The Legal Data Intelligence Podcast with David Cowen (Episode 17)

In this episode of Careers and The Business of Law: The Legal Data Intelligence Series, host David Cowen talks to Kelly Friedman, Chief Legal Data Intelligence Officer at Heuristica. Friedman reflects on her storied career at the intersection of data, technology, and the law, sharing insights into her new role, the evolving data landscape, and how the Legal Data Intelligence model empowers data-oriented legal professionals.

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

David Cowen: Data is not left to right. It's not linear. Can you talk a little bit about your view on that sphere and that three-dimensional challenge we have with data analytics and solving our issues today?

Kelly Friedman: The way we communicate and record information today is so completely different from the format that we all grew up with. And there are just so many different sources of information, types of information, and the volumes are astronomical. And so you've got to deal with that. The reality is that we're going to make legal decisions and we have facts that underlie them. The facts are found in massive amounts of data which come from all kinds of different sources.

And what's your solution? You've got to use technology to tackle the technology problem. So with good technology and an investigator's or analyst's mindset, you can solve those problems.

I want to talk about the rate of change, the rate of adoption when it comes to LDI. It really has gathered a lot of momentum and is becoming a movement now.

Yesterday, I was at the ADR Institute of Canada conference. So the participants are all arbitrators, mediators, arbitration counsel, mediation counsel.

If you use the word ediscovery with those people, they will completely shut down. Because the whole point of alternative dispute resolution is not to be like litigation. So if you say “ediscovery,” they say “we're not litigators.”

I was very, very, very careful in my presentation yesterday never to use that word. So I talked about data analytics. I talked about technology. I talked about Legal Data Intelligence. I talked about service providers and specialized law firms, but never mentioned ediscovery because I knew that would turn them off.

And so, the fact that I have not only a vocabulary, but a movement behind me compels them to pay attention to it.

Now we're growing and we have a LinkedIn group. We have the LDI Architects program. Amazing people are coming forward to try and get involved with LDI, to help write white papers and take it forward. So, I really think it's a movement now. And it's not just a framework or an idea.