Ed Andrew talks to Chrissie Lightfoot author, international keynote speaker, law tech entrepreneur and futurist. As founder of Entrepreneur Lawyer Chrissie is best known for her books the Naked Lawyer and Tomorrow's Naked Lawyer and her latest venture Robot Lawyer LISA. She talks about her journey as an entrepreneur how she became a lawyer to better help her business clients, the future of law and the legal profession, the ideas behind her books, Ai and machine learning and where she is taking LISA.  She is highly entertaining candid and goes into great detail about her mission to transform access to legal services for business and the general public.

 

Ed talks to her just before she has launched her latest LISA products with retail and consumer leases, and after she partnered with Do Not Pay in the US.

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The episode is just over 90 minutes so be prepared for a long listen. 

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• An entrepreneur first lawyer second, she got into law to make a difference - if she became a lawyer she could help entrepreneurs and deliver legal services in an improved more efficient way.

 

• She would be abetter business person if she understood how legal process worked, and to know what questions should be asked otherwise you don't get the right information from lawyers

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• She wanted to develop a portfolio of commercial skills including law

 

• Entrepreneurs are right brain, lawyer are in the more logic based left brain brain logic - become more fully rounded when practice in business and law.

 

• It requires a paradigm shift from using left brain to right brain, mindset shift, requires moving outside your comfort zone and taking risks

 

• Lawyers need be in the shoes of the customers and clients they are going to serve - learning how do I get those skills, they need to get their feet wet, live and work in that environment, go and work in business not law firms, understand who your clients are and what they think and behave

 

• Empathy which is essential  

 

• LISA is about how the public and consumers want to interact with lawyers, consumers will choose you to top up the tech services with human lawyers and lawyers need to be sensitive to them

 

• There are far more options now for lawyers after law school such as law tech, fin tech, prop tech.

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• Tech companies welcome law students who have an understanding of what the public want.

 

• Chrissie wrote the Naked Lawyer to help lawyers future proof their profession, and learn more business skills, customer service and emotional intelligence. In retrospect Tomorrow's Naked Lawyer should come first.

 

• Machines will be better at understanding many issues faster and more efficiently than humans, they will come up the vertical into contract management analytics and interpretation.

 

• Lawyers should really focus on the last 5% at the top end which requires a gifted experienced human lawyer,  humans are better high end intelligence, machines will do 90% of the grunt work.

 

• Student and young lawyers should be getting into the business side, interning with clients, seeing the relevance of law to the business and looking at what the business is trying to achieve

 

• A young person does not need to wait years before they actually get to see what lawyers and business do - the great lawyers ask the right questions and students need to see that in action.

 

• Tomorrow's Naked Lawyer is about is about machines and humans coming together to move on in society and to co exist.

 

• LISA was to empower and enable the public ie business and people to make their own documents and contracts and open access to legal services  -90% of the UK population do not engage lawyers doe to cost, convenience and time.

 

• LISA is unique as it is guided by 30 years of human lawyer experience who knows the risks and pressure points of contract negotiation especially NDA's, they understand the nuances, LISA is collaborative, works with all parties and is unbiased.

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• PWC said by 2025 20% of UK population will be self employed, as we move to a gig economy all of these people will need help with how to set up their business docs and access to legal services but at a lower and accessible price point, suppliers, investors, customers etc product for SME market. 

 

• LISA platform is one portal where consumers can find access to all technology driven retail legal services such as Billy Bot, Clerks Room, Premonition, Do Not pay

 

• AI still requires human input and is still nascent and its functionality and usability depends on the platform it is built upon - LISA is built upon Neota Logic and Do Not Pay on IBM Watson. ​

 

• What does coding actually mean and do we need to code - no we just need to understand how systems work.

 

• Great coders will become system architects but poor coders will at least still understand the process and what it can do.

 

• 1:10:52 answers to the question Julian posed on linkedin about how Ai helps business - access to legal services and legal knowledge much faster more efficient and without always needing the human lawyer, solves problems for businesses which otherwise are slow inefficient and expensive 

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