Brief Encounters: All things AI with Elinor Nikolova and Vera Mayzel

(upbeat music) - Welcome back to another episode of Brief Encounters, the Legal 500 Future Lawyers Podcast, where we attempt to demystify the legal industry for students and career changes. Today we're lucky enough to have not won, but two guests with us. We have B Remainzel and Ellie Nicholover, City Train, qualified lawyers, not to mention law fluensers with really impressive social media for the wins too. Welcome both. - Thank you so much, it's a pleasure to be here. - Yeah. - So let's just start with a bit of an introduction. Can I ask you to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your career journey so far. Let's start with you, Mira. - Yeah, sure. So I actually come from a non-traditional legal background. I began my journey as a photographer studying philosophy and art history at ECO. So kind of very far removed from anything legal. And actually following you on somebody stealing my IPs, stealing my photography portfolio, that's how I discovered an interest and passion in the law because I, while I drafted my own take down notice and it worked, I realized that I had this great power in my hands and I was like, okay, this is great and a worthy pursuit. And it also kind of naturally fit it with my interest in philosophy, but like the practical application of all of these philosophical concepts that I'm studying. So I was like, okay, well, it's great. So I did a legal internship that summer and then realized I loved it when it's practicing. And then the path was kind of very clear. So did the GDL, obviously, legal masters at University of Law. Then I spent a year doing my post-graduate studies in Cambridge and I actually found myself only enough like back in the philosophy department. But I was really interested in AI data ethics and IP and it was kind of naturally developing on what I was writing about in my master's dissertation. And then I got an offer to train at Hogan levels and I spent last few years at Hogan levels whilst I was there. I was a secondent at a bank client of ours. And I think that's been a year doing finance law. So I did, I continued to do real business, cash equities for six months and that I was in our debt couple markets department. And now I am at Thomas and Mortars. That's really interesting. I loved it when the inspiration for your work comes from something that happens to you and your personal life to begin with, I think that's really inspiring. I wonder what you had in heart. So my journey until I also came from a non-traditional background. I studied business and Mandarin at Durham. And as part of that, I sort of always thought I wanted to go into law. I thought it was really interesting. But given that there was the opportunity to do the GDL, LPC route, I kind of wanted to study something else as my undergraduate degree. So I went through my years at Durham and during two of my summers, I did internships in Hong Kong in Shanghai, one in a tech startup and one in a law firm. And I was sort of deliberating between tech and law at the time. But ultimately, I loved my time in the law firm in Shanghai that I interned at and sort of decided to go down that route and followed on the GDL, the LPC. And then I started my training contract with the North and North Schoolbright. And as part of my training, I sort of did pretty much just transactional work. I did general banking and restructuring as my first seat, corporate M&A as my second seat. And then I was the condit also to a bank for six months in Canary War and finished off with IP, IT and data protection. But ultimately qualified in the corporate M&A team doing tech, which is what I've done for the last year. And similarly to Vera, I'm also now at Tom Sineri-Turns. We can talk about more. Yeah, let's talk a bit more about that later. You both mentioned being from non-traditional law backgrounds, which does that mean that no one in your family was in the legal industry maybe. Did you find that that was challenging when you yourselves were trying to get into law? Because we hear a lot about how difficult it can be without any connections to get into the legal industry. Was that something that you found or not so much? That is a very good question. I didn't know any lawyers at the time when I was applying for training contracts and vacation schemes. No, my family was a lawyer. But I think that's not necessarily a hurdle that needs to stop people from pursuing the career. Just because you don't have someone who is close to you that might be a lawyer doesn't mean that you can't find someone or reach out to people. And that's exactly what I did. I sort of reached out to quite a lot of people in LinkedIn. And they were very happy to speak to me. And one of the people was actually in associate at Northern Rhodes. And he kind of really helped me or talked to me through the whole process when I was applying for vacation schemes, which I'm very grateful for. And I think I tried to pay it forward whenever I can. No, LinkedIn is a really good tool. And actually a really useful one. Because it's a more direct link to people, really, than just cold emailing, isn't it? 100% like your more likely to get noticed by reaching out to someone on LinkedIn. And it also shows really good initiative. So we do a lot of career events, sort of good universities. Career fairs, we do apprenticeship fairs as well. So I talk to a lot of university students and school students. And I'm often asked, how do I get this in into law? And LinkedIn is definitely a good place to start, I think. Yeah. That's what I always advise. I get a lot of similar questions. I think people reach out to Instagram. I went to a lot of younger students, especially when I was going to my firm during the milk rounds. And it was asking, oh, how do I get an in? And I think actually attending those in-person events is just so crucial. Because I just remember myself back in the day trying to decide which corporate law firm to apply to. And it just all looks so homogenous on paper whereas in practice, when you go and you actually visit the firm, you talk to the people. You realize, first of all, how much culture matters and how much it's reflected within the people that get hired. And then you honestly give the best outcome if you go in yourself and check it out for yourself and see what the vibe is. And then you can actually align yourself in a very positive way. So absolutely. And that's what law firms are looking for in applications on the end of your stage. They want to see that you understand why they are different to their competitors. Exactly. And as you mentioned, they do look very alike when you're just looking at their websites, especially in your compare, comparing a bunch of city firms. They do look pretty similar. But they do all have their differences. They do all specialise in slightly different things and have different cultures. And so if you've gone into the firm to an event or met them at a fair, then you've got that edge. And you can somehow slip that into your application form that you know that there's something different about that firm and that makes you stand out. I mean, my firm had the best catering. [LAUGHTER] So you didn't put that in your application. I didn't put that in my application for January. This was just something to consider. I was like, you know, if I'm pissed at the next X-Men years, at least two years, trading somewhere, I'd better really enjoy the place where you're used to being. And it's actually-- because the training contract is so-- you have to be so involved. And you kind of have to be involved like beyond the standard curriculum. Like, it's not a night to five job. And you're not doing just work. You're also like, you're meeting clients. You're doing business development. If you're lucky, you have to be invited to a client event, for example. You also kind of want to get involved with provo, general work, culture, get involved in fundraising, doing all sorts of stuff. So you're pretty much looking in that place. And you better enjoy it, at least for the next two years. So come chat is actually super important. I think it's paramount, actually. Yeah. And you both did-- sounds like you both took their traditional educational roots in the law. How was that for you, Ellen, at the educational course side of it, you defined it difficult, how did it compare to your undergraduate degree? It was quite different. Obviously, the GDL is a very expedited version of a law degree. Which I think means that most of the cerebral and philosophical part of the law is cut out, because it tends to focus just on the very core information that you need to know going in and being a trainee at a corporate law firm. Which I thought was OK. I mean, definitely, it was quite-- there was a lot of material. There's a lot of content, specifically for the LPC, because my firm do the accelerated LPC as well. So there was just quite a lot of stuff thrown my way for about six months. But I think it's definitely-- it was definitely doable. I mean, I know that that path has now sort of been retired, and the SQE has replaced it. And I can't really speak much to what that's like, although I understand it's quite intense. So I'm quite grateful to have done the GDL LPC, tried and tested roots. And I think, actually, my cohort was the last cohort to do that. And at the time, I was, so my intake was a March 2023. take and actually Norton Rose for some reason put me in the September intake which method I would have had to do the SQE. So I beg the old employees, can I start in March? So I can just do the LPC route and thankfully they managed to switch me over but I think it was quite lucky to be able to do that. Yeah I think that's quite lucky especially the SQE's in the press a lot recently and it's usually not very good for you. It takes a while to sort of fix that fine. Exactly. It's going to take a while for them to figure out how it works exactly and but I'm sure that the cohorts going through it now are finding their way through and hopefully it will deliver what they said at work which was making the career path more accessible to more people which is long needed. That's a big way of thinking. But you feel like you face any challenges on your journey into law whether in the educational side of there or in the application stages. Yeah I mean it's not a straightforward path at all and I think especially given the amount of students that are applying if you really want to aim for those top firms I think the competition is entirely brutal and you kind of have to almost apply some out of the box. It's thinking to really demonstrate that you do stand out and I think this is a question that always comes up like oh how do I stand out and interviews etc and I think the way you do it is through talking to people through attending events and through upskilling yourself in maybe slightly non-traditional ways or ways that kind of extend beyond the curriculum. So you can go I mean at the end of the day when you're interviewing with a law firm right you're selling yourself as essentially like a product or service person right and you really have to sell yourself it and demonstrate that you can bring something beyond the standard like even like a standard talk to your students. So there's like this delta of excellence that you have to demonstrate and I think for me I was quite lucky because I found myself in a situation where I was doing a lot of writing and pontificating AI and that was kind of it just began to be like a really hot topic I mean it's been around for like decades obviously but it's back in the back then chat to continue just came out and really started the conversation and I kind of used that as my leverage and I kind of said you know like I have this interest and not only I can you know be an excellent trainee because here's all my kind of standard educational background but I can also bring that edge where I can teach others like interesting and kind of important stuff about AI and that's actually what happened and you know I I um it's very recently but I built an agent and I showed it to a partner and he thought that I was some kind of like technical genius or you know obviously in kind of in my world right now that's a very basic use of artificial intelligence but when you're in the niche where you know technology is just being taken up and utilized in that way you can really show that that and demonstrate like a good and competitive edge amongst other people not to generalize but a partner might be in a completely different generation so you have a lot of this of course like something that seems like normal to you would seem quite a and also very impressive to them so don't underestimate those those things that you know that other people might not and even if they are a lot more senior than you would in your own. We've had this conversation on many of our broadcast episodes actually about making sure you go into interviews thinking about what makes you stand out because most people who are going in there will have good grades they'll have a good degree from a reputable university and we've probably got good grades on their GDL, PC, SQE whatever it did they're probably pretty academic as well and maybe plates sports or we're members of society so if there's anything else that you can think of that makes you stand out and you can mention it then your interview is more likely that your interview is going to remember you. Exactly. What about you, are you facing any challenges? Yeah, I mean of course there is it's a long road for sure getting to this point, getting to qualification there's a lot of studying involved that you have to quite you need to persevere on a lot of different occasions specifically when you receive their rejection letters because there will be many of those and that shouldn't be something that discourages people it's just part of the process and everyone goes through it. I personally found the most challenging part actually starting the training contract. I think what's quite difficult is when you've spent all those years studying and studying towards this one thing whether it's you know whether you go through an undergraduate degree and then do the conversion or do a little degree and then do your LPC there's a lot of studying involved and studying require specific skills that you acquire and you know perfect over the course of your childhood and going into higher education but the skills then that you need when you actually start a corporate job are completely different and it is quite a shock to go in on day one and you know be given all this quite practically and legally complex work when you don't even have to access your emails or have to use I manage or record time. Like all of those things took quite a little bit of time for me I'm not going to lie to get used to it and that was some of the work can be really quite challenging on I think the hardest part as well was contextualizing the law in the industry or in the commercial setting in which you are working. So I mean typically lots of law firms are divided by you know practice area or industry or whatever it may be but there's always kind of a commercial niche to the work that you're doing and I think knowing the sort of foundational information about that industry is kind of quite paramount to be able to do the work it's not just about what you've been taught at the GDL and the LPC so you know if you're interested in save telecoms which is what I was doing at my team is an associate to this so much background information about telecoms that I had zero clue about you know fiber optic, like hey you don't know all kinds of towers and how they interconnect and that sort of background reading I didn't even think about when I was applying so if you're interested in industries I would say kind of learn about how the industry works because it's going to be quite important and quite central to the work that you do when you start your career in law firm and that's what your clients and your seniors are going to want to see for you as well like you're thinking about it in a commercial sense and that you're able to put it into context they don't want you reading off because the black letter law that you know or statutes or whatever it is they just want to know how you can help them one of the risks for them. Exactly it's the law by itself isn't enough you need to know the law obviously. And work within the law but it's not enough you need to know how to commercialize it and understand it in a commercial setting and actually very interesting that's one of the things that I think AI is doing very well at the moment tools like Harvey and Ligora are focusing so much on the legal side of things that they're missing the commercial context and they're not providing a tool that is holistically usable to lawyers. Yeah because at the end of the day right like a law firm is a business that needs to generate profits who you need to think about profit margins need to think about where it's hemorrhagic cash it shouldn't be hemorrhagic cash and that's just not something that you consider when you spend like X many years in academia and all you care about was like passing an exam which is oftentimes like a yes no take box exercise so it's really I guess like situation yourself like commercially I think it I guess having a business degree it must have really helped. Going into it yeah. I think having had like previous work experience where I had to sort of where like a business has really helped me at least you from that perspective when I started as a trainee but I think it's normal to like at least when you're starting to feel anywhere from like mildly to like extreme and competitive for like about these the first six months and then it gets better as you learn how to how to use net docs and not like accidentally make like 50 copies of the same document because you go for straight in like like the mouse like way to many times and not talking from experience at all. And to not be put off by that yeah and because a lot of people who do go into low are high achieving and then not maybe used to feeling incompetent that you know that and well that's exactly why you know it's important to talk about these things but I'm very sure it's not it's not something exactly worried about it's just you have to do your time go through the process and then you learn and that's that's just why I'm always doing that. I was so lucky actually because my cohort was really made up of some really incredible people and we would really social would go for lunch together and we would get into these conversations where people would be really like quite candid and quite honest about their feelings and it would be like oh you know I sometimes I feel like I'm not a good trainee and I would be so shocked by that because this it would be it would come from a person that I think is like entirely brilliant and of course all of them have done incredibly well everyone you know qualified and either stayed on or moved on to even better firms. So, yeah, I think just have, like, continue, yeah, having those conversations continually and not trying to, like, put on a briefcase, not making it seem like. It's a perfect time and a training contract super easy and you're gonna breeze through it. And if not, you're not good enough, it's like, no, it's hard and it requires a huge amount of upskilling from everyone. And people are really understanding when you make a mistake. I think that's another thing. And I think 99.99% of mistakes are just, like, super easily fixable as long as you flag them immediately. Don't cover anything up, just like, just, yeah, just own up. Yeah, usually it's not the end of the world. Yeah, it's very rare to make a mistake that would use a client or something. Exactly. And maybe being, like, open and being a little bit vulnerable makes you more willing and wanting to learn more. That would be a sense. Kind of thinking, maybe if you're feeling at the beginning of your training contract, or not even just at the beginning, anytime that you're not quite getting it and you don't think you're that good, well, that makes you want to be better. And so you'll go out of your way to try and understand things a bit more and then eventually you're gonna come out the other side of that all the way up. But other than going into it, thinking, well, I know everything and everything, I say must be, I do must be correct. Yeah, definitely. And then was there an aspect of practicing or in private practice given that you've books left private practice now? And was there a particular thing that surprised you, Vera? Oh, boy. Well, I think all of it was surprising. I don't think I can explain quite understood. Because I mean, it's kind of hard to understand what the real thing is really like unless you experience it firsthand because you always hear sort of worse stories from people either who are practicing or have left or you follow influencers and you kind of see like a certain veneer obviously because I'm probably not gonna put up my phone and record myself like sitting for 16 hours like behind my desk, reviewing an SPA. And super boring. Yeah, it's pretty odd and it was exciting content. And so yeah, I think the, I think just learning the aspect of like coming to work really, really hard every day, you face a challenge every day. That's something that you come to expect. But it's the fact that it's a different challenge every day. And that's kind of, it's both scary and exciting because every day you feel like you're up-skilling. But you do kind of end up being on this emotional roller coaster. The surprising thing for me is, I think through all of that, I still somehow managed to maintain like a fairly good work-life balance. That's good. And it's because I had to become like quite relentless with my time and really pick what matters to me because your time becomes, your free time at least becomes like quite constricted and oftentimes like from Monday to Friday, don't really get a lot of free time. So you really like zero in what matters to you, which is, I mean for me personally, it was like health and maybe focusing on up-skilling myself in other ways, like picking a skill and really spending a couple of hours a day outside of work time, learning that and perfecting that and not doing much else. And being quite strict and maybe not staying up scrolling on TikTok, like for two hours after I come home for work. And knowing that that's for a period of time. Yeah, so I mean, training contractors two years long, so if you think about it like that, you know that it will always be like that. Although of course you're going to continue to be up-skilling and have them manage your time later on in your career, but I think it's really important to look at those early years and realise that that's not forever, but it's worth getting your head down during that time and making sure that you understand everything. And what about you, well, and what are the only things that surprised you? I co-court a few things, but I do agree. Actually, with the point on the work-life balance, I think when people think about corporate law and specifically some departments, like corporate M&A, you kind of expect that that's just a constant slog and you'll always be there until midnight every day and that's the sort of thing. Which, you know, can be a reality if you let it be a reality almost. I think if you keep putting your hand out for work, if you keep flagging that you have capacity, you might very well end up being there every single day until 2am doing the work. But, you know, some people actually love, it's great. And they want to be in the office and be doing lots of work and they thrive off of that. But actually, in reality, I mean, more from half capacity managers, and there are certain levels of capacity, of utilization percentages that everyone has and you really shouldn't be over 100% utilised. But with corporate, for example, there are times when you have a big transaction, you might have two weeks where you have midnight, 2am, 3am finishes, maybe even an all-nighter, which is quite rare. It hasn't really happened to me, but you might end up in that position. But then you have a couple of weeks where it's really quiet and you can leave at 5 almost because there's no massive transaction. And what I found surprising was that that really depends on the department and the firm. So, for example, Norton Rose was and is very strong in banking and advising financial institutions. So the banking teams were consistently busy. My banking see was every day I would leave around 10, 11, because there was just so much work. Whereas in corporate, it fluctuated really quite a lot. If there was a big deal, it was a massive push. And then, a few weeks after that, I would be able to leave at 5, 6, go for dinner, go to the gym. So it's quite nice to be able to see that sort of difference between departments. And then that kind of, obviously, the work should be the most important thing for you. But it can really dictate the life you have in law and a lawyer in corporate versus a lawyer in banking versus a lawyer in IP had very different lives. So I found that quite surprising because you sort of generalise it across the firm almost before you start. That's interesting. And you have to build that confidence, especially as a junior lawyer or a training to when you are quiet, as you said. For example, in a corporate seat, to take advantage of that quiet time. Definitely, yeah. You are encouraged to do so. I'm not sort of worried that you should be doing more or doing something else, because you do need that rest to recharge before you go into the next thing. Like, do you think that's pretty difficult for some trainees? It's very difficult, because you feel bad. So you sit there until doing nothing, basically, until a very late time. And sometimes you just need an associate to come and say, "Come on, come on, please go home, why are you here?" Well, it's good to hear that you do get your seniors telling you to go home when time's right and that is a good way of maintaining some sort of what balance even in six firms. And Tosie, I would tell my trainees, if I had nothing else to let me, please go home. This is your task from, like, go home and just enjoy your life. There's nothing else to do. So shall we move on now to talk a bit about AI and law and some of the work that you've both moved into doing? As junior lawyers who both fairly recently qualified, did you encounter AI during your training contracts at all? And if so, how did it impact? I think we were actually witnessed the most exciting moment when it comes to AI adoption in legal industry, because half of our training, especially legal professional career, was without AI. And then at some point it got rolled out for a wide, and it was revolutionary. And it's actually witnessed that moment and see how much of a change that was and how much of a change it made to my personal workflows and what it allowed me to do and how it allowed me to do my work faster and better, was massive for me, but then witnessing others. And then actually it was really interesting to see who were the early adopters, all AI, and witnessing different people's attitudes to it. And some people being like, oh no, we gave you a really bad outcome. And this is useless, give me a key device. And I'm not going to allow you to use it anymore, kind of wash their hands. And you don't have to name any names, but was this what you used in specific legal AI technology, or was it more of a general? It was more of a general problem. But the firm was piloting it. And it was exciting. What about you, Emma? So I think we started using Cobra pilot and Harvey last summer. So that was just when I had qualified. And I think as Darrym mentioned, it's very easy. And I saw it with a lot of senior associates sort of trying to use Harvey, or trying to use co-pilot, without necessarily understanding how to prompt it properly. And as a result, that would give them sort of not very good output. And they would say, this is actually awful. I'll just do it myself. It's not bringing any value. It's not making it more efficient. What I found was that you had to sort of sit with it and play around and learn how to prompt the system properly in order for it to give you the output that you need and want. And on most occasions, I mean, at the very beginning at least, I would put in a document, for example, and say create an issues list. In the output, it wouldn't be very good, but I'd have to go through, well, the AI produced and then do the analysis myself, which admittedly took a little bit longer than just not using AI. But in due course, I think once you learn where the AI lacks and how you can mitigate that through your prompting and through your original instructions, you do end up getting better. It gets easier and the results that you get are way more reliable. So it was quite revolutionary. What I found really great about it was, as I mentioned previously, the commercialization aspect. So I think when you were an associate, you were sort of expected to kind of have all of that background understanding of the industry, which you operate. And a lot of the time I would read these documents in contracts and I'd have no idea about the practical implications of what they were saying in the real world of house. The Italians being built in Kenya. So very bad. And AI was a fantastic idea. I would sort of put the context in and it would tell me exactly what that meant. It would draw me a diagram of what it looks like and how these things are typically done in the industry. That was co-pilot. But that was not a legal use of the AI. Whereas when I used Harvey, as mentioned, it was very much tailored to legal outputs because it was fine to know legal data. So a lot of the time what I found was that it didn't take that commercial context into account so well. And the output therefore wouldn't be something that a top-loored, a top-loaf from would be producing. Which is actually one of the things that, where we are right now at Thompson Royce's, the originally the company was called SafeSign, that Thompson Royce was acquired. And what's remarkable about the work they do is the fact that not only is it the first-ever LLM or series of LLM's, trained specifically and built specifically for a law. But done in such a way that it's actually usable to lawyers from a commercial standpoint as well and from a transactional perspective. And it's actually, it's so important for law firms to actually stay aware of these new models coming out, especially something like what SafeSign's developing. Because when you look across all of these legal tools that you have to look worse in the hard base of the world, they're multi-model and they're based on models that are already out there. And they can perform across specific benchmarks, but they're only as good as the latest model. Whereas if you're, and they sit on top of it, they're rappers on top of the models that already exist. If you create a model that scores significantly higher on the benchmarks that are important and necessary for lawyers, you just get a significantly better product at the end of it. So let's say if your thesis like ChatGPT model is going to be writing at a level of like an undergraduate, like a good undergraduate, you're now like with the model that we're working on, which is why it's so exciting. We're now developing like writing skills that are akin to that of like, let's say a master's student or somebody who's like a lot more skillful. And there's a lot of these like interesting benchmarks that we're developing against that will allow for creation of just a significantly and a profoundly better product for the lawyer, which is why it's so exciting. That's really exciting. I hadn't thought about that commercialization point before, two pointed out. Obviously that's half your work is figuring out the context that the work you're doing is in. So to have that sort of been incorporated into it and then also things like writing skills is really going to be very exciting for the thing. But think about right now and an average lawyer that's going to be using like a general AI model that's rolled out across the firm is going to probably spend a lot of their very expensive and very valuable time probably amending the work that's done by the AI. For example, at least to make it sound better and to make it sound not like AI, because it tends to spit out something that sounds very like generation has that kind of like robotic flair to it. Creating something that comes out with a really great and usable outcome. It just adds like that delta of excellence. Of course. Time will offer it should be a one-time savings term. 100%. And as junior lawyers, what kind of things could you use AI for? Could you give me an example? Was it more research based or was it more like putting a draft into it and that's a thing for a critique? Yeah, everything. Yeah, I was going to say like delta, delta. It's a little bit near longer. But it's really not one of the interior of the computer. Yeah, it has to do with day-to-day pieces. The AI here. Well, we'll go on to discuss this in a second. Yes. So everything and anything. Okay, cool. I had a part from literally physically bringing coffee and coffee. Taking care of their clients and taking out keys for a moment. No, so maybe the role of the trainee will go back to getting coffee for partners and taking a dry cleaning. I think we're down. There's a real echo that I hear with AI for law firms. And the technology for law firms where they're actually not taking on as many juniors because there's just no need. Because a junior is really expensive. And there are also kind of like a liability. Yes, you have to train them. And for a lot of their times, they're pretty useless. So a couple of seniors who are power users of top tier AI tools are really going to be like significant better for like the profit largest for the law firms. Yeah, so it's that being said, I think we're at a very interesting point where seniors don't yet totally know how to use these tools and this technology. So if you manage to get a junior coming in who does know how to use the technology, that's a big value ad for a team. And that's a big value ad in the eyes of a partner. And I sort of experienced that because my partner would sort of ask me to always have a first go at something using Harvey and you know, have calls with clients who are interested in you know legal tech and AI. And so explain that to them and how we use it. And increasingly so every pitch at least in the last year that I've been part of any RFP, the clients have always asked what legal tech to use because your competitors are using AI and therefore able to give us some better quotes for the work. So why are we paying 100 hours of a junior's time when the AI can do it another, you know, in a day or a couple of hours or maybe even a couple of minutes. You know, it's a competitive advantage. It's a point that is becoming really important, which is exactly why all these firms are throwing a lot into AI and legal tech. But ultimately throwing anything at the like 30 loads of money at it isn't enough because you also need to understand what you are buying. There are loads of tools out there but you have a duty to your clients to be using the best one. And if your clients using chat, you're using chat, you're using chat, you're using chat, you're using it as well. Essentially in a rack reform. So you know, you need to be able to show that you are at the top of the industry at the forefront of the technological innovation legal tech. And it's, I think it's more as duty of really understanding that. Going back to what you said about junior lawyers potentially being very valuable if they can use the technology really well, is that the advice given that there is so much chat at the moment about AI replacing jobs, especially at the junior level, as an aspiring solicitor now, or not just solicitor, barrage those two any lawyer, is one of the best things you can do to be really good at using legal technology. I think you definitely need to be able to understand this. I think not just using you like really developing your systems, thinking, really developing taste, like the business mindset and understand how to like when to give what work to the AI and when to take on work for self, like being able to make that judgment call, that's what becomes really, really valuable. And then also obviously being commercially aware of the latest developments in like the legal tech, because that's when you can like encourage your firm to like allocate finances correctly and make sure that you are deploying like the best legal technology and not just, you know, not just some wrapper or something that's kind of fancy and has created a lot of, kind of a lot of brand new, brand new, and but actually something that's going to be really useful, really foundational. Okay. And because most of our audience are students, they are university students, mostly some sort of career changes, but mostly that and we've got a growing school leader audience as well because we cover apprenticeships. Do you have any advice to them? Yeah, well, we're actually working up with thinking of developing a course aimed at junior students. So do follow us and do you keep an eye out for this space? We think that, yeah. It's definitely very fast moving. It's one of those things where there isn't really much resource for junior lawyers or aspiring junior lawyers at the moment. It's very difficult. difficult for people to know exactly what they have to know. It's kind of this, what do they call it, like unconscious stupidity. (laughing) That's how it was presented to me on the first day of my training contract. - It's what you don't want to do exactly. - Yeah, and it's really fast moving. So I appreciate it's quite challenging. Obviously we're also trying to keep up with all of its developments and understand exactly how all of this fits together and how tech can be useful to lawyers or as useful as possible anyway. And yeah, I think right now, as legal engineers, we occupy a very, very niche space where we understand the perspective of the commercial law firms and what they need. And as a lawyer in that firm, what you need and what skills are necessary to bring in. And then from people who are also working on developing a foundational or just language, we also understand the technical side of it. So we try to keep up with it, 'cause this is now part of our job. We try to keep up with the technology. It's something that we want to share with the rest of the people as well. - You're a very valuable resource at the moment. - Yes, my advice. - I would say so. And in your experience of working at law firms, were lawyers skeptical or optimistic about AI, was there a mixture of the two, depending on maybe senior, or a personality type? - I think it was a mixture. I think in general, a lot of the juniors were quite happy to use it. One time, I heard an associate say, like, "Cut me an ugly co-pilot." And I thought it was so funny. (laughing) Honestly, it's only as good as the user. So. - Yeah. I would say the same. I think it varied. I would say, it's a personality thing as well, I think. Because I'd say senior associates who are pretty much the same level one of them using it, religiously, the other one being completely thinking, "This is not useful, this is not." But to be honest, I think it's a little bit of matter. - It's, you just can't really afford to be skeptical to be honest. You can be skeptical, but ultimately, it's one of those things where, even if you don't truly believe in it, you should still know how to use it in case, you're ever asked, or it's just one of those skills where, - The stony didn't finish because we were run out of stone. (laughing) There's a fundamental change and the zeitgeist is shifting. And even if you don't change the way you use that technology, because you are personally interested in it, you're going to have to adopt it because the client is going to apply a lot of coercion pressure. - If you don't keep up, you're going to mess out eventually, and that law firms out of the hole, but just not going to be competitive anymore if they don't sort of go in fully. - What's the tension? - Eventually. And we're still at the very beginning of the AI journey. It's only going to get better. So then it's going to be a massive gap between not using any AI to using something like, I don't know, a GI suicide. (laughing) - Yeah, exactly. - Something really advanced. And what do you consider the most exciting development in legal AI right now? Appreciate we have touched on aspects of this question during the conversation, but it's very, that stands out too. - I mean, obviously, what were you doing with that? - I think we're both quite exciting. - We both quit our jobs to do it. - Yeah, it must be, it must be exciting. - We really believe in that. - Yeah, I think we're both, yeah, it's so exciting when we're found out about it. Because it really is the future. I kind of knew of other really interesting legal tech that's end development, 'cause actually we're now, in that world, we're talking to people for building stuff. I can really see a universe where there's really exciting legal tech that, for example, allows lawyers to focus more on, for example, reducing their non-villable time. - Yeah. - And that's actually going to be quite revolutionary, 'cause if you think about it, currently on the market, a lot of illegal tech is focused on optimizing your billable time workflows, whereas law firms could really commercially benefit from cutting lawyer time spent on non-villable, especially like research knowledge, lawyer type workflows. And we're talking millions of dollars saved a year. So I think that's going to be a really, really exciting thing. And the law firms that are going to adopt that are really going to come out of itself. - Exactly. Including sort of utilizing AI in very niche ways for niche problems that isn't just kind of as very mentioned across the board, general transactional assistance. I think what tools right now are trying to do, which is fair enough, because it's very early on, is provide one tool that tries to do it all, tries to do everything. Jack of all trades, master of month, type of situation, when you don't focus on something, but and really truly solve a problem that is a problem for lawyers like getting rid of a bill this non-villable time, that is costing lawyers and firms quite a lot of money every year to be done in the background. Yeah, so I think those kinds of things will be coming out more and more in the next few years. And it's going to be quite a puddle of stuff and like for law firms to have to go through and when all these tools start coming out and they have to select which ones are the right ones, but I think what's in other problems. Yeah, I have to probably discern. And look behind the curtain, who built it? Is it built by a lawyer? Or is it built by someone who doesn't even understand the industry? And that's how you know that they have created something which is actually a problem understood and felt by lawyers, whether it's in private practice or in-house or barristers. And well, you can probably trust them. And they've created something that's useful. Also just having a sort of an understanding of what problem is it solving? Is it really a problem? Is it felt by us? Is it a risk? How much risk is it removing? Because I think one of the issues though is that lawyers and law firms, so being a lawyer requires specific skills. And law firms don't necessarily create an environment where people cultivate the skills needed to be an entrepreneur. So whilst a lot of lawyers can see the problem and feel the problem on a day to day basis, they may not necessarily be to fix it. So that's very something very interesting that, you know, I think I've noticed. I think they really want to focus on legal tech that's going to translate commercially. Because one of the things that we do in our spare time for fun, which is kind of like how nerdy we are, and the foundation of our friendship. I don't think we look as nerdy as we actually are. We go through Reddit a lot. We read about complaints from users of legal tech. And I think a lot of the complaints are sort of people not really understand or not really seeing the commercial value add and how we've linked our ethos leads into the work that they do. And so I think when it comes to-- because obviously law firms have limited budgets, when it comes to budget allocation for legal tech, I think law firms really want to zero and focus on the commercial like value add that it comes from a particular legal software. So it really has to be that much better and not just some kind of wrapper-- support thing wrapper. I mean, people joke about Reddit, but it has genuinely become a research. Or really, it's been a lot. I love it too for different subjects. So watch this space for Thompson Reuters is a large language model. So it's good. Am I right in thinking it's being released this summer? Soon. OK. That's the same thing. It's a success. I'm getting there. Is there anything else you'd like to add or talk about? Let's know. Just-- I think it's-- we're living through one of the most exciting times. And I think it can seem very daunting, especially if you are at a junior level. But I encourage everyone to see it as an opportunity. And I actually have fun with it. See-- you know, set yourself some challenges and domes artificially bar yourself from using technology and sophisticated way. So I encourage everyone to download Claude and see whether you can play with co-work or play with Claude. Build yourself something, learn how to build an agent. There's lots of really excellent free courses out there, anthropic and is released in incredible free courses on how to use Claude. And you can actually-- like, the information's out there. You can become a really sophisticated user. There's excellent ways of using AI beyond just using it as like a chatbot. Do use it and see how much fun you can have with it. Because it's actually really great. If it was up to me, I wouldn't leave my house. That's, unfortunately, I ran out of tokens periodically, I have to do other things. instead of just playing with the Claude Altay. Yeah, I would probably say, I mean, I totally agree with that. And I think I get caught a lot of questions, especially since announcing leaving private practice. Whether what we are doing is more private practice or more in-house because those tend to be sort of the two only routes that people take when they are in law. And a lot of students and a lot of graduates, I'm sure, kind of look at the path and think, okay, well, if you want to just quickly start with private practice, maybe at some point you move on to in-house, maybe you go back to private. And it's those very, you know, try to test routes that everyone looks at and tries to follow. And I would obviously say and encourage people to not put themselves in that box. And just because that's what every, that's what typically lawyers do, doesn't mean that's all there is to do. I mean, there's, you are very much encouraged and allowed to develop your skills and expertise in other areas and to kind of most fork out of those paths, which is something that we've done. It may seem quite scary and to be honest, when we first kind of considered it, got the job on for us, though, I have no idea what this job is. Because it's just not a job that existed a year ago, two years ago. That's it. It's very difficult to explain. And up until we actually started, I wasn't even quite sure what the day-to-day would look like. But it's so exciting. But it's really interesting. It's like a law, but also with the entrepreneurial startup type. And like the philosophy that ethics parts a bit. There's just so much. You really get to utilize like a whole suite of skills that you wouldn't otherwise. For example, just working in private practice. Yeah. So obviously all of those, the experience is really valuable. And I would say I'm very grateful to have done the path that I did, including doing my training contract and qualifying. But it came to the point where I thought, OK, I could follow the traditional route or I could take a bit of a risk to see where this leads. And you'll still qualify to the lawyer anyway. You still have a way to go back and do something more traditional. Exactly. Exactly. And you're gaining a lot of knowledge and skills of somebody else. And as a core of something, because ultimately, I think whilst you can use the tools and get really good at them, being able to see under the hood of how exactly the technology is created is really meaningful and valuable. And it's just something that like you mean. It's an exciting time. Yeah. It's a very exciting time. And I'll show my age here. But if I can make a bit of a crude comparison, I grew up, I mean the internet wasn't really a big thing until I was about, say, 11 and it kind of got better and better from there. So I've kind of seen both sides of that. And that's been life changing. And at the time, of course, there were people that sort of doubted that as well. So I think you know, you're advised to be open minded and to embrace all this new technology and development is bang on. Yeah. Absolutely. And you see sort of the law firms are already kind of trying to occupy that space as well to create these kinds of rules. I think they just create the concept of an AI lawyer. Yeah. Some other firms are kind of doing that internally as well where they want to do transformational lawyers who spend some time working just purely on the legal tech alongside their usual job. So it seems to be like a new and up incoming role. And but even if it wasn't, I'd still very much encourage people to branch out and follow, follow use what they learned in law and the experience and the knowledge. And you can always mix it with something that you're passionate about or interested about. There's so many different ways that you can practice the law. It's not just being in a big firm or being in an health team. I think before the way that you get a job is there would be a posting for a very particular job with a particular set of like KPIs and you had to apply to it and today you had to like fit the criteria. Now the paradigm is shifting completely. There's a lot of like these hyper growth companies or startups that would have like a general application. And you would apply and tell them about who you are. And they're actually a lot more likely to shape a role for somebody who's exceptional and can bring in something interesting rather than you know us as someone based on some kind of like set list. And I think it's actually a really excellent time to be a woman because women used to like, are really used to like self-excluding if we don't you know fit the 10 parameters that are listed. And I think like right now we're really entering this era of creativity and you know really like embracing who you are, embracing your skills no matter how it needs you kind of unusual they are if you're enjoying sitting and reading A.I. papers all day. And I think that's a very passionate way that could be an excellent job for you out there that will you know, here you have some weird you'll have a great time doing it. It's really refreshing to hear it talked about in that way when you know so many people are saying how it's going to, that some jobs are going to disappear this and the other actually it's also creating so many opportunities. We don't know the more we'll get at all but it's extremely exciting. And just to finish off where can we find you both on social media? Yeah, at Vera.raisal on Instagram. Cool. I'm Ellie Stephanie, underscore on Instagram and then just Ellie Stephanie on TikTok. Great. Thank you so much for joining us today. I love that conversation. I've learnt so much and I'm sure I would be able to. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. It was a pleasure. It was a pleasure.