Trading ego for effectiveness, friendship, and purpose.


Joe Borstein and Paul Stroka asked me to get naked with them. I said yes. Then Bill asked me to write about it. So here we are.

Now that you’re hooked by the clickbait headline and the tease, we must, naturally, commence with an anecdotal aside before I explain why the platitudinous “our customers are our business” is especially true for LexFusion, why “everyone talks to us because everyone talks to us,” and what these say about the evolution of the  broader legal innovation ecosystem.
Continue Reading Getting naked with colleagues and clients (267)


Q. In the simplest terms possible, what is the core functionality of AI in legal?


It often seems that most of the legal profession thinks that AI is a box of pixie dust that you can sprinkle over any data set with the right incantation and voila, produce your desired result.

Most lawyers are confused about Artificial Intelligence (AI). While typically experts at adopting new language and using it correctly in context to convey sophistication around concepts not squarely in their wheelhouses, AI tends to be the exception. As evident in industry conversations, the confusion boils down to what AI does, and how, as applied to legal practice.

We should clear this up.  To do so, let’s take all the sex and rock n’ roll out of it, and strip AI to its core…
Continue Reading Brass tacks re: Artificial Intelligence in legal (264)

Legal Evolution contributors, Summer 2020

Breadth and depth on legal innovation and the future of law.


As in prior years, after Labor Day, Legal Evolution shifts to a bi-weekly publication schedule, at least for Sunday longform content. See Post 065, 113.

Fortunately, we exit the summer of 2020 on

Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

This week, I’m pleased to welcome back occasional contributor Dan Currell, who in today’s feature post reviews the recently published book, The Trust Revolution, by M. Todd Henderson and Salen Churi. See Post 130.

Dan’s return provides an opportunity to explain his mysterious title (Former Managing Director, AdvanceLaw) in the right side bar.  Dan’s current title is Senior Advisor in the Office of Finance and Operations at the U.S. Department of Education.  But to post that title would arguably require a clarification that Dan’s views are his own and not necessarily those of the current Administration or the Department of Education (in the unlikely event either has views on legal innovation). 
Continue Reading Dan Currell’s insightful views are his own (129)