So a few days in the Miami sun and my major conclusion is that I was born on the wrong continent. I should have been born somewhere with 249 sunny days per year. Then I might value the occasional warm cloudy days. And I could travel somewhere else when it looked like rain. Important as this is, it isn’t the purpose of this blog.
I was in Miami for The Legal Tech Fund’s second annual summit – TLTF2023, hosted by the indefatigable Zach Posner and organised by the irreplaceable Rebecca Engel. What an event. It brought together start-ups, entrepreneurs, and founders from the legal tech world, with serious venture capital and later stage investors, expert advisers and more. It’s a select group – many times over-subscribed - brilliantly curated.
The aim is connection. The sessions were great, but the introductions, discussions and insights were better than I ever achieved at any other event. Relevant, insightful and even revelatory. It was ok to miss sessions in order to connect more deeply with other attendees – in fact Zach encouraged it with his commitment to ‘who luck’ (see Bob Ambrogi write up of TLTF2023 that gives this link to define ‘who luck’.
Zach and I later discussed ‘who luck’. I am always a bit sceptical of people that put their great achievements down to their own brilliance or hard work. I know too many people who work hard without making money or getting recognition – just think of the people working split shifts to serve us in a hotel or conference centre on minimum wage and dependent upon tips. And I know plenty that are star struck by their own brilliance such that I’d never ask them to do anything useful. As Disraeli said of John Bright, ‘He’s a self-made man – and worships his creator’. Luck is what separates us. We can’t change what country we were born in, the genetics we are born with, the century we live in, the family capital (financial or social) that we inherit or the way that our society or economy values the particular skills and behaviours we tend towards. So we have to do everything that we can to be lucky.
Lots of luck is about the ‘what happens’ to you – be that a car accident or a lottery win. But the ‘who luck’ we can work at and maximise. We can give ourselves more chances to meet and connect with people that can help us achieve more, do more, be more. That is why networking matters. TLTF2023 is Zach and the Fund creating their own ‘who luck’ to make the Fund more successful. It is also an equal opportunity for attendees to do the same – be they founders or investors, experts or advisers. Its proof that life is not a zero-sum game (despite what some of our political leaders on either side of the pond think): we achieve more together, by helping each achieve more.
The focus of the event is of course legal tech. Just to explore the portfolio companies of The Legal Tech Fund’s initial fund gives some insight to the breadth and range of potential. The list of attendees takes it further.
Dan Katz and Damien Rhiel were fabulous (not least because Dan got through about 130 slides in 20 minutes – hire him, it’s fun!). Their insights into how technology has developed and is developing, its take up among the population of the world and its potential was remarkable. One message I took is that start-ups better be adding something remarkable to technology because baseline technology is moving so fast. And another is that large language models are only just beginning – within a few years we will have, in widespread use, LLMs built and trained for specific verticals such as medicine or law.
Another insight came from widespread discussion at the event. Technology, the availability of capital and deregulatory changes are coming together to create an unusual opportunity. I don’t like to overplay these things – the industrial revolution took many decades for example – but we are in the midst of a new technological revolution. This is not a prediction of the end of the law firm partnership, the death of the billable hour or the mass unemployment of lawyers. But it is a recognition that change is already happening, and that, (despite the inevitable miss-steps, failures and dead ends that happen with any industrial revolution) the technology cannot be put back in the box and it is going to impact pretty much everyone doing pretty much everything.
That leads on to the scale of the opportunity. The legal market is hugely successful – especially in the US and UK. Yet it serves only a tiny proportion of the legal needs of ordinary citizens or small business. And large business overpays, doing what they can to limit legal advice rather than seeing it as foundational to their innovation and growth. Better technology, more capital and faster liberalisation of the market are needed to grow the market to its potential. All of that needs to be within a stronger ethical framework rather than the self-regulatory systems that tend towards self-delusion over the public interest. It is possible to better serve all citizens and businesses within an ethical and professional framework.
It was great to moderate a panel with the fabulous Catherine Kemnitz of Axiom, James Peters of Legal Zoom and Gareth Hunt of Stiffel. Real insight from a great panel. You can tell how good the panel was by how they got mobbed with questions at the end of the session: they may even still be there. Some others that impressed me and I got to know (even) better include Seedlegals, Natalie Knowlton, Charley Moore, Charlie Hernandoz,
Judge Scott Schlegel,
Nicole Giantonio, and of course the whole Legal Tech Fund team, plus Dan and Damien mentioned above. I got to spend significant and interesting time with
Ira Coleman, Chair of
McDermott Will & Emery and his senior team, plus some top quality investors at VC and serious scale up stage. Finally it's great that the UK legal market was represented by
Iain Miller - England & Wales is the best regulatory environment for legal tech and other innovators despite the great efforts of
Arizona and
Utah and Iain is the best regulatory solicitor there.
There are so many good posts and blogs from attendees of TLTF2023 on LinkedIn and elsewhere (including Bob’s linked to earlier). Read them, laugh at a few and think about how you can support legal tech and urgent innovation soon in order to get an invite to
TLTF2024.
In the meantime, my real ‘who luck’ of TLTF2023 is that I now know more people who might help me get lucky and get a job offer in Miami, with its sun, sand, sea and city! In the absence of the ‘what luck’ of being born there, I will take the ‘who luck’ of a few more visits for work.
