WEBVTT 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:10.000 I was in someone's house taking a woman's deposition and there were a lot of attorneys in this living room. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:15.000 One of the attorneys was from Chicago. I kept noticing that she was doing something like that with her thumbs. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.000 I was slightly suspicious that someone was doing something they shouldn't have been doing. 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.000 So I asked her, "What is it that you're doing over there with your thumbs?" 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:30.000 And she said, "Well, I'm sending emails." And I said, "What?" 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.000 And so she showed me what she was using — sort of like the size of a garage door opener. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:42.000 And she told me it was called a Blackberry and she showed me how it worked. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:48.000 And so I was totally astounded. So I came back and sent an email to everybody: 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:54.000 "Wow, you'll never believe what I saw." Looking back on it, it seems kind of ridiculous, 00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:02.000 but at the time it was pretty amazing. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:07.000 I can remember having the Blackberry phone. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:13.000 I joined this firm in 1989, and then the Blackberries came along — that was the latest greatest. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.000 All of us had to have those. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:23.000 When I started, we got a Blackberry. The screen was terrible and tiny. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:28.000 It was a phone and email and it really couldn't do anything else. You could search the web kind of, but it was terrible. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:34.000 Things moved a lot slower back then. There was no e-filing with the courts, but in retrospect, it was harder to get things done. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:40.000 In the early 80s, when we would send documents out to the other parties on the distribution list, 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:46.000 we would send out usually by regular mail because overnight delivery was just so expensive. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:52.000 And that would usually give you from three business days to a week lag time before you would hear back. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:58.000 There was no such thing as work from home. Sometimes you stayed at home because you had some issues, 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:05.000 but there wasn't the idea that two days a week, four days a week, maybe five days a week, I'm going to work from home. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:12.000 The plus is that if you have obligations at home, you can manage to juggle work and family life quite a bit better. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:20.000 The downside is, particularly for younger attorneys, they miss out on the culture and learning experience 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:27.000 that comes with working with attorneys that have more experience than they do. 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:34.000 You do have to be available all the time, too. Clients expect that of you. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:40.000 Most clients I find are pretty respectful still. No matter where you are — whether you're on vacation or whatever — 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:45.000 you're connected. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:51.000 You can literally work anywhere now, which is good because I travel a lot. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:57.000 I've got to work while I'm on vacation usually. But I like that. 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:03.000 The alternative would be I don't get to travel, or maybe I take one trip a year. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:09.000 And that is one of the plus sides. I think it allows people flexibility that just wasn't available before. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:16.000 You've got to find a balance. I think that has become easier over time. People can take their work home with them, 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:22.000 and after the kids go to bed, work on it or whatever. So I think it's easier for lawyers as a whole today, 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:29.000 especially the younger lawyers that grew up with it, to have a better grasp of work-life balance. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:36.000 My class was one of the very last classes in law school that actually learned how to Shepardize and find cases 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:42.000 out of the books in the library. And we were definitely told in our legal research and writing class, 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:47.000 "You probably won't be doing this in practice." 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:53.000 When I was in law school, they still made us check every cite with a book, other than law review site checks. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:58.000 Which felt very antiquated at the time. I've done everything through technology. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:04.000 My law school class was actually the first fully digital law school class at OU. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:10.000 So we had a law library, but it was a quiet place to study and not someplace you would actually go and do research. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:16.000 Now there are no books anymore that I know of. I'd be surprised if any law firms maintain the physical books 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:21.000 just because everyone does it electronically. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:26.000 What do they say? The only constant you can rely on is that things will change. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:32.000 This made me think of how quickly things can change. I went on maternity leave in January of last year, 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:38.000 and when I came back, we could e-file in state court. And I was like, "What?" 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:44.000 I don't have to have my assistant drive to Shawnee to file this? 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:50.000 I think our generation — a lot has changed for our generation. Maybe every generation feels that way. 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:57.000 My generation was born before the internet was prevalent or popular, and have sort of matured with the technology. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:03.000 We got the internet — I was probably in middle school. Had a cell phone but not a smartphone in high school. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:10.000 My class as well was one of the last ones they would give us a case to find and send us off into the library to find it. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:16.000 We were leaving law school when we were transitioning from books to the internet for research. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:22.000 And now here we are in the prime years of our practice, and we're about to face changes from AI. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:27.000 Change is par for the course. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:33.000 I don't think AI is a threat to our livelihoods. A lot of the things we do is not just knowing the law. 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:39.000 It's helping guide clients strategically through the process. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:45.000 I know there's a lot of talk about AI replacing jobs, especially legal jobs. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:51.000 I know there are a lot of forms that AI can create and that type of thing. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:57.000 But I have to say that at least several times a week, I have the thought: AI could not do that. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:03.000 A client will ask a strategy question: "What should our next steps be in this case?" 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:10.000 I will write them an email, and I'll think: I drew on my own experience for that answer. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:17.000 I drew on what I know about opposing counsel, what I know about this judge, my experience with this judge. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:23.000 Having ideas and figuring out ways we can resolve the matter that may not just be, "Let's show up to the courthouse and argue." 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:29.000 And those are just elements that AI will never have. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:35.000 One of the major uses I have for it is drafting. Back in the old days — really just a few years ago — 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:41.000 if I wanted a particular clause in a contract that wasn't already there, I would go find another contract where I had drafted that clause, 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:47.000 pull it out, put it in there, and modify it. And now I can use AI to help draft that clause for me. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:52.000 It's a huge, huge timesaver. And it has completely changed the way that I practice. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000 One of the key AI features that we have at the firm is a document production system called Everlaw. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:03.000 A great way that I think it benefits our clients is that if I have a case with 100,000 documents, 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:09.000 but I know that I'm looking for a few documents with a few keywords, utilizing resources like Everlaw brings so much more value to the client. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:15.000 I can have the information I need immediately. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:20.000 So the way that I learned how to run searches in law school is no longer relevant — it's moot — 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:27.000 because of AI and how searches run now. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:41.000 And so I've had my own "I feel old" moments in that regard.