Solos and Contracts: A conversation with 3 Solo Practitioners

June 14, 2020

In this episode of the City of Contracts podcast, Ken Adams speaks with solo practitioners Erin Austin, Caroline Fox, and Amy Grubb. Working with contracts forms an important part of their practice; Ken discusses with them how they handle different aspects of that work.

Ken Adams recently received a shock to the system—not one but two law review articles that are relevant to what he does, both written by John F. Coyle, professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. That was enough to prompt Ken to ask John to appear on the City of Contracts podcast. Ken and John's conversation focuses on the role of boilerplate in contracts, the challenges of interpreting it, and how we might eliminate the confusion.  

In this episode of the "City of Contracts" podcast, Ken Adams speaks with Alex Hamilton, CEO of Radiant Law. Ken has long sought Alex's advice on what's wrong with contracts and how to fix it; this podcast is more of the same, but in public!  

Ever had to parse through an absolutely awful contract? How about a 60-page MSA from one of those big company procurement departments? One of the promises of AI is that the happy robots will start taking away the drudgery of tasks like parsing our 4-page IP transfer clause. In this episode of The Frontier Podcast, Lars Mahler, Chief Science Officer at LegalSifter. Lars lays down one of the best machine learning analogies ever heard. (28:30)

Casey Flaherty, Director of Legal Program Management at Baker McKenzie talks about getting lawyers to do things differently.

April 21, 2020

In this episode of the "City of Contracts" podcast, Ken Adams speaks with Casey Flaherty, gadfly and now director of legal project management at the global law firm Baker McKenzie. (43:23)

Sarah Carlin, Director of Recruiting at Hire Counsel, Talks About What It Takes to be a Good Contract Manager

February 25, 2019

Ken speaks with Sarah Carlin, Director of Recruiting at Hire Counsel about what it takes to be a good contract manager. They discuss the backgrounds that lead to success and whether having a law degree makes a difference. (35:27)

Ken speaks with Dave Hoffman, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He teaches contracts—of course!—so he and Ken discuss the function of the contracts class, how it relates to what practicing lawyers do, and how best to teach contract drafting, among other subjects. (40:39)

Ken talks with LawInsider co-founder Preston Clark. Ken talks to Preston about the origins of LawInsider, its usefulness, and the future of the legal practice.  Preston also details the machine behind LawInsider, a free research database with over 1.2 million documents built from SEC contract filings. (40:50)

In this episode, Ken speaks with Michael Woronoff. Michael is a transactional partner in the Los Angeles office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. (35:20)

In the summer of 2018, the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel hosted a Continuing Legal Education course entitled, "The Practical Applications of Artificial Intelligence in the Law." Lucy Dillon, Chief Knowledge Officer at Reed Smith, and Kevin Miller, CEO of LegalSifter, presented to a large crowd in Reed Smith's global headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and simulcast around the world. (58:51)

Kevin Miller, CEO of LegalSifter, filled in for Ken Adams for this Podcast.  David Tollen, author and attorney, talks at length about the top 5 mistakes that lawyers make in cloud computing agreements. (60:08)

Leading Change in the Legal Profession

January 17, 2018

Leading change in the legal profession is no different than in any other sector of the global economy. CEO Kevin Miller shows that change is best executed with a compelling vision, supported by strategies, plans, and budgets, driven by an 8-step process from John Kotter.

October 25, 2017

CEO Kevin Miller talks about Artificial Intelligence and the impact it will have on the future of the legal profession. Kevin offers a primer on the general trends as well as some advice for how attorneys might prepare themselves for the impact and opportunities. of A.I. within the legal profession.