Thank you so much for subscribing to my Substack and helping it get off the ground! I can’t believe there are nearly 900 of you reading my long-winded, rambling stories. Many of you are GCs, law firm partners & associates, and lawyers working in non-profit, government, or tech. But many of you aren’t even in the legal industry. Which is super cool!
Anyways, I wanted to try something different today by creating this thread to let you all meet each other. So if you’d like: Please introduce yourself in a comment below! Tell us what you do, and who you’re hoping to meet! Feel free to include LinkedIn or Twitter links so you can connect with each other.
I'll go first. I'm Alex Su and I'm a lawyer who transitioned to legal tech. I've been in the space for 6 years, mostly doing sales and business development. In 2021, I made another pivot by taking a community role at Ironclad. It's been a super fun ride, and I've met so many great people in the past year through social media & Zoom. A few months ago I started this newsletter to give myself space to share long form stories from lawyers who have inspired me, and from my own career as well. I'd love to learn more about you all because it helps me understand what type of content would be interesting to you. Thanks everyone!
P.S. I'm very active on social media. Here are some links to my other accounts if you haven't seen them before:
Ok, I'll go second! I'm Jason Gerson, a lawyer who's building privacy-by-design platforms at TerraTrue to help lawyers issue-spot privacy issues before developers start coding. I've honestly loved being able to spend all day, every day helping develop tools to help privacy pros gain trust on their teams. It'd be awesome if I could learn from all of you about what kinds of challenges you're all facing in fostering a privacy-first culture on your teams. Feel free to give me a holler over at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-gerson-0a595933/ or https://twitter.com/JasonGerson
Hi everyone, I'm Holger Zscheyge, lawyer-adjacent (I publish books and organize events for them) and always ready to push lawyers into the arms of technology (at my side gig as president of the European Legal Technology Association). Too old for Tik Tok and too ugly for Insta, but you can connect with me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/zscheyge/) ;).
Hey y’all! I’m Adil. An associate attorney at Fish & Richardson in Dallas doing mostly patent stuff. I focus most of my practice (and time) on patent litigation. Before law, I worked in a couple software development-type roles at larger companies before starting a small business in the technology-education sector. I’m very interested in legal tech—and especially interested in automating some aspects of the law that really doesn’t need to be done by people anymore. Currently toying with some code on the weekends that’ll eventually turn into a product. Would love to get to know more of y’all!
Awesome Alex! I’m Angélique Parisot-Potter, a lawyer for 30 + years, and I learn so much from you and those you interact with here and elsewhere. I’m constantly rethinking and recreating how my (lean and dream) team and I deliver our legal services from moving to paperless (6 years ago); setting up a legal ops system using sharepoint and then moving 3 years later to a boutique one which we revisit and tweak; automating certain agreements and creating better access for our customers. One of my constant interests is finding a way to measure and demonstrate what our work brings to the table without the usual metric of how much time we spend or comparing with external counsel fees or total legal spend. And I’m always thinking about how we use legal tech to improve our services not just for our clients but for ourselves. Thanks for being so generous with your insight and experiences!
Thanks for putting this together, Alex. I’m Sarah Berges. I fell into my current role as a Conflicts Attorney 6 years ago when someone thought I might be decent at it after being on the business development side of things for 2 years. I stopped billing 8 years ago and haven’t looked back. I used to help bring in business. Now I help evaluate whether we take it.
Your community growing efforts are always welcome, Alex.
I am Colin S. Levy. I am an attorney who like Alex has transitioned into the legal tech world. I have worked in-house for most of my decade+ long legal career.
I have used my range of experiences to broaden my perspective and I know openly and frequently share my learnings and thoughts about legal tech with others, primarily through social media. I currently am Director of Legal and Evangelist for a growing contract management company called Malbek.
I am eager to connect with and to learn from others.
If you wish to connect or learn more about me I can be found at these places:
Hi. I’m Camille Zhou, and I work in Legal Operations at Twilio. After graduating from law school, I made the decision to not practice law, and I have worked in legal technology for 8+ years. I started my career in Project Management and Sales in the eDiscovery space. Two years ago, I transitioned in-house, and I now work primarily in the contract lifecycle management (CLM) space. Since the pandemic, I have gained quite a following after posting about non-traditional legal careers and mental health on LinkedIn.
Hi! My name is Ewurama and I am a 1L. I found this substack through following Alex on Twitter! I love reading about the different paths people have taken in this profession. Thanks for sharing your writing, Alex!
Hi everyone. I'm Ameena, a paralegal at the end of her rope. I spent most of my 29-year career working in pre-lit/compliance assistance environmental law, doing research, reviewing documents, writing memos and coding databases. I loved it. In 2018, that job was outsourced and - wow - environmentaI jobs are hard to come by. I switched to commercial real estate - I tried in-house at a billboard company (propagating eyesores), and then in a law firm (making rich people richer). I quit the paralegal grind last month, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do next. I've got loads of eDiscovery experience, so maybe legal tech? Or maybe I'll work at Total Wine and stock my cellar. Hopefully, connecting with some of you can help me figure it out. I'm on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameena-azzouni.
Alex, as a non-lawyer with government, law firm, and in-house experience, I love your take on the quirks and aggravations of working in the legal field. Even if I don't return to law, I will keep tuning in.
Hi all! I'm Reuben and I'm a lawyer that is currently working as an in-house counsel at one of the largest recruitment companies in the Asia Pacific region, PERSOLKELLY. After 2 years practising as a litigation lawyer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I decided to make the jump in-house with my current role.
I currently not only handle legal matters at PERSOLKELLY but also all matters relating to risk and compliance as well. While it is totally different from what I had been doing in litigation, it has been really exciting so far, learning about a whole new industry!
I'd love to connect with other legal professionals out there to hear and learn more about your journeys!
I’m Michel, a legal technologist from Ghana, West Africa. Led digital and sales for Ghana’s most reliable legal search engine, DennisLaw(www.dennislawgh.com). I also led a product team to build a mobile app, justice locator to help Ghanaians access cause lists of courts and lawyers manage their court diary. (www.justicelocator.com)
I am currently running digital for London-based sports law publishing company, LawInSport.
Late to the party, but hello! I'm Khai Pham, I'm a recent graduate and I just started at Ironclad as a business development rep(sales). Originally, I was going to join a consulting firm, but ultimately pivoted towards the legal tech world.
I'd love to meet more people in the legal/legal tech world. Feel free to introduce yourself! Would love to learn more about you and your journey.
Hi everyone, I'm Michelle. I have been a prosecutor for 7+ years and have been focused in the last 3.5 years on alternatives to incarceration, such as mental health court and restorative justice. I'm mostly here because I find Alex's LinkedIn and TikTok content super engaging, and I am inspired by his successful pivot from law firm practice to legal tech. I'm hoping to pivot as well. I am working towards a transition out of litigation and legal practice generally, but want to continue in the criminal justice reform space if possible. My main hobbies are video games and gardening. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellecarmon/. I share articles sometimes about the opioid crisis, restorative justice, and prosecutorial reform. (If you add me, please drop a note in the request that says "Off the Record" or "Alex Su" so I know who you are! Thanks!)
Hi all, I'm Layla Maurer. I'm a 3L graduating in May with a background in tech and data/information management and an MLIS degree. I currently work in-house at Wizards of the Coast, where I'm assisting with development and implementation of a new CLM (as well as all your standard in-house matters). Language and technology (and music and games, many games) are my happy places, and I'm very pleased to be able to meet others who have an interest in the legal tech space.
I'm Mark Matthews, I'm a solo lawyer doing appellate work representing veterans and their families at the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. I spent time in the Army JAG Corps and in two large law firms before opening my own small practice. I then took a detour into financial advising for two years before my wife was offered her dream job as a professor at a law school in Florida, so after the move I went back into law as a solo focusing only on the veterans appellate work. I have a passion for entrepreneurship and leadership, particularly by helping managers to become the best leaders they can be, so I am also a Certified Executive Coach.
My name is Raquel Sampaio, I'm a Portuguese lawyer with 15+ years of experience. My career hasn't been the typical one. In all truthfulness, I didn't want to become a lawyer; it was more a combination of fear, peer and parent pressure and profound ignorance of myself. So I started off by spending a few months in Timor Leste working for the UN. Upon my return, I was hired as an associate in a Magic Circle Portuguese firm, which although it gave me discipline, was hard, especially for my mental health. After that, I returned to the UN in NYC for another stint. When I came back, I was hired by a top 10 firm in which I stayed for quite a long time, about 7 years. I even spent 3 years in Mozambique with them when the subprime crisis hit. It was the best place I worked in but , unfortunately, my mental health by then was very deteriorated and I failed miserably. After that I went to work for the government for 2 years and then, here where I'm at right now, a top 10 firm for 2 years now. The pandemic made me go back to school and study innovation and legal tech and that's how I got to you. I truly love your content. So simple, so on the mark. I'd love to work in Legal Tech in Portugal!
Hi everyone. I'm Victor Mwago a lawyer working in KM and legal tech mostly doing document automation using Docassemble, AfterPattern and recently Avvoka. On the side, i research crypto projects and invest on the side. I'm looking forward to connect with you all. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/g-v-m/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_vimg
I sincerely appreciate the tone you are setting. The humor and the candor are a great catalyst for helping people find their way in the law business wherever they are or hope to be. Your posts happened to surface at the perfect time for me. I made a big change to start the year, moving more into the legaltech space. I am Associate Counsel, Estate Planning at Trust & Will. Before that, I spent a decade in private practice splitting my work between estate planning, probate, business entity work, and some litigation. My new role has me excited about changing the way we all think about estate planning. I would love to connect, but in any event am happy to follow along.
Hello! My name is Amy Ramos and I am Family Law Paralegal at a mid sized firm in Northern CA. Prior to being a paralegal, I was an administrative assistant for 15+ years. In 2015, I changed careers, went back to school to get my paralegal certificate. The rest, is history!
My name is Scott Oliver and I’m an attorney practicing in Indianapolis, Indiana. My practice focuses in Lending & Finance, Real Estate, and Corporate Transactions.
I’m not sure why I capitalized those words, but I guess it seemed like the “lawyer” thing to do.
Oh… and while I love the practice of law, I am a firm believer in changing the idea of a stereotypical lawyer…
I also teach Legal Communication & Analysis to law students as an adjunct professor. Through this role, I’m able to emphasize the “human” side of the practice of law. It is a lot of fun and incredibly rewarding.
Hello From the UK! My name is Joel Oketch, I am a 19 year old Law student from Canada but studying in the UK, hoping to practice in the US one day. I found this substack from tiktok as I'm sure most people around my age would have. I'm still trying to figure out exactly which direction my legal career will end up going but reading about your experiences has definitely given me insight, as well as entertainment. Thanks so much!
Greetings from Nova Scotia, Canada. I am ~30 years post law school (rounded up of course) and have had a varied career, starting as a litigator at a big law firm, to working at a big bank in-house leading a lit/investigations team, to building a professional development program for big law, then as Chief Innovation Officer at one of Canada's large national firms (building/leading All The Things like pricing, LPM, data analytics, legal tech). Being at a big bank before/during/after the financial crisis of the 2000's led me to things like pricing and process improvement. I went back to school to do my MBA (because, with a theatre degree and law degree I lacked confidence in my business savvy) then went on to grow and scale a global ALSP in Canada and launch in LatAm. Now, I am the CEO of ClearyX - a newly formed sub of Cleary Gottlieb. I am building a fully remote team focused on reimagining legal services. I like to say that rather than simply upgrading machines on the factory floor, we have the luxury of designing and building a whole new factory: new models of staffing, new kinds of team members, technology as needed, experimenting with pricing models, and gathering every bit of data we can so that our work will be as data driven as practicable. I love the legal tech and innovation community and love encouraging "younger" legal professionals to be open minded about all of the amazing career paths available. I find there are things to learn everywhere you look, that there is an endless amount I have to learn, and curiosity and humility have been my guiding approach to my career (and some sheer luck and tenacity of course).
Hi folks! I'm Rohan Naik, and I'm a 1L at Columbia. I found Alex on Twitter - love your anecdotes about lawyers who found a niche/built up their careers. I'm not sure what area of law I want to pursue in the future, but I like learning about different legal areas and career paths through this Substack.
I'm a career counselor at New York Law School with a background in online legal education, and I love talking to lawyers about tech, civil rights, and the intersection! Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sare-mills/
Hey everyone! My name is Ron Matten, UCLA JD 2001. After immigrating from LA to Toronto and working my way up to Partner at big firms there, I moved back to SoCal in 2018 to start my own firm, Matten Law, with a focus on on startups and entrepreneurs, and their innovative cousins: musicians and performers. Depending on the day, I'm a full-time business immigration lawyer, part-time corporate and entertainment lawyer, former engineer, legal tech evangelist and educator, but what i'm most obsessed with is providing a better user experience. Always happy to share ideas and stories.
Recently discovered your forum Alex and loving it! I am an attorney with 2 decades of corporate/business law experience and now I am looking to transition into non-profit or government work probably in a non-legal role. Trying to figure out the right space for myself and trying to think outside the box. Hoping in 2022 I can find my next adventure. Enjoying reading about the paths so many of your readers, lawyers and non-lawyers have taken. Thank you!
Thanks, Alex. Your posts, videos, and articles are terrific. Great info and always entertaining. Looking forward to meeting you and many of the others here. Jeez, re me, I hope I don't bore you guys. I am a first-generation American that has had a really fun career. Incredibly difficult but always fun! 25 years in a blink of an eye. I have worked in Equity Research (Solomon) and then transitioned into securities fraud class action litigation (first defending issuers, IBs, officers/directors and investment professionals at Holland + Knight and then over to the other side of the table representing plaintiffs (suing everyone) at Milberg Weiss). Terrific fun. I also represented professional and Olympic athletes in a whole host of things (including hosting a show), and a number of years ago I jumped into the cannabis space (when everyone said I was crazy for doing so). On the cannabis side, I have been fortunate to do everything on the legal, regulatory, lobbying, and IB side. Most recently, I took one of the vertically-integrated operators in Florida public (on the CSE) and orchestrated its sale for $214m. Involved in cannabis projects right now as principal and CLO. Never a dull moment! Would love to get to know the folks on this thread. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you are still reading this - lol. Keep up the great work, Alex. You are building and developing a wonderful community! Chris Polaszek
PS - simple tech things are not my strong suit. I have a terrible (almost non-existent) Social Media fingerprint. I can't even for the life of me figure out how to add a real link to my linkedin profile. So the plain text link is below, which I know is terrible, and which I know will prevent some of you from connecting!
Alex, thanks as always for your informative and engaging content across multiple platforms! My name is Darren Lee and I’m an office manager and paralegal at a regulated utilities boutique law firm in Oakland, CA. I wear multiple hats doing CA/NV PUC and appellate efilings, invoicing and calendaring, and hiring to expand the firm. I’m finding my career path expanding into operations and I think my ceiling can be reached by getting out of my comfort zone and transitioning to legal operations or to operations entirely outside of legal, perhaps getting an MBA along the way. I’d love to pick the brains of in-house counsel, CLOC members (should probably sign up for that…), or operations folks to help make an educated decision before I take a leap of faith with my career. Looking forward to chatting with folks at http://linkedin.com/in/darrenglee.
Hi everyone - I am late to the party as well, thank you Alex for building this community. I will graduate from law school in one month and am interested in joining the legal tech space and learning more about alternative careers using law degrees. Thanks for having me. Have a nice week!
I also work with the Innovation team at one of India's biggest law firms. I work at the intersection of law and everything else and focuses on identifying, building, and promoting better technology and process solutions with the aim of improving the practice of law.
I am Shreya and closely track the evolution of the legal profession and I am the Prime Mover at Prolawgue.com. Prolawgue is attempting to democratize the information around the new-age careers and skills for the lawyers in APAC region.
Hello everyone, Heidi here. I didn't get to go to undergrad until my late 20s, but graduated biology-premed in 3 ½ years, and started law school the following fall. Family illness ended my law school career, but thankfully I had worked in law as a paralegal and was able to fall back on that. I worked as a paralegal in insurance, business, personal injury and healthcare law, and got lucky to be included in a contracts work group supporting IT agreements. From there I leveraged my understanding of SaaS and my negotiating skills into a Contracts Manager role for a tech company. I'm now at my second tech company, where I am Director of Contracts and Legal Ops, and I'm working on a MBA to fill in some of the business gaps. I have taken a circuitous route to professional success and personal happiness, but I recognize my journey prepared me for where I am today.
It seems strange, but until I stumbled across a post by Alex on LI, I didn't realize there was a whole international community of professionals who do the work I do, and feel similar joys and pains about negotiating contracts, managing up, and leveraging very-specific (and currently expanding) legal technology. Thanks, Alex, for being our community's spirit animal!
Hi all, and thank you Alex for sharing such honest insights about the road less travelled. Since graduating from law school in 2009 I've had the privilege of practicing at the frontiers of fields I either didn't know existed when I was a law student (space law!?!), or that literally didn't exist (blockchain). To date I have spent my spare time moonlighting as an academic: teaching, writing, and mentoring law students. Now I'm devoting my moonlight hours to creating online courses and communities for lawyers aspiring to practice in emergent tech fields at www.domaine.law. I expect the first course--geared for aspiring space company lawyers--will launch this summer (I have young children and a demanding job so building high quality courses takes a while). You can find me here (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-israel-36b37118/). If you're interested in my quest for a clean-sheet approach to legal education optimized for busy professionals to build competence and credibility in new areas, please don't hesitate to reach out (brian@domainelabs.com). Take care, Brian
Hi everyone, I’m Dana a lawyer and legal tech evangelist. I often talk about my non-traditional path beginning in finance and PR then transitioning to non-profit before fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer. I have represented a variety of clients from emerging talent to accident victims and digital media companies. Currently, at Amazon Studios, I train machine learning models, code document logic to automate drafting, and serve as the lead trainer of internal and outside counsel.
While I absolutely love the legal tech aspects of my role, I miss contract negotiations. Therefore, I am currently looking to move to a firm or company where I can have it all.
I'm late to the party as well, but hello everybody and thank you Alex for building this community. I am an estate planning attorney in Denver, Colorado, and I am in the middle of an ambitious-yet-highly-undefined endeavor to build an estate planning digital media company which helps new and experienced attorneys develop their strengths and talents in thought leadership, speaking, and education. Ultimately, my goal is to give attorneys (including myself) a meritocratic platform to share their expertise without having to navigate the politics of bar associations, CLE providers, and similar established organizations. I'm always happy to connect with attorneys and non-attorneys who simply have something to share, whether it is a particular area of law or a support area such as career development. Feel free to reach out on Linkedin, or check out my YouTube or Substack below:
Hello from Washington DC! I know I'm a bit late but I'm excited to see the various backgrounds that are part of this burgeoning community.
I'm Kemahl Franklyn and like many of you, I'm a lawyer. After graduating law school I made the decision to become a product marketer with the aim of working in the legal tech space (I'm almost there!). I love the idea of building and scaling tech that can have more of an impact than any single attorney-client relationship. Definitely felt like a weirdo in legal circles until I found Alex Su on Twitter. I'd love to connect with and learn from the rest of you.
Wanna meet other readers? Introduce yourself in this thread!
I'll go first. I'm Alex Su and I'm a lawyer who transitioned to legal tech. I've been in the space for 6 years, mostly doing sales and business development. In 2021, I made another pivot by taking a community role at Ironclad. It's been a super fun ride, and I've met so many great people in the past year through social media & Zoom. A few months ago I started this newsletter to give myself space to share long form stories from lawyers who have inspired me, and from my own career as well. I'd love to learn more about you all because it helps me understand what type of content would be interesting to you. Thanks everyone!
P.S. I'm very active on social media. Here are some links to my other accounts if you haven't seen them before:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/heyitsalexsu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyitsalexsu/
Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@legaltechbro
Ok, I'll go second! I'm Jason Gerson, a lawyer who's building privacy-by-design platforms at TerraTrue to help lawyers issue-spot privacy issues before developers start coding. I've honestly loved being able to spend all day, every day helping develop tools to help privacy pros gain trust on their teams. It'd be awesome if I could learn from all of you about what kinds of challenges you're all facing in fostering a privacy-first culture on your teams. Feel free to give me a holler over at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-gerson-0a595933/ or https://twitter.com/JasonGerson
So excited to find community in legal tech :-)
Hi everyone, I'm Holger Zscheyge, lawyer-adjacent (I publish books and organize events for them) and always ready to push lawyers into the arms of technology (at my side gig as president of the European Legal Technology Association). Too old for Tik Tok and too ugly for Insta, but you can connect with me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/zscheyge/) ;).
Hey y’all! I’m Adil. An associate attorney at Fish & Richardson in Dallas doing mostly patent stuff. I focus most of my practice (and time) on patent litigation. Before law, I worked in a couple software development-type roles at larger companies before starting a small business in the technology-education sector. I’m very interested in legal tech—and especially interested in automating some aspects of the law that really doesn’t need to be done by people anymore. Currently toying with some code on the weekends that’ll eventually turn into a product. Would love to get to know more of y’all!
Happy Sunday!
Adil
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshaik
Instagram/Twitter: @lidashaikh
TikTok: @lidashaikh1
Awesome Alex! I’m Angélique Parisot-Potter, a lawyer for 30 + years, and I learn so much from you and those you interact with here and elsewhere. I’m constantly rethinking and recreating how my (lean and dream) team and I deliver our legal services from moving to paperless (6 years ago); setting up a legal ops system using sharepoint and then moving 3 years later to a boutique one which we revisit and tweak; automating certain agreements and creating better access for our customers. One of my constant interests is finding a way to measure and demonstrate what our work brings to the table without the usual metric of how much time we spend or comparing with external counsel fees or total legal spend. And I’m always thinking about how we use legal tech to improve our services not just for our clients but for ourselves. Thanks for being so generous with your insight and experiences!
I’m on Twitter @app1966; LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/app1966
Thanks for putting this together, Alex. I’m Sarah Berges. I fell into my current role as a Conflicts Attorney 6 years ago when someone thought I might be decent at it after being on the business development side of things for 2 years. I stopped billing 8 years ago and haven’t looked back. I used to help bring in business. Now I help evaluate whether we take it.
Your community growing efforts are always welcome, Alex.
I am Colin S. Levy. I am an attorney who like Alex has transitioned into the legal tech world. I have worked in-house for most of my decade+ long legal career.
I have used my range of experiences to broaden my perspective and I know openly and frequently share my learnings and thoughts about legal tech with others, primarily through social media. I currently am Director of Legal and Evangelist for a growing contract management company called Malbek.
I am eager to connect with and to learn from others.
If you wish to connect or learn more about me I can be found at these places:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinslevy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Clevy_Law
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colinslevy/
Alex and I have known each other for some time. Alex inspired me to do what I do!
Hi. I’m Camille Zhou, and I work in Legal Operations at Twilio. After graduating from law school, I made the decision to not practice law, and I have worked in legal technology for 8+ years. I started my career in Project Management and Sales in the eDiscovery space. Two years ago, I transitioned in-house, and I now work primarily in the contract lifecycle management (CLM) space. Since the pandemic, I have gained quite a following after posting about non-traditional legal careers and mental health on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhoucamille
Hi! My name is Ewurama and I am a 1L. I found this substack through following Alex on Twitter! I love reading about the different paths people have taken in this profession. Thanks for sharing your writing, Alex!
Hi everyone. I'm Ameena, a paralegal at the end of her rope. I spent most of my 29-year career working in pre-lit/compliance assistance environmental law, doing research, reviewing documents, writing memos and coding databases. I loved it. In 2018, that job was outsourced and - wow - environmentaI jobs are hard to come by. I switched to commercial real estate - I tried in-house at a billboard company (propagating eyesores), and then in a law firm (making rich people richer). I quit the paralegal grind last month, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do next. I've got loads of eDiscovery experience, so maybe legal tech? Or maybe I'll work at Total Wine and stock my cellar. Hopefully, connecting with some of you can help me figure it out. I'm on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameena-azzouni.
Alex, as a non-lawyer with government, law firm, and in-house experience, I love your take on the quirks and aggravations of working in the legal field. Even if I don't return to law, I will keep tuning in.
Hi all! I'm Reuben and I'm a lawyer that is currently working as an in-house counsel at one of the largest recruitment companies in the Asia Pacific region, PERSOLKELLY. After 2 years practising as a litigation lawyer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I decided to make the jump in-house with my current role.
I currently not only handle legal matters at PERSOLKELLY but also all matters relating to risk and compliance as well. While it is totally different from what I had been doing in litigation, it has been really exciting so far, learning about a whole new industry!
I'd love to connect with other legal professionals out there to hear and learn more about your journeys!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reuben-joseph-996a1894/
Thank you Alex.
I’m Michel, a legal technologist from Ghana, West Africa. Led digital and sales for Ghana’s most reliable legal search engine, DennisLaw(www.dennislawgh.com). I also led a product team to build a mobile app, justice locator to help Ghanaians access cause lists of courts and lawyers manage their court diary. (www.justicelocator.com)
I am currently running digital for London-based sports law publishing company, LawInSport.
Here’s my LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/themichnkansah)
Let’s stay in touch if you’re looking to scale products to sub Saharan Africa.
Late to the party, but hello! I'm Khai Pham, I'm a recent graduate and I just started at Ironclad as a business development rep(sales). Originally, I was going to join a consulting firm, but ultimately pivoted towards the legal tech world.
I'd love to meet more people in the legal/legal tech world. Feel free to introduce yourself! Would love to learn more about you and your journey.
Connect with me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khai-pham-803710132/
Website: https://khaippham98.github.io/PersonalWebsite/
Hi everyone, I'm Michelle. I have been a prosecutor for 7+ years and have been focused in the last 3.5 years on alternatives to incarceration, such as mental health court and restorative justice. I'm mostly here because I find Alex's LinkedIn and TikTok content super engaging, and I am inspired by his successful pivot from law firm practice to legal tech. I'm hoping to pivot as well. I am working towards a transition out of litigation and legal practice generally, but want to continue in the criminal justice reform space if possible. My main hobbies are video games and gardening. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellecarmon/. I share articles sometimes about the opioid crisis, restorative justice, and prosecutorial reform. (If you add me, please drop a note in the request that says "Off the Record" or "Alex Su" so I know who you are! Thanks!)
Hi all, I'm Layla Maurer. I'm a 3L graduating in May with a background in tech and data/information management and an MLIS degree. I currently work in-house at Wizards of the Coast, where I'm assisting with development and implementation of a new CLM (as well as all your standard in-house matters). Language and technology (and music and games, many games) are my happy places, and I'm very pleased to be able to meet others who have an interest in the legal tech space.
Twitter (where I'm mostly silent): https://twitter.com/lgamaurer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lgamaurer/
Always happy to connect.
I'm Mark Matthews, I'm a solo lawyer doing appellate work representing veterans and their families at the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. I spent time in the Army JAG Corps and in two large law firms before opening my own small practice. I then took a detour into financial advising for two years before my wife was offered her dream job as a professor at a law school in Florida, so after the move I went back into law as a solo focusing only on the veterans appellate work. I have a passion for entrepreneurship and leadership, particularly by helping managers to become the best leaders they can be, so I am also a Certified Executive Coach.
Hi guys!
My name is Raquel Sampaio, I'm a Portuguese lawyer with 15+ years of experience. My career hasn't been the typical one. In all truthfulness, I didn't want to become a lawyer; it was more a combination of fear, peer and parent pressure and profound ignorance of myself. So I started off by spending a few months in Timor Leste working for the UN. Upon my return, I was hired as an associate in a Magic Circle Portuguese firm, which although it gave me discipline, was hard, especially for my mental health. After that, I returned to the UN in NYC for another stint. When I came back, I was hired by a top 10 firm in which I stayed for quite a long time, about 7 years. I even spent 3 years in Mozambique with them when the subprime crisis hit. It was the best place I worked in but , unfortunately, my mental health by then was very deteriorated and I failed miserably. After that I went to work for the government for 2 years and then, here where I'm at right now, a top 10 firm for 2 years now. The pandemic made me go back to school and study innovation and legal tech and that's how I got to you. I truly love your content. So simple, so on the mark. I'd love to work in Legal Tech in Portugal!
My Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquelgsampaio/
Hi everyone. I'm Victor Mwago a lawyer working in KM and legal tech mostly doing document automation using Docassemble, AfterPattern and recently Avvoka. On the side, i research crypto projects and invest on the side. I'm looking forward to connect with you all. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/g-v-m/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_vimg
Hey Alex,
I sincerely appreciate the tone you are setting. The humor and the candor are a great catalyst for helping people find their way in the law business wherever they are or hope to be. Your posts happened to surface at the perfect time for me. I made a big change to start the year, moving more into the legaltech space. I am Associate Counsel, Estate Planning at Trust & Will. Before that, I spent a decade in private practice splitting my work between estate planning, probate, business entity work, and some litigation. My new role has me excited about changing the way we all think about estate planning. I would love to connect, but in any event am happy to follow along.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchellmitch/
https://twitter.com/_mitch_mitchell
Hello! My name is Amy Ramos and I am Family Law Paralegal at a mid sized firm in Northern CA. Prior to being a paralegal, I was an administrative assistant for 15+ years. In 2015, I changed careers, went back to school to get my paralegal certificate. The rest, is history!
In other words, I am your chill paralegal. :-)
My name is Scott Oliver and I’m an attorney practicing in Indianapolis, Indiana. My practice focuses in Lending & Finance, Real Estate, and Corporate Transactions.
I’m not sure why I capitalized those words, but I guess it seemed like the “lawyer” thing to do.
Oh… and while I love the practice of law, I am a firm believer in changing the idea of a stereotypical lawyer…
I also teach Legal Communication & Analysis to law students as an adjunct professor. Through this role, I’m able to emphasize the “human” side of the practice of law. It is a lot of fun and incredibly rewarding.
Very active on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottoliver5
Trying to learn Twitter: https://www.Twitter.com/saoliver1051
Not cute enough for Instagram…
TikTok looks cool.
I’m on Facebook, but it’s just me being a proud Girl Dad and skimming marketplace for treasures…
Hello From the UK! My name is Joel Oketch, I am a 19 year old Law student from Canada but studying in the UK, hoping to practice in the US one day. I found this substack from tiktok as I'm sure most people around my age would have. I'm still trying to figure out exactly which direction my legal career will end up going but reading about your experiences has definitely given me insight, as well as entertainment. Thanks so much!
Feel Free to connect with me : https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-oketch-a9b321187/
Greetings from Nova Scotia, Canada. I am ~30 years post law school (rounded up of course) and have had a varied career, starting as a litigator at a big law firm, to working at a big bank in-house leading a lit/investigations team, to building a professional development program for big law, then as Chief Innovation Officer at one of Canada's large national firms (building/leading All The Things like pricing, LPM, data analytics, legal tech). Being at a big bank before/during/after the financial crisis of the 2000's led me to things like pricing and process improvement. I went back to school to do my MBA (because, with a theatre degree and law degree I lacked confidence in my business savvy) then went on to grow and scale a global ALSP in Canada and launch in LatAm. Now, I am the CEO of ClearyX - a newly formed sub of Cleary Gottlieb. I am building a fully remote team focused on reimagining legal services. I like to say that rather than simply upgrading machines on the factory floor, we have the luxury of designing and building a whole new factory: new models of staffing, new kinds of team members, technology as needed, experimenting with pricing models, and gathering every bit of data we can so that our work will be as data driven as practicable. I love the legal tech and innovation community and love encouraging "younger" legal professionals to be open minded about all of the amazing career paths available. I find there are things to learn everywhere you look, that there is an endless amount I have to learn, and curiosity and humility have been my guiding approach to my career (and some sheer luck and tenacity of course).
Hi folks! I'm Rohan Naik, and I'm a 1L at Columbia. I found Alex on Twitter - love your anecdotes about lawyers who found a niche/built up their careers. I'm not sure what area of law I want to pursue in the future, but I like learning about different legal areas and career paths through this Substack.
I'm a career counselor at New York Law School with a background in online legal education, and I love talking to lawyers about tech, civil rights, and the intersection! Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sare-mills/
Alex, what is the best way to contact you if we have topics to suggest for these discussions?
Hey everyone! My name is Ron Matten, UCLA JD 2001. After immigrating from LA to Toronto and working my way up to Partner at big firms there, I moved back to SoCal in 2018 to start my own firm, Matten Law, with a focus on on startups and entrepreneurs, and their innovative cousins: musicians and performers. Depending on the day, I'm a full-time business immigration lawyer, part-time corporate and entertainment lawyer, former engineer, legal tech evangelist and educator, but what i'm most obsessed with is providing a better user experience. Always happy to share ideas and stories.
Website: https://www.matten-law.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronmatten/
If you're a law student, check out our summer program: https://startuplawacademy.com/
And oh yeah, Alex Su totally rules!! Thanks for always selflessly building communities of likeminded experimenters.
Recently discovered your forum Alex and loving it! I am an attorney with 2 decades of corporate/business law experience and now I am looking to transition into non-profit or government work probably in a non-legal role. Trying to figure out the right space for myself and trying to think outside the box. Hoping in 2022 I can find my next adventure. Enjoying reading about the paths so many of your readers, lawyers and non-lawyers have taken. Thank you!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/puja-khanna-kaushik-29b0a53
Thanks, Alex. Your posts, videos, and articles are terrific. Great info and always entertaining. Looking forward to meeting you and many of the others here. Jeez, re me, I hope I don't bore you guys. I am a first-generation American that has had a really fun career. Incredibly difficult but always fun! 25 years in a blink of an eye. I have worked in Equity Research (Solomon) and then transitioned into securities fraud class action litigation (first defending issuers, IBs, officers/directors and investment professionals at Holland + Knight and then over to the other side of the table representing plaintiffs (suing everyone) at Milberg Weiss). Terrific fun. I also represented professional and Olympic athletes in a whole host of things (including hosting a show), and a number of years ago I jumped into the cannabis space (when everyone said I was crazy for doing so). On the cannabis side, I have been fortunate to do everything on the legal, regulatory, lobbying, and IB side. Most recently, I took one of the vertically-integrated operators in Florida public (on the CSE) and orchestrated its sale for $214m. Involved in cannabis projects right now as principal and CLO. Never a dull moment! Would love to get to know the folks on this thread. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you are still reading this - lol. Keep up the great work, Alex. You are building and developing a wonderful community! Chris Polaszek
PS - simple tech things are not my strong suit. I have a terrible (almost non-existent) Social Media fingerprint. I can't even for the life of me figure out how to add a real link to my linkedin profile. So the plain text link is below, which I know is terrible, and which I know will prevent some of you from connecting!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispolaszek/
Alex, thanks as always for your informative and engaging content across multiple platforms! My name is Darren Lee and I’m an office manager and paralegal at a regulated utilities boutique law firm in Oakland, CA. I wear multiple hats doing CA/NV PUC and appellate efilings, invoicing and calendaring, and hiring to expand the firm. I’m finding my career path expanding into operations and I think my ceiling can be reached by getting out of my comfort zone and transitioning to legal operations or to operations entirely outside of legal, perhaps getting an MBA along the way. I’d love to pick the brains of in-house counsel, CLOC members (should probably sign up for that…), or operations folks to help make an educated decision before I take a leap of faith with my career. Looking forward to chatting with folks at http://linkedin.com/in/darrenglee.
Hi everyone - I am late to the party as well, thank you Alex for building this community. I will graduate from law school in one month and am interested in joining the legal tech space and learning more about alternative careers using law degrees. Thanks for having me. Have a nice week!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/browncarly/
Carly
Hello!!
I also work with the Innovation team at one of India's biggest law firms. I work at the intersection of law and everything else and focuses on identifying, building, and promoting better technology and process solutions with the aim of improving the practice of law.
I am Shreya and closely track the evolution of the legal profession and I am the Prime Mover at Prolawgue.com. Prolawgue is attempting to democratize the information around the new-age careers and skills for the lawyers in APAC region.
I can be reached at shreya@prolawgue.com and on https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyavajpei/
Hello everyone, Heidi here. I didn't get to go to undergrad until my late 20s, but graduated biology-premed in 3 ½ years, and started law school the following fall. Family illness ended my law school career, but thankfully I had worked in law as a paralegal and was able to fall back on that. I worked as a paralegal in insurance, business, personal injury and healthcare law, and got lucky to be included in a contracts work group supporting IT agreements. From there I leveraged my understanding of SaaS and my negotiating skills into a Contracts Manager role for a tech company. I'm now at my second tech company, where I am Director of Contracts and Legal Ops, and I'm working on a MBA to fill in some of the business gaps. I have taken a circuitous route to professional success and personal happiness, but I recognize my journey prepared me for where I am today.
It seems strange, but until I stumbled across a post by Alex on LI, I didn't realize there was a whole international community of professionals who do the work I do, and feel similar joys and pains about negotiating contracts, managing up, and leveraging very-specific (and currently expanding) legal technology. Thanks, Alex, for being our community's spirit animal!
Hi all, and thank you Alex for sharing such honest insights about the road less travelled. Since graduating from law school in 2009 I've had the privilege of practicing at the frontiers of fields I either didn't know existed when I was a law student (space law!?!), or that literally didn't exist (blockchain). To date I have spent my spare time moonlighting as an academic: teaching, writing, and mentoring law students. Now I'm devoting my moonlight hours to creating online courses and communities for lawyers aspiring to practice in emergent tech fields at www.domaine.law. I expect the first course--geared for aspiring space company lawyers--will launch this summer (I have young children and a demanding job so building high quality courses takes a while). You can find me here (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-israel-36b37118/). If you're interested in my quest for a clean-sheet approach to legal education optimized for busy professionals to build competence and credibility in new areas, please don't hesitate to reach out (brian@domainelabs.com). Take care, Brian
Hi everyone, I’m Dana a lawyer and legal tech evangelist. I often talk about my non-traditional path beginning in finance and PR then transitioning to non-profit before fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer. I have represented a variety of clients from emerging talent to accident victims and digital media companies. Currently, at Amazon Studios, I train machine learning models, code document logic to automate drafting, and serve as the lead trainer of internal and outside counsel.
While I absolutely love the legal tech aspects of my role, I miss contract negotiations. Therefore, I am currently looking to move to a firm or company where I can have it all.
You can find me on LinkedIn at: http://linkedin.com/in/danaklaw
I'm late to the party as well, but hello everybody and thank you Alex for building this community. I am an estate planning attorney in Denver, Colorado, and I am in the middle of an ambitious-yet-highly-undefined endeavor to build an estate planning digital media company which helps new and experienced attorneys develop their strengths and talents in thought leadership, speaking, and education. Ultimately, my goal is to give attorneys (including myself) a meritocratic platform to share their expertise without having to navigate the politics of bar associations, CLE providers, and similar established organizations. I'm always happy to connect with attorneys and non-attorneys who simply have something to share, whether it is a particular area of law or a support area such as career development. Feel free to reach out on Linkedin, or check out my YouTube or Substack below:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/griffin-bridgers-a4a26a15/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRaGK2J72zXDvLLcy2aPl-w?app=desktop
https://griffinbridgers.substack.com/
Hello from Washington DC! I know I'm a bit late but I'm excited to see the various backgrounds that are part of this burgeoning community.
I'm Kemahl Franklyn and like many of you, I'm a lawyer. After graduating law school I made the decision to become a product marketer with the aim of working in the legal tech space (I'm almost there!). I love the idea of building and scaling tech that can have more of an impact than any single attorney-client relationship. Definitely felt like a weirdo in legal circles until I found Alex Su on Twitter. I'd love to connect with and learn from the rest of you.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kemahlfranklyn/
https://twitter.com/KemahlFranklyn