Emily Foges, CEO of Luminance, and Jason Brennan, Luminance's new president of the Americas. Emily Foges, CEO of Luminance, and Jason Brennan, Luminance's new president of the Americas. Courtesy photos.

 

Jason Brennan has his work cut out for him. As Luminance's new president of the Americas, he'll be charged with helping to grow the AI contract review platform's presence from Canada all the way down to the tip of Argentina.

Still, you have to start somewhere. The company moved into its New York City office earlier this week, and CEO Emily Foges foresees other locations opening their doors between the east coast and Luminance's Chicago hub over the next few years.

In some ways, it's the inverse of the challenge Brennan faced during his last few years as the international president of legal services provider Epiq, where he focused on growing the company's profile overseas.

Below, Brennan and Foges talk about the value of law firm investment, partnering with the Big 4 and the differences separating the U.S. legal tech market from abroad.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The law firm Slaughter and May has been an investor in Luminance. Do you expect to see more law firms investing or partnering with legal tech companies in the future?

Emily Foges: It's interesting. I mean, I don't know. I think for law firms this was a way for them [to take] part in the innovation that they could really see was needed. … I know that there are a lot of law firms who have spent a lot of time to get going with their own technology solutions over the last few years… [but law firms] need to be able to move to the next thing when the next thing comes along. It's not necessarily a good idea to be tied down to one solution.

Has that investment from Slaughter provided you with insights on how you can tailor Luminance closer to the needs of a law firm?

EF: I think it's been really great having a law firm's involvement because obviously they are investors in our success, and therefore they can be our harshest critics and our fairest critics. If they find that there's something about the platform that they feel doesn't quite work… they are going to tell us that straight away not just because they are using the platform but because they want it to succeed.

What's the appeal for a company such as Luminance in partnering with the Big 4 right now?

 JB: Our biggest goal right now is just to get more people using our product. And so we believe channels are a great way to do that. The Big 4 have a lot of great relationships out there, clients that trust them. They are getting into new and different areas. They've got locations all over the world. Our mandate is just to get people to use the product ,and however we can facilitate that we think it's a good idea.

How does Luminance see the AI contract market evolving?

 JB: I think it's also how one looks at what this artificial intelligence is doing. We speak to our clients a lot—I'm a former practicing attorney—and we talk at length a lot about the black box approach. We don't believe it's about telling a client everything they need to know. It's an interactive process. We believe we provide technology that's versatile, that allows insights and that allows attorneys to do what they do. There are a lot of attorneys out there still afraid of technology because they think it's going to replace them. We place a lot emphasis on making attorneys better at what they do rather than trying to replace them.

 Is that fear starting to go away?

 EF: I think the fear has almost completely disappeared. We just had a meeting with one of our clients here in Philadelphia today, and they were talking about how the adoption process. We said, 'Do you want any help with convincing your clients that this is the right approach?' And they said that there's absolutely no problem there.

Do you think that's just a function of the time people have had to adjust or become more comfortable with the technology?

 JB: [Yes, but] I also think that the kind of litigation space has helped us along as well. Certainly in the litigation space with the volumes and costs, there were probably greater pressures on the legal community to use technology. It's certainly become very common place in that regard, and I think that rolls over into different practice groups within a firm, different lawyers within in-house departments. I think it's just people are seeing it work in one area—why shouldn't it work in another?

Jason, your last position was more about branching out overseas. Is there a difference to trying to do the opposite in the legal tech market here in America?

JB: There are challenges everywhere, right? I spend a lot of time talking to people, especially in legal, just given the differences between the United States and Europe and Asia. You really need a bifurcated strategy when you do that because there are unique nuances within each market and so those are the challenges, making sure you understand those nuances.