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In its second year, February's Association of Legal Technologists (ALT) Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., had two main goals: bringing design thinking to law, and promoting collaboration between different silos of law that might not necessarily connect otherwise. Now, ALT is hoping to expand the second of those ideas throughout the year, beginning a series of webinars with the hopes of beginning a conversation and creating a community.

Dubbed ALT Webinars, the series will look to bring together speakers from a variety of backgrounds—perhaps some outside of legal technology—with the hopes to provide wide-ranging conversations among stakeholders with different backgrounds for cross-fertilization, according to Anna McGrane, COO of PacerPro and an organizer of ALT's Young Leaders Committee.

The first ALT Webinar is titled “Beyond the Hype: Understanding Technology Adoption in BigLaw” and will take place on May 3. The speakers include a mixture of law firm and legal technologist panelists, with Richard Hoberman, AI practice consultant at Kira Systems; Vishal Agnihotri, chief knowledge officer at Hinshaw & Culbertson; Monet Fauntleroy, senior manager, practice innovation at White & Case; and McGrane herself. Bob Ambrogi, who runs LawSites Blog, will moderate.

This mix of different perspectives was purposefully done, and will be a focus on the webinars moving forward according to McGrane. “By bringing together experts with differing backgrounds, we're hoping to provoke constructive, critical dialogue re: the people and process elements of technology adoption and innovation in legal,” she explained.

Plus, added David Umlah, ALT's head of business development, it doesn't hurt if it starts a conversation. He noted, “We hope people come away more knowledgeable with an appreciation for new perspectives—not necessarily conventional staid opinions.”

In keeping with those differing backgrounds, McGrane noted that not only are the four speakers coming from different companies or firms, but from different perspectives as well. “Vishal has Big 4 and Fortune 500 experience and is now leading knowledge and collaboration initiatives at Hinshaw Culbertson. Monet is a former practicing lawyer with startup and established vendor experience who, among other things, helps legaltech companies navigate their relationship with a large law firm. Richard and I are both former big law lawyers now at vendors; I head up the enterprise implementation of a workflow and experience capture tool and he trains lawyers to use an AI tool.”

Indeed, the concept of breaking down silos is often a conversation in legal technology circles, but may be easier said than done. From McGrane's view, actually accomplishing this goal is a matter of tackling communication problems first.

“If a library manager has never spoken to their [managing attorney's office], has never met their paralegal manager, who doesn't know what data [business development] needs for RFPs, and the attorneys are all unapproachable, the firm is going to move slowly—and to be frank, not that well, relative to its peers,” she explained. “If, on the other hand, the managers and timekeepers have a close working relationship and all the teams are aligned with the firm's strategic vision, roll-out is a breeze.”

Facilitating those working relationships will be a priority in future webinars as well. The topics for those have not yet been announced, but will include speakers such as Joe Borstein (global director, Pangea3), Felicity Conrad (CEO, Paladin), Chad Main (host, Technically Legal), Andrea Markstrom (CIO, Blank Rome), Basha Rubin (CEO, Priori), James Sherer (partner, BakerHostetler), and Jae Um (director of pricing strategy, Baker McKenzie).