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EP 09: Legal Is Broken. Here’s How Legal Ops Fixes It
11 Plays13 days ago
What does it take to turn legal into a strategic business driver?
In this episode, Oyango Snell, President & CEO of CLOC, shares his journey from law firms and public policy to leading the legal ops movement. He explains how discovering legal operations changed his approach—helping legal teams move from a “department of no” to a function that drives efficiency, alignment, and business impact.
The conversation covers the growing role of legal ops, gaps in legal education, and how AI is reshaping the profession—along with what legal teams must do to stay relevant.
Topics
Introduction 00:00
Early life, upbringing in Chicago, and inspiration to pursue law: 00:56
Law school journey: rejections, persistence, and transfer to Ohio State University 06:00
Law school experience and focus on securing a job early: 08:09
Entering law firm life: expectations vs reality and early learning curve: 10:37
Transition to in-house and building legal ops function: 14:22
Journey to CLOC and leadership motivation: 18:50
Why legal operations matters: bridging law and business impact: 21:10
Gaps in legal education and the need for tech + AI integration: 23:59
AI in legal: ethical considerations, risks, and governance: 28:09
Future of Legal Operations & the Profession: 33:30
Standardization & Challenges in Legal Ops: 37:55
Evolution of Legal Ops Talent & Skill Gaps: 41:41
Legal Ops Documentary & Industry Storytelling: 45:24
Connect with us:
Oyango Snell - https://www.linkedin.com/in/oyango-a-snell-esq-cae/
Akshay Verma - https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshay-verma-esq/
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Ethical AI in Legal Representation
00:00:00
Speaker
As attorneys, we have a duty to zealously represent our clients on matters. Some of those matters are done most effectively and officially through the use of AI.
00:00:10
Speaker
So if you don't use AI, are you not being as professionally responsible as you should to zealously represent your client? I know that there's other ethical considerations to consider. We'll we'll talk about those in just a minute.
Introduction to Beacon Voices Podcast
00:00:32
Speaker
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Spot Draft's Beacon Voices podcast. I'm your host, Akshay Verma. I am the Chief Operating Officer at the company. Really excited to have a conversation with my friend, Oyango Snell, who is now the President and CEO of a little organization that you may have heard of in the legal profession called CLOCK. Oyango, thanks for joining me today. Thanks for having me, Akshay. Great to be
Oyango Snell's Community-Inspired Legal Path
00:00:55
Speaker
here.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yeah, man, I'm i'm excited to talk a little bit about your early journey. i think you're newer into our profession and into our ecosystem. I'm a big fan of people with other perspectives coming in and helping us grow. And so we'll talk a little bit about that today. But as I was once taught and I think is always kind of fun, I'd love to start at the beginning with you.
00:01:16
Speaker
um i have my own story around like why law school and and what really drew drew me to the law and to the profession. But I'd love for our listeners to hear a little bit about that from you, particularly given the prominent role that you have now. So tell us a little bit about the early life of Oyangos Snell and and and then maybe talk a little bit about why the law the law was really attractive to you.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, when you said in the beginning, my my my mind went back to the like the book of Genesis or something. remember being younger, and someone in the beginning. in the beginning um I grew up on the south side of Chicago, so this this this is relevant because of my law school journey and and and my journey to the practice.
00:01:57
Speaker
um We grew up in a very, let's just say, low economic um community where mostly people of color, mostly African-Americans on the South Side in project housing or housing projects, however you choose to to hear the term. But it was it was tough for us. And throughout all of that, my mom was a young mom. she she graduated from she didn't She graduated from eighth grade and then immediately into high school had my brother. So she was a high school dropout and raised, you know, gave birth and raised three kids. But despite that, I saw her get a spark from the Operation Push Movement by the late great great Jesse Jackson, by Harold Washington, who became the first African-American mayor of the city of Chicago. I saw her get involved in community related activities.
00:02:45
Speaker
And it began to dawn on me that there was something bigger and better than than than than our current circumstances. So for me, wanting to and aspiring to be an attorney um came from somewhat of ah ah the reality of how law can make a difference in people's lives. Here in Washington, who was one of my idols, being being the first Black mayor of Chicago, was an attorney, was a state representative, a legislature. a legislator or rather, a lawmaker. And I had a chance to kind of see that and see the impact that it had on the community.
00:03:16
Speaker
Now, the flu side to that is I watched a lot of Perry Mason films.
00:03:21
Speaker
And LA Law and The Practice and Boston Legal and all of the and the firm and the list goes on and on and on as far as TV shows and movies that caught my attention as a young buck that made me say, i want to do that. I want to be that guy. I want to be the one that comes in and save the day and drops the evidence on the table and say, you know, aha, gotcha. Bet you didn't know I can do that. it's that That was kind of my early childhood opening into
Challenges and Triumphs in Law School
00:03:50
Speaker
the law. What changed for me is I was in the sixth grade. My library teacher put me in charge of the sixth grade debate team because she needed something to do with me.
00:03:58
Speaker
I was always in trouble. And i had to I had to advocate for the philosophy of Marcus Garvey, which is taking all African people back to Africa, or African descendants rather, back to Africa, ah versus the Booker T. Washington kind of theory or philosophy, which was learning a trade, getting industrial jobs, and and and really making the stake here in America from a business perspective. yeah That experience kind of gave me the advocacy chops. We lost. either The sixth graders lost to the eighth graders. We lost. But it was that process that I went through. And my library teacher, Greta Chamberlain, who told me that I could you know i could be an attorney, I can be a lawyer. So it was that first person that actually planted this seed for me.
00:04:37
Speaker
As far as law school is concerned, I loved it. I am one of those kind of law school nerds they love it um that that actually fell into it. I didn't go straight to law school. In fact, I got rejected by about 12 law schools, including the law school that I graduated from, The Ohio and State University. I got rejected from everywhere I wanted to go. I waitlisted, and I got into one law school, I believe.
00:05:00
Speaker
I think my I want I think I know my Elsass was not as high enough to get into some of those institutions. So I started I worked for a while, got my MBA, and then I started law school at night in a part time program at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.
00:05:17
Speaker
Did exceptionally well after my first year. Wanted to transfer full-time into capital, but it was very expensive. So I reached out to some of the contacts that I had at Ohio State, asked them would I be a good candidate for transferring. And they they said something like, if I were you, I would get my materials in by this date.
00:05:34
Speaker
So they didn't say yes. They didn't say no. But they said, if I were you, I would get my materials in by this date. I got my materials in, and voila, I got in. Yeah. The Ohio State University, which is my alma mater. So they didn't let me in through the front door. So I came in through the back door.
00:05:49
Speaker
Or you just make a door and you find your way. Or you just make it. That's the way you got to do it. 100% true. 100% true. What was Ohio State like? me Massive school. Massive school.
00:06:03
Speaker
um So much success, obviously, on everybody. if You watch sports. Ohio State is near the top of the list in terms of schools that people in this country know about. But but what was ah what was the what was the experience like? and And I have to ask this question because I have read Hillbilly Elegy.
00:06:21
Speaker
I've read the book. And as you know, J.D. Vance attended Ohio State as an undergrad after a after he served. He did. And he went to law school somewhere else. but But a lot of his story was around the scale of that school and what that meant like. and What was it like for you?
00:06:36
Speaker
For me, it was it was nostalgic. I'll tell you why. ah One, it was the Ohio State University, right? The pinnacle of the Big Ten. Coming from the Midwest, a Chicago kid, and getting a chance to be at this storied institution, it was kind of mentally overwhelming or emotionally overwhelming when I first stepped foot on campus. The reason why it wasn't as daunting as I think it could have been is because when i was in undergrad at central state university which is a historically black college i played football and we would play in this uh classic called the capital city classic every year during my time there so i got the opportunity to play inside the horseshoe wow and i tell you man when we stepped into the horseshoe i felt like maximus on gladiator You're just standing in the middle looking around like, are you not entertained? It's about to go down.
00:07:33
Speaker
ah So I had that experience of being on campus before I got there as as an adult and getting ready to go to law school. So all of the butterflies or jitterbugs, you know, kind of shake it was shook loose.
00:07:45
Speaker
But it was still nostalgic in the sense of I'm now here. The goal that I sought to achieve back in undergrad when they rejected me um because they didn't think that I had the chops or had the grades or the GPA or the LSAT, I made it. I'm here. So I was still I was battling that, too, at the same time being on this story franchise. So it was a wonderful experience.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah. And what was it like being in law school? mean, there's so many different perspectives. i'm I'm a lot like you. I enjoyed and and I think I feel like I took advantage of everything that law school had to offer outside of class, trial team, moot courts. Like those were the things that really gave me a lot of energy during law school. Like, was that part of your experience at Ohio State as well?
00:08:28
Speaker
I didn't do any of that. So law review, moot court, mock trial, I didn't do any of it. But here's why. Because I started in a part-time program at one university,
00:08:40
Speaker
When I transferred to Ohio State, I was immediately thrusted into the on-campus interviewing process. gotcha And through that, because my because i was in the top of the class leaving Capitol University, I was in search of my job because now I just cut my entire law school education career by one year. yeah So now have to hustle because I'm also behind on hours. I didn't take crim law yet. I hadn't even taken civil procedure yet. So I was in the process of trying to land my job, my summer job. And I i was thrusted into the on-campus interviewing process. And then I got my job and they invited me back for the second summer after that summer. So I was slotted to try to write on the law review and do some of those other things. And I said, why? I got my job already here. I don't need to do any of this stuff. So from that point on, it was just posted and having a great time. I got a chance to pick the classes that I wanted to take. i wasn't under a lot of pressure. It was smooth sailing for me.
00:09:40
Speaker
Well, now I'm jealous because I was scrambling for a job until April before graduation. So literally like five weeks before I graduated law school is when I landed my job. And I tell you, I was on my way to campus. I'd moved back home for my last year to save some money. I'm on my way to campus. I had interviewed with Pillsbury like a month before and I hadn't heard back.
00:10:02
Speaker
And I got a voicemail. Somehow the call hadn't come through. i got a voicemail from the partner. he was like, hey, I'm really sorry. We had changes in our recruiting team. Forgot to get an offer out to you. yeah I literally was screaming my head off the entire rest of the drive to law school because you know how much it means yeah to get that job.
00:10:21
Speaker
yeah mean It is such a is such a powerful feeling because, a I was racking up debt. like My parents were not paying for law school. I didn't have the money. So, hey, we we were doing loans. It was a big deal. And so I remember that. I appreciate that experience very, very much so. All right. So you got the job.
00:10:39
Speaker
You're getting out of law school. How are you feeling? What are you thinking about being a lawyer? What does that first job look like for you?
Early Career and Focus on Public Policy
00:10:45
Speaker
So at the law firm life, it was good for me because number one, I'm 30. So I'm an old man as a lawyer.
00:10:52
Speaker
I'm 30 years old compared to the rest of my cohort. ah yeah so so So that's one factor. The second factor is I went in with my eyes wide open. I thought, but I knew I didn't want to be a partner. I thought I did, but I knew I didn't at the same time. So because because of that, I went in with the opportunity to make the biggest flash and biggest name for myself. So my first year was a learning experience. I remember writing the memos and getting them back with nothing but red ink on them, telling them how horrible I was, how the heck did I never go to law school and my writing sucked and I'd never be anything worth a damn in the legal profession. I remember all of this. so But, you know, iron sharpens iron, as they say.
00:11:34
Speaker
And I went on to to learn a lot from from a few partners and and really do some good work. Most of my practice was on government relations and public policy. I had association clients, which primarily kind of catapulted my career into the association executive space. Vis-a-vis, fast forward to now, won't chop the gun. And all of that experience really was the the groundwork that I needed in order to be not only a successful attorney because I represented some very heavy hitters on the insurance side, construction side and and in and energy industries.
00:12:09
Speaker
um That helped me kind of get really a good core foundation into the practice of law from a law firm environment. So I think that was really, really key for me. But I went on to use my law background and not necessarily practice directly.
00:12:24
Speaker
I left there and went to the the state of Ohio government representing public utility consumers. I left there and i got involved in politics and launched a campaign for the state Senate in Columbus, Ohio, and lost in a primary election.
00:12:37
Speaker
Hung out with the Secretary of State as the elections council before moving on to D.C. and lobbying for a national trade association on the property casualty insurance side. So I've always been leveraging my legal background and law degree and business, so to speak, in public policy and advocacy. And it's just been a significant kind of background and and and and and dynamic to have as far as what we do today.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah. You know, most of my guests on this podcast are in businesses. They run companies. They are lawyers on the in-house side. um There's been a really nice trend in our profession.
00:13:16
Speaker
And I still teach at Santa Clara, my alma mater. There's been a really nice trend in the last five years for these law grads to look out there post-graduation and see all this variety of opportunity that's out there. That was not available to me. It was, you know, law firm. maybe government, but even that was not really a thing straight out of law school, certainly not the in-house world. That's starting to all change. I just think it's a wonderful thing for our profession and for the people who are going into it, and many of them listen to this podcast, to know that on the back end of that education are a variety of things for them to consider that they may not necessarily have known about. And I think that's just just great for everybody. So i have not had anybody on the podcast who's had that kind of government trade association lobbying experience. And it's a good reminder because I live in tech day in and day out now that there are a bunch of other really cool things going on with our profession. And people should recognize that because it might be something very, very interesting for them as well. 100%. 100%.
00:14:12
Speaker
one hundred percent one hundred percent right. So law firm life, lobbying, you've been to DC, you played the house of cards game a little bit. um Yes. Tell us a little bit. i want to jump into the legal operations at this point. How does this thing about clock for you come about? What's the outreach like? What is it in you that's like, wow, this is actually really interesting and maybe not something I've necessarily delved into before?
Transition to General Counsel and Legal Operations
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. So um when i when I left my role as a lobbyist for the um for the insurance industry back in D.C., it was to take a role as general counsel for an energy trade association here in California.
00:14:50
Speaker
I served as their general counsel, their first ever general counsel in this 100-year-plus process. uh storied um entity uh that was an association representing some fortune 50 and fortune 100 company in energy company so uh just to paint that picture for you and uh through this association my primary committee or primary bosses outside of my ceo was the legal committee of these companies so it included their in-house councils general counsels in some sense so i'm the general counsel for the trade association
00:15:22
Speaker
And I'm working with this committee of lawyers, some in all in-house counsels, but a few general counsels as well. And I find myself trying to learn how to be a general counsel, some from them, ah but also how to be part of the strategic element and and and core product productivity of what we were trying to do as an organization. So I had to think about it as I was trying to build up this legal team.
00:15:46
Speaker
I was also trying to build up How do we um how do we be part of the bottom line? How do we help strategically move the business of the association and these various companies forward? And I found myself at a at at ACC's annual meeting in 2018 back in D.C.,
00:16:04
Speaker
ah And I stumbled into a panel and I thought the panel was going to be about helping general counsels learn how to operationalize their program, you know, build a program from the ground up. I don't remember the title, but I i rolled into it and they're they're throwing up dashboards and talking about strategies. And I'm like, what the heck are they talking about? This isn't lawyering. This isn't building out a team. This has nothing to do with in-house work.
00:16:29
Speaker
And I leaned into it. I went back to my organization in California. i told my boss, I said, hey, I think I want to create a position called legal operations coordinator. And to put this in perspective, this is 2018. I'm in Sacramento, clock is right down the street from 2015 to 2018 at this point, and I never even knew it.
00:16:46
Speaker
yeah that's crazy I create this position. We're off and running. We use Monday software as our dashboards, and we're creating metrics, and we have this little text chain in Monday that You know, with the team, I build up a team, I hire an attorney, hire this legal ops coordinator. We got an ad man together. We are thriving as a legal team. We create some proactive strategies with amicus curate briefs by going out and actively trying to find somewhere to file a brief at. We're just slamming.
00:17:13
Speaker
So we're doing all these efficiency and effectiveness types of components, trying to downsource what's going out and figuring out what me and the attorney can do in-house and what we needed to still push out to the Lathams and the Pillsbury's and the Oryx and those folks of the world versus what we could keep in-house and actually practice lawyering, me and my other colleagues. So we went through that process and that legal committee was praising us for it. I mean, we were really helping push the advocacy bottom line of what our companies wanted to see from the association. And the legal team was no longer just the department of no.
00:17:50
Speaker
No, we can't do this for antitrust purposes. No, we can't do this because of of confidentiality issues. No, we can't do this for conflict of interest issues. Like, okay, how can we do this? How can i work with you as your counsel? How can we operationalize this in a way to be efficient, be effective, get to the result that you're trying to achieve and and and still move the ball for it? It might not look like you thought it was going to look, but how do we be a department of how do we get it done versus no, we can't get it done? And that was the process that we went through there.
00:18:22
Speaker
Fast forward a couple of years, I did i left that organization and became the chief executive officer of the California Lawyers Association, which is the voluntary state bar. And I met the dean of the law school at McGeorge there in Sacramento. And he was recruiting me very heavily to come and teach.
00:18:40
Speaker
When I stepped down from my role as CEO at the California Lawyers Association, I went to teach law at McGeorge. I ran our academic success program and sort of our skills writing component. And about a year later, when I was looking at becoming or least trying to take that route to being a 10-year professor, someone from Clock dipped into my LinkedIn email and DM and said, hey, would you consider this organization as the executive director at that time? And I looked at it and I went online and I looked at all of the past CGI videos and I know what looking at at that time. Yeah. I knew they was having a fun conference and it was educational and, you know, people were making their pitches and their speeches. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. So at first I'm like, this is cool. And then it hit me. This is the stuff that I was dealing with in 2018. This is what they have done.
00:19:33
Speaker
why did I not find this organization then? what because of the name it was because of the name. Consortium and association, the algorithms and the SEO engines were not were not up to speed to like really capture it as the premier trade association for legal ops professionals and and in the industry. So I never found them until they found me through through LinkedIn when they had a national search looking for a position to but for someone to serve as executive our director. So I fell in love with the people, the the board that was during the interview process. They were they were honest about where CLOCK stood as an organization that even though it was in its 10-year history, it still had some infancy on governance, on on staffing, on programming. There was so much for us to be able to do. And that was what was attracted to me, to get to the heart of your question, yeah that part
00:20:25
Speaker
I thought that is where my skill sets of being a change agent, being a transformational leader who just happens to have this lawyer and public policy and advocacy and business background. I get to bundle all those experiences with less on the government affairs side of advocacy, but more on advocacy of the profession, advocacy of the individuals and and and take that and ball it up. and put it into this framework that we're now operationalized through CLOCK. And that was the attractive point for me. That was the, this is it. Like, I feel it. I see it. I can see where the future is going with this organization. If I am able to get in and work with the board and work with the team, help the team to develop to get to where we need to get to.
00:21:10
Speaker
What about legal ops do you think is so interesting to lawyers like you and me? And like, I left the practice of law entirely and I kind of stumbled into this, but what do you think it is about it? It's not something I've, I don't have a standard or kind of a holistic answer to that question, but I keep asking myself that. I have my answer for myself, yeah but it's such a personal response to that. Do you think there's anything out there with respect to your mentality and your thought process? And like, why does this role in this profession speak so much to lawyers who kind of want to leave the practice or add this into
Legal Operations: Bridging Business and Law
00:21:45
Speaker
their repertoire? think because it gives us an opportunity. look We always criticize lawyers for not having a good business mindset.
00:21:52
Speaker
Right. that was probably one of the reasons why I went to get an MBA because I wanted to understand the business language. I didn't want to enter into the world of business. I just wanted to understand it. I wanted to be able to leverage it. I think legal operations, because it's a multiple disciplinary practice, so to speak, um,
00:22:12
Speaker
I think it gives lawyers the opportunity to exercise that business mindset through operate operate up operates operations, right? I think it gives us the opportunity to look at the practice differently in a way of just actually winning and losing a matter.
00:22:33
Speaker
yeah or getting a deal done or not getting the deal done. It looks at how we impact the bottom line of an organization, of the entire enterprise, not just our department, not just one case, not just one deal, but the entire organization. And we didn't go to school to do that.
00:22:52
Speaker
No, we did not. to school to win the case, to win the matter, to do the deal. And now through our ability of ah of analysis and evaluation and ah ah operations, we get an opportunity to look at how do we have a significant impact into the entire organization and where the organization is moving. And i think that gives us also an opportunity to leverage up or level up rather within the organizations that we're in. Some of us are general counsels, but not in the C-suite, so to speak.
00:23:26
Speaker
Right. So it gives us another notch on our belts to be able to ascend to from a professional development perspective. But I think just having that ability to have more of a broader impact.
00:23:36
Speaker
on the organization, one. Two, being able to exercise that business mindset that we're criticized for not having. yeah And then three, doing it in a way where you're enhancing the effectiveness and as well as the efficiencies in getting things done. i think that just becomes more of an attractive point for lawyers that kind of lean into it.
00:23:55
Speaker
I think that's a great point. And and part of for for me, part of the foundation of this reality of not having the business lexicon, of not having some of these foundational business pillars on how you run a business and how you grow a business, Look, we didn't learn about data in law school. We didn't learn about technology in law school. We didn't learn about process or efficiency or P&L or spreadsheets or economics. We didn't learn those things. So it's difficult to be an in-house counsel, be a GC where you are a key component of how the enterprise will succeed, yet you are not...
00:24:33
Speaker
raised with the same language that the rest of the business is. And so to me, legal operations bridge that gap, right? Absolutely. It bridges that gap and you get to be that bridge builder to help enable that. I do think what we've seen in the last, I don't know, 10 years, but certainly much more in the last five years is in-house lawyers and many of our customers are in this role now, table stakes now for them to be more operationally minded, for them to have to leverage technology and create efficiency and so forth. Yeah, I see that. I'll say this one tidbit.
00:25:07
Speaker
I believe that's where ah professionals who did not go to law school actually have a leg up over on attorneys. right I have been yelled at on LinkedIn for saying that, by the way. But yes, 100% agree. It's just it's it's not a knock. It's just a reality. No, it's it's a reality because they have they have did they have conducted the the actual education, the business like and understand the business language, and they know how to pierce through. And it's so unfortunate sometimes in our profession, legal ops professionals who didn't go to law school and become attorneys, they kind of shrink themselves rapidly.
00:25:41
Speaker
unfortunately, to attorneys, and they have so much more experience sometimes than the attorneys do in getting things done, especially from a business mindset and and and legal operations. And I think i think there's so much there's so much more more of a story to be told in how to elevate those individuals in order to help this industry grow, thrive, and prosper.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah. So if you were to, and this I love this part of the conversation, because if you were to go back and say, I would change law school so that these things are added in and these things are removed so that the law grads come out with much more of a business sense, what are some things that you would add in there?
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah. So this is these are some of the things that I've been trying to do now with some of the courses that I'm still teaching as an adjunct professor yeah at at McGeorge. I teach a class called The Legal it's called the legal Profession, and it's really to get 1Ls geared up for the profession. It helps them along their journey in developing what they want to want want to be when they grow up, for lack of a better term.
00:26:39
Speaker
I get to have influence into what that looks like for those that decide to listen to me. I'm pretty sure some of them They might have a mom or a dad or an uncle was a lawyer or a mentor, and they're like, whatever, I'm going this route. I'm entering into this practice, and I'm going to do this. But for the few that decided, listen, I get to now influence them on this whole new big world and leaning into tech and understanding that AI and technology is not going to replace lawyers. It's going to limit the amount or the number of lawyers that enter into the profession that don't know how to leverage and use That's it.
00:27:16
Speaker
you know And that I truly do stand by and believe. So I think in answering your question or or like really just so having a discussion on this, I think it's going to look like, you know or what it could look like rather, is some type of technological educational component that's geared towards legal ops at the law school level, if not even before that, but definitely at the law school level so that people can understand how these tools are leveraged and used to advance the business and practice of law. In fact, I've been on record over the last couple of weeks. I've been at a lot of conferences with the Legal Market Association, with the Association of Legal Administrators.
00:27:55
Speaker
And one of the things that I've been saying about when it comes to AI and lawring is, or at least asking the question, whether or not there is a professional responsibility of lawyers to actually use AI to the fullest. As attorneys, we have a duty to zealously represent our clients on matters.
00:28:15
Speaker
Some of those matters are done most effectively and efficiently through the use of AI. So if you don't use AI, are you not being as professionally responsible as you should to zealously represent your client? I know that there is other ethical considerations to consider. think we We'll talk about those in just a minute because I think this is this is an interesting take that I have not heard yet.
00:28:36
Speaker
And it raises a lot of like in the corporate world, probably less of an issue, but there are a lot of access to justice issues that can be addressed. That's where I'm headed. That's where I'm headed. That's where I'm headed. So I think that there is a lot of opportunities for us to, you know, particularly at the law school education level to change the way a bit.
00:28:54
Speaker
The Socratic method, fine, great, do it. you know ah You know, shows you how to think on your feet. All right awesome, great. The writing aspect, the research and writing, yeah. Learning how to cite cases and understanding where they where they come from and how to shepherdize them and how to sync them, yeah, great. Lessig's Nestle, Westlaw, Thomas Ware, all of those have tools that you can learn how to do that. Learn how the tools work.
00:29:17
Speaker
Learn the basics, the fundamentals. It's just like we had to learn a Dewey Decimal System, you know, libraries. But at some point, you've got to graduate to the technology aspect of it and how the doing decimal system has been replaced. So understand it in case all the lights go out in the power you still got to find the book. But then at the end of the day, how the technology has enhanced that sort of scope of work to where you can get it done much, much faster, much, much quicker. And also, by the way, you can summarize the entire volume of books in the next five minutes, but you have to have the human element
00:29:49
Speaker
of evaluating, analyzing it and making the connection. and putting your judgment on it because that's- 100%. The thing that I alluded to, I'm sure the Sullivan and Cromwell apology letter has gone viral. I don't know if you've seen it yet. I have not it actually. yeah Oh, okay. Well, I will just tell you real quick that a partner at Sullivan and Cromwell had to write an apology letter to a magistrate judge on an $8 billion dollars bankruptcy matter- That does not feel good, sound good. Where filings that were made to the court- Or later, to their credit, that evening, so filings were filed in the afternoon. That evening, there were it was caught that a number of the citations in the brief were hallucinations. Now, they didn't name the tool or anything. And you know what? That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what tool they use. And it doesn't matter. What matters is that the governance mechanisms did not work.
00:30:41
Speaker
And they owned up to it. and all But it did call into question the ethical obligation, which is a almost the flip of what you had mentioned. the The ethical obligation, if you are going to use AI to make sure that you are validating the output. Now, I live in that world with contracting all the time. This is a submission to court. They owned up to it. It calls into question. And the the the thing that I hate is the narrative that gets somewhat more cemented in our profession, which is that technology ruins things. Technology is not good. We're going to be better. That is just not true. when you're learning a new piece technology, you're going to stumble out of the blocks. It's okay.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. So that was the other ethical piece of this that has really been front and center in the last few days. i like and I liken where we are in this timeframe with technology to the same concept or construct as to where a paralegal or a junior associate can do the research, write the brief,
00:31:40
Speaker
And it's up to the supervising partner to review that and make sure the paralegal and the junior associate haven't screwed the pooch on yeah citations, on the arguments that's being filed before a judicial ah before the judiciary.
00:31:57
Speaker
So I liken that to the same across the board before attorneys file anything. They have a responsibility to review it and and and and fact check it into the citations, the and all all of the things. Now, if you use a tool to help you do that, you better be real you know you better better know that that tool is going to give you what you need before you hit the send button to the to the to the court or run off and file it with the court directly in person, which I think some people just do that for the ceremony of doing. it
00:32:28
Speaker
But at the end of the day, you got it. You got it. You have to use that human judgment to make sure it is what it should be. that You remember the good old saying, res ipsa locata, the thing speaks for itself. It does not speak for itself. You have to speak for it and validate that the things in there are what they're supposed to be, not what some tool cranked it out and said that it is.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah. and And, you know, two to the partner's credit in this letter, I think it was a he, I'm not sure. um You know, the the letter was very clear. Here are are governance mechanisms before somebody gets to use AI at the firm. Here are governance mechanisms for when something with AI output goes out and like we drop the ball here.
00:33:10
Speaker
Right. yeah So to me, that's not about the technology. It's about the process. it' about the process acts abouts process. It really gets us back to legal operations. And I'd love to get your thoughts on this. I think you have, yeah you've been in the seat for about a year and I want to talk a little bit. Two years now. Yeah. Almost 18 months, 18 months. Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:29
Speaker
but But to really get a sense for where you think the profession is going in this new age, I guess it's not a new age of AI
AI's Impact on Legal Operations
00:33:37
Speaker
anymore. It is the age of ai where you think the profession is going, how you think it orchestrates things across legal departments and functions and so forth. Would love to get your take on the future of our profession.
00:33:47
Speaker
I think this is a very pinnacle season for legal apps professionals. ah Whether you're in-house legal apps professional at a law firm or even a legal tech vendor, um I think this is a very important time that we find ourselves in. I think the entire legal ecosystem that is comprised of legal operations really sits at the epicenter of of of where we are headed into the future. Legal ops professionals particularly are sort of the bridge in understanding the technology and then having the ability to communicate it to in-house legal teams and lawyers and GCs and chief legal officers, as well as outside law firms, whether it's law firm vendor management, whether it's contract lifecycle management, whether it's your professional development training internally, legal ops professionals have their hand on a pulse on all of these components and they can sit at many different tables. I came on board and I was hearing how legal ops is at a inflection point.
00:34:47
Speaker
And I bought into that. I drink that Kool-Aid and I was saying it to you. I was like, yes, we're at an inflection point. Even though I wanted to sound important, you know, as as as ah as the chief executive of the of of the industry, of the legal ops industry, right? It's like, yes, legal ops is at an inflection point. No, we're not. I think we're at a transformational point. I think we've we've surpassed this sort of inflection ah point of which direction we're going. We're always gonna go through change. We're always gonna be transforming. But I think we're, to your point that you started off with in your question, we're no longer wondering, is AI a real thing or is people gonna be using it? We're at the point of how do you execute it? How do you execute it effectively? And how do you make it get the outcomes that you desire to have in order to move your business forward? And LegalOps Pro sit at the very center of pushing the buttons and operationalize that entire program.
00:35:38
Speaker
Also, they get they have the opportunity to do it at the highest strategic levels within the organization, at which many years ago, that wasn't the case, right? So from being at the center of it all, understanding the language, having the expertise, knowing who the vendors are, understanding the technology, understanding how the legal processes work internally, being able to be the go-to in between those, communicate to IT, t communicate to lawyers, communicate to the executives at the strategic level to help move the business forward.
00:36:13
Speaker
This is grand time for us as an industry. So I see more of that happening on a broader scale as we move forward to the future. You know, from my thought process and from my lens, our goal is to help our members and and key stakeholders get there through educational opportunities, through best practice sharing, through partnering with vendors like like you all to to tell the stories, to have the conversations, to think about new tools, new services, new opportunities, and bring the legal ecosystem together so that we can keep charging for and driving transformation into how we do business as well as practice law and and and
Standardizing Legal Practices
00:36:53
Speaker
throughout the world. I was going to say through throughout the United States, but this is global. It's global. but It's absolutely global. and that it
00:36:58
Speaker
It's really starting to come up in other parts of the world. You mentioned something that I want to double click on, which is the education in the profession. yes One of the things that I think our profession really struggles with is standardization on how to talk about things, how to execute on things. what does What does good look like? What does great look like? Right. Lawyers, typically speaking, we go to law school, we get a level of education, we go out to practice and then they, you know, whoever it is that's supervising us, they help us hone our skills. But generally speaking, and i'm not saying everybody's writing has to be the same.
00:37:30
Speaker
If you look at three pieces of writing around the same topic that's written by lawyers, you can tell what great is because you speak the same language and the same standard has been hammered into you over a long period of time.
00:37:42
Speaker
Legal operations doesn't have that just yet. And I've certainly met with many GCs who've been quite outspoken at the fact that like, hey, I've tried out legal operations professionals. It hasn't gone so well. um What are your thoughts, particularly because you are so versed in understanding the importance of education in the legal profession and certainly for legal operations? What role do you really want CLOCK to play in bringing that to our profession?
00:38:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think, well, not what role I want us to play, we are going to today. Before it's all said and done, we're going to play the role.
00:38:21
Speaker
I think standardization is great. And I think that there is something to be said about it. It does require, however, that buy-in from the GC and chief legal officer community, right? We can create standards, but if if if folks don't buy into the standards or they believe the standards should be something different than then I think therein lies the problem of us still going back and forth of what is the standard, right? So i think I think the role that we play is understanding the entire legal ecosystem by having the diverse representation under the clock umbrella. We have members who are in or in-house legal teams. We have members who are in law firms. We have members who are
00:39:01
Speaker
ah who represent the legal tech community. And under under under my under my watch and with support from the board and the team, we've been able to somewhat kind of get through some of the previous past year's frustrations and really work together in a more coherent way, which is why we've seen the change with the board of of now opening up the board to to having that entire demographic represented in our governance, the core governance of our organization and leadership. which are my bosses, right? So those were important steps to take to be able to start laying the foundation for being more open to ah driving sort of standardization from across the board. And now you have people willing from the different components of our entire legal ecosystem, willing and ready to kind of weigh into into what those standards should look like. So I do understand from from from the chief legal officers and general counsels and folks that you've talked to and folks that you um you know have heard from talk about, hey, there's a lack of standardization here. But i also use that or think or believe or my opinion rather is that some of that sometimes is an escape goat, because if you want something to work and you buy into it, you buy into it conceptually.
00:40:13
Speaker
You understand that from a general counsel role or from a chief legal officer perspective, you need to elevate your legal operations program and profession. And it's not something that's othered within the business that you do. It's part of the construct of your business and the key decisions that you make. When you do that, when you take that approach,
00:40:37
Speaker
You can't say it doesn't work because it's based off all the decisions that you make. When you keep it over here and you throw a couple of dollars at and hire a person and say, all right, go make it work. Well, that's not going to get it done if they don't have the infrastructure set up to have them be successful. So,
00:40:54
Speaker
i Look, i can't crit I don't put myself in the business judgment of any of those GCs. I was one. i had different things to think about when I was GC. The things that we're facing now in this world are totally different than the decision making that I had to make during my file almost five years as a GC.
00:41:09
Speaker
And I get it. I understand it. But you still have to look at how is it how does it become part of your ecosystem, your infrastructure, not how is it something that's another wing of your department and somebody else is in charge of making it work or not work.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. And I think one of the biggest drawbacks for success, irrespective of the level of talent that may be in the legal operations seat at any organization, is the level of empowerment and resourcing that you give to that role. So 100% on board with that. I will say, and this is a, I don't know how prevalent of a narrative this is in our profession, but i do think there is a little bit of a gap between kind of the first and second generation of legal ops leaders and the folks that are kind of starting to come up now. Like, do you, are you kind of in line with that narrative? And if so, like, how do we close that gap for them?
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, 100 percent. I agree holistically with that narrative. When I came on board in November of 24, we had our first like board meeting and I had my first senior team meeting in person in Chicago in January. And my first question to to them in separate discussions was, who's our primary customer? Who's our primary client that we serve as an association? And what's their persona? And we came up with different theories and different numbers and different things to kind of kind of throw at. And what we saw is if you look at the 10 year history of clock and you go back 10 years ago and you look at how many of those folk that helped create clock and that was around clock 10 years ago, how many of them are heavily involved in clock? And the answer is zero. How many of them are are involved in clock at an intermediate level? Well, it drops down to a few. And then how many are like, you know, all in guts and glory, you know, You know, or how many are out rather? There's a lot. There's a lot. Right. So some of them, many of them are the speakers and the trainers now. Right. And the question becomes, how are they getting their cups filled from a best practice sharing, from an educational development, professional development aspect? How are they ah getting how are they continuing to grow in the profession? And I think that's where you see a lot of the other organizations that are that are doing great stuff.
00:43:22
Speaker
throughout the legal ecosystem, whether it's you know programs out out out out in Vegas of of of running the clock business, it's Concero, whether it's Solid, you know all of these folks are doing great things. and and And that's not to give notable mention or leave anybody out. There are so many other organizations that are doing great things that gives people a little bit more space.
00:43:42
Speaker
I think CLOCK also has has has elevated its offerings and its game in in launching our clock academy and bringing it ah to to certain levels and doing deeper dives at a 200 and 300 level versus 100 versus a 100 level that's totally geared towards, you know, people will day one on a job to about year six.
00:44:00
Speaker
yeah Right. So I've seen we've seen the turnover, so to speak, over the years. I'd liken, though, that I think and I feel that we're in a process or at least we find ourselves at the epicenter of bringing it all back together again, but also marching forward with with with with sort of a different mission, so to speak. Yes, the mission is still to transform and enhance the business and practice of law.
00:44:24
Speaker
But how we do that is what I'm seeing change. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Look, there has never in the history of legal operations been the number of roles that are open out there with companies. and and And that fact alone, and and now I'm not saying that is ah the thing to focus on or to hang our hats on, but the fact that that is happening. And the fact that so many of the GCs that I speak with and have met over the last, I'd say, three or four years, many of them, their very first hire when they get a headcount in their legal departments is to go out and find somebody for legal operations. I mean, if that doesn't speak to the value that many GCs and CLOs are placing on this kind of a function, I don't know what else will So I think we have to fill those ranks. We have to train those ranks. We have to give them experience and opportunities, help them grow and clock obviously taking the the the laboring or on the academy, I think is a great place
Documenting Legal Operations History
00:45:22
Speaker
to do that. um But Yongo, I would love to talk to you a little bit about the pet project that Susan launched in 2023. Came to me with the idea to tell this story that we have been talking about. I have been a huge fan of documentaries my entire life. I think it is such an incredible way to tell a story. We had no idea when Susan came to me whether anybody would give a shit about this story. Yeah. Are they going to care? Yes, we could show it to legal operations folks and it would be great. And I think they would enjoy it, but we wanted it to be more than that. So that's a lot of the energy and trepidation and angst that we came into this with.
00:46:00
Speaker
And now it's in final stages. You have been so gracious to offer up clock as a long launch vehicle for that. I am so excited to see the reaction. I don't care what it is. It's going to be great. but But I'm so excited to see that reaction. I'd love to hear from you.
00:46:15
Speaker
What about this project really spoke to you for the profession and for the organization? Yeah. um One, i I was so thrilled, humbled and excited to be part of it and for CLOCK to be part of it. um I think it's important for CLOCK to be part. engaged any project that tells the the history of our profession, because I think it's such a pivotal part of it um when it comes to legal ops. So just with those pleasantries out of the way, what it what it really meant to me is, you know I'm a student of history. I love history, no matter the the daunting sides of it, as well as the great side of it are the great sides of it, right the the goal is to understand history
00:47:00
Speaker
Sometimes, so it doesn't repeat itself. We fail to do that in other ways. We won't bother ourselves with having that discussion today. so But it in in in in and within respects of understanding history so that you can understand where you go where you're going, that if there was to be one thing or one important factor that i hung my hat on, it is that one.
00:47:23
Speaker
In order to understand where you're going, you have to understand and embrace where you've been, because that tells the storyline and gives you all of the tools that you need to then catapult you forward, regardless of what your vision may be. Yeah.
00:47:43
Speaker
and and And I think it's important for those, for others to to to to understand that so the industry can grow, right? It's not owned by one individual. It's not owned by clock. it's not It's owned by the masses of people engaged and involved in it. And that's the beauty of it. You get to hear the authentic storytelling.
00:48:04
Speaker
and narratives of the various people that's been involved in the in in the founding and the creation of this industry, as well as this organization that has spawned out to become so many different things. I mentioned a few of those organizations and and and programs and things that they're that they're doing.
00:48:22
Speaker
all All derivative in some way, some fashion from CLOP and the various people that got together in a room and decided that we're not only going to commiserate with each other, we're not only going to talk about how horrible our experiences are, we're not only going to talk about how we're overworked, overburdened, underpaid, understaffed, we're going to talk about how do we grow this thing? How do we get together and not just commiserate, but talk about actionizing and and creating what they thought were standard, so to speak, for that time to grow this into a profession?
00:48:55
Speaker
Yeah. and kudos to them for having sort of that vision they might not have thought that it was going to become what it is today but they had a vision yeah and and and and and they and they put their action their sweat equity into it into into making that vision come to fruition so for that reason In and of itself, I think it's a very powerful tool to tell the story of this industry. I think to those that look at it outside of legal ops, they see something and say, oh, this is a serious business. This is not something that somebody just made up yeah and said, oh, we're going to call it legal operations. That sounds pretty catchy. No, it's something that is seriously a strategic business decision that you make to help move your legal department and your entire company forward if you buy into it the right way.
00:49:42
Speaker
And for me, i think I knew that it would resonate with people in our profession. I wasn't worried about that. I think part of my gauge for this will be how do people outside the profession, and that includes GCs and CLOs, by the way. 100%.
00:49:56
Speaker
People outside the profession respond to this, view it, accept it, recognize it. um you know This profession has had a tremendous amount of meaning for me in somebody who really went to law school to be a lawyer and be an environmental lawyer.
Akshay's Journey to Legal Operations Purpose
00:50:13
Speaker
And my almost my entire life, something I wanted to do did not find the kind of satisfaction that I was hoping to find in it. And this gave me an entire new path that I've been on for almost 14 years now.
00:50:25
Speaker
And so much success has come out of that. And so much satisfaction has come out of that. For me, it was with Susan's idea to be able to look back and be like, wow, look at look at where this profession is now. And yeah we are we are far enough along, 10 plus years with clock, ah much longer with ancillary parts of the profession kind of coalescing into a function. So I'm excited i'm excited to see this reaction myself. Absolutely, indeed. Can't wait for it. and And hey, I think it lays the foundation for the future story to be told.
00:50:56
Speaker
Absolutely. One of the things Susan and i are talking tossing around now is like, hey, if this thing is received, well, are we doing an update, couple of episodes as part of the documentary? Are we telling the next piece of the story? Are we going... global with it. It it it is very much a look back with a little bit of a look forward because, well, budgets and timings and all of that. But and again, if it's received well, I would i would be up for for doing a couple more episodes that they go beyond the scope of what we're already telling.
00:51:25
Speaker
Well, as I tell my friends and even some of my frenemies, don't threaten me with a good time. All right. My guest today has been the president and CEO of Clock, Oyangos Snell. Thanks so much for a fantastic conversation, man.
00:51:40
Speaker
i appreciate it. Thanks I'll see you in a couple of weeks at Clock. Yes, sir. Let's do it.