For nearly the past twenty-five years, Jeroen Plink worked on the cutting edge of innovation in the legal market ranging from creating software to help with project management and process improvement, to being the CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions. His passion for looking at issues from unique perspectives, as well as his dislike for inefficient processes and waste, has led to a number of successes in legal innovation during this time. As he moves on from the Alternative Legal Service Provider environment and begins his new journey, Jeroen sits down with us to talk about his efforts going forward in Access to Justice, commercial ideas, consulting with law firms, and in-house operations.

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Information Inspirations

The idea of law firms going with a “single provider” on legal information platforms like Westlaw or Lexis may sound good on paper, but Victoria Hudgens points out in a recent LegalTech News article that these ‘one-stop shops’ limit the ingenuity and capabilities of law firms.

It takes a brave person to get between an appellate lawyer and their citation formatting rules. US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas apparently is one of those brave souls. With the use of “(cleaned up)” in the recent Brownback v. King decision, Thomas has created a stir in the legal citation world the likes that haven’t been seen since the Court’s first Internet citation changes in 1996. Blue Book Rule 5.2 and Brownback are at odds and according to a Law360 article from Carrie Garrison from Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, appellate lawyers may be taking sides.

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Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.
Transcript

Marlene Gebauer  0:19

Welcome to the Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert  0:26

And I’m Greg Lambert.

Marlene Gebauer  0:27

When it comes to creativity and innovation, this week’s guest,  Jeroen Plink, has stayed on the cutting edge of both for over 20 years now. He recently announced he was leaving as CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions. And we wanted to see what his plans are and discuss a number of innovative things he’s worked on over the years.

Greg Lambert  0:44

We have a great talk with him and talk about his thought process. And he gives us the secret of how he filters the ideas through his family, and how they, especially his daughters, seem to be his harshest critics. So stick around for that discussion. But for now, let’s get to this week’s information inspirations.

Marlene Gebauer  1:07

A few years ago, there was a big push in law firms to go sole provider. By this I mean, selecting one main information platform. I think the main driver was and is financial, these platforms have gotten so incredibly expensive. And clients often refuse to pay for the use of these platforms. Also, the all in one solutions generally do some things really well. But then others not so much. Another factor is that these platforms are consolidating content that was historically separate, as well as other practice support services. So drafting, for example, into one mega platform. So it’s sort of become the amazon.com of practice support, which is convenient, yes. Best price? Well, maybe.

Greg Lambert  1:52

Yeah, well on top of that, then you’ve got to package these things together now. So

Marlene Gebauer  1:58

well, an article in legal tech news points out how moving to sole provider is really a bad thing if you’re trying to be innovative. First, it’s really still impossible for one platform to solve all practice needs. And that’s the truth. Second, and this is key, the market changes so quickly, committing to one vendor and one platform could be innovative one year and a dinosaur the next. firms that focus on interoperability, open platforms or access gateways that expand capabilities of various solutions can be more innovative. Our friend Andrea Markstrom, who’s been on the pod and who has been recognized by ilta, as an influencer in tech was quoted noting that mixing providers promotes healthy competition. And if you don’t keep a mix in your platform, you could be denying your firm and your clients the best capabilities in the market. I like this approach. And I agree that you will see more innovation rather than less if you focus on open platforms. But there are a lot of challenges to make this happen. First, people do not like change.

Greg Lambert  3:05

What No, I know about lawyers. How do lawyers like change?

Marlene Gebauer  3:09

I did. I did say people but lawyers also do not like change. While solutions are coming out exponentially. There is really a question if users are flexible enough to shift regularly. And a related problem is getting the buy-in for the buy. Often new solutions have new workflows and automation. And people are skeptical. With a lack of desire to change coupled with the struggle to prove the business value. It seems much easier to go with Amazon. So this is why it’s critical to have professionals keeping an eye on the market and comparing tools.

Greg Lambert  3:45

Yeah, the sole provider or single provider. Preferred Provider however you call it really looks good on paper. But man, is it hard to do in reality?

Marlene Gebauer  3:58

Uh-huh. I agree.

Greg Lambert  4:00

Alright, Marlene, so I’m gonna ask you what’s geekier than talking about potential changes in the legal citation structure?

Marlene Gebauer  4:07

Well, not too much, I don’t think.

Greg Lambert  4:10

Well, that’s my inspiration this week and it comes from Justice Clarence Thomas, who has the citation world on its ear by using just two words and some parentheses instead of following the infamous Blue Book rule number 5.2

Marlene Gebauer  4:26

Oh my god, I think I have the vapors.

Greg Lambert  4:28

I know. In a Law360 article from Carrie Garrison, an associate at Porter Wright Morrison Arthur. She wrote about this week and explained how Justice Thomas’s use of the words (“cleaned up”) in parentheses in the brown bag v. King case, is the most notable change in the Supreme Court citation of internet sources since 1996. And I tell you how long ago that was, I was still in law school. So normally in rule 5.2, there are these infamous footnotes that require quotes within quotes because the citations have morphed. And so Garrison comments that some appellate lawyers are a little concerned that the much simpler “cleaned up” version, which cites the correct source without all the superfluous prior citations, will make them less credible. So I imagine that’s what I’m reading there is “fewer words,” we’ll have will have to be said so and then others in the appellate world are applauding, the style is clean and easier to read.

Marlene Gebauer  5:38

So these are things that keep you up at night.

Greg Lambert  5:40

It is it is, hey, appellate lawyers and their citations. You don’t mess with them.

Marlene Gebauer  5:46

Don’t get between them

Greg Lambert  5:47

Don’t get between them. Well, the Supreme Court’s break from the tradition of the Blue Book strict citation requirement is pretty unexpected. But again, I think most of the appellate world seems to be really excited, or at least they’re talking a lot about this shift. And I thought, you know, I’ve really thought as tech geeks were really, really strange but seem like the citation geeks or they may beat us so. So if you are listening, and you are one of those citation geeks, do me a favor, reach out to me, and explained just how much this is affecting the legal writing world.

Marlene Gebauer  6:27

And that wraps up this week’s information inspiration.

Marlene Gebauer  6:34

Our guest today is Jeroen Plink, the former CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions a subsidiary of Clifford chance. While there Jeroen was responsible for product development and go-to-market strategy for all products of Clifford Chance Solutions, including CCd@raft, he co-founded a company that develops software for due diligence and m&a transactions, which was later acquired by practical law company. We asked Jeroen to come on and discuss with us how he worked his way into running a large innovation subsidiary of a magic circle law firm. And then we picked his brain on what’s next on the horizon.

Marlene Gebauer  7:10

Jeroen, thank you for being on the show. As I mentioned to you, when we were setting this up, our pods often have an informal theme of the journey through the legal landscape. So we want to record your brain at work today. But let’s start at the beginning. What got you interested in law in the first place? You were a lawyer in Amsterdam, practicing in the private equity space? But why private equity? And what lessons did you take with you from that experience?

Jeroen Plink  7:37

First of all, thank you for having me on the on the podcast, I followed your podcast for a long time. And the blog. So I’m very honored to be here. You make it sound like there was a deliberate plan to go into private equity. And it wasn’t really very deliberate. So I went to law school in the Netherlands. And at the time, there was no undergrads, or there’s no difference between undergrad and masters at least in the Netherlands. And so I ended up having mostly a college experience where my focus was mostly on the extra curricular than on the actual study of law. So for me, in hindsight, we’re almost surprised and I ended up practicing and one of the leading law firms in the world.

Marlene Gebauer  8:28

That sounds totally separate podcast interview.

Jeroen Plink  8:31

Yeah, absolutely. But it’s not one that I want to share publicly, at least not if there’s a chance that my kids are listening anyway. So moving on, swiftly from that. So I ended up the Clifford Chance, as was the practice than if it was a three-year traineeship where you spend one and a half years in one department and one and a half in the other. I done my final thesis on law school and on some intellectual property topic, so I thought I would enter it and in, in intellectual property. Now I ended up in the corporate department, by chance I worked for, for partner Joachim Fleury, who was my mentor, and we did a lot of private equity deals. And I really enjoyed that. That was the first part then I spent six months on so called mint with Latham and Watkins and after that, did my second seat and that was litigation. Because I’m more of an organizer than a researcher. I ended up not really liking the litigation part of the work and so with the guy who’s now the senior partner at different Gen Z will now be actually started focusing a lot on the e-commerce practices was late 90s. And so internet dot com bubble and we actually get a lot of clients bookings.com was one of our clients and I really enjoyed that practice. And then I went back into private equity after about one and a half years without her for which I left to do my first legal tech company, which was the first step outside of law.

Greg Lambert  10:25

Were you a technology guy before? Or were you riding the tech bubble at the time?

Jeroen Plink  10:31

Um, no, I wasn’t a tech guy at all. That’s because I’d been negotiating a bunch of tech contracts. I think I suffered from lawyer omnipotence, feeling, and thought that because I’d negotiated the tech contracts. I knew everything about it. And of course, that was not true at all. But I think it was the combination of lawyer omnipotence feeling and entrepreneurial view greatest that made me think that I could do this thing.

Marlene Gebauer  11:05

is a good match. It was a good mashup. Right there.

Greg Lambert  11:08

Yeah. Fake it till you make it. So in 2000, you left Clifford Chance. And you co-founded the software company for due diligence and M&A that, I believe that was eventually sold to Practical Law Company and PLC. Were you comfortable in leaving the law and taking the plunge into the software world?

Jeroen Plink  11:31

Yeah, I mean, this was the early or the late 1990s, mid-90s. And everyone was doing software or startups that I wanted that too. Most of my clients were doing exciting stuff. So. And I realized that even though my lawyer skills or legal skills were not up to scratch, I was actually a pretty decent deal lawyer. Even if I were to fail, there’d be a way back into a law firm and eventually make it to partner. So it was not as high risk as one would think. And I was, I was in my early 20s, I was single when I started my own company. I’d make it in some way or another.

Greg Lambert  12:24

Well did you think at the time that this was going to be such a big deal? Did you think you were creating something that was going to have a major shift in legal research, legal practice?

Jeroen Plink  12:37

Especially when we’re doing Legistics, the new collection software company. We’d seen it? I mean, I don’t so many deals, where the due process was such a centrifugal process without much guidance? I don’t think anyone was talking about project management within a law firm at the time, or any decent sort of know-how guidance, so I was convinced that we were going to get it right. And then the other thing was, it seemed to be such a waste that you would do due diligence on an M&A transaction. And then after the transaction, you would throw away and not reuse that data to manage the company going forward. And I, I’ve always hated waste. So I knew this was a big enough problem to be worthwhile trying to solve it.

Greg Lambert  13:32

And what were your kind of long-range plans for the company at the time where a lot of times, people in startups like that even in 2000, you know, they’re looking at two things, or massive growth or to be acquired, you know, kind of what was your mission? Were you looking to be acquired? Or were you thinking this was going to be what you’re going to do forever?

Jeroen Plink  13:53

I think very few people actually think of it that way. I mean, I think some of the more considerate types would sit down and say if I got one of three options, I’m either going to build something that is massive is going to change the world or I’m going to build a Little Richard that I know the exact buyer for it. I know what to do to get it acquired. Or the third option is I’m building a lifestyle company, I’m building something that is just fun. It’s making whatever you need. It’s making a $4 million revenue. I can pay my employees and I can pay myself a decent wage. But most people don’t sit down in advance and say this is the path I’m going to walk on. It sort of happens. For me, I’m always the Go big or go home guy. So with the due diligence thing we really meant to basically build something major with PLC. There was no my call to make we sold my, our company to practical law. When we came to the US in oh seven I think the goal was more to build it and grow it. So we had set out a very delivered roadmap, we started with corporate insecurities and finance and those, those topics. Over time we kept on growing the content set like we had for for PLC in the, in the UK, and around 2010, we had about 18 practice areas that we covered in the UK. And we were aiming to build the same year,

Greg Lambert  15:48

one of the very impressive things that most of us saw when it came to practical law and was the amount of talent that you were able to get to work for the company. I mean, you had lots of attorneys who had worked at big white-shoe firms, and that were just as kind of stumbling over each other to come work for you. It seemed like, do you think that was kind of the way that you were set up for the company? The management of it, just the uniqueness of it? What was the draw that you had for people to come work for you?

Jeroen Plink  16:26

Yeah, that’s interesting. So when we started here, I thought that they were going to be two problems. One was selling the product, which was in the end was super easy. And the second they thought it was going to be selling the job. How do you convince someone to leave their white-shoe law firm for a start up with people with funny accents do something completely different? And in fact, that two turned out to be relatively easy. We ended up selling the job on the basis of Hey, you’re still involved with high level high quality law, but there’s a plan B. So if you’re in a law firm, your options are you either work 20 hours per day, if you’re on a transaction, or you don’t work in that law firm. And, and so, for us, the option was they could work at our place without having to cancel every social event in the evening, or people could see their children and still be involved with high-quality law. And I think that was the interaction. And it was a great environment to work at. I mean, it’s easier said for me, for the people that work for me, but I think we managed to create a great atmosphere and a great place to work.

Greg Lambert  18:07

Well, I think the proofs in the pudding on that. Yeah,

Marlene Gebauer  18:10

that’s true. That’s true. So I’m going to shift a little bit. This is the part where we, you know, we record your brain. So how do ideas come to you? You know, when I was consulting last year, you know, you and I had a really good conversation about business ideas. And we talked about a lot of different things. And you know, for example, one of the things we talked about was outsourcing in certain areas. Now, you know, outsourcing has been a conversation for years. But why an interest now, you know, why is it going to work now, as opposed to two years ago?

Jeroen Plink  18:44

So your first question is, how do ideas come to you? I’d say it’s pretty random. It’s usually during walks, that an idea comes to me. I just happen to have a lot of ideas. And once they make it past my wife and daughter or sister, I usually start externalizing them. In particular, my daughters are super brutal. And I oftentimes ignore them because they don’t really know to the whole industry that well, even though they think they have an opinion. So that’s Yeah, we had a company. And within Clifford Chance Applied Solutions, we had the benefit of a 3000 lawyer and law firm with a lot of talented business professionals as well. So there was no shortage of good ideas. We also spoke to clients a lot and that helps. So getting good ideas is just has never been the de issue. It’s about the execution. That’s that’s where something all outsourcing you and I spoke a lot about that. I think outsourcing, I mean, it’s a fairly broad topic, you can outsource anything from your basic billing work to IT support within a law firm to library work or more substantive legal work. I think that the reason why outsourcing now is on the rise and things like Library Management, such as done by the LSE group or billing management by frontline, or Keynote cosy, which is now part of HBr. I think that’s, that’s simply because specialists are just better at in especially if you start to perform at scale. And if you don’t just do two bales of one law firm, bad, just a bunch of them. Or if you manage the library of 20 law firms instead of one, you just have the benefits that come from economies of scale, and then own work that the more companies are doing. I think there’s a proliferation of data and documents that makes it necessary to have specialist teams when I started, and it said makes me sound really old. Practicing 25 years ago, basically, the upper limit on the amount of times you could renegotiate a contract was how often could you circulate a 600-page contract to 20 parties all over the world via fax. You basically, you couldn’t do that much. Now, it’s easier to make amendments to documents, copy large parts. And so the documents are larger, the frequency at which can be negotiated are much higher. And so there’s just simplicity and a lot more documents, things that are happening now like for example, massive rebate pouring where, for example, as a result of libel or changing their banks that are having to change 500,000 contracts, and that you can also do based on London salaries, or New York salaries, you’re going to have to find a lower cost base talent pool, but you’re also going to have to find project management skills and technology to support those humongous processes. And even if law firms wanted to, they simply don’t have the manpower to do that, within the firm, so that has to be outsourced. And that’s why you see the rise of companies like factor. Often managed services providers that help law firms support their clients with those major projects.

Marlene Gebauer  23:13

And, you know, when we also when we were talking, we talked about the quality of life and what was important now, you recently left Clifford chance where you had been the CEO of Clifford chance applied solutions. You know, I imagine for many people, you know, this would be a dream job, you know, working on innovative solutions for one of the largest firms in the world. And you talked about that just now about how you had access to all of these very intelligent and creative people to come up with solutions. And you know, things like is it cc draft and the cross-border publisher compliance solution? You know, a lot of different things came out of the time that you were there and yet you decided it was right for you to leave that and why is that?

Jeroen Plink  23:59

I think you’re right. I mean it it is a dream job and I loved every minute of it. So it was a very tough decision. I have very good friends of friends in England a chance both for my first stint and for my second stand. And I loved my team and the team I built is was terrific and it meets my zero a-hole policy from start to finish well done. But I really enjoyed setting I really enjoyed in general seven things and then setting things up I don’t enjoy the running of things whilst when they’ve been set up as much as the Firestarter thing. And then the other thing is that was unique to this job. With my teams being in London, Amsterdam, and Delhi India, there was a lot of travel. And during the pandemic, I was typically five to 10 hours by my team members. And so that made it very, very tough. And I pity my team members that called me in a 5am call, because I can be cranking into

Greg Lambert  25:20

saying, Are you doing the 5am call? Or were they doing the midnight call?

Jeroen Plink  25:25

I was doing the 5am call, because out of my team of 25, I was, was the only one state so I never stuff. So I think it was mostly that. But I also realized that despite CCAS (Clifford Chance Applied Solutions), being in a separate legal entity, I was still subject to the structure of a over law firm partnership. And leaving aside the debate whether partnerships that are right structure for a law firm are not. For me, it’s not a structure where I thrive, I’m used to an organization that’s bit more shaped like a pyramid. And I don’t think law firms work like that. And typically, in the organizations that I’m involved with, I’m at the top of the pyramid. And so finally, I started to fall in love with my plants more than I was with my job.

Greg Lambert  26:24

So there’s a number of law firms now that are creating these separate entities that are looking at innovation, technology, creativity, what is the biggest challenge when a law firm takes on these types of separate entities, that they do have to kind of workaround that flat structure of having 400 bosses?

Marlene Gebauer  26:52

I mean, they do it, they do it, specifically because it their structure doesn’t allow it. But yet, it still seems to impact the other entity.

Jeroen Plink  27:05

That’s right. It’s funny, I was having a debate about it. And just earlier today, I think it works today, you got a bunch of different examples, the ones where it works best if the entity is really separate, no quarterly reporting as if it was a practice area because it simply works differently. If you hire a lawyer in a new practice area, they start producing, they start on March 1, they’re going to bill some hours, by the end of March. Doesn’t work like that for a product. And so if you force people in product, and especially a new product to abide by the regular reporting cadence, of a law firm, that gets old quite quickly, and it gets frustrating. So I think that’s what I would advise any law firm. And I think that they don’t see him to set up a subsidiary. And I think there are plenty of examples Clifford Chance did a good job, that that I think, are examples of 650 has done a great job in US. Allen and Overy has gone and done a good job of setting up their subsidiary. So there’s plenty of example, whether where it’s done right,

Greg Lambert  28:27

Do you see more firms doing it? Or do you see kind of a pulling back over the next decade?

Jeroen Plink  28:33

No, I think I see more firms doing it for me, innovation plays in, in a couple of different Horizon, a set of horizon one is just doing what you’re currently doing, better. So use technology to support your technology, people and process processes to support your existing practice. So you use whatever key arrive for due diligence because it’s more efficient than throwing bodies at it. So that’s your rise. And while I think you’re rising to, in my opinion, is what are sort of new business models that you can leverage to create new revenue for the firm and service your clients differently? And I think there are a couple of examples. So Clifford Chance Applied Solutions is a great way of achieving that new revenue. You got Greenberg Traurig with its subsidiary, which is slightly different because they’re more of a law company, outsource legal service group provider. They got a variety of these things and I see a proliferation of those. And then the third is what’s really going to be the model that’s disrupting the current model on how do you prepare for that? And I think there are some firms that are looking at that, I think that’s the most underserved area. It is going to change and I think firms better prepare for that. But your answer your question, I think it’s going to be expanding the new models rather than contracting.

Greg Lambert  30:17

Alright. Well, let’s get away from law firms for a minute. I’ve read a couple of the interviews that you’ve done recently. And I know that you are interested in what some of the law schools are doing in the area of teaching the students about innovation and legal tech programs. I’m just curious, have any of the schools reached out to you yet to bring you onboard?

Jeroen Plink  30:41

And I’m talking to a few Yeah.

Greg Lambert  30:47

I’m just curious. Because we’ve talked with a number of whether it’s at Northwestern at Michigan State, Vanderbilt, Emory. What is it that you’re seeing in, in the university in the law schools, that’s really attractive to you, that you like, that students are learning?

Jeroen Plink  31:10

I think, for me, it’s more what they’re not learning and what they’re, what they are learning actually exists? I think that there’s still a major gap. And one of the things that I’ve learned over and over my last 25 years of experience in, within law firms and in house legal departments is that there is still a significant gap, whether it’s on the area of innovation, or on the business of law, how does a law firm really work? How does law firm technology work? How does marketing work? How does marketing work now? Maybe not even compared to 20 years ago, but there’s a significant difference? How do you do digital marketing, that sort of stuff? And when do you know? How do you know when to call into professionals? I think that’s and rely on them, not on their mind. I think that’s a major thing. Everyone’s talking about the T-shaped lawyer or the Delta-shaped lawyer. For me, it’s more about knowing when to call into professionals. It’s a bit when I did my MBA, I was never going to be a CFO. But I know now that when someone is showing me some numbers, I can, I’m smart enough to call out the mistake or when they’re trying to run circles around me. I think the same applies to lawyers. The fundamental role of a lawyer does remain giving legal advice. But you also need to understand how your practice works, and need to know just enough that you’re not omnipotent. And that for certain things, you have to rely on the professionals that do know better. I think that’s an important gap. And not only innovation, it is it’s a. It’s a mindset, how do you identify things that can be done better, and then hand them over to the people that know what they’re doing?

Marlene Gebauer  33:17

So what are some other areas that you’re you’re looking into? Again, you know, looking at the interviews, you’ve talked a little bit about access to justice is as an interest of yours. What kind of things are you exploring there?

Jeroen Plink  33:31

Yeah, I’m, I’m looking at sort of four, four pillars at the moment, sort of one is, is indeed access to justice. It’s funny over as I focus most of my career, on the top end of the legal market, big law firms, big corporations, I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that that part of the market is actually not that broken. Sure, can be better, could be cheaper. And for many, the lifestyle is broken. But as a segment, it works. companies get good advice. At a high price but people are making money and no one seems to object too much to hype or higher than the prices that are being charged. I think at the other end of the spectrum, it is fundamentally broken. I’ve come through some personal matters in close contact with some of the more personal elements of a of the criminal justice system and failings and I’ve seen a lot of injustice on a daily basis. And it’s it’s enough to bring tears to one’s eyes and there’s so many people who get no access to justice. They rot away in jails on trumped-up charges. There’s hundreds of millions of unsolved legal problems in the United States alone. Court websites that are designed in the mid 90s, that are just in English when not everyone is capable of English. And so if that’s not your first language, how do you understand the ill-designed website of a court? To understand your rights? I think that’s a major problem. I don’t claim to have the answer, I have an inkling of where I think it needs to go. I think that level of the market or that part of the market is not set up for the one-to-one traditional advice model, there has to be given the massive scale, there has to be a one to many type of solution. I’m very keen to help out there. And I’ve been very fortunate to have made to make an early investment in a company called Paladin that I set out to be breaking through some of these walls, and I’m involved with an organization out of Europe called HIIL, the Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law, that’s also seeking to improve access to justice, access, Justice is one. One of the pillars that I want to focus my attention on. The second is some commercial ideas. And probably goes beyond the scope of the conversation that I’m working on one in particular, and its own transparency of the legal tech markets. Too often, there’s buyers who don’t understand or are aware, even of all the solutions for a particular problem, that immediately is a problem for the vendors that don’t get access to their, to their buyers, and not all of the investors are, are completely aware of the dynamics of the markets. And so I’m working on a solution in that space. And I’m very excited about it. Then I got a couple of consulting gigs, helping law firms and in-house legal departments to find their innovation agenda, helping new entrants in the market, that seeker is seeking their position, helping investors understand the markets. I love these challenges. And I think I’m arrogant enough to think that I can help these companies.

Marlene Gebauer  37:40

I was gonna say just keep taking those walks. Just keep taking the time to get the ideas.

Greg Lambert  37:46

And don’t neglect your plants. Don’t forget to water your plants.

Marlene Gebauer  37:54

Jeroen. It’s been great talking to you. We’ve really enjoyed this. Thank you so much.

Jeroen Plink  37:59

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s always fun.

Greg Lambert  38:32

Well, Marlene, I don’t have much faith that his plants are going to get watered anytime soon. With other projects he’s got going on.

Marlene Gebauer  38:40

I have to agree. You know, it’s like, it’s so interesting to talk to him because he has so many ideas about so many things. And it’s not just the ideas. I mean, he’s really thoughtful about it. And I am very interested to see some of these new avenues that he’s taking, and where he wants to go with them.

Greg Lambert  39:02

Yeah, just the number of things that he has, has done with Clifford Chance Applied Solutions. And I think, you know, it was nice to hear kind of, you know, the honesty about, yes, we’re gonna see more of these types of companies coming out of law firms, but they’re issues that law firms need to address. Yeah,

Marlene Gebauer  39:23

yeah, there are issues about how they’re executed. First of all, law firms better get ready, it’s going to change and I mean, we’ve been hearing that but coming from him, it’s like, yeah, you better be ready. And again, it’s about how you execute it. And whether you do it right or not. And I really liked the comment about you know, if it’s gonna be this law firm, kind of managing it and it’s, it’s, you know, you have to apply law firm standards in terms of reporting and stuff like this. It’s like, that’s not how a product works. I mean, I think that’s gonna be a big leap for some firms to really be able to let go like that.

Greg Lambert  39:59

Yeah. I agree. Well, again, thanks to Jeroen Plink for taking the time to talk with us today. It was always a pleasure listening to the thoughts that come out when we talk to him.

Marlene Gebauer  40:12

That’s absolutely right. Before we go, we want to remind listeners to take the time to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, rate and review us as well. If you have comments about today’s show, or suggestions for a future show, you can reach us on Twitter at @gebauerm or @glambert or you can call the Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 or email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thanks, Jerry.

Greg Lambert  40:47

Thanks, Jerry. Alright, Marlene, I will talk with you later.

Marlene Gebauer  40:49

Okay, bye bye.