How to choose the right innovation problem to solve
A few weeks ago, we had the chance to record a conversation with Isabela Loscher, who is the passionate Knowledge Management Officer at PPU. Prior to this conversation, we had previously spoken with Isabela about the importance of addressing real problems for lawyers and the importance of going “back to basics”. Naturally, this led to a follow-up conversation about how we can identify the right problems to solve.
“... maybe it is too basic, but I think you have to talk to people... I literally sat down with every single attorney of the law firm to talk to them, every single one of them.”
We also spoke about:
the readiness of Latin American market to adopt legal technology
what law firms can invest in before adopting legal technology
how to overcome cultural resistance when trying to adopt legal technology
how she identifies the needs of attorneys
how she conducts user interviews with attorneys
what metrics to present to decision makers
how she collects data from users
how she brings together the different teams at the law firm to collaborate on data collection
the importance of collaboration between KM and IT teams
Take a look at our full 30 minute conversation below.
Transcript of Conversation
(Note: transcript is automatically generated, and may contain misspellings and typographical errors)
00:00
hello and welcome back everyone
00:02
happy new year. today we have a special guest
00:04
with us her name is isabela loscher
00:08
isabela.
00:09
thank you so much for having me
00:12
um my name is isabela as you said i'm
00:15
originally from venezuela but i work
00:18
at a law firm in colombia
00:21
and i'm currently the knowledge
00:23
management officer um for
00:26
the colombian office
00:28
i'm also a lawyer i
00:31
i don't like to say this but i always
00:32
say that i kind of lost my money
00:34
studying because i i studied my llam
00:37
focused on corporate backing law
00:39
and right now i'm trying to focus on
00:41
legal tech and knowledge management
00:44
so that's basically what i do
00:46
it's a very interesting background and
00:48
when we spoke the first time you also
00:51
mentioned
00:52
something else that you you do which is
00:55
this
00:56
you distribute or you promote this
00:58
product called dot office
01:00
um
01:01
tell us a little bit more about that and
01:02
we'll loop it all together in a second
01:05
during my main job as a knowledge
01:07
management officer
01:09
um
01:10
i work kind of trying to look for
01:12
efficiencies right so that's basically
01:14
my only job my daily job is basically to
01:16
understand what lawyers need um to talk
01:19
to them what they need what they're
01:20
looking for and everything
01:22
and um we also talked about this a bit
01:25
is that basically um you know kind of
01:28
like three years ago there's like a boom
01:30
started with legal tech right so it's so
01:33
overwhelming and we have so many things
01:35
in the market it's artificial
01:37
intelligence and
01:38
all those crazy things that we kind of
01:40
become overwhelmed a bit and
01:43
what happens is that um i'm not sure
01:46
basically that happens as well in
01:48
the us or in europe but for example in
01:51
latin america when i tried implementing
01:53
those tools
01:55
we were not ready right we tried we
01:58
i kind of showed people so many things
02:00
about you know legal tag and artificial
02:02
intelligence and all those things and
02:05
partners were like well yeah that's
02:07
amazing but that's kind of too much
02:08
right um i don't want anything that
02:10
tells me how to write my
02:12
my arbitration class or i don't want you
02:15
know
02:15
so i kind of started doing a benchmark
02:18
within the law firm and within talking
02:20
to other knowledge management officers
02:21
in the world
02:22
and i started seeing that we have a
02:25
problem and efficiency problem that it's
02:27
very basic right so
02:30
i really i was start i was saying like
02:32
of course we're not ready for artificial
02:33
intelligence or for crazy stuff and all
02:35
that beautiful things if we're you know
02:37
incurring in inefficiencies basically
02:40
working in microsoft word right so for
02:42
example and this is the thing that why i
02:45
love dot office and why i basically
02:47
started working with them is that
02:49
basically i remember that when i was a
02:51
lawyer i used to work with a finance
02:53
team and i was doing a credit agreement
02:55
and that was a 300 pages um document and
02:58
then i pressed enter and the formatting
03:02
because it got so messed up you have no
03:04
idea and then i spent four hours for
03:07
literally four hours at 3 a.m in the
03:09
morning
03:10
fixing all the formatting and doing all
03:12
that stuff and law firm um i don't know
03:15
if that's good or bad but you have to
03:16
build all your hours and basically
03:18
account for everything that you're doing
03:20
and i built those hours and then i said
03:23
you know i spent four hours here
03:25
basically modifying a document and of
03:28
course the partner called me the next
03:29
day saying are you crazy i can't say to
03:31
the client like oh these are four hours
03:33
from our associate that she spent fixing
03:36
your document
03:38
and that's when i said oh wow this is
03:41
the problem right
03:42
this is the problem we really have a
03:44
yeah that's the back to basics thing we
03:47
really have to understand that we're
03:49
being very very inefficient in very
03:51
basic things such as formatting
03:54
reviewing cross references reviewing
03:57
definitions from a document in a lot of
03:59
things so i got to meet these people
04:01
which are today now i worked with them
04:04
as well
04:05
and i was first their client right so
04:07
they basically implemented
04:10
templates they have buttons for styles
04:12
they do everything to your needs so you
04:15
can respect your corporate image they
04:17
have something called the proving tool
04:19
they have something called the smart
04:20
builder and so many things that when i
04:23
presented that to the partners it was
04:25
very familiar to them because um just
04:28
like your product is basically it's an
04:30
add-in inside of word so when i show the
04:33
partner this is something that goes into
04:35
microsoft word that basically it's a
04:37
tool that you use every single day
04:39
they would be like oh now i like this
04:41
right so um and then there was like oh
04:44
now this is great now let's implement
04:46
this um of course implementing in my
04:48
opinion i bet a lot of knowledge
04:50
management officers and innovation
04:52
officers do the same thing the same is
04:54
that it is very hard to implement
04:56
changes so the cultural changes
04:59
i don't know why we're so stubborn as
05:01
lawyers that we every time someone tells
05:03
us this is gonna be great but you have
05:05
to change one millimeter of what you're
05:07
doing and people are like oh i can't do
05:09
that you know i can't change even if
05:11
this is gonna be um
05:13
an amazing efficiency for me
05:15
so
05:16
uh when i implement that
05:18
i talk to the people that they're from
05:21
netherlands i talked to them and then i
05:23
said you know what
05:25
i've been talking to knowledge
05:26
management officers in colombia and i
05:29
think we all have the same problem
05:32
here we were all having the same thing
05:35
and so i talked to the partner at ppu
05:37
and i told them you know what i believe
05:39
that this is not about competing between
05:41
law firms right this is about raising
05:43
the standard of the market i i just what
05:46
i want is you know that this happens for
05:48
example in new york you call a great law
05:51
firm my super
05:53
big name law firm and you call them and
05:55
you ask for an sba and they have it in
05:57
three hours and it's crazy and we're
05:59
like how are they doing that it's
06:01
because they have all these little tools
06:03
that you know allow them to have this
06:05
capacity to you know respond super fast
06:08
so basically what i did is that i talked
06:10
to them and i said you know what
06:12
we need to start spreading this within
06:15
latin america because it's the same
06:17
thing and of course when you call
06:19
someone in the u.s or in europe they all
06:21
have something similar but because here
06:24
we need to start from the basics not
06:27
even one law firm had something similar
06:30
so it was a boom so i basically talked
06:32
to the office and i told them let me
06:34
represent you in colombia and let me
06:37
meet the people in the other law firms i
06:39
i won't see any information or
06:41
confidential information from them
06:43
anything no i just want to show them
06:45
like you know i want to open their eyes
06:47
to how beautiful you know
06:49
the practice can be and how you know and
06:51
i always say that when i was a lawyer if
06:54
i would have had this tool
06:56
i would have been so much happier right
06:58
so that
07:00
i would have been so much happier so
07:02
you know i and i always say like if i
07:04
would have had this tool
07:06
um that night those four hours that i
07:09
spent
07:10
fixing that stupid credit agreement
07:13
right
07:13
maybe i would still be working as an
07:16
attorney and not doing legal tag
07:20
but then the legal tech world will be
07:21
missing your essentially
07:24
so we're grateful for those four hours
07:26
that you burned that one night yeah i
07:28
agree i agree
07:29
and let me tell you there is not even
07:31
one law firm that we have met that have
07:33
said
07:35
this doesn't work for me i don't need
07:36
this
07:37
not even one and that's when i said this
07:40
is so crazy like
07:41
you know we we have here and we have
07:43
very big law firms we have very big
07:45
transactions with american law firms and
07:48
all that and we are so much innocent
07:50
you're so much more inefficient than
07:51
them of course and we spend i don't know
07:54
if you see for example in transactions
07:56
emails go back and forth like at 4 am
07:58
and that happens because of
07:59
inefficiencies right because it's like
08:01
you have to call your junior attorney to
08:03
oh please check the 1000 definitions
08:06
that we have um in the document please
08:09
check the thousand cross references um
08:12
that are all messed up and all that or
08:14
please and you know
08:15
um we haven't even talked to one that
08:17
has said no i don't like it so that's
08:20
when i said well we have to go all all
08:23
of us have need to go back to basics
08:25
right we all need to start from zero and
08:28
if you also if you in all this round
08:30
table which ilta does those amazing
08:32
round tables and i go i go to all of
08:35
them and i pay all of them i love them
08:36
so much because i learned so much there
08:39
um all the comments from the people in
08:41
latin america when we're asking
08:43
questions it's the same thing we are not
08:46
there yet and i
08:48
maybe this is a very unpopular opinion
08:49
because of course um there's a lot of
08:51
people doing a lot of innovation in the
08:54
legal system here
08:55
but in law firms
08:57
i'm telling you we are not there we we
08:59
really need to go back to basics and
09:01
find our efficiencies so because for
09:04
example
09:05
if you have a you know for example a
09:07
super taxonomy tool to have um i don't
09:10
know to you know you're innovating
09:12
inside the law firm and you have i don't
09:14
know you know all the models documents
09:16
and everything and you have some
09:18
so many amazing things
09:20
but then you open the document and the
09:22
document is a mess
09:24
right so all the efficiency
09:26
that you went through and that you have
09:28
now because you have the model document
09:30
and whatever if the format is messed up
09:33
if definitions are a mess if cross
09:35
references are a mess if the corporate
09:37
image is not the correct one
09:39
you're losing all the efficiencies that
09:41
you're trying to find with the other
09:43
tool it's innovate where you're at right
09:46
and there's another thing that i
09:48
remember we said that day is this is a
09:50
spanish thing actually i don't even know
09:51
if in colombia people say that but in
09:53
venezuela they do it's basically you
09:55
have to put your socks first and then
09:57
your shoes yeah the the the sort of
10:00
saying in english is probably learn to
10:01
walk before you run exactly that's also
10:04
in spanish as well yeah
10:06
but there you go i love to hear what the
10:07
spanish language version of that is what
10:09
is it yeah the spanish is uh oh do you
10:12
want to hear it in spanish yes please
10:14
okay
10:20
okay okay so so i am now gonna like make
10:23
sure this goes to an international
10:24
audience
10:32
and the other one about the socks before
10:34
the shoes it says
10:36
you have to say it
10:41
you had so many themes that kind of came
10:43
out of that little
10:45
description of what you do okay um
10:48
the one that i want to pick up first
10:49
is the latin american idea um
10:53
legal technology around the world has
10:55
really been focused primarily on
10:57
english-speaking countries yes and
10:59
i think a lot of that's driven by
11:01
economics right that's where the money
11:03
can be made
11:04
but latin american
11:06
or the latin america market
11:08
probably has not had as much attention
11:11
as it deserves
11:14
and you raised a really interesting
11:16
point of people have been looking at
11:18
these ai technologies in america in the
11:20
uk
11:22
and the latin america the latin american
11:24
markets not ready what do you mean by
11:27
not ready are you talking about the
11:29
people being already are you talking
11:31
about the
11:32
the firms and the technology not being
11:34
ready
11:35
what do you mean
11:37
well i think there might be several
11:39
problems there unlock problems but you
11:41
know situations
11:42
um i think one of them is basically the
11:46
language barrier right
11:48
one of the things that started happening
11:50
was that basically
11:52
not all the tools but most of the tools
11:55
well for example ai tools
11:58
these have been designed basically
12:01
to
12:02
you know understand data in english
12:04
language right and the reason for that
12:07
is not it's not ai's problem or ai's
12:09
fault it's a language fault why
12:12
in english everyone talks the same so if
12:15
you're talking about shares or stock you
12:17
talk about shares or stock if you're
12:19
talking about companies you say company
12:21
and that's it
12:22
in spanish on the other hand we don't do
12:25
that
12:26
if you see a document and i'm gonna
12:28
confess myself because i've done it as
12:30
well if i see my own documents
12:33
i can say several words for several
12:36
things today that last week i said
12:38
completely different
12:40
right so of course ai tools go crazy
12:43
when trying to understand the spanish
12:46
speakers right
12:48
so i believe is that first of all
12:50
these tools have been designed first for
12:52
the english language because it's easier
12:54
for them to do this first approach so i
12:57
believe one of the problems is that
13:00
second of all of course latin america
13:03
except for i don't know several cities
13:06
but we are also um colombia venezuela
13:10
peru
13:11
we are basically third world countries
13:13
right so it is harder for us to invest
13:16
in certain things right so i work in a
13:18
huge law firm an amazing law firm it
13:21
makes a lot of money and we have a we
13:23
have a great amount of clients um
13:26
peru the same thing
13:28
in colombia there are very very big law
13:30
firms as well that are you know but
13:33
still it has been a bit harder to invest
13:36
in certain things right so before
13:38
investing maybe in ai or in efficiency
13:42
tools well we start investing in certain
13:44
things like for example talent um you
13:46
know bringing international talent to
13:49
colombia things like that or you know
13:51
increasing um i don't know the real
13:53
estate space and things like that
13:56
and the last part i don't know if this
13:58
has to be with latinum i don't know this
14:00
has to do with latin america or or with
14:03
the
14:04
with the with lawyers itself but right
14:06
it's just
14:07
being a lawyer in my opinion means that
14:10
you're stubborn you're basically
14:11
stubborn right like we are you know and
14:13
we are like super safe people because
14:15
that's our jobs you know um you know
14:17
telling our clients where the risks are
14:20
right telling our clients what they can
14:22
and they cannot do and you know
14:24
forbidding people to do things that they
14:26
cannot do when they're not legally when
14:28
they're not legally feasible and things
14:30
like that so i believe that um
14:33
yeah
14:34
maybe maybe latin americans are like
14:36
that but maybe it's because we're
14:37
lawyers and that's it but it is yeah
14:40
it's that it's just that we
14:42
and this is something horrible and if my
14:44
boss is listening to this eventually i
14:47
love you all but this is a true
14:48
statement
14:50
i love you all but this is a true
14:51
statement there is another thing that
14:53
happens is that
14:55
if you are a partner that you've been
14:57
making money your entire life
15:00
doing things one way
15:02
why am i going to change
15:03
right
15:04
why am i going to change right
15:06
it's fine we're making money like this
15:08
it's fine
15:09
so but the thing that happens is that
15:11
they don't know what the market is doing
15:12
and the market is actually it's actually
15:14
kind of forcing us to innovate
15:16
because yeah you're you've been making
15:18
money for 20 years but you have no idea
15:21
all the innovations that the market has
15:23
you know um from
15:25
2020 to 2022. you have no idea so you've
15:28
been making money for a while doing that
15:31
so i believe that that is also another
15:33
thing i'm not sure if that's a latin
15:35
american thing i think that's a lawyerly
15:36
thing that you know
15:38
i think yeah
15:40
you know you've been you've been you've
15:41
been so great with your clients and all
15:43
and whatever and you've been winning
15:45
cases and you have you know
15:48
you know everything is going
15:50
and has been working well for you why
15:52
are you going to change so that is one
15:55
of the things that i think in latin
15:56
america has taken us back very hard
15:59
so this links to a couple of ideas right
16:02
it's the idea of the transformation
16:05
challenge that's inherent whenever you
16:07
try to make people
16:08
differ in the behavior
16:11
and link to that is the idea of finding
16:14
the right problems that people will be
16:16
happy to tackle
16:19
how do you go about identifying the
16:21
right problems and i think you've you've
16:23
told a wonderful story about what you're
16:25
doing with dot office um
16:28
but
16:29
what made you think that was the right
16:31
problem
16:33
i
16:33
maybe this is too basic but i think you
16:36
have to talk to people because that's
16:38
another thing that happened is that you
16:40
know um for example these are very very
16:43
um
16:44
busy people you know attorneys they have
16:46
no time to do anything um so one of the
16:49
things that happened is that maybe
16:50
sometimes they don't even know what's
16:52
happening to them or what they need
16:54
right maybe sometimes they have no idea
16:57
what their inefficiencies are
16:59
so one of the things that i i found very
17:02
useful maybe maybe that's inefficient
17:05
me that i'm trying to be super efficient
17:06
but maybe that's kind of inefficient but
17:08
i literally sat down with every single
17:11
attorney of the law firm to talk to them
17:14
every single one of them i did that yeah
17:17
and i i spent and i remember one of um
17:21
it was like right before the pandemic
17:22
started uh my boss told me you know
17:25
because we have also attorneys in peru
17:28
and in chile and he told me do you want
17:30
to go there and talk to them in person
17:31
and i said yes and i literally got on a
17:34
plane and i went two weeks for each
17:36
office and i talked to every single one
17:39
of them i created small meetings this is
17:41
a 400 attorney law firm so i
17:44
have
17:44
meaningful deep conversations with each
17:47
one of them and i literally had to sit
17:50
down with it with each one of them and i
17:53
created you know these small meetings of
17:55
five people because that's another thing
17:56
that i think that happens it's just if
17:58
you have a meeting of 45 people
18:02
they don't feel comfortable saying you
18:04
know
18:05
i think this is a problem or if you are
18:07
in a zoom meeting it's kind of very
18:09
impersonal so they don't they don't open
18:11
the microphone and say like i think we
18:13
need to do this instead when you have
18:15
meetings of four or five attorneys and
18:18
you say you know my job is to help you
18:21
my job is to create tools things
18:24
processes that can make you be efficient
18:26
what do you want and if you are with
18:28
only four people there
18:30
trust me they'll talk to you and they'll
18:32
and they will say what's happening to
18:34
them and what they need so one of the
18:36
things that i really think that really
18:38
helped me understanding well also one of
18:41
the things that helped me understand is
18:42
that i was also also an attorney and i
18:45
was
18:46
i i don't want to say an unhappy one but
18:48
i had unhappy moments
18:50
i had unhappy moments while i was being
18:52
an attorney um so i also knew a bit you
18:56
know what i wanted so that's one of the
18:59
things that i like that that we
19:00
you know we
19:02
you know i don't know what and also the
19:03
partner that works with me with the
19:05
knowledge management team he's also an
19:08
attorney and a very proficient um
19:10
attorney and he does a lot of heavy
19:12
documents and all that so he also
19:14
understands and also that's another
19:17
thing is that he helped me when i when i
19:19
would tell him you know people want
19:22
people want this they don't like this
19:24
they need a tool like that
19:26
he would say yes we have the budget for
19:28
that because he understood it he also
19:30
felt the problem himself right so
19:33
whereas if you have a partner that's
19:34
kind of you know kind of an outsider of
19:37
the practice he would say well do we
19:40
really need ten thousand dollars for
19:41
that actually we do but you know if he's
19:44
the one that has if he's the one that
19:46
has to approve the product that the
19:48
project or the budget he's not gonna do
19:50
it if he's gonna he's an outsider right
19:52
so
19:53
one of the things that um yeah i talked
19:55
to each one of them small meetings to
19:58
understand what everyone wanted it
20:01
and also when that's another thing um
20:04
when i started listening to people and
20:06
then
20:07
maybe there's an attorney for example in
20:09
chile that will tell me about his
20:11
concerns or his problems or his
20:13
inefficiencies
20:15
maybe he didn't even know that he was
20:17
inefficient in other things that i'm
20:18
showing so i might listen to him and say
20:21
yes that's great duly noted i'm gonna
20:24
work on that but also how about this you
20:27
know when you're doing formatting stuff
20:30
when you are reviewing and you're doing
20:32
quality control things are you also
20:34
inefficient there and they will be like
20:36
oh yes we're so inefficient there i i
20:39
haven't even think about it right so
20:42
that's one of the things that i think
20:43
it's just that we you really need to
20:45
talk to everyone and i think you really
20:47
have to be open to listen to everyone so
20:50
it's just i i have to i have to say that
20:53
i think you have to be a people person
20:54
you have to i love i love talking
20:57
as you may see me but
20:59
i think you have to be an evil person
21:01
right you have to be able to talk to
21:03
everyone and be you know kind of
21:06
yeah in a friendly way
21:08
so and also understanding that's the
21:10
last thing i'm going to say
21:12
understanding that your job is basically
21:14
helping them my job is not bringing
21:16
clients to the law firm anymore my job
21:19
is not doing a perfect um loan agreement
21:22
my job is to make your job easier so
21:25
that's i breathe it the whole day right
21:27
i just talk to everyone and if they're
21:29
crying i'll just listen to them
21:31
to understand what they need
21:33
i
21:34
love love love love love love that
21:37
answer um and you know we could we could
21:40
end this video recording right here and
21:42
we would have like already
21:45
contributed the most valuable advice
21:47
that you could give in 2020
21:49
2022.
21:52
it feels like a very long 2020 because
21:54
of covert yeah it was it was a very long
21:57
20 20. i agree
22:00
um but that was that was incredible um
22:03
and
22:04
i think it boils down to this idea of
22:06
active listening
22:08
you listened and you had a conversation
22:10
yeah um
22:12
i love i love i love that this also
22:15
leads to um
22:16
a question i have not planned for and
22:19
that is data data collection
22:21
yeah it's a big theme in 2022 um yeah
22:25
all the law firms are sort of talking
22:26
about this now because i think people
22:29
have realized there's a problem that we
22:31
always
22:33
banned like like throw around this idea
22:36
of
22:36
data driven decision making or
22:38
data-driven work but then you look back
22:40
and go wait what data we haven't
22:42
collected anything we haven't collected
22:44
any data yeah exactly exactly
22:47
and and your role was basically to
22:49
identify aha let's collect this thing
22:52
exactly that's probably the hardest part
22:54
of
22:55
well data collection deciding what to
22:57
collect yeah exactly exactly and you
23:00
know one of the things that um i don't
23:02
really know too much about processes
23:04
which is great because there's also
23:05
people with
23:06
you know processes oriented in ppu
23:09
um and that's also one of the things
23:11
that i asked him what could i do for
23:14
example to recollect the data and one of
23:16
the things that i do and i do that i
23:18
think kind of every three months is that
23:20
i sent these little forms to all the
23:23
attorneys at the law firm
23:24
it's kind of like uh um i don't know how
23:26
do you say that in english um like
23:29
suggestions like a suggestion box yes
23:32
ask them what they need of course i kind
23:34
of guided a little bit so i do several
23:37
questions for example
23:38
are you using this tool do you find it
23:41
helpful do you even know what the tool
23:43
is because sometimes there are new
23:45
attorneys that no one told them that
23:46
they have this in the law firm right and
23:48
they're like i don't even know that that
23:51
works or that or that we have that and
23:52
we're paying for that well that's crazy
23:55
so i kind of i do that every three
23:57
months uh i do it with forms literally
23:59
with the forms that you can do with um
24:02
sharepoint and basically what i do is
24:04
that i extract all that information in
24:06
an excel and i can have all that right
24:10
to to kind of understand and have a like
24:12
a bigger overview of what's happening so
24:14
i do that every single yeah like every
24:17
three months i do ask do you find it
24:19
helpful do you think we are falling
24:22
behind and maybe we need to innovate
24:24
some more do you think this is terrible
24:27
do you think we're wasting money and i
24:28
do all that and of course there's a lot
24:30
of people that say like i don't find it
24:32
useful because i whatever but it's like
24:35
one percent of the attorneys right
24:36
there's
24:37
that never happened and also and i know
24:39
that this this part is terrible but also
24:42
i talked to the human resources team to
24:44
make this a compelling questionnaire
24:47
right you have to you're obligated to do
24:49
it you're forced to answer this um
24:52
questionnaire and that's that that can
24:54
kind of play against me a little bit
24:55
because knowledge management officers as
24:58
i told you we have to be friendly we
24:59
have to you know provide solutions so
25:02
every time you do something super harsh
25:04
like you have to do this or if you don't
25:06
do this you're gonna have that feedback
25:08
at the end of the year or whatever but
25:10
you kind of need a little bit of that as
25:12
well because that's the only way i can
25:14
understand the data and have the
25:15
complete data so it's kind of like i
25:18
don't do it myself but i talked to the
25:19
human resources team like hey
25:21
is there a way that when we sent this
25:24
you just say to everyone that if they
25:25
don't do this
25:27
we are going to kill them
25:29
oh my gosh okay let's let's re-label
25:31
that we're going to rebadge this as
25:33
assisted active learning oh no assisted
25:36
active listening existed active
25:39
listening exactly well you it's really
25:42
hard sometimes you know km
25:45
etc and all that innovation stuff
25:48
it's not it's not super evident to them
25:50
right they don't see the benefit right
25:52
away so it's hard for them to you know
25:56
um kind of help me or give me some
25:59
feedback give me knowledge and all that
26:01
and give me experiences and all that
26:03
it's kind of hard so
26:05
you know you have to it's i i can
26:07
sometimes kind of hear them saying well
26:09
what's in it for me right what's in it
26:11
for me oh i'm gonna help you build some
26:13
knowledge and innovate for the law firm
26:16
what's in it for me i mean why is this
26:18
so important if i have a transaction
26:20
that i have to close into three hours
26:21
right so this is not really important so
26:24
that's kind of like you know it's it's
26:26
not their fault it's that they're busy
26:28
and that what we're doing is not so
26:30
evident and you cannot really touch it
26:32
so it's kind of an abstract thing
26:36
showing abstract things is very hard
26:39
this is this is such an incredible
26:40
conversation and you're in this unique
26:43
position where you're the knowledge
26:45
management officer at a large law firm
26:47
you also um help with promoting of a
26:50
specific tech product that solves a
26:52
fundamental problem yeah so you have
26:54
this like incredibly i would say
26:58
maybe even unique view in the
27:00
marketplace where you can see latin
27:02
american firms progressing the needs of
27:04
the lawyers listening to these different
27:06
pockets of demand and
27:08
identifying the problems um
27:11
it's it's amazing and like honestly i
27:13
did not plan for this session to be
27:15
talking about active listening or
27:18
assistance
27:20
exactly we like i i had thought this was
27:24
going to be a conversation about okay
27:26
what is the right technology if we are
27:29
going back to basics right what is the
27:31
right technology
27:32
for
27:34
us a market that's in a certain state
27:37
where it may not be as advanced as as
27:39
the uk or the us
27:41
but
27:42
this is even more fundamental yeah i
27:44
agree
27:46
listening to people i love it i love it
27:48
yeah
27:49
but you know what i think it's just
27:51
about the right technology and all that
27:53
i really think you need it like it for
27:56
example
27:57
everyone calls me like a hybrid lawyer
27:59
because i know a little bit of law and
28:01
then a little bit of technology i
28:02
actually don't know anything about
28:04
technology
28:06
i have no idea which is why it is so
28:09
important to not feel like oh i'm a
28:11
super well-rounded person a professional
28:13
i have everything and i know what to do
28:15
with technology no
28:17
we have an amazing i.t director at pbu
28:20
and i bet that all other law firms that
28:23
we have been working with they also need
28:25
amazing i.t directors and what happens
28:28
is that you need a little bit of both
28:30
it's not that you need one person that
28:32
knows both right you need an amazing i.t
28:34
director and then you need a lawyer that
28:37
does knowledge management and innovation
28:39
and you need them working together right
28:41
because what happens is that i know what
28:43
we want and what we need
28:45
but i have no idea how to implement any
28:48
of all that maybe there are problems
28:50
with cyber security maybe there are
28:52
problems with you know that there are so
28:55
many challenges that i have no idea
28:57
about but so the great thing to have is
29:00
to count on an amazing i.t director that
29:03
i basically say to her she and she's so
29:05
great you know i i'm like well i have
29:07
this idea that my boss always tells me
29:09
like you think in unicorns all the time
29:12
and you need someone to kind of you know
29:14
take them to it down to earth that's
29:16
basically what happens bring you a pony
29:17
another unicorn exactly exactly
29:20
and i'm always saying like well you know
29:22
what i want to i don't know for example
29:24
automate the due diligence i want to do
29:26
this and that that i want to have i
29:28
don't know like data recognition
29:31
reviews document system whatever
29:33
and then i would say i would i would see
29:35
things in the market and when i like
29:37
something of course i call her and say
29:40
now i need you to see it right
29:42
from the technology part so you can um
29:45
so you can tell me if this is feasible
29:47
if this is logic maybe they're telling
29:49
me
29:50
whatever amount that it is ridiculously
29:52
expensive and we can develop that inside
29:55
or whatever so i do think that yes
29:57
active listening is very important but i
30:00
think that having a great team working
30:02
together is amazing and it's it's been
30:04
amazing for me but i have to do it all
30:07
the time i'm telling you i have no idea
30:10
about anything technology related
30:12
i know i know i know more than most
30:15
attorneys right because i certainly have
30:17
no idea about it yeah i know more than
30:19
most of them but i have no idea i would
30:22
never implement any tool or anything
30:25
without asking first who are i t
30:27
technologies to our i.t director
30:29
oh my gosh i mean look
30:31
the wisdom that you have sprinkled into
30:33
this competition is incredible um and
30:36
and i think um with the ip director
30:39
point uh the catchphrase i've come up in
30:42
my mind just now is everyone is trying
30:44
to hunt for unicorns but a pony is
30:46
pretty good if you can get a pony
30:52
i agree
30:54
so so with that i'm going to say thank
30:56
you so much for
30:58
all those amazing insights um thank you
31:02
for having me it's been a great
31:03
conversation
31:05
i am looking forward to releasing this
31:07
to the world it's going to be a little
31:08
pony that we release into the world
31:13
that's great
