Overview
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
It's time again for our Fall LegalTech Workshop at Bonny Doon! This will be our 7th annual, another milestone, and I hope you will join us.
Here is the narrative from about a year ago:
We are witnessing the most consequential time for our industry in our lifetimes. I know that statements like this tend to be made too often ….. but this time it feels different. I met a startup the other day who claimed they will reduce the time attorneys spend on their particular task by an order of magnitude, and this is pretty much what all the new generation of the startups are saying. Multiply this story by hundreds (if not thousands) of new legaltech AI startups coming out of the woodwork, and you realize the potential enormity of the coming regime change.
But, but. Here is what I am hearing from the market more recently:
The rollout of AI legaltech platforms has been skittish. Adoption by major law firms and enterprises in many cases seems to be stuck at the pilot stage, as concerns about hallucinations, reliability, confidentiality and liabilities overhang decision-making. The recent Stanford benchmarking study was not reassuring.
Are these normal bumps in the road, hurdles that will be overcome with even more clever algorithms and solutions, or are the difficulties more intractable than originally thought? These and other questions will be explored.
As usual, we will be showcasing 10+ top startups at our Workshop. We cast our net widely, and the companies will cover everything from transactions to litigation to compliance to governance. We expect to announce the first batch of startups next week. We still have a few slots, so feel free to make recommendations.
We will also feature two exciting panels: "Reimagining the Practice of Law if we could Start from Scratch" and "Progress Report: Where are we on the Arc of AI for the Law?", both led by top speakers.
This year we are shifting our programming to include more mini-sessions. We are reducing the number of discussion panels in favor of short "Something on My Mind" (SOMM) Sessions, where prominent folks in the LegalTech industry present an interesting problem, hypothesis, new technology or trend they'd like to discuss and get immediate feedback on. Our goal is to catalyze conversations that continue after we part ways. In this way we can cover a lot more ground and we give our community more agency in program creation. If you have something on your mind you'd like to share, please send us your ideas here.
There will be another big change this year. By popular demand, we will be increasing the capacity of our Workshop by moving the day program to a classic ballroom in Santa Cruz overlooking the beach and boardwalk. This is a more professional meeting facility and with greater capacity than Bonny Doon.
But never fear, we are not leaving Bonny Doon and we aim to retain the sense of Bonny Doon intimacy and camaraderie! We intend to cap attendance at 100. At the end of the day we will arrange for shuttle buses to bring people to Bonny Doon for a nice bash -- a wine and beer reception, walk around the pond, music and dinner. Shuttles will be available to bring people back to the beach parking lot at the end of the evening. (And those that wish to drive to Bonny Doon can of course do so.)
Register now to secure your seat for LegalTech 7!
Very much looking forward to seeing everyone in Santa Cruz and Bonny Doon!
Warm Regards,
Howard Chao
Doon Insights
