Wheels Up! ✈️Heading to Two More Legal Conferences

FOMO and a Desire to Stay Ahead on AI Got the Best of Me

Just look at that face! It’s 3 in the morning, and I’m exhausted. But, I’m on a plane headed to Vegas for a conference. Later this week, I’ll be in Palo Alto for a second. And to think, I wasn’t even supposed to travel this week.

Hey there, I’m Zach Abramowitz and I’m Legally Disrupted. I’ve got a couple of links for you, but first want to share with my readers that I will be attending two conferences this week. If you’re at either please come say hello (in case you don’t know what I look like, see lead image)

1. Running Legal Like a Business put on by two organizations I really respect: LegalOps.com and LawVision.

2. Future Dispute Resolution is in Stanford which is hosted by Stanford Law School, CodeX and the American Arbitration Association, with whom I have worked closely over the past year.

I’m hoping to emerge from RLLB more informed about how AI is impacting legal departments, how much mindshare it occupies inside legal and what else besides AI has their attention. At Future Dispute Resolution, I’m going to be paying attention to how different elements of the dispute resolution community are reimagining dispute resolution. (I’m going to save my AI and Dispute Resolution rant for another time. That’s a rabbit hole we don’t have time for today, but suffice it to say I’m bullish.)

So what made me pick up and fly half way around the world? Well, last week I was recording a podcast with my friends Connie Brenton and Jeff Franke. Speaking to the two of them added to a growing sense of FOMO I was already feeling about missing Future Dispute Resolution.

Originally I had planned to travel to 5 events this year. 5 quickly became 6, then 7 and then I lost track. I’ve turned into George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air.

I had circled RLLB but the timing just wasn’t great. But after speaking with Connie and Jeff about the podcast, I realized this simply wasn’t an event I could afford to miss. One reason has to do with the folks behind the conference — all serious entrepreneurs and subject matter experts. Furthermore, they are relentless about creating high quality content and audiences.

The second has to do with AI.

AI right now is the Wild West. No one is exactly sure where things are going, who will win, what will work, what won’t. Google founder and AI investor Eric Schmidt admitted as much recently in a talk at Stanford that has since been removed from YouTube. There’s a ton of experimentation going on (officially and unofficially) and there are serious opportunities for first movers, but also a fair amount of room to screw up. What I’m doing is the same thing my team has been doing for nearly the last two years: investing serious time and resources into better understanding AI — both theory and practice. The more I learn, the more I realize there’s so much more to know.

The RLLB conference is giving off a serious expert vibe. Not just because Connie and Jeff said so. The people I know personally who are attending are some of the smartest, savviest people in legal (and they’re not even the ones speaking). Two of the best AI companies I’ve invested in — TermScout and LegalMation — will both be on hand (make sure to catch Otto Hanson’s session). So, I’m looking forward to doing something I don’t get enough time to do at conferences where I’m speaking: sitting in sessions. RLLB isn’t limiting itself to AI — in fact I’m looking forward to a session by Hence co-founder Sean West on political turmoil and its impact on legal departments. If you don’t understand the full context of what else besides AI has the attention of in house legal departments (there’s a lot), then it’s hard to figure out how AI fits in.

I really enjoy connecting with readers. So, like I said before — if you’re going to be at these two events, find me and say hello. And, since you’re here, I’ve got two other links for you:

1. My last newsletter recapped what was likely my most important AI takeaway of the summer. If you haven’t read it, allow me to humbly suggest you check it out.

2. The other is ZALD podcast #11 which I haven’t even had a chance to promote but has quickly become one of our most downloaded episodes!