Legal Geek Recap with Clare Bonsall
After the Legal Geek Conference in London, we sat down with Clare Bonsall, Peppermint’s Head of Product Management, to discuss her experiences from this groundbreaking event.
Let’s dive into the world of legal innovation with Clare.
How was your first visit to Legal Geek?
It was an exciting and eye-opening experience. As I walked into the conference venue, I was immediately struck by the vibrant atmosphere, with bustling crowds of attendees engaged in lively discussions around the intersection of law and tech, with AI being the hot topic. The energy in the air was palpable, with legal professionals and tech experts from all over the world gathered to network, demonstrate some of the innovations happening in the industry and share ideas and insights. It was a thoroughly enjoyable two days. I’m already looking to book my tickets for next year!
Which speaker impressed you the most and why?
This is by far not an easy question to answer, with topics from “Mankini’s and other useless things” by Michael Grupp to “Grief and its impact” by Richard E. Grant and other various topics from the human lawyer, AI, Legal Operations throughout it’s hard to pick one. However, the sessions that I found thought-provoking and insightful were the sessions Freshfields ran across the two days focused on AI.
The first was “Legal tech tightrope: Balancing benefits and GenAI risks” by Zofia Aszendorf. Zofia gave a fantastic overview of some of the risks and challenges associated with AI in the legal industry and some practical suggestions on mitigation. Whilst there is a lot to unpack, it was a fantastic overview of where to start and some key questions to ask and explore for anyone starting their AI journey.
Have you participated in any workshops there? How was it?
Yes, I could attend several workshops, although, with so many fantastic sessions, I wish I could have cloned myself or used AI to attend more. The workshops were varied in format, some being more interactive group sessions to more panel discussion Q&As. One particularly stood out was “Painkillers, not vitamins: Real use cases for generative AI”. This was a fantastic panel discussion with Ashurst, Addleshaw Goddard, Anglo American and Bertelsmann. Each shared their “wow” moments regarding AI, the challenges of AI and the use cases they have started with.
The other workshop was “Unlocking the potential: Navigating GenAI with Freshfields”. This was a great interactive session where the audience split into groups and explored use cases for applying AI and the split between Encoders and Decoders. It was interesting to see what use cases were front and centre of the mind and which AI applications would benefit most. Whilst the audience probed the future of AI and its potential, it was clear that the adoption and expansion of using AI will be a slow, gradual process whilst the industry adapts to this new revolutionary change.
How do you see the legal tech landscape evolving in the coming years, and how does Peppermint Technology fit into that future?
Do I think robots will take over? No, fundamentally, there is so much humans can do that AI can’t replace. There is an opportunity for humans and technology, specifically AI, to embrace each other and coexist. AI takes the mundane, repetitive tasks away from legal professionals to allow them to focus on the unique things that brought many of them into the legal profession in the first place - for instance, strategy, negotiations, and helping to drive a successful business.
Peppermint is uniquely placed in terms of our strategic partnership with Microsoft and our legal domain knowledge to keep driving innovation, such as AI, across our platform and products for customers to consume and benefit from easily. We also want to ensure we create products crafted around legal at the heart, not just generic solutions that make it more challenging for firms to adopt.
Did you gain any valuable insights, ideas, or feedback from the Legal Geek Conference that will further influence the development of Peppermint Technology?
A lot! My head was swimming with ideas, plans, actions, and, more importantly, conversations I wanted to have to explore the problem space further. Peppermint already embeds innovation across our products with GenAI, Syntex and CoPilot. Still, we are just scratching the service with some potential products we can develop that will drive true innovation and value for our customers and the legal industry. It’s such an exciting time!