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Podcast

What’s Going to Happen When the AI Dust Settles? Ft. Kyle Poe

45:55 min

Lawyers are always going to be important. What makes them relevant, however, is another question altogether. In the latest episode of Between the Briefs by Steno as hosts, Adrian Cea and Joe Stephens, sit down with Kyle Poe, Vice President of Legal Innovation Strategy at Legora, to explore the balance of traditional legal skills and legal services evolution in the age of AI.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to build organizational AI literacy without disrupting existing revenue streams
  • The data moat as the new competitive advantage
  • How to reprice fixed-fee work intelligently using AI
  • Why skepticism about AI is actually a healthy signal
  • The strategic practice areas to target first for AI implementation
  • How the legal industry will structurally reshape in the next decade

 

Tune in for the ultimate guide on staying relevant and staying ahead!

Quotes:

  1. “At the top tier of the market, oftentimes, corporations are not picking the lowest cost provider - they're actually picking the highest quality provider, and so if you can use AI to deliver higher quality results, then you're not going to hurt yourself on the price side of the equation."
  2. "There are two elements of learning that firms need to do. The first is what I would call muscle memory - creating AI literacy and fluency throughout your organization so AI is just another tool in the lawyer's toolkit. The second layer is building reusable workflows, where you take the knowledge and experience of attorneys and build that into applications that can be rerun over and over again."
  3. “The total addressable market of legal is peanuts compared to the broader enterprise market, and legal carries specific risks. Those same institutional barriers to entry that are unique to legal have made it such that bigger players have not entered it, and I think those barriers will persist.”
  4. One of the hottest takes would be that traditional skills aren't gonna matter anymore, but I actually think they will. When the dust settles, the world will be different, and some firms will leapfrog others by investing in AI and building out workflows. But the reasons you hire attorneys, the judgment, and the incentive structures around picking top tier firms aren't gonna change fundamentally."

 

LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/welcome-back-docket-now-between-briefs-newsletter-steno-inc-quxie

Highlights:

00:00
Introduction

01:55
Kyle’s Journey from Litigation Partner to Legal AI Pioneer

07:45
How AI’s Disrupting Law Firm Billing Models

11:25
The New Kid in Town: Fixed-Fee Models

18:10
The Importance of Internal Champions for AI Adoption

19:45
Prioritize Muscle Memory Before Complex Workflow Automation

26:05
Strategic Practice Areas for AI Implementation

29:36
Learning from History: e-Discovery, AI’s Future Impact

37:00
Legal Tech's Sustainable Competitive Advantage

42:37
Kyle’s Hot Take: Why Traditional Skills Still Matter

44:55
Key Takeaways & Closing Thought

About the Contributors

Joe Stephens

Joe Stephens, J.D., is Steno's Director of Legal Solutions as well as a Clinical Lecturer at Texas Tech University School of Law. With over 15 years of experience in criminal defense and public service, he founded and led Texas' largest rural public defender office, which serves a 12-county area. A graduate of The University of Texas School of Law (cum laude) and Vanderbilt University (B.A.), Stephens currently serves as a Board Member of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association (TCDLA) and sits on multiple State Bar of Texas committees. His expertise spans the intersection of legal practice and technological innovation in the justice system.

Adrian Cea

Adrian Cea is Steno's Social Media Manager, leading content strategy, audience engagement, and digital brand-building across platforms. He also produces and co-hosts Between the Briefs, Steno's podcast covering the intersection of legal technology, court reporting, and the future of litigation. With a background spanning content creation, field marketing, and sales at companies like Sell Better and Chili Piper, Adrian brings a multi-disciplined lens to making complex legal tech topics accessible and engaging.