The Legal Data Intelligence Podcast with David Cowen (Episode 14)

In this episode of Careers and the Business of Law: The Legal Data Intelligence Series, Marla Crawford, General Counsel at Cimplifi, talks to host David Cowen on what makes the rise of Legal Data Intelligence unique in the annals of the legal industry.

Crawford also touched on the qualities that can help legal professionals with tech savviness and a creative streak forge a distinctive career. Listen to the podcast and read the partial transcript below to learn more.

Listen to the full episode and read a partial transcript below.

David Cowen: Who were your early role models back in 2010, when you started building an ediscovery group for Goldman Sachs? I can’t help but parallel what happened 14 years ago with what's happening now, with Legal Data Intelligence: figuring out new problems, confronting new challenges driven by technology.

Marla Crawford: When I was hired at Goldman, I was hired by a woman named Jan Ford, who is now a Head of Compliance at Deutsche Bank. She recognized that there was a need for this program, and she also recognized very early on that it would require somebody who could speak a combination of legal and at least enough tech. She used to say that I was cheeky. I would go to her and say—very direct—that “this is what I need; these are my obstacles, and this is what I want to do.” She really championed the cause of building the program there and supported me along the way. I was very grateful for her.

You're talking about building a program, recognizing a need—very similar to where we are today. People ask all the time, what is LDI? But I don't know if it's more “what” or if it’s “who.” It's a combination. How do you see LDI in our space today?

What's interesting about today is that it is a bit different than the ediscovery revolution. The ediscovery revolution was about getting something done in the discovery phase of litigation and saving cost, as it was less expensive to use the technology than to have eyeballs on everything. But today, I think it's a little bit different because we're recognizing the power of the data. And that the power of the data is sort of limitless. There are so many use cases if you can harness the energy of that. I think the LDI discussion is about doing that, and it opens up many different career paths for people, because data is all over an organization. Data can solve problems and answer questions. And there are going to be multiple people within an organization who are going to be able to harness it and show its value.

Can you share some of the insights or use cases that you're experiencing—either at Cimplifi, or that your clients are experiencing—that were not possible before?

Sure. Take the contract space, right? It's a new use case where people are using analytics and technology to understand what's in their contracts, to understand their obligations, to understand what's owed to them. They’re using it to report on third-party risk, to report on DE&I—people are using their technology to answer these questions that they need to ask for their business. The use of analytics and AI in the contract space is probably an easy one, in terms of understanding the value.

How do you see the corporate law department evolving?

How great is it for corporate legal departments to move from being a cost center, really the lower end of the corporate totem pole, to now being a value add? It's huge. It's a game changer in corporate law, because if harnessed appropriately, the businesses now are relying on the law department not just for the bread-and-butter legal advice, but also for partnering with this technological use case to help the business further their bottom line.

You've been an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur. How important are those skills? How big is that opportunity for those listening to this episode, who want to be legalist, technologist, and business savvy?

I had no idea that this would interest me. I had no idea I could do it. It wasn't anything I'd really ever thought about. In fact, I pretty much went to law school because I didn't think that I would be good at working in business. And when I had the opportunity to really put it together, to use the law and then the technology I had learned, it was exciting to have that actually affect the business—to interact with the businesspeople, roll things out on a wider scale. I think it was that excitement that then propelled me to learn a little bit more and try to pay attention and understand how I could really show the return on tech investment, and to interact with the businesspeople to roll things out on a wider scale. When I was at a law firm, this wasn't something I had ever really focused on. It was more about rendering good legal advice by using the technology. But when you go in-house, then you have a new opportunity to show your value in a different way.