Andy Wilson, CEO of Logikcull being interviewed by Monica Bay of the University of Florida, at the UFL 3rd Annual eDiscovery Conference. Monica speaks with Andy about what law students should know about discovery and how new technologies like Logikcull are making it a much more efficient and interesting process.
Technology is not only making eDiscovery more efficient, it makes it much more interesting for young lawyers--new technologies enable lawyers get at the truth--quickly.
And for freshly minted attorneys eDiscovery, and knowledge of eDiscovery technology, is proving helpful in getting a job.
AND if you are teaching law somewhere, remember that Logikcull is free for teaching purposes.
Interview transcript below:
Andy: I started in 2004 as a vendor, like a service provider and then during the recession, for better or for worse, we were forced to change direction of the company and turn into a software company. We spent about four years building the product. We wanted to build something that was easy to use and somewhat enjoyable compared to what was existing in the market.
Monica: In the course of your job, I assume you are working with a lot of lawyers.
Andy: Yes.
Monica: And one of the issues we are addressing at the conference is to help new law students understand more about what's involved with e-discovery and there's a lot of myths out there that you are a loser if you end up doing e-discovery. I put myself through law school doing discovery before there was and E in front of it and doing a lot of contract work. So I know what they are talking about.
Andy: Right.
Monica: But that's not true anymore.
Andy: No. No.
Monica: Tell us how it's not and what you are doing to help students understand a little bit more about it.
Andy: Yeah, a lot. We give our software away for free to get people to understand what e-discovery is. And it's not this boring job. It's actually a pretty exciting opportunity because there is a huge supply and demand problem. Right?
Monica: Yes.
Andy: So the younger attorneys especially that are growing up on technology, if they are truly using that type of technology, they can use that to their advantage to learn about how to use these more modern tools and it's not going to be a boring job. In the past, it was a boring job because it's just a really inefficient process.
Monica: Yes.
Andy: That's when you just throw bodies at it. That's kind of the thinking. More warm bodies is going to make things go better but technology is starting to come in where you don't need this massive set of people and that's why people that are more technically enabled are going to be incredibly valuable in the next couple years. I mean forever, because e-discovery isn't a boring thing. It's actually a better way of getting at the truth.
Monica: It looks to me, from what I am seeing in the industry, that people who come through these courses, I know we are doing it at the University of Florida. We are also doing it at Cardozo. The community is really starting to set these up. In a market right now where it's very hard for brand new lawyers to get jobs and they have large debts, it's almost as if you know these skill sets, you can go to the front of the line.
Andy: Oh yeah.
Monica: We don't have a whole lot of more time but tell us about how your company does internships with law students and how that has worked out.
Andy: We have an internship program every summer and it's primarily software engineers. We are a software company but, occasionally we'll have lawyers come in that are technically focused that want to learn. It's actually how we originally hired who is now our general counsel. He was a lawyer and we were like, "Yeah, sorry. We don't look for lawyers." But he was very aggressive and wanted to learn the technology and eventually he came on and we hired him full time. We have an intern program. It's not for the faint of heart because we actually have people write code even if you don't know how to write code.
Monica: Wow.
Andy: Because that's the best way of learning how these things really work and contribute to the lawyer mind of design is key.
Monica: Now if you had one piece of advice to a brand new law student, what would it be?
Andy: I would focus on e-discovery until I am blue in the face. It's just simple supply and demand. It's just basic economics. There is hardly any supply for very technically competent e-discovery attorneys. You can come out of law school and if you learn some of these, even some of the basic skills, you can come out like a magician.
Monica: I think that is a great way to stop. You can't beat that. Andy Wilson, thank you so much. I am Monica Bay and thank you for watching.