Norm Law Partner: AI First Firms Joining the AmLaw 100 is "Inevitable"
Norm Law partner explains what drove her to make the move from trad law to AI first
A year ago, AI-first firms were mostly something lawyers argued about on LinkedIn. Today, if the notes I’m getting from Legally Disrupted readers are any indicator, AI first firms are now becoming legitimate career destinations.
Hey there, I’m Zach Abramowitz and I am Legally Disrupted. On episode 55 of 🎙️Zach Abramowitz is Legally Disrupted, I wasn’t interested in interviewing another founder of an AI first firm. Instead, I wanted to put on the goggles of a lawyer who actually made the leap.
Luckily for me, I knew someone on the inside.
Batya Nadler and I started our legal careers around the same at Schulte Roth & Zabel almost twenty years ago. She spent eighteen years in Biglaw and, by her own admission, fully expected to finish her career there. Batya wasn’t sitting around unhappy, waiting for a startup to rescue her. She liked her firm. She wasn’t looking for another trad firm. In fact, she told me there was basically no chance she would’ve left for another legacy law firm. She’d already started experimenting with AI because, like a lot of lawyers, she could see that parts of her practice (especially funds work) were incredibly repetitive. She wasn’t looking to stop practicing law, but she saw the opportunity to use AI to make practicing law a better user experience.
Then Norm slid into her DMs.
A recruiter convinced her to take the meeting and she was fascinated by the concept, enough that she set a Google Alert for Norm. At this point, there was no Norm Law, just a tech company selling software to legal departments. Norm came back on her radar six months later when Mike Schmidtberger, the former global chairman of Sidely, joined Norm Law. Norm recently made headlines again when they raised $120M at a $1.2B valuation.
My take: if AI-first firms really are going to become a meaningful part of the legal industry, they’re going to have to convince a more lawyers like Batya to leave firms they genuinely like. One of the things that makes that pitch credible are Biglaw legends like Mike (and more recently David Fox, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, who was the managing partner at Kirkland) getting behind these neo-firms. I expect we’ll see more big names joining these ranks.
So what does that pitch actually sound like? What is it like working at Norm? What does she recommend to attorneys about improving AI fluency? And what has convinced her that firms like Norm entering the AmLaw 100 is inevitable? Check out the full conversation with Batya and please like, subscribe share and all that good stuff.
If you’re into the audio version only, you can check out the conversation on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Zach Abramowitz is Legally Disrupted will continue to feature top founders, but as AI in legal becomes more real expect to hear from more lawyers as well.
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Mostly, I loved your friend’s vibe. That thrill of being part of creating something that never existed and not knowing how it will land.
The takeaway is that what is happening seems fundamentally different than other innovation iterations like outsourcing to India or e discovery vendors which reinforced rather than disrupted how biglaw works. Maybe a little like Axiom except that’s not a law firm. I think these innovations have legs /staying power and I didn’t really think that before. (That said, I like that you don’t overhype these things).
This was such a good episode. I have a good friend from college who recently started at Norm and it’s so interesting to see.