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.

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