High-stakes litigation needs more than basic legal tech

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 2:15

   so we built it. Help me understand what's actually happening at the DOJ. How is this different from the BLT, big legal tech, and why isn't that efficient for what you guys are working on? Sure. So I started my career at a large law firm in New York City, and I got the opportunity of a lifetime to go to the Justice Department in D.C. and do the real police work of untangling illegal mergers and conspiracies and some criminal work, some civil work, and it was wonderful.

2. 2:47

   I actually was a counsel to Jonathan's predecessor in the first Trump administration and then had the opportunity of a lifetime to serve as principal deputy, Jonathan, and then lead the division for the last little bit of the last admin. And I saw over and over again that the economy was becoming more complex we had this massive mandate to police a 30 trillion dollar economy and the golden rule is always that markets have to stay open and vibrant so that we can have all these benefits that we all like um you know the innovators know that the best right because they're often going toe to toe with dominant incumbents. And yet the amazing work that was going on at the Justice Department was often, you know, the result of the unsung heroes and public servants who are giving up time with family, working around the clock to make sure those

3. 3:50

   cases got filed. And to Jonathan's point, there was so much more that we couldn't take on because we were capacity constrained. And what occurred to us after I really credit Jonathan with having this vision for being a force multiplier, doing something beyond, it's like starting a law firm, which we could have done, we could have gone to existing firms and done well, you know, was to really think about the needs of lawyers and to recognize that whether you're at a public enforcer or in-house at a company trying to defend your property rights or commercial rights against an abusive monopoly or a cartel, or if you're at a law firm, right, a litigation boutique, or even some of the largest law firms are representing plaintiffs, you need more, right? Nobody feels like they have enough.

4. 4:44

   And so we got to work with the best lawyers and the best engineers we could find and spent a long time doing the work to build the tech that we needed. Nobody needs a filing cabinet with a personality, right? Like the last generation of software is very constraining for lawyers. And we just have a bigger vision for how lawyers work and how lawyers deliver their work. And that's really exciting. Yeah. You mentioned a really important point. No one foresaw that what you