LawNext

Recent Episodes

1. Law Democratized: Renee Knake Jefferson on Her Blueprint for Solving the Justice Crisis

   Jul 20, 2026

   Renee Knake Jefferson, a law professor and author of 'Law Democratized: A Blueprint for Solving the Justice Crisis,' discusses the access to justice gap and the role of legal innovation, education, and technology in closing it. The conversation explores whether progress is being made on access to justice, the potential of AI in democratizing legal knowledge, regulatory reform efforts in states like Arizona and Utah, and the obligations of lawyers, law schools, courts, and the judiciary in advancing access to law for all people.

2. Inside Claude for Legal: Anthropic's Mark Pike on AI's Next Frontier in Law

   Jul 6, 2026

   Mark Pike, Associate General Counsel and Product Lead for Claude for Legal at Anthropic, discusses the May 2024 launch of Claude for Legal, a comprehensive suite of 20+ MCP connectors and 12 practice area plug-ins designed to integrate AI into lawyers' existing workflows. Pike traces his unconventional path from Facebook and Slack into product law at Anthropic, explains the technical architecture behind MCP connectors and plug-ins, and addresses key concerns around hallucinations, data privacy, professional responsibility, and access to justice.

3. Legal Research for Everyone: Inside the CourtListener - Claude Partnership

   Jul 1, 2026

   Mike Lissner, executive director and co-founder of the Free Law Project, and Nathan Dahlberg, the organization's AI developer, discuss Anthropic's partnership with CourtListener and the launch of MCP connectors that integrate the free legal research platform directly into Claude. The conversation covers how this integration democratizes access to legal research for self-represented litigants, the implications for established legal research moats, and the broader questions about the future of legal information delivery in an AI-driven environment.

4. Amy Juers and Valerie Chan on Marketing Legal Tech in the Age of AI Search

   Jun 22, 2026

   Amy Juers (CEO, Edge Marketing) and Valerie Chan (CEO, Platform PR) discuss their strategic partnership and the launch of the Trusted Answer Growth System, a framework designed to help legal tech and related companies adapt to AI-driven search and discovery. The conversation explores how generative AI and large language models are fundamentally changing buyer behavior and discovery processes, moving from traditional Google rankings to LLM-powered answer generation. They explain how companies can optimize visibility across owned, earned, and paid channels to ensure they appear as trusted answers when buyers consult AI tools.

5. New Casepoint CEO Paul Colangelo on AI, GovTech and the Road Ahead

   Jun 9, 2026

   Paul Colangelo, newly appointed CEO of CasePoint, discusses the company's integration following Toma Bravo's acquisition and merger with Opexus 18 months ago. Colangelo brings 25+ years of GovTech experience, including founding and selling Numo, a government automation platform. The conversation covers CasePoint's unified platform across e-discovery, FOIA, and case management, the role of agentic AI in legal workflows, security differentiators (IL5/IL6 certifications), and growth opportunities in state/local government markets.

6. Context Is Everything: CEO Neil Araujo on iManage's AI Strategy

   Jun 2, 2026

   Neil Araujo, co-founder and CEO of iManage, discusses the evolution of AI adoption in the legal industry over the past two years, moving from experimentation to operational scale. He introduces iManage's new Context Fabric—a content, context, and governance layer designed to make AI responses more relevant and trustworthy—and explains the company's MCP server launch, agentic search capabilities in Ask iManage, and how iManage is positioning itself as a knowledge foundation for AI agents in legal workflows.

7. How AI Is Transforming the Way Law Firms Win Business, with Ikaun President Jason Noble

   May 11, 2026

   Jason Noble, President and Chief of Product Strategy at Icon, discusses how AI is transforming the RFP and proposal response process for law firms. Icon is a legal technology platform that helps firms capture experience data, automate proposal assembly, and use AI to draft faster responses to client RFPs. Noble explores how generative AI has fundamentally changed what's possible in proposal automation, Icon's managed service model as a differentiator, and the future of RFP processes where AI agents may eventually communicate with other agents.

8. Legal Marketing Association President Rachel Shields Williams On AI, Innovation, and Why People Still Come First

   Apr 27, 2026

   Rachel Shields Williams, president of the Legal Marketing Association and director of client intelligence at Sidley Austin, discusses how AI is reshaping legal marketing and the profession's role in driving adoption. She explores the changing competitive landscape facing law firms—including AI-native firms, MSOs, and ALSPs—and argues that firms winning over the next decade will prioritize people and relationships over technology and process.

9. Built on a Weekend: Damien Riehl and Mike Bommarito Show What Vibe Coding Can Really Do

   Apr 15, 2026

   Damien Riehl (AI product developer at Cleo) and Mike Bommarito (CEO of 273 Ventures) discuss their work on Folio, an open legal data standard and ontology project under the Aaliyah Institute nonprofit. They demonstrate practical applications of 'vibe coding'—using AI coding tools like Claude Code to rapidly build legal technology solutions—including Folio Explorer (a no-login ontology browser), Folio Enrich (document tagging and enrichment), and fact ontologies. The guests showcase how complex legal tech products traditionally requiring months and large teams can now be built in weekends for minimal cost, with implications for legal research, knowledge management, and the future of legal tech development.

10. Learned Hand's Shlomo Klapper on Why Courts Are the Next Frontier for Legal AI

    Apr 7, 2026

    Shlomo Klapper, CEO and founder of Learned Hand, discusses his AI platform built specifically for courts to manage overwhelming caseloads. The company recently announced a partnership with the Los Angeles Superior Court, the nation's largest trial court, to pilot AI-assisted judicial tools. Klapper explains how Learned Hand functions as a "judicial sous chef"—assisting judges with case organization, research, and drafting rather than replacing judicial decision-making—and addresses concerns about AI in adjudication by distinguishing between epistemic uncertainty (factual analysis) and constitutive decisions (judgment calls) where machines should not make final determinations.