ILTA>ON Starts – Artificial Lawyer Chairs AI + Data Sessions

It’s that time of year again, and as everyone expected, ILTA – the largest legal tech event on the planet – will be happening virtually, rather than in a vast hotel complex.

The team have done a great job translating a physical event into ILTA>ON, a week-long event starting today in the US. As usual there are more sessions than any human could possibly attend, along with many keynotes, opportunities to have online discussions during ‘Water Cooler’ streams, and the chance to socialise through your keyboard during special events that include virtual drinks and even a comedian.

Amid the Zoom blizzard, Artificial Lawyer’s founder will be chairing two sessions on Thursday (see schedule), the first primarily about where we are now with Legal AI doc review tools – their pros and cons, and what people have learnt from using them:

  • Contract Review Evolution: Still Faces Challenges, Most Agree

Thursday – 27-Aug (8:30 PM – 9:15 PM BST (UK) / 3.30PM – 4.15PM EST)

Tech Adoption/Artificial Intelligence track.

‘Come hear your peers from several law firms and corporate legal teams speak about the challenges of implementing a contract review platform. We will discuss the following:

  • Key areas of struggle
  • What was expected vs reality
  • Lack of investments from key stakeholders
  • Barriers that you have to consider (how do you pre-plan)
  • Explore the impact on the financial model
  • Who takes ownership / responsible for the monitoring and maintenance of the solution

As mentioned, Richard Tromans will be chairing, and the main speakers are:

  • Martha Breil, McGuireWoods
  • Ned Gannon, CEO and co-founder, eBrevia
  • Sondra Rebenchuk, Blake, Cassels & Graydon (who also used to work at Kira Systems)’

The second session to look out for has more of a focus on clean data and will consider what this much-used term actually means, and how clean, or messy, data can really impact NLP projects in particular. Again, Artificial Lawyer’s founder will be chairing.

  • Why Your AI Project Will Fail Without Clean Data and What to do About It

Thursday 27-Aug ( 9:45 PM – 10:30 PM BST (UK) / 4.45PM – 5.30PM EST)

Tech Adoption/Artificial Intelligence track

It will cover aspects such as: what do we mean by ‘clean data’, how do we achieve this goal, who is responsible for this work, and are there different approaches depending on the use case?

Speakers include:

  • Bryan Bach, iManage
  • Steve MacLauchlan, UDig
  • Ryan Nichols, ayfie
  • Jacqueline Schafer, ClearBrief.ai

There will also be a chance to carry on some of the conversations from this track at a virtual water cooler meeting – check out the schedule on Thursday and look for Tech Adoption/Artificial Intelligence: 8AM to 5PM CT.

P.S. if you want to get tickets for the whole week or just Thursday, you can find info here.

And, as to other highlights….where does one start? Much really depends on your key interests. For Artificial Lawyer, the main sessions of interest will be:

Monday’s Keynote – Leadership Under Stress: Exploring Project Failure at NASA, because….well….NASA…! And also Kira Systems’ company update.

Wednesday – Data Science – Build an Effective Data Science Model with Alec Lovlein, Fish and Richardson. And also Richard Punt, Legal Strategy & Market Development, Thomson Reuters, talking about his predictions for the future.

Thursday….well, naturally, there seem to be a couple of great sessions on doc review and data. And Haley Altman, Global Director of Business Development and Strategy, Litera, talking about bold moves.

Friday – Legal’s Next Disruptor? Demystifying the Big 4 presented by:
Peter Krakaur, Managing Director of EY Law, MarkRoss, Principal, Deloitte
and Juan Crosby, PWC, NEWLAW Services Leader.

Plus also on Friday, probably the most important session of the whole week, (yes, really).

  • SALI – Case In Point – All about legal product standardisation

‘What started as an idea at ILTACON a few years ago, has now graduated to a formal non-profit dedicated to achieving practical standards for coding matters, time entries, and documents: The SALI Alliance. Hear directly from the founders of the SALI movement as to how it started, where it is today, and practical steps and guidance to implement the SALI standards at your firm.’

4:30 PM – 5:15 PM BST

  • Patrick Dundas, Schulte Roth & Zabel
  • Meg Evans, Goulston & Storrs
  • Kelly, Harbour, Goulston & Storrs

So, there you go. Artificial Lawyer will be dipping in and out across the week and reporting on bits and bobs as they pop up. There will also no doubt be – as there always is at ILTA – a surge of product-related press releases and this site will seek to bring you the most relevant of those.

To conclude, whether a massive physical event usually fitted out for 1,000s of people and now moved over to Zoom will work, is not known yet, but it’s highly likely you will find something of interest across the week.

And finally, rather like the beginning of a new term when you are a student, ILTA marks the end of the summer and a return to the new normal of whatever comes next. So…here we go!