Transcript
Speaker: You know, I think a lot of people look at change management as just ah training or communications, but it yeah it goes beyond that right? It's your're you're considering metrics, you're thinking about usage, you're thinking about sentiments and behaviors.
Speaker: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Beacon Voices podcast. I am your host, Akshay Verma. I'm the Chief Operating Officer at Spot Draft. And joining me today on the legal operations side is Stephanie Palmieri, who is the Director of Legal Transformation.
Speaker: at Palo Alto Networks after a very recent acquisition from her previous role. Stephanie, really excited to talk legal ops and legal tech and AI and all things cool around AI in our profession with you today. Awesome. sam Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. and And just so like everyone can see, because this is a video podcast as well, um can you tell us where we're looking at in this beautiful backdrop that you've got behind you?
Speaker: So we're in New Jersey. This is a backyard. You might see some deer or fox or critters pass by. It wouldn't be the first. And that would not be an AR, AI play. Like that's literally what's going on behind you. i mean, do you ever go out there, just like sit and like stare? It was such a serene setting.
Speaker: ah It's better from in here. um We do have a backyard and, ah you know, a hangout area, but we do have ticks out here, which okay kind of, you know, numbs down that excitement. We have about three three acres, which is really awesome.
Speaker: Okay. I've had one experience. and a to you know uh nature has been really nice but i bet it's very soon had one experience with a tick i think it was last year i go mountain biking a lot and there's a canyon back behind our house and i came home and i had my i had my leggings on because it was cold and i'm sitting there i'm drinking coffee after my ride i'm like why does my leg keep itching And i pulled up the legging and there was that little guy. And luckily he had not fully dug in yet.
Speaker: So I went and got the tweezers and like rightfully so grabbed them. And then I stored him in a plastic bag just in case I got Lyme disease. Because from what I understand, you can take the critter to the doctor and they actually can can give you, don't know if it's antivirals or whatever the antidote is. They're getting there. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's you're lucky that that you felt it because oftentimes you don't and not them would. I have not, we have not dealt with anything. We have a big hundred pound dog too that gallops out there, but he gets to have, you know, the tick, ah so whatever it's vaccine, which humans don't really have just yet. Um,
Speaker: But yeah, in in New Jersey, it's a little different. I feel like we probably have more of like the Lyme disease cases than California. I think that's winning on a couple of fronts. We've got earthquakes. i don't know what's worse. Yeah, it's true. um All right. I know we we came to talk about legal operations, but talking about health and earthquakes and and ticks is actually maybe more interesting. We'll see. She has seeds earlier. so Yes. we ah that's That's how I break my past. It's such a nice way to break my past.
Speaker: All right. Let's talk. I would love to start and just kind of dig into some of your early career. And as I was saying when we were talking earlier, Part of the the beauty and kind of power of our profession are all the different perspectives that are in it.
Speaker: And in part, because so many different people from different walks of life and different professions and different careers come into legal operations. And you've been your senior leader in legal operations now. You've been in legal operations for a while, but you had a different career before that. Like, let's let's start with that. Like, what what was it early on and and how did you make that transition into legal operations?
Speaker: Yeah. This is always a fun story because I don't think I've met anyone that's in legal ops that started and in ah television. i mean, in college, I was a double major.
Speaker: It's a business and a communications major. And I grew up in New York City and... you know Everything that was around me was either finance um or I had exposure to to television. So I really wanted to be a producer.
Speaker: um I studied for for two years in communications. My first job out of the gates, I was working at NBC. an internship and then I was working on...
Speaker: a big television show for a year. And, you know, I love the energy of it. I loved, I think you you had to be all in which is really similar to ops. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, this was like 80 hours a week and really out of college. um But there was a part of me that loved the production, that that loved the work itself, but I never really loved television. So I could take or leave TV, which is a little little odd considering that, you know, that would be a focus area. yeah But um i am I'm really, you know, happy that I like pursued that. I tried that out for two years.
Speaker: And then I kind of came to the realization too of like, all right, there's a whole other part of me that I went to school for and I wanted more stability and I'm, I'm, proud that I was able to, you know, try different things before I settled into where I've landed for the last 15 years. But um yeah, I tried out television. I did that. And then I i went into sales. I knew that legal ops was out there.
Speaker: Really, i can't explain it. There was just an enthusiasm to to want to get involved. I knew that it was all about innovation, um project management, or just levels of complexity there. And it just seemed exciting.
Speaker: So I threw myself into as many positions as possible to get closer and closer. And um I started working at Gap. um You know, I came from a sales position and then I saw a position that was open at GAP that was, you know, starting out on this path, but it was still somewhat administrative. So I had to take like a step back to what I was doing to just get exposure and to get into the legal department.
Speaker: and um yeah, and from there i was able to just throw myself into the tech initiatives and, you and just really get exposure into the industry. And um then it was kind of history from there. Then I worked at Dolby for five years where I worked with Elizabeth Miller, worked at Volta.
Speaker: Let's see. We were at Marketta and then CyberArk and Equinix CyberArk and now Equinix. So it's been a full 15, 20 years experience.
Speaker: you know, moving since television, but I so i do see, i do see that single thread throughout it all still, which is probably hard to, to describe.
Speaker: Well, look there's just's some really cool things I want double click on on what you just said. So we'll take we'll take you know we'll take those one at a time. but But let's start with the sales thing because I you know i was a lawyer. I've been in the legal profession like 26-ish years now.
Speaker: I was a lawyer first. That's what I started doing. And then I went into business development and consulting when I left the practice of law at Axiom. So... I had some exposure to this myself. And then obviously, then I went on to do operations at at Facebook and at Coinbase. But tell us a little bit, like what what was it like and and in making that transition? and And what are some of the sales, I don't know if techniques is the right word, but some of the things you learned along the way in that sales role that really help you today?
Speaker: Yeah, i I love this question. um i think I would say I've learned ah ton from being in sales, and I kind of got into this a little earlier, too. um There's just a closeness to the business when you're in sales in in general, right? You have to understand, like, the inner organs of business.
Speaker: marketing and you're working closely with finance, procurement, legal, um there was just exposure that i I'm able to bring into my day-to-day that I work with the ah initiatives today, right? When we're bringing in technology, when I'm meeting with sales teams or leaders for processes, um just kind of keeping a lot of these things in mind.
Speaker: and And just the, you know, the nature of the role when I was, you know, in sales development, um understanding those, so the foundation, the the basics, right? um The anatomy anatomy of a call. I remember having to really, like, study that, you know, how do you keep people engaged? How um how old can you bring people along for, you know, in a...
Speaker: an idea, an initiative, um and ensure that everybody is getting something out of it. So there is definitely, you know, a recipe that that you pick up. um within sales that I think could be applied in any industry that that you're in. But I looked at it as like a form of education. Honestly, having that in two years. yeah and yeah You mentioned that you, um that you, when you got to Gap, you kind of threw yourself into tech initiatives. What was it like for you to think about, okay, here's a tech initiative that I want to get involved in and why? Like, what was your thought process when you got there?
Speaker: Yeah. So, you know, at the time gap, a lot of things were antiquated. This was, I suppose, 15 plus years ago. So the thought of, you know, we had an e-billing system, that that was about it. And there's an employment law.
Speaker: um There's litigations. there's there we We had ah ah a massive department and a lot of opportunities and everything was paper at that point. yeah um And for me, it was really getting in and thinking about what was going to be like this big impact opportunity that um we know everybody could get behind. That was ripe for kind of a revolution. And organically at that point, we kind of identified um our our document management system
Speaker: And you don't hear too much of that at this point in time too, but you know we were bringing in bots and bringing in all of our litigation files and again, company that size, it was a massive initiative. So it was a really you know big yet, and when I look back at it now, very different in terms of like ah complexity levels of integration, but it was a big initiative that really involved a ah ah broad scope of the department.
Speaker: And I was able to kind of, you know, take lead and ah work closely with thoughts, work closely with our different departments and teams and just ensure that. you know, we're putting together, you know, the metadata that we care about and a lot of like project management, program management principles so that what we were doing is going to be done to like the best ability. And I'd say that was probably like the entry point um for initiatives at that time. And just throwing myself in the middle of that IT relationship. So, you know, we had at that point like two legal tools, um
Speaker: But wherever there was that, you know, vendor connection, really trying to, you know, build that relationship and and find other opportunities too within the department.
Speaker: um But, you know, lot has changed from, you know, 15 plus years ago. I want to ask you two questions. One, when did you first hear and start to understand the concept of change management? And that's the first question. And then the second question is, how do you think about it now? Like, what are some ticks tricks of the trade that you want to share with some of our listeners, particularly those who are earlier in their career of legal operations and are and are really just starting to tackle that issue?
Speaker: Yeah. I love this question, too. um You know, ah change management has been around for for quite some time, but I have to give a shout out. I'd say we really double down on change management.
Speaker: at Equinix. This was something that was just taken seriously. we had a whole pillar and program um developed around change management that fed into all of our systems, programs, processes, And it's, you know, you can you can really go deep on change management if if you'd like to in terms of, you know, program rollouts. And that's something that I do intend to to kind of bring to Palo today.
Speaker: there are ways that you could go about it where there are, you bite-sized chunks. You kind of take the best steps. from each, uh, kind of core area, but it's essential, right?
Speaker: You mentioned, we're we're going to talk about AI in a bit, but, um, you know, I think a lot of people look at change management as just, uh, training or communications, but it, yeah it goes beyond that, right? It's, you're considering, you know, metrics, you're thinking about usage, you're thinking about sentiments and behaviors, um, There's formulas that that people leverage today and that I leverage and my team leverages to ensure that a system or tool is going to be adopted. um And not just you know adopted, but a part of of of the day-to-day and in ingrained.
Speaker: And I do you try and think about it too, where it's like, all right, if we're purchasing a tool, yes, we need to show adoption metrics and usage, but I want to be able to tell the story of the impact Right. So like, what is this tool bringing to the table? So we're spending a lot of time today as we're rolling out our our main pillars and programs of the legal transformation team.
Speaker: in the change management bucket to just roll out, um you know, baseline metrics. what What's the time, it you know, what what is the time that it takes today to, you know, complete a contract or a specific request so that we're able to go back and say, okay, since we've implemented this, yeah we're we able to show that 40% in, um you know, expedited contracting time. So there's...
Speaker: a lot of legwork that goes into it. And I think oftentimes people might quit because it does require that work upfront the first month or quarter. yeah to get your baseline, to get your messaging, to understand, you know do listening sessions with the department, um send out your AI surveys.
Speaker: Those baseline metrics are are gold. And then once you have that starting place, you're able to you know essentially ah run any program that that you want and be able to measure and tell the story of its impact, or better yet, like be able to tell if if the direction that we've been going in Maybe is it making sense? Do we need to pivot, right? Do we need to put some energy here? So um to me, I think change management is essential. And again, it's more than just sending out the calm, um but really putting together, you know, like a change impact assessment, understanding your your stakeholders, understanding, um yeah, the system, the the the tool, the the roadmap, um and being able to track things.
Speaker: There's a lot of things that are happening today. Right now we're putting together, you know, just the change dashboards, um which I'm excited about. so yeah Yeah.
Speaker: As you think about legal transformation now, um you know whether it's in your current role or or recently in the past, what is kind of your starting point? um you certainly I think you you you articulated the importance of kind of um meeting people where they are and listening and understanding. But once you get past that point, and let's say that there is a potential technology solution on the table for the ultimate solution,
Speaker: kind of way that this new process will run. but But talk to us a little bit about what's in between the time that you listen to people. Like, how do you dissect the problem? How do you figure out these are potential avenues that we can pursue as a solution? And then how do you get to the eventual decision of of either leveraging a technology that you already have or buying a new technology or not having technology at all to to solve the issues? Like, what's your process like there?
Speaker: Yeah. So i am a serial documenter and matrices, creator, and we have many trackers. um I want everything to be rooted in data and sound decision-making because we're, you know, we're receiving input from over 200 people, right? There are many tools that are on the table. so being able to really show that, hey, you know,
Speaker: This is based on data from feedback, industry standards, and um everything else that that comes together but when when you're you know assessing a tool. um So we have these complex matrices that that we've been maintaining and updating. um basically you know highlighting all of the use cases, prioritizing the use cases based on the business impact, right? The value. What are the value levers that are are attached to the specific use cases? Is going to help with a broad ah implementation for 1,000 users, for 100 users? is this going to help us with their data and analytics? Is Is this going to support revenue, support um yeah training initiatives? So really ensuring that that we have the value tied to whatever that that we're looking at and prioritization. And we look at prioritization every day. Yeah.
Speaker: you know It comes up on my team. Things come in often. And being able to really reflect back and open up you know our our tracker um that has everything listed there, right? And we have the level of effort. What is the the impact, ah the the investment,
Speaker: And you know just ensuring with everything that that's moving is is still prioritized as number one. Has something come in that has shifted that? um So yeah, we're we're heavy on the process in terms of you know tracking, comparing, analyzing, and like being able to use AI now too for a lot of it. I've built ah a transformation process.
Speaker: engine, right, that helps me kind of dissect some of my dashboards, analytics, survey data that comes in, comparing it to our strategy. as so I'm trying to find, like,
Speaker: quicker ways to, to be able to to kind of do the work that, that we're doing. But um yeah, I, I feel, you know, this has come up early on too. And when I first started and it's like, well, you know what do you think is going to remain the same, the work that, that you're doing today compared to 10 years from now for a lot of it is going to like switch, you know, and change and, and progress and we'll have easier ways of doing things. But like the fundamentals here will never,
Speaker: will never change right just and i think that That last point is so, so important. It's so important. I think the fundamentals of legal operations, and like i I came into this relatively, i don't know, late, maybe the middle of my career. Arguably, I'm on the tail end of my career. Right. But for you i came I came into it um ah in like the second generation of legal operations. I'm nowhere near the OG.
Speaker: And one thing that I think I've really come to espouse, and I'm now you know roughly 10-ish years into that journey, um is that the foundational principles, and this is for me, this will probably never change, people and process before technology. Yeah.
Speaker: And i think you you've really kind of articulated that well, which is like you have to listen to the people. You have to understand who is doing what. You have to really understand why they do it a certain way. And then you have to try and figure out whether they're going to be willing to change that methodology. Right.
Speaker: human habit and our the way that our brains are wired for habit. Everyone probably at least knows to some extent Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule.
Speaker: And if you're a lawyer and you've been practicing for, you know, five or 10 years and you do contracts and you handle contracts in a certain fashion or ah you engage law firms in a certain fashion, changing those habits can feel like a monumental task.
Speaker: It can feel like a monumental task. and that's why change management is so important. It is such a human endeavor to your point. out um But one foundational principle, i I don't think that'll ever change for me, at least not as long as I'm in this world, which is that people and process first and then technology. i don't know. Do you have any examples of where technology for you and your in your roles has gone south because we you didn't pay enough attention to the people in the process first?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, there's, you have to meet people where they are for things to work, right? And in certain situations, you can kind of strike gold and it works out.
Speaker: But I think it's essential that you make the time to really ensure that that you're cushioning for change management when you're purchasing a tool, when you're starting a pilot, um,
Speaker: You know, I think previously we we had a few pilots that that started here that um that that were ambitious, right? But they didn't really pick up because you needed more time with the stakeholders to really understand where the sticking points are.
Speaker: you know, our our playbooks, our language. um Where can we get better, right, with AI? And then also, you know, a lot of it falls back on on the tools as well. But you can make strides when you just spend time with your stakeholders and put that extra, you know, 30 minutes, hour in to understand where they're coming from. Because oftentimes people will like to think of it as, like ah, well, people are complaining and they're going to complain about anything. and But in those complaints is truth. Oftentimes, right? And they're kind of, they're they're giving you breadcrumbs to like, oh, you know what? I might not have thought of it that way. And with that insight, yeah, let's let's make it a bit more cohesive. How can we, again, like meet people where they are? Then there has to be a moment too, right? There's always going to percentage, like you said, that are just kind of, really stuck in in the work that they've been doing for the last 10 years. So it's awkward. It's uncomfortable. You have to rip off the bandaid. um
Speaker: But yeah, you have to kind of play both sides at that point where, um you're going to get more when you spend time with folks to really understand what those sticking points are and see if the tool can can meet them there. And then, you know, also cut your losses in areas where we're not able to meet, right? But we're going to put that on the roadmap. We'll make sure that we target that in the future.
Speaker: um But yeah, it's essential. it It is. And there there are ways of doing it, too, where it... it it can be celebrated with the department. You know, i think one thing that that we really leaned into at Equinix was going out on the road and doing listening sessions, virtual listening sessions, and putting together matrices of feedback and, you know, categorizing, is this coming in through, is this a process issue, is this technology, um just getting data from that.
Speaker: um And then, you know, working throughout the year to kind of come up with solutions and you're able to to really articulate where this tool came in to, you know, support the business and, and you know, solution on some of those issues um based on that one-on-one feedback. So um it's endless with just the the, I guess, the leverage you can ah take with the change management.
Speaker: ah Yeah. It also reminded me, we talked a little bit earlier about what you took from your um sales role that really kind of you apply today. And I think i think everyone, i think most people understand this. think it's fairly common knowledge that the best salespeople are the ones who do less of the talking and they listen to their prospects and their customers. And that's why they are so successful. I think that's an it's a very apt, translatable skill set into legal operations. You are selling your ideas. You're advocating for them in the legal department in certain aspects.
Speaker: um And the people you need to listen to are the ones who are going to have to engage in the change or fund your initiative or or or whatever it is that might be. So that that listing component, I think, has been a consistent theme in this conversation for you so far. And and that was just another one that that I caught on. caught on to in this answer. Here's another one i I'd love your thoughts on.
Speaker: And maybe this is becoming less of an issue now. i think I think legal operations is really coming into its own. I think historically we have had um a difficult time ah articulating, demonstrating, or having the value of our function understood by general counsel, CLOs. in a lot of ways I really do think that that's starting to change.
Speaker: But you still, irrespective of that, have to have the ability to influence. That is a critical component of success for legal operations. like Tell us your thoughts on that on that ability to influence. And if you have an example or two that you want to share, I think that'd be really cool for our listeners.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%. Right. And it it goes back to to your question earlier that I kind of, yeah, I could have really leaned into here. you know, it's you need to understand who you're you're you're talking to, right?
Speaker: Someone in ops, we're looking for solutions, we're looking you know, analyzing critical gaps or years towards the business, right? or I suppose our eyes are everywhere, right? So we have a full understanding of of what's needed, but the way you bring that to, um,
Speaker: you know, an executive sponsor or stakeholder decision maker is going to be different across the board, right? The CLO is going to care about, you know, different things from our CFO and really getting good with the value and what you're looking to provide, the purchase um you know, the changes that something is going to bring in.
Speaker: Being able to be a storyteller is essential, whether if it's a, ah ah you know, a million dollar purchase or something that is going to, you know, be much less, but cause shifts within, you know, the the department.
Speaker: You need to really I'd say, you know, invest, and I keep mentioning this, in metrics, in data. I think being able to show in, you know, in value, in time savings, um whatever those areas are,
Speaker: And be able to tell that story continuously, not just for the ask, right? But I try and have quarterly reviews or at the end of the year show the impact, right? What did the team achieve?
Speaker: What did this tool achieve? What what are the time savings um applied for each of the processes and tools? And it's important to be able to to just tell your value story throughout the year. And really, you know, on on the dime sometimes, right? You might get a request.
Speaker: um Hey, tell me insight. Like where, yeah where, where are we with this tool? Are people using it? Has it brought value? Should be able to kind of tell that story. um ah and a good story to to share um in terms of like onboarding or or purchasing or requests. I mean, it's interesting when I first started implementing AI, I think was maybe five or six years ago, we um Working at Marketo, we were bringing contract AI to the table.
Speaker: We saw every value in it, put together a sound business case. But AI just wasn't, you know, it wasn't the mandate then. And it was, I think, maybe six months early um and didn't really receive.
Speaker: you know, that much they they understood the value, the impact, but then there's always these fires or larger initiatives that kind of eclipsed it. And within, you know, six months, once that started to become the mandate, was like, okay, wait, hold on, let's pick this back up.
Speaker: Where, you know, where can we kind of look at these, um, look at this and now in a broader landscape, um, It's, you know, timing is everything, but I think as long as you build your reputation and and your business cases, um where folks know that what you're bringing to the table as the business case is like rooted in facts and you're only going to bring things that are of high value, you're probably going to have better luck bringing in future tools. So you don't want to get caught.
Speaker: you know bring And it happens where you bring in a tool that might not have delivered um but being, again, really yeah meticulous and in that portion is gonna heed you lot more.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, let's let's talk about the tooling of the day, which is around AI. You've got some great experience thinking about it, ah implementing it, deploying it, probably ripping it out at some point. We all go through that ah in in our careers at some point. But let me ask you a question, and we'll kind of just dig right into this. is If you were to think about the biggest misconception that legal teams have around adopting AI, what would that be? ah I mean, there that's a loaded question. i'd I'd say I have a few. But one, it you know, AI, it goes beyond agents.
Speaker: um I feel like a lot of the, you know, the the latest conversations that I've been having folks are really just thinking about ways to bring in You know, their co-pilots are agents and contract ai um But to really keep up with the pace in which AI is rolling out right now, it's it just goes much broader than that. um You know, doing some research and understanding, like, autonomous agents, what you can do with your data and analytics, um,
Speaker: understanding the different layers and applications of ai um is critical. So I'm excited to see like it's bubbling up more and more and just even on LinkedIn, how people are bringing in autonomous agents and doing this type of work.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm excited to see where the conversation goes in the next six months as just capabilities expand. yeah And I'd say, you know, it it it doesn't have to be all or nothing. um i think a lot of people kind of get a little hung up over having one platform that's going to do everything. Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm in the camp of, you know, having different buckets, right? We have our, you know, legal technology. What can we build within those tools and systems?
Speaker: Having your bucket for legal engineer developed ai right, from our existing enterprise ai tools. And then what can we bring point solutions in for, right? That contract AI or for deep legal research. So like the peanut butter spread, um you know, if it works for you, that's great, but oftentimes it doesn't. And then you're trying to cram people into one tool and it's probably good at three use cases or, you know, max, and you're putting 15 in there. So I think really being strategic where you're going to invest and ensure that you're bringing the right people and the right processes into the tool.
Speaker: And then obviously, you know, just ensuring that you're investing in a tool that is heavily invested in as well, right? That's going to continue to evolve and um is using the right LLMs and um yeah, an industry leader, or at least, you know, doing really creative things that will look ah a bit different in a year from now.
Speaker: Yeah. If you were hire somebody for your teams today, would you expect a certain level of fluency in their skill set already? Or is that we're a little too early for that? What's your point view on that? 100%.
Speaker: one hundred percent um you know, i especially for just for the role today, especially within the transformation office and and for ops too, you know, I think, I think we're, there are,
Speaker: People might not even realize that they have it but they've been exposed and they're kind of working on these initiatives. But we're building, you know, within our team, having a sense of of legal engineer work, right, where we're able to own certain processes or systems, build out agents or workflows, autonomous workflows, um to help us get ahead of the curve, right? Because...
Speaker: you know, there are things that that we're going to be dependent on with vendors or IT t resources. um But not only do I want us to, you know, have that acumen and be able to be developers, um i want the department to kind of have that training too, right? To kind of to be able to self-serve in certain areas, right? Like we're building productivity agents today and we're looking to build like deep legal research for certain things that we we have in our remit with our existing technology. um But I think
Speaker: the beauty in your AI is now is just like democratizing it and and having everybody, you know, get involved and learn. You know, we're doing tips and tricks program yeah that we're building out today. So like a reminder, you know, just a newsletter that goes out like, hey, did you know that you can do this and this?
Speaker: And just kind of go on a road show with people, change champions or, um you know, AI committee leads that are a bit more experienced in doing that show and tell. um Just real quickly on this, you know, at CyberArk, we had really impressive program ah for ai developers. And it was the champion for legal.
Speaker: We had eight developers within the legal department, attorneys and folks in legal ops. that undergone six months of training for AI development. They learned project management, AI development, and um ultimately released eat agents, which would have taken probably a year go elsewhere. but when when you allow the people that have the expertise and giving them that structure...
Speaker: the governance, the program's guidance, um you're you're able to get a bit further. Now, that could give you heartburn for someone in ops because you know you know you don't want to unleash 20 agents within a department. um But there are ways to do it where you're you're ensuring that you're building along the roadmap and that things are really tied into framework. um Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's it's it's just naturally moving in that direction today right people are using ai in their day-to-day building agents for travel or you know they're billing so absolutely you used a word which i think i've been using quite a bit i i don't think i've heard other people use it as much so it's really cool that you just used it which is democratizing uh i just used it in a conversation earlier today about ai these big companies are democratic this this
Speaker: ecosystem of AI and agents and language models that is being you know adopted around the world is really democratizing so much. um I could build an app or a website overnight pretty effectively now. I have zero software training whatsoever. Zero.
Speaker: can do that now. And I think that's an amazing thing. um And it kind of gets us probably to our last question for today, which is that, you know, if you were to put put on your, know, put it, put on your crystal ball, look into your crystal ball.
Speaker: but If you would have looked at your crystal ball for legal operations, um what do you think our profession looks like five years from now? And I tend to like, I've shortened that. I used to say 10 years, but things are moving so quickly. like I'm going to put a limit on five years for now.
Speaker: But given everything we've talked about, your experience, so much of the evolution that you've already seen over the last 15, 20 years in legal operations, like what do you think would look like? It looks like for us in five years.
Speaker: Oh, goodness. Yeah, that that is a tough question because I'm sure it will look much different. um I did this AI project management course. It's like a six-week course of, you know, how to bring in AI for for program project management. And it was interesting. And a lot of the program was really about, you know, i guess the the soft skills now involved, right? So,
Speaker: AI is going come in, it's going to help with innovation, expediting, but like, what are the things that are going to matter most now that AI can do some of these these tasks, right, and help expedite?
Speaker: And I think it it goes back. Like, I don't see us being obsolete. I think there's still going to have to be a person at the table making these decisions, right? putting together you know the programs, the people, the the matrices, the decision makers. But like the most essential bit is going to be working closely with people and just understanding you know the the listening, the um the relationships behind the work that we're doing is becoming more and more essential.
Speaker: ah vi it's it's It's such a cool way to articulate this because as we get deeper and deeper as humans into technology, what you have just said is it is going to start, the human part of that is going to start mattering more and more and more. I don't know that I'll come out and say that it will be more prevalent because it may not. And I think one of the downsides we've seen to most of the technology that's out there today, whether it's social media or remote or whatever it might be, we do have fewer human interactions today than we've had in the past. But I love what you just said.
Speaker: I think it's a great way to end the episode, which is that um more use of AI is going to require the humans to be more human in the way that they engage with each other.
Speaker: that's That's a great story, in my opinion. Thank you. All right. Thank you for making that sound. No, I mean, like I think that's the way it goes. So thanks for joining me today. That was a really fun conversation and look forward to seeing you soon. Awesome.
Speaker: Thank you. I'll catch you soon.
