Photo by Carmen Natale/ALM

Rhys Dipshan: On the first day of the Legalweek 2020, the message was clear: Attorneys are becoming more discerning tech consumers. They're moving beyond the hype, and considering the reality of how novel technology will—and won't—live up to its potential. Take for example, blockchain-powered smart contracts, which many have said would be completely self-executing without the need for legal intermediaries.

But today, attorneys were convinced such a reality could not come to pass: Potential technical issues could plague such contracts, and legal complexities would render them a poor choice of arbitration or dispute.

The same dose of reality has also tampered down on the expectations for AI or algorithmic-based technology. Sure, they can provide unprecedented levels of insight into risk and pricing. But the fact one cannot understand how such tools work, or properly control how they are deployed, limit their usefulness.

If Legalweek has shown anything, it's that technology for technology's sake doesn't work. Every novel innovation has to find its place within pre-existing  legal, regulatory, and business frameworks. If they don't, there's little hope for their survival.

Victoria Hudgins: Walking the vendor floor of Legalweek is always somewhat overwhelming. There are a bunch of vendors with varying logos, sales people pitching their products and various impromptu huddled meetings you have to navigate around while walking the room.

But vendors and legal tech observers say they've noticed a difference in the exhibits. Noticeably, the dominant vendor presence at Legalweek has shifted from e-discovery to contract tools, says Onit CEO Eric Elfman.

Likewise, during a panel discussion about legal tech investment, Fennemore Craig president and managing partner James Goodnow declared: "Contracts are the new e-discovery." He cited the heavier presence of contract tools at Legalweek and rising investment into contract tools as evidence of these solutions' growing popularity.

To be sure, I did spot large booths from e-discovery heavy hitters such as Relativity, DISCO, KLDiscovery and a host of others. However, last year Legaltech News did report multiple contract solutions secured sizable investments and large entities, such as Wolters Kluwer, acquired contract companies.

E-discovery is the "mature" technology in legal, observers have said. Will contract creation, management and analytics meet that maturity in a notoriously change-averse industry? Time will tell.

Frank Ready: Armed with nothing but a laptop and a few fist fulls of granola I made my way into what history —or at least the calendar on my phone— will surely note as the first day of the Legalweek 2020.

When I pause to try and pick a few specific instances out from the blur that has been the last seven hours, I think about the factoid that there are more than 100 countries with privacy laws in this world (a figure that is no doubt eclipsed by the number of Starbucks).

Keeping with the international theme, a digital transformation panel also made a pretty good case that some kind of global consensus will eventually have to be reached on how AI is leveraged across borders. Necessary? Maybe. Likely? You be the judge.

Zach Warren: This afternoon, I moderated the "Demonstrating Agility in the Face of Constant Change" panel of the LegalCIO conference, I went in there expecting to talk about making business cases, calculating ROI, and getting into the nerdy details of just how firms' tech stacks have exploded. Instead I was faced with a different reality: the importance of soft skills.

Mayer Brown's Sam Whitman talked about how communication is the number one determining factor of how successful a tech implementation is going to be. Microsoft's Dominic Crosby revealed that a lot of the legal department's tech initiatives are incubated in a grassroots style; what's important is that the attorneys are curious. Clark Hill's Joan Holman dove into how a lot of her firm's great tech ideas are the result of looking outside of legal and having simple conversations. And Orrick's Wendy Butler Curtis ran through a design thinking workshop and revealed that what's most important is simply getting attorneys to shut up, give up control and get on board.

In the end, law is a profession based on relationships, and even though many of us often live in a tech bubble, it's ultimately the relationships that determine success or failure. For those (like myself at times) who view tech as "removed" or that some lawyers simply don't get it, it's important to remember that technology is nothing without people to use it. The idea of adoption and change management is here to stay.