best practices. That's something that I think we really try to encourage, whether it's us or another vendor or someone who specializes in data collection. There absolutely are best practices and earlier engagements can really go a long way. And again, I think the other side of this is sort of the data security side of that. There are also best practices with respect to how data is being captured and stored. And so we like to encourage our clients to keep security top of mind at the outset. The other side where I think we see a lot of client expectations that maybe are not aligned with, I don't wanna say reality, that's not quite right, but client expectations that are There's areas for education, I think. It's not a push button. And that's, you know, we've talked about artificial intelligence, AI, quite a bit through here. And I think Sonia's probably going to want to speak to this as well. But, you know, artificial intelligence can do a lot of things, and it also can't do a lot of things. And there's a lot of work that goes on in the back end. to make sure that it's doing what you want it to do and not just creating noise. It's not a push of a button. It's not that easy. It's, you know, there are times when it is a fantastic asset that can be used to maybe reduce the time spent on something from an hour to 20 minutes. It is not something that you're going to push a button and suddenly, you know, 10,000 terabytes of data are suddenly delivered, you know, in a distilled summary right at your fingertips. And so, There's a lot of education that goes on, but I also think that people are becoming a lot more savvy, not about just what it can do, but also about needing to work with companies such as LMI or others that really can help navigate the continuously evolving landscape of legal technology.

Angela:

Sunny, you want to chime in? How about you? I know you've got some thoughts on client expectations, education, all that you've done along the way, and certainly how that's changed with the impact of technology advancements.

Sonya:

I think that having early conversations about what the client is looking to try and achieve are really critical to the success of any project, any relationship, and understanding how they want to get to data, what they want to get to, what they're trying to achieve over the long term, not just what they need today, but that looking ahead and planning through all aspects of the litigation and the entire process. You don't know exactly what's going to happen. Different, you know, court orders will come out and they'll have different findings along the way that will change the course. But really having an idea of how they see things unfolding, where they're trying to go, is really important. Because while there isn't a push of the button, if we know early enough, we can start to build in the things that will allow for that push of the button along the way. And ultimately, at the end of the day, they'll be much closer to that push of the button. Push of the button comment is probably the one that is the most difficult for me because I can understand it when I think about where I started and where the industry was at the time versus where some other people are starting and the advantages that they have had just from the get go. There are a lot of things that you do that are push of the button. There's no understanding of what happened in order to get to that place. Even just being able to send an email, you're pushing a button, but what goes on behind the scenes to make that happen? There isn't really an understanding of it. Not everybody needs to understand all the pieces and all the components. But the fact that everything has been made to look so much easier by the technology that exists today, it creates a huge challenge for us in trying to help people to understand what is real out of the gate versus where you can actually get to if we can work together to get there. And then, you know, what are the limitations of some of the things when they are push button? There's a lot of easy buttons in the world. Some of them are built better than others. Does the easy button really make things easier? Does it really accomplish what you're trying to accomplish? Or is it just easier? Is it just quicker? So I think that's the piece. It's a good portion of it is education. But really, I think it's built on a foundation of trust and understanding and having communication about where you're trying to go and what you're trying to do and how can we reach that.

Angela:

And that's a true partnership right there. And I think something that we've had with a lot of our clients is having those meaningful discussions so that we understand where they're trying to go and we can share with them different avenues and how they can get there, certainly all with their budget in mind. I'd love to, you know, keep this conversation going and talk about kind of the future and some of the trends and emerging technologies that others, you know, definitely our listeners, but people that we work with might see in the coming future.

Megan:

Well, we've talked a lot about AI throughout this episode and in other episodes of this podcast. And I think that's probably the biggest area where we're going to, you know, again, I still think we're in very early adoption in that world. I think we're going to start seeing the chips fall in terms of, OK, it's all hype over here. It's never going to be able to do this. Or if it does, we're not close to it yet. Versus the areas where it really is going to start showing some value and getting us maybe you know, three quarters of the way there or maybe a quarter of the way there. There seem to be areas, you know, contract automation. Again, some forms of identifying, you know, language within a document or maybe showing the differences between two documents. There are some areas helping to, you know, write briefs with a lot of oversight. You know, there are some areas where it's showing at least varying levels of success and helping legal teams, you know, doing a first pass, drafting of a contract is one thing, but trying to, you know, review largely handwritten medical records is something else entirely. So I think we're going to really start to see a separation of where AI is and can be adopted at this stage versus where there's probably still some work to be done or may always require some level of human review. I will caution though that even as we navigate the AI world, I think most of the folks that have used it and have found ways to harness it in just really unique and tremendous ways. I think the lesson learned from all of it is, you know, there's always still some need for human oversight. You know, we get artificial intelligence that will hallucinate. It will generate case law that, you know, doesn't exist. And, you know, it's tasked with, I need to find an answer. And so it will find an answer even if there isn't. So, you know, there's always some level of human oversight that I think is going to be necessary. So what I think with AI is that it's a tool just like anything else. It's going to change the way we do our jobs, but I don't see it obviating the need for humans to continue innovating and evolving and, if nothing else, you know, advocating. Advocacy is always going to be, you know, something that I think is, you know, going to be best left as a partnership between artificial intelligence and human oversight. But I think that's probably the critical area that we're going to see a lot of change, at least in the coming years. And if not change, at the very least, identification of how best to harness it without unnecessary or unreasonable expectations.

Angela:

Sandhya, what about you? What are you seeing in terms of trends and kind of looking around the corner? That's certainly one of your gifts.

Sonya:

I would agree with Megan on everything that she said, and I would add that Michy hit on some points about using it in different ways. I think there's always a rush to how can we use this in some really fantastic push of the button, really quick way of fixing things. And then, you know, we can cut out 20, 30 people in the process. I think the thing that I see will start to happen more is really looking at it, going kind of back to the basics. How can we use this to really do things faster and better, but really well? And that always isn't the biggest... I'm trying to figure out the right way to say this. It's not that you're going to push a button and you're going to have all the answers. It's really how can we use the technology to get those bigger answers in a better way. So workflows, work streams, how to use the technology to streamline the research that people are doing or to check the research that they're doing or to really evaluate the documents that are coming in or the data that you're looking at. It's not so much just about having it give you answers at your fingertips, but helping you to get to those answers in a better and faster way and help people to do their jobs better. But I think it's really about making sure that you can learn different ways to apply the technology to help improve the process of litigation and how to get to better results. And I think that it's more about how to use the AI and the generative pieces of it or the machine learning pieces of it to have better outcomes, but really looking at how it can be used in the least I hate this phrase, but the least sexy way. Everybody wants to try and find, you know, it's like, it's the cool thing to do today is to talk about AI and it's the cool thing to use it and have you talk about what it can do and how it can solve all the problems of the world and not have people involved in it. But the reality of it is it's not quite there yet. There's stride stripping all the time, but how can you use it in a very practical way? I think the people that will get ahead of things are the ones that are going to adopt it in ways that really make sense, that really take a look at how do you do something? What is the process? How could the machine learning help you to have a better quality result or a faster result? But use the people to make sure that that's actually the case when you think about how Law has evolved. Partners used associates, but partners have checked the associates' work, right? They just didn't let them loose and come up with their own. They were the ones hallucinating, right? Making up their own case law. That wasn't allowed to happen. So it's the same thing with the technology. How do you use it to improve, let people learn, continue to evolve? while you're evolving the processes and while you're evolving the technology.

Angela:

A lot of the conversations I have today with not just clients, but people that are looking to engage us is they don't trust AI and they want that component of human review, that human touch, and knowing that that context is understood. That is a conversation I would say I have multiple times a week, and it's not going away. And I think, you know, having those conversations with our clients and people in the industry, you know, that's where the partnership happens. You know, we're not over-promising, under-delivering. It's being reasonable about where the technology is today and where it might go in the future and what is needed today to solve the problems of today. I think that's something that we have done a really nice job with our clients to educate them and be a partner in what their challenges are. All right, I'm gonna lighten up the conversation for one last question. I'm gonna start with Sonia. What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career in litigation support?

Sonya:

The most rewarding aspect in my 30 years, picking one is a little bit difficult, but I think just looking at it as a whole, the most rewarding part is seeing how we as a company have been able to grow and change and really see things kind of ahead of where they're coming. Take the information that we're learning and apply it in ways that allow our clients and our employees, but our clients in particular, to have really great success and really great outcomes from what they're trying to achieve. And being a part of that and seeing how we influence and impact the changes that are happening. We've been a part of all of the big changes that have been happening in ways that we probably didn't even realize were happening at the time. But being able to sit back and reflect on it, I think the most rewarding piece of this is seeing how the company has grown, how we've changed as leaders, how our employees have grown through the process, and how we've been able to help our clients achieve some really significant things that they didn't even think were possible. It's really rewarding for me.

Megan:

How about you, Megan? This is also a tough one. You know, it's been many years of many challenges and successes. But I think if I had to summarize it all in one, one of the things that I love about LMI is that our clients come back to us over and over and over again. It is a rare day that we have a client that is dissatisfied with our work, that Does it come back to us over and over again? Our clients continue coming back to us, and I think it's because we can do all the things that we've talked about throughout this episode and more. But we have a very problem-solving mindset as an organization. Our clients come to us sometimes with really bizarre requests. And they'll even acknowledge, like, this might be out of your wheelhouse, but you guys always solve our problems. We don't know how to do X. You know, maybe we can help them internally. Maybe we have to work with them to refer them to other resources. But it's never just a, no, we absolutely can't do that. We always find ways to try to help them transition or to truly take on and solve their problems. And I think that has really been very rewarding to watch our clients come back to us over and over and over again. And whether they verbally say, oh, we love LMI, which we do here, and that's wonderful. Or whether they, you know, hey, of course, we're coming back to you. Or whether they don't say anything at all, but they just keep coming back. That speaks volumes. And it's very rewarding. And it's rewarding to watch our teams work with our clients and truly continue to solve the problems that our clients bring to us. And those problems have evolved a lot over the 20 years. And that's been a really interesting journey to be a part of.

Angela:

I think that's a great way to put a bow on this episode about coming back and keep coming back. We hope our listeners keep coming back. I'd like to thank Sonya and Megan for being our guests on today's episode, as well as you, our listeners. If you enjoyed the show, subscribe to Litigate with Insight, the LMI podcast, on your favorite podcast app, share it with your colleagues, or on LinkedIn. You can learn more about LMI at lmiweb.com. This has been a co-production of Evergreen Podcasts and LMI. Special thanks to our contributor, Kaylee Sabnick. Our producers are Brigid Coyne and Sean Rule-Hoffman. Our audio engineer is Sean Rule-Hoffman. I'm your host, Angela Browning. Thanks for listening.