What does legal AI value look like once speed stops serving as the headline metric? In this episode of The Geek in Review, Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer speak with Nikki Shaver, co-founder and CEO of Legal Technology Hub and a member of the inaugural Financial Times Law 50. Shaver argues that law firms need to move beyond time saved toward efficacy: stronger output, stronger client outcomes, and more effective legal advice.
The conversation examines why the billable hour is far from finished yet no longer serves as the sole measure of legal value. Shaver compares hourly timekeeping to a taxi meter: useful for internal visibility, yet insufficient as the price signal for work transformed by AI. Workflow mapping, client discussions, and pricing discipline become central where an AI-enabled process compresses weeks of effort into hours.
Corporate legal departments are adopting AI at a faster pace, bringing new pressure to outside counsel. Some in-house teams see AI as a route to keep more work inside, while others see room for firms to take on work that previously sat outside budget limits. Shaver frames the strategic question around delivering more for clients, especially in practice areas where a firm holds differentiated expertise.
AI has not produced the promised empty calendar. Instead, lawyers report fuller schedules, longer documents, and a growing verification tax. Shaver flags the rise of 40-page forms, bloated redlines, and outputs that look polished yet lack sound reasoning. The episode makes a practical case for concise drafting, human review, and critical reasoning before any AI-generated material reaches a client or counterparty.
Agentic AI raises the stakes. Legal Technology Hub’s AI Agents in Law Map tracks hundreds of solutions, yet governance has not kept pace with new autonomy, connectors, and downstream system access. Shaver urges firms to establish traceability, unique identifiers, risk-based human oversight, enforceable policies, and a clear view of where data travels.
For firms aiming past baseline adoption, Shaver draws a line between routine personal use and strategic transformation. Daily use builds fluency, but competitive advantage grows from proprietary workflows, data foundations, client-facing collaboration spaces, and focused investment in the practices where a firm already excels. Her crystal-ball view is blunt: trusted judgment will become a scarce premium asset, AI-native firms will rise, and traditional firms will launch AI-native subsidiaries of their own.
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[Special Thanks to Legal Technology Hub for their sponsoring this episode.]
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript:
Nikki Shaver (00:00)
If you look at the history of law firms and what they offered, the scarcity was lawyers’ time. Increasingly, the thing that is, or will become, scarce and valuable is trusted judgment. I think that is something we will be able to charge a premium for.
Greg Lambert (00:23)
This week on The Geek in Review, we talk with our friend Nikki Shaver, co-founder and CEO of Legal Tech Hub, about where law firms stand now, where the pressure points are forming, and why trusted judgment may become the profession’s most valuable asset. But first, let’s hear from Nikki’s husband, Chris Ford, at Legal Tech Hub.
Chris Ford (00:44)
Hello, Marlene and Greg, from a gorgeous Toronto. This is Chris Ford, Chief Experience Officer here at Legal Tech Hub. Your audience might be aware of the events that we put on throughout the year, and I wanted to remind you of a couple coming up.
First, on August 4, we have the latest version of our online showcase, the Demo Dozen. This is an opportunity for 12 different legal tech vendors to give 15-minute quick-fire demos and give your audience a good idea of the latest in legal technology. It is free to attend.
Then, on August 23, if you are coming to ILTACon, we are holding our second annual Trivia Challenge. It is a social event, and we would love to see you there as well.
On September 23, we have our flagship innovation conference, Legal Tech Hub Horizons, in New York City at Columbia University. Visit legaltechnologyhub.com, select the Events tab, and choose Legal Tech Hub Events from the drop-down menu. We would love to see you.
Marlene Gebauer (02:01)
Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.
Greg Lambert (02:07)
And I’m Greg Lambert. Today, we’re thrilled to have Nikki Shaver, the co-founder and CEO of Legal Tech Hub, joining us. Nikki was recently recognized on the inaugural Financial Times Law 50 list for her outsized influence in navigating the technological, structural, and political challenges
Marlene Gebauer (02:24)
Yay.
Greg Lambert (02:32)
currently besieging the legal profession. So, Nikki, first, congratulations and, more importantly, welcome to The Geek in Review.
Nikki Shaver (02:40)
Thank you so much for both things. I’m very happy to be here with both of you.
Marlene Gebauer (02:44)
Yes, Nikki, congratulations. You have recently noted that managing partners are shifting their focus away from simply measuring efficiencies or hours saved. You are arguing that the real measure of AI value now is efficacy, the quality of output, client outcomes, and the effectiveness of advice. So, what do the most innovative firms look like in 2026? Are they really
Greg Lambert (02:46)
Yeah.
Marlene Gebauer (03:11)
detaching from the billable hour? What are they doing instead?
Nikki Shaver (03:15)
So, certainly, I am not saying that the billable hour is dead. I do think that we have over-indexed on efficiency as effectively the sole value of AI for some time. I’m pleased to see that we’re moving away from that because, of course, AI has also enabled us to do things that simply were not possible before.
I think everyone was initially busy understanding what generative AI could do and where it could have particular impact in law and legal workflows. Efficiency and productivity were the obvious starting points because that is what you see first, right? You enter a query, and the response is instantaneous. So efficiency and productivity are the obvious initial gains. But the real value for law firms, when you look at what we do, is improving client service in one way or another.
There is value to being fast, right? You think of going to a dry cleaner and saying, “I don’t want to pick up this dress in a week. I have an event tomorrow night, and I need it done faster. I need to pick it up tomorrow morning.” You do not pay less for that service. You pay more. So, one thing we need to think about is rethinking the way we contemplate time and its relation to legal work. Delivering work faster has value, too.
Second, we need to look at the value we can achieve in terms of quality, digging in deeper where we can get insights from broader data sets than we have ever been able to access before, or literally undertaking work that would not have been possible before. I heard a story recently of a corporate legal department taking on a project that it would not have done previously because it would have cost the business something like $14 million. Now, it was feasible within budgetary constraints because of AI.
The firms that are particularly innovative at the moment are looking at the billable hour like a taxi meter, right? It is still useful. We are still going to use hourly rates to record what has been done internally. It is useful in all kinds of ways, especially given how law firms continue to be structured, but it is not necessarily the determining factor in how much work should cost.
That is not true across the board. There are clients who still want to see the billable hour. They want to see things broken down by the hour. In fact, historically, the billable hour arose because of client demand. So it is not as though all clients are clamoring to move away from it. But there are workflows and types of work where it makes sense to move away from it, and we are seeing firms do that.
One of the other things I have heard in the last year or so is that firms have mapped their workflows and understood that, when AI is applied to certain workflows, they see a reduction of two or three hours, which is palatable within existing pricing mechanisms. But in other parts of the firm, they see a switch from something that used to take, for example, three weeks of time across a legal team to five or six hours. That is not palatable. It is existential unless you get out ahead of it.
So, doing the work to map workflows and understand where the impact lies, where you need to get ahead of it, having real conversations with clients, and making sure you are pushing margins up rather than racing to the bottom or leaving a lot of money on the table when the work you are doing is better than it has ever been before.
Greg Lambert (06:51)
Yeah. Well, okay.
Marlene Gebauer (06:52)
Are you getting a sense, on the flip side, of how clients are responding to this efficacy position? I saw something in Artificial Lawyer today that said, I think, 30% of the work is going to be handled by AI in-house. I am curious whether you are hearing anything from that side in terms of how they think this is impacting, or how it should impact, their work.
Nikki Shaver (07:21)
It is really interesting if you look at clients and the way they have taken up AI. They were slow off the mark initially. I think everyone assumed that, because they had so much to gain from using AI internally, they would be the ones to get it underway quickly. But they did not have the benefit of the resources that a lot of large law firms have to pilot and deploy technology relatively quickly.
Between 2024 and 2025, the rate of AI adoption in corporate legal departments in the U.S. doubled. Again, from the end of 2025 to where we are right now in 2026, the rate has doubled. So that is happening quickly on the client side. Increased sophistication also leads to an understanding from clients of what law firms are able to automate. That savviness is something law firms need to recognize, and it is why you need to be having those discussions with clients.
Sitting in a room of about 100 GCs earlier this year, I polled the audience. One of the questions I asked was, “What are you seeking to gain from deploying AI internally?” A significant portion of the room said, “Keeping more work in-house.” So, I think you are right, Marlene. That is something client teams are focused on because they want to adhere to ever-tighter budgets and, ideally, reduce outside counsel spend.
But I have also heard that firms and clients have been able to start working together in a way that makes it easier for clients to send certain work out that they might not have before, because law firms might not have taken it on. It might not have been feasible within the way firms previously worked and the billing structures. There are ways, then, of increasing the work that outside counsel does in a way that is valuable to the client.
But I also want to say that there is a concern we will look at this and think, “How do we keep costs down for clients?” and make that the overarching feature of how we consider the relationship going forward. I would argue that the better question is, “How can we deliver more for our clients?”
How do we prioritize, as law firms, the practice areas and clients that matter most to us in terms of business growth going forward? How do we double down in those areas and make big bets that enable us to charge more because the work will be worth more?
Greg Lambert (10:00)
Yeah. I know this may be more just me, but most people I talk to, you would think by now, with AI tools, that all of a sudden you would have more time to work on certain things. But everyone I talk to says, “I have never been busier than I am right now.”
It seems like AI functionality has created more work because people feel like they can do more things. I imagine that, even in-house, they are getting more questions from their teams and from the rest of the organization. So it feels like there is this stacking of work, and even with AI, it feels like we are busier now than we were pre-AI.
Nikki Shaver (10:57)
No, I completely agree, Greg. I do think it is a fallacy, right? If you look at the original Industrial Revolution, there was the same kind of thinking process. Once we put in what we would now consider rather elementary tools, but nevertheless tools that at that stage effectively automated or took away some human manual work, the idea was that everyone would have more time. More time to lie in a field and look at the sun.
That is not what happened. The pace of work escalated dramatically. People took on more work, and the way we worked changed dramatically. I think that is happening again.
I use AI all the time. I feel busier than ever, but I am also able to do so much more. I do not think it is human nature to say, “Cool, I got that one thing done, so now I am going to take a break for the rest of the day.” I think our tendency is to say, “I was able to do that so much faster. What else can I fit in?” So it is a pace, an escalation.
But I think there is another thing happening that we do not talk about enough and probably need to address. It may be teething issues around the deployment and broader adoption of AI. Documents are becoming longer. Communications are becoming longer. There is that adage: “I would have written a short letter, but I did not have the time.”
It is easy to get a lengthy output from AI and use it. It is much harder to edit it down into something short, succinct, and to the point. I am hearing this across many firms and corporate legal departments. They are seeing forms and applications that might have been one page previously coming in at 40 pages. They are seeing redlines where AI has clearly been used, which is indicative of poor use of AI as well, not merely a tendency toward wordiness or length.
Redlines are coming into firms from the other side that have clearly been generated by AI tools, perhaps tools not purpose-built for legal work. Not only must the firm respond to those redlines in a negotiation, but it must first go back to the other firm and explain why the redlines make no sense to begin with because they have not been verified.
So, there is a verification tax that we are all aware of, and the necessity to supervise does take time. All of this on top of that can push things out and create more work.
Greg Lambert (13:37)
Yeah, yeah. I can tell you an example I saw this morning. One attorney was talking about a client obviously using AI to outline what their contract should say. There was some outrageous language at the bottom that the AI had generated, and they were like, “Well, if you want me to address that, my estimate on the bill is going to be ten times what you think it is, because this is not something we normally take on for this type of matter.”
So, again, you are seeing people rely so much on AI that they are forgetting the practicalities of it. A one-pager is much better than a 40-pager. Relying on the expert to give you advice is better than relying on AI to give you advice.
Nikki Shaver (14:13)
Right.
Yeah.
Greg Lambert (14:31)
Okay.
Nikki Shaver (14:32)
I totally agree. It is really interesting, right? When we use AI, even when you try hard to apply your human judgment, you are verifying, but you may not necessarily be asking, “How can I abbreviate this?” or, “Is this actually saying what I wanted it to say?”
I think there are a lot of ways where you need to apply more critical reasoning than we are even saying that we do. It is not only about judgment or citation checking. It is about reasoning checking. Is this word being used correctly because it sounds nice in the sentence? Do we need it all? Exactly.
Marlene Gebauer (15:10)
Do we need all of this? I can tell you, it is
Greg Lambert (15:13)
Yeah.
Marlene Gebauer (15:14)
like, we all know we do not.
Nikki Shaver (15:16)
Yeah.
Greg Lambert (15:17)
But it looks really good, it is formatted well, so let us just go with it.
Nikki Shaver (15:18)
Yeah. Right, right.
Marlene Gebauer (15:22)
No, every time I use it, I need this in three sentences. I need this in a five-sentence paragraph. Short sentences. You have to tell it that, too, because it is just too much.
Nikki Shaver (15:33)
Yeah.
Greg Lambert (15:34)
Yeah, because otherwise, it is paragraph-long sentences.
Nikki Shaver (15:38)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Lambert (15:39)
Well, Nikki, let me shift gears to one of the other big things going on in 2026. As you mentioned before, when generative AI started, it was more chatbot, more prompt, question, answer, back and forth. Now, of course, 2026 is agents, agents everywhere.
Legal Tech Hub recently launched the AI Agents in Law Map, tracking, I think at one point, 300 or more distinct agentic solutions. So, as law firms start to use more agentic workflows where AI is taking on these multi-step processes, how are you seeing firms adjust or overhaul their governance frameworks to prepare for workflows that handle so much?
Nikki Shaver (16:45)
To be very blunt, I am not seeing that at the level I think we should have it, given that agents are soon going to be fairly prolific, if not already. I am concerned that the evolution of technology is outpacing our ability to govern it. That is really problematic from a risk perspective.
Having said that, there are things firms can be doing, and a lot of firms are thinking about it. But it is difficult to understand exactly what mechanisms to put in place, partly because it is so dependent on what you are using agentic AI for and in what form. Whether it is part of a third-party solution or something homegrown and proprietary, you are responsible for putting the guardrails around it.
There are additional complexities when you look at MCP and the wide availability of connectors. Not only may you have introduced autonomy in an agent, but the tools and systems it accesses downstream may not be ones you can vet, nor may you be able to vet the data those downstream agents have access to. What do you do in those circumstances?
Even before you get to those scenarios, there are some fairly prosaic things. For example, even last year, I heard about firms that deployed agents but had not put in unique identifiers to ensure they were trackable or traceable within systems. Later, someone looked at unusual activity, thinking, “Who is doing that?” and suddenly realized it was an agent.
You need unique identifiers. You need to be able to trace agents in your system. But I have also heard all kinds of other stories. When you introduce autonomy, you introduce the potential for unforeseen outcomes. Some of these are amusing when we look at them now, but the fact that they exist is indicative of the potential for real risk.
I will give you a couple of examples. Someone I know ran an agent to extract data from their email system and then run various analyses across that data. When the agent went to the email system, it was unable to extract the data in the way it wanted to. So, instead of coming back and saying, “I am not able to do this,” it created an entire replica of the person’s inbox and saved it onto their desktop. Then it ran the queries against that replica of the inbox. The person only noticed later when they saw the emails saved on their desktop.
Another person recently told me about a scenario where they uploaded a PDF and said, “Open this PDF and tell me what it says.” But it turns out the agent did not have access to Adobe Acrobat. So it used unknown quantities of tokens to write a program that was a PDF reader in order to open the PDF and tell him what it said.
These are funny, right? But think of that. I have also heard stories from the GC perspective of agents that have gone into European employee masters of record to grab information and bring it back into the U.K. or the U.S., putting the organization immediately in breach of GDPR in circumstances where the organization did not have visibility over that.
You have to be really careful. Dan Katz, Gillian Hadfield, and Mike Bommarito have written a book on agentic systems. I think you may have had them on. There is an amazing chapter on the governance of agents. You really need to think about the risk calculus, how you are deploying the agent, and making sure a human is in the loop in the right way for the type of risk you are introducing, depending on how you are deploying the agent internally.
Of course, you also need to update your policies and ensure that those policies are not merely there but enforced across your organization. These are all things we need to be thinking about now.
Greg Lambert (21:03)
It is a crazy time to be a CISO. I do not envy them right now. Even though I pressure mine all the time to let me do crazy stuff, it is good to have him and his folks telling me, “Okay, let us pump the brakes here.”
Nikki Shaver (21:09)
Yeah. I do not envy them either.
Marlene Gebauer (21:11)
Yeah.
Nikki Shaver (21:26)
Yeah.
Marlene Gebauer (21:26)
Your Adobe example, and all the news coming out last week about new changes in how AI is going to be priced based on tokens, make me wonder how organizations are going to handle that. Is there going to be pushback? Are they going to say no?
I think everybody recognizes that the way AI has been priced is probably not how it will continue to be priced. Those days are gone. But when you calculate how much more it is going to cost, I feel like organizations are caught between a rock and a hard place. You have demand, but are you going to have to get certification for people to make sure they are properly using it in order to get a certain amount of tokens?
Are we going to dial back on using it for certain things because we do not really need to? Are people going to become more discretionary about how they use it?
Nikki Shaver (22:30)
I do not think we will dial back.
I also think this is probably a wave we are going through. If you look at what has happened since late 2022, we have already seen a lot of waves, and that is going to continue. We had a period when everyone needed to learn how to prompt in a deep way. Now every tool you use has a prompt enhancer, or prompting has moved into the back end. I think something similar is happening now. We are going to see a short-term escalation of costs, for sure.
I think you are right, Marlene. We all saw it coming. The reality is that legal work is incredibly document-driven, and both input and output are lengthy in many legal workflows. One thing we have been doing at Legal Tech Hub is putting out content, including webinars, on how to manage your tokens, think about your work, adjust your work, and adjust which model you select and the level of effort you select for that model.
But I think that is temporary in the same way prompting was. The effort of minimizing the token load should not sit with a lawyer. You should not be sitting there thinking, “How can I make sure I am using the lowest level of model appropriate for my work?” or, “Should I summarize things before uploading them?” That does not make sense for us to do in the workplace.
My sense is that token costs will ultimately come down, or there will be new efficiencies where they will not be as significant, and it certainly will not sit with us. There will be things that happen in the back end that manage token use in a way that makes it more palatable.
But to the cost point, the reality is that all of us need to recognize we will be investing more and more in this technology. If, and this is what I believe, it becomes completely inextricably linked with the work we do, such that you cannot contemplate doing due diligence or any other legal workflow without also thinking about the AI that enables it and how that operates, then realistically, we are going to have to invest in the technology the same way we invest in our people. It will become part and parcel of the way we work.
Greg Lambert (24:36)
That is it.
You are muted, Marlene.
Marlene Gebauer (24:48)
I wanted to switch gears for a second and talk about the RSGI and Harvey report. You recently analyzed that and revealed there is a massive divide between standard AI adopters and true power users. The data showed power users in law firms are saving about 37 hours a month, which is pretty incredible. So, what specific behaviors, methodologies, or mindsets separate
Nikki Shaver (25:09)
Yeah.
Marlene Gebauer (25:15)
the lawyer who uses the AI chatbot from a truly transformative power user?
Nikki Shaver (25:22)
You know, I love this one because it is so simple. Usage begets usage. It is as simple as that. If you use AI every day, you understand better what it is able to do. Then you start setting it more complicated tasks and using it more, and that in turn unlocks more understanding of sophisticated use, and so on and so forth.
The data really shows this, not only in law but generally. If you use AI every single day, you will ultimately become a superuser. Whether that means you will become someone who uses
Marlene Gebauer (25:51)
Yeah.
Nikki Shaver (26:00)
workflows or builds workflows, I do not think everyone is set up to be that person necessarily, and that is okay. But I think one thing firms can do is focus on making sure, and incentivizing people, to use this technology in some way every day.
Frankly, I would not be terribly prescriptive about it. I would be encouraging of usage in any way, whether that is, “Where should I order lunch?” or, “What am I going to do this weekend?” No matter what it is, use it every single day for 10 to 15 minutes. Gradually, you will build superusers.
Marlene Gebauer (26:42)
I am reading a lot about how adoption is not enough. I agree with you. I think you have to start with adoption and then move from there. But from a firm perspective, they are looking to figure out how use of AI is promoting value. By value, I mean better client relationships or new ways of pricing that make sense. They are looking to see some impact beyond the actual use.
Is it enough to be a power user, or is the new benchmark either developing workflows or having systems of practice that are powered by AI?
Nikki Shaver (27:31)
I think there are two levels there. One is individual use. Being a power user is great. The second is whether firms should be focused solely on adoption of third-party technology, or whatever you have rolled out across the firm. There, I think the answer is no.
Something I have been arguing for over a year now is that, yes, definitely focus on adoption. Make sure that you have a full firm of people who are AI literate and use AI on a daily basis. That is really important and will continue to be important. You need data enablement as a foundation. You need AI enablement. Driving adoption in a widespread way gets you there for the latter.
But it is not sufficient if you want to use AI to create a point of differentiation in the market that allows you to have a competitive advantage. Everyone is driving adoption of AI across their lawyer and staff population. It is not distinctive. It is not differentiating.
Instead, what firms need to be doing is identifying, and they will have done some of this work already, the key practices. Where is it that you already have an edge? Where is your expertise special, unique, and different? Then, how can you use AI in a way that is not about individual users deploying it in workflows, but is truly about transforming and using AI in an operational way that is embedded with clients, or in the bridge between the firm and clients?
How do you completely change the way that work is done and amplify it, acting as a catalyst so that you are able to drive business growth seriously in the areas where it matters for your firm? That is the work firms should be doing at the moment, figuring out where they want to make that kind of investment and moving beyond adoption of the AI tools they have licensed.
Greg Lambert (29:37)
Yeah. We had Stephen Costigan on last week, and he talked about making sure you own your data, that you are not essentially farming your data out to third parties. But I also think, especially since the government stepped in and had Claude remove its latest and greatest model, Fable Five,
Marlene Gebauer (29:38)
Agreed.
Greg Lambert (30:04)
and now with ChatGPT 5.6, we are getting back into build versus buy. Do we rent the foundational model, or do we do what it looks like Kirkland & Ellis is doing and create a foundation where we at least partially control the AI foundational models, whether that is open source or whatever the next phase is?
What are you seeing? What are your thoughts about how we, one, protect our data so that the things that make us unique and our expertise stay that way? And two, what about the technology? Do we continue to rent the technology, or do you think we need to own at least a piece of it going forward?
Nikki Shaver (31:01)
You need both. I think the dichotomy that we used to hold as established, the buy versus build dichotomy, is no more and has been no more for some time.
Talking about renting, it is still the case that the market is not settled around legal AI. Will it even be legal AI? Will it be something else? We do not know. So, renting in some ways makes sense when it comes to third-party technology. Think along the lines of staying nimble. That is why I advocate that every firm should have an R&D department, like most successful businesses have had for decades, because you need to be able to experiment, understand what is coming down the track, and remain agile for the foreseeable future.
I do not think this escalation and evolution of technology is going to end. On the other hand, for the kinds of embedded operational uses of AI that I was talking about previously, you do need something proprietary. I do not think it is only about protecting your data. Yes, we all do that whenever we work with technology. I think it is more about embedding your data within technologically driven, continuous workflows that allow the firm to develop something quite unique.
That kind of thing has to sit alongside the renting you are doing of other technology tools.
Marlene Gebauer (32:38)
Historically, lawyers have worked in a black box. They deliver finalized, static documents to clients. Even with electronic delivery, that did not change much. We sent the client an email with attachments. We made the documents and sent them along.
We have had some collaboration tools that have been popular, like things such as HighQ. But again, this is where we would share and organize static documents. Now, you have tracked the rise of a new AI-mediated collaboration layer where clients and outside counsel are working dynamically in shared AI workspaces. First, how does that environment work? Second, how important is this to retaining clients and partners at firms?
Nikki Shaver (33:30)
This is going to be something we see more of, for sure. You can imagine that it cuts down on the turns, right? As you said, Marlene, it was kind of stop-start. You send something to me, I review it, I redline it, I send it back to you, and you look at it.
It cuts all of that out effectively if you are working in a secure space where both of you have access to a document in real time and access to AI in real time that is able to support you in the work each side has to do within a document or deliverable.
It sounds facile, but it is like the next iteration of a client portal, one that does change the way you work with clients because it is in live time rather than in staged forms or phases.
Marlene Gebauer (34:12)
What?
Greg Lambert (34:21)
Well, Nikki, here is the most exciting part that I want to talk about, your recognition in the inaugural Financial Times Law 50. I will say, not quite the same thing, but I was an inaugural member of the Fastcase 50. That was a long time ago. I think that was 17, 16, 15 years ago. Time flies if you hang around long enough.
Nikki Shaver (34:38)
Congratulations, Greg.
Greg Lambert (34:47)
But it is interesting that the Financial Times jumped in and was able to recognize the legal industry in itself. I found that very exciting. Tell us about it and how that went.
Nikki Shaver (35:05)
Well, thank you very much. I really applaud the Financial Times and also Rena Sengupta from RSGI Consulting. Rena and the FT have been working together for years on the Innovative Lawyers Awards, which many firms and legal departments are aware of and have participated in. Rena, I think, really drove this.
I love the background. She understands, like all of us do, that we are currently in a moment where the legal profession faces unprecedented uncertainty about its future. What she saw in the FT Law 50 was the ability to recognize people who were courageous enough and outspoken enough to have an impact on driving the profession forward in some way.
It is broken down into different categories, AI and the rule of law. There are leaders who have stood up in various ways for the rule of law, which has been incredibly important in the past year and a half especially. The category I was in was leaders and advocates, which is really about speaking out.
The idea Rena has, which I love, is like imagining bright lights, pinpricks of light around the world, and knitting them together in a way where they can have greater impact because they know one another, are united, and can work together to drive broader impact.
Each year, this will happen again, with the idea that it is not merely a static recognition but something that can have a real ability to drive positive change in the legal industry, which is something I have cared about deeply for many years.
It is a wonderful recognition. The people on this list are quite extraordinary. I do not know if either of you watched Neil Katyal’s TED Talk.
Greg Lambert (36:59)
Yeah. That was good.
Nikki Shaver (37:01)
Really amazing. I think it is a wonderful initiative, and I hope we see more and more of this kind of thing. It is almost about activism, right? It is about recognizing that, when our industry is in this kind of moment, we need to think about things differently and encourage other people to think about things differently as well.
I speak a lot at the moment about law being in the dilemma zone, the classic Clayton Christensen dilemma. I think we are in that moment where a lot of incumbents, unless they start acting differently now, will fail as nimble disruptors come up. We are seeing that happen in the market right now.
It is an important time for all of us to do what we can to drive our institutions forward if we are keen to see them survive in some way, shape, or form.
Greg Lambert (37:51)
Did you think, when you started Legal Tech Hub, because I knew you when you were at Reed Smith and then moving on, that the original idea was, “I do not have a way to keep track of all the things that are going on”? But Legal Tech Hub has become much more than a tracking tool. It is almost like a community now. Has it exceeded your expectations, or are you right on track where you thought you would be?
Nikki Shaver (38:24)
Definitely.
Honestly, I was frustrated. It was born out of frustration. I said to Chris, who many of you know, my husband and also one of the co-founders, “Why is this so hard? Why does this not exist? It is so annoying that I cannot find this information.”
So, that is what it was born out of. I never could have imagined. I think what is interesting, though, Greg, is that it is called Legal Tech Hub, but I now refer to it more as an intelligence platform because it is very much about market analysis. The work I increasingly do is also about market analysis and the
Greg Lambert (38:40)
Why is it so hard?
Nikki Shaver (39:04)
strategic work that we have to do as an industry. I think the reason for that shift is that when you looked at technology in 2022, pre-November 2022 and before, it was a support function. It was not the pointy end of strategy for law firms.
But now, those of us who work in AI and legal tech for legal practice are working in something that has the ability to shape strategy for firms and have a real impact on how law firms, as businesses, grow or fail.
I think that is why the platform that we started as something for information about legal tech has moved into something more about strategic industry analysis. A lot of people who work in this area are finding themselves doing more strategic work than they might have a few years ago, including probably both of you, I imagine.
Greg Lambert (40:05)
No, we are right on track where we thought we would be. We are still trying to figure out how to hook up our microphones.
Marlene Gebauer (40:07)
Right on track.
Nikki Shaver (40:07)
Please.
Marlene Gebauer (40:16)
So, Nikki, before we get to the crystal ball question, you are someone who tracks the entire global legal tech market, as we were just talking about. What are one or two must-read resources, thinkers, or groups that you rely on to stay ahead of the curve in legal AI and innovation?
Nikki Shaver (40:38)
It is interesting to me that it is so disparate.
There is no single source. You really have to follow a lot of different people. Greg, I absolutely love the fictionalized updates you are putting out at the moment about AI developments. I think that is great. I love Stephanie Gutos’s Legal AI Bites that she puts out. I actually have this right here, Agentic AI by Dan Katz and the Bommaritos. They are sources of inspiration for me.
I follow Ethan Mollick, who I think is a wonderful outside-of-legal thinker. I like Patrick Fuller. If you ever get the chance to read what he has written and see what he says, he tracks a lot of data that I find interesting. Dazza Greenwood and Megan Ma out of Stanford and MIT, I find really interesting too.
There are lots and lots of people. One thing I find particularly interesting is that with X, formerly Twitter, I think we are seeing a bit of a resurgence there. There are some interesting things happening. So, anyone who stepped away, I do not know. I think it is about to become interesting again.
Greg Lambert (41:38)
Yeah.
I think so too. I do not like it either, but it is what it is, I guess.
Nikki Shaver (41:49)
It is what it is, exactly.
Greg Lambert (41:53)
All right. Well, Nikki, we are at the crystal ball question. As agentic AI and real-time client collaboration become table stakes, what other shifts do you think are coming that we need to be aware of?
Nikki Shaver (42:16)
I think if you look at the history of law firms and what they offered, the scarcity was lawyers’ time. Increasingly, the thing that is or will become scarce and valuable is trusted judgment. I think that is something we will be able to charge a premium for.
We will see some firms fail. I really believe that is going to start to happen, unfortunately, in the next little while. We will see the increasing rise of AI-native firms, especially ones that are product companies turned services companies.
I think we will see some law firms move from being partnerships, legal partnerships, to businesses where the people who run them are leading multidisciplinary teams who serve clients holistically around strategy and law, but where law is one part of the service, not the entirety of it.
One thing I will put out here, because I knew you were going to ask me the crystal ball question, is something I think will happen. We have had law firms with subsidiaries. I think we are going to see a traditional law firm open a subsidiary business that is an AI-native law firm.
Greg Lambert (43:37)
Makes sense when you think about it.
Marlene Gebauer (43:39)
Yeah, it does.
Nikki Shaver (43:39)
Yeah.
Marlene Gebauer (43:40)
It does. It does.
Greg Lambert (43:41)
But, again, it really helps to hear it out loud. All right. Well, Nikki Shaver, thank you very much for taking the time to join us. I know you are super busy. You have been across the globe literally the last couple of weeks. I am glad you were able to sit down and talk with us. Hopefully, you can catch your breath and take a little time to yourself.
Nikki Shaver (43:45)
Yeah.
Marlene and Greg, it is always such a pleasure, really always a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for having me.
Marlene Gebauer (44:13)
And thanks to all of you for listening to The Geek in Review. If you have enjoyed the show, please share it with a colleague. We would love to hear from you on LinkedIn and Substack.
Greg Lambert (44:22)
I always love it when Marlene goes into a radio voice for this one. So, Nikki, where is the best place for listeners to learn more about you and find out more about Legal Tech Hub?
Marlene Gebauer (44:25)
Okay.
Nikki Shaver (44:25)
You can find me on LinkedIn, Nicola Shaver, N-I-C-O-L-A. You can find Legal Tech Hub at legaltechnologyhub.com.
Marlene Gebauer (44:41)
And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thank you. Bye, everybody.