The Legal Data Intelligence Podcast with David Cowen (Episode 25)

In this episode of Careers and the Business of Law: The Legal Data Intelligence Series, host David Cowen speaks with Danny Thankachan. Thankachan talks about the growing relevance of Legal Data Intelligence as a community and as a fundamentally new category. He pairs his insights on LDI with thoughtful takeaways on the impact of generative AI in the backdrop of a rapidly changing legal industry.

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

David Cowen: You've got 20 years of experience with five major career moves. And I want to have a conversation this morning about where we are and where we're going.

Danny Thankachan: There has been a lot of evolution in the space. But fundamentally, the work of law has stayed the same. But the technology and all of the tools have evolved—if not exploded—over the course of those 20 years.

And it's been a really exciting time. You know, the interesting thing for me, when I reflect back now, and I've been working with the Legal Data Intelligence community for a little over a year now. It's not only a community. It's now becoming a bit of a category in and of itself, where we're talking not just about tools and technology, but we're talking about the job to be done, and operational innovation. The tools and technology make operational innovation possible.

What I like about you is that you’re an informed optimist. Right now, there are many legal professionals concerned about how AI is going to impact their role. Can you speak to that?

I'll give you an excellent example. I was preparing a CLE outline and I had a conversation with the CEO of Right Discovery, Kevin Clark. He and I just had a conversation about the CLE that we wanted to develop. And then we took the recording of that conversation, gave it to ChatGPT and said, prepare a CLE outline. And a natural 30-minute deep dive discussion turned into a CLE instantaneously. And I was like, wait, this just saved me three, five hours of labor. But it turns out it was some of the lowest value labor because all the value was in that conversation that we just had. It's Kevin's 20 years of experience and my 20 years of experience. And that dialogue was where the value actually sat, not in typing it all up. And that's the message to experienced professionals out there that have fears about generative AI. What you have is the insight and experience that generative AI is going to draw out of you much more effectively and be able to present that insight to the market.

If it's a paralegal that has been doing labor and employment work for 20 years, this is going to be that paralegal superpower that they can get in front of that attorney and deliver value much more quickly because of their experience.