Clio Con Clips 2025 - Niamh Pollak - E14

0:00Niamh Pollak:Welcome to ClioCon Clips 2025, recorded live from Boston and proudly sponsored by Clio, the world's leading legal technology company transforming the legal experience for all. I'm your host, Rob Hanna, and over this special Legally Speaking podcast series, we'll be bringing you exclusive conversations with the brilliant minds behind Clio, the innovators, strategists, visionaries driving one of the most transformative companies in legal tech. Across these interviews, we'll explore how Clio is uniting brilliance across teams, technology and communities worldwide. From AI and data to leadership, culture and the future of client experience.

0:38Niamh Pollak:You'll hear from people shaping what's next for law and redefining what's possible for legal professionals everywhere. So whether you're a lawyer, technologist or leader passionate about innovation, you're in the right place. This ClioCon Clips 2025 is where brilliance meets purpose and the future of law takes shape. Let's get into it.

1:03Niamh Pollak:Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast, recording live here from Boston for our ClioCon Clips series 2025, sponsored by Clio. And I am delighted to be joined by name, title and organisation. Niamh Pollack, Vice President of Legal at Clio. And welcome back. The last time we chatted was in Austin and that was all about amplifying your impact. And boy, has Cleo done that over the last 12 months. We took it literally. Yeah, we weren't lying. No, you absolutely weren't. And before we talk all things Cleo and the year and everything else you've been getting up to, I would love to know a fun fact about you that people here may not know.

1:37A fun fact, maybe not all that useful in North America, but I speak five languages. Growing up in Ireland, you have to learn foreign languages. So, yeah, they're a bit rusty, but you can dust them off when needs be.

1:49Niamh Pollak:If it's okay with you, I'm comfortable with English. So if we can carry on the conversation. I am fluent in English, so that helps a lot. Absolutely. Okay, well, look, let's talk about the whole Clio year and things that have been going on. Because you've worked across Ireland, Canada, US and Europe. So how has that kind of international experience shaped your approach to leading a global legal team here at Clio? Yeah, I think, you know, being called in multiple jurisdictions as a lawyer, you have just that insider exposure to different regimes. And law societies and bar associations just have different ways of doing things.

2:24So you're automatically connected to our clients, essentially the lawyers. You understand their own unique needs, their own compliance, dependencies, and just a respect for the rule of law. It's not a uniform global jurisdiction and, you know, culturally respecting products launches and making sure we're localizing things according to certain jurisdictions. So, you know, having had the advantage and privilege, frankly, of having been able to travel and live around the world, I just never forget that we're all equal, but we're different. Yeah, really well said.

2:58Niamh Pollak:And I absolutely agree with that. And look, you know, Clio is not dipping their toe into AI, leaning all in, certainly. So the legal function at a company like Clio doesn't just protect, but it also enables, which I absolutely love. But how do you balance innovation and risk when the pace of change in AI and tech is so fast? You hire top talent. Yes. You partner with expert external counsel who are, you know, in the weeds on compliance and regulatory best practices and just stay current. and use AI in your own practice to stay current. You know, a lot of the time we get newsletters and news feeds and you can almost become a little bit flippant about it like it's another irritation in your inbox, but there's a minefield of valuable information there.

3:43So I do very deliberately more than just scan those emails and making sure that I try to be on the cusp of everything that's changing globally. But again, you can't do it all. So hire really, really good teams and partner with external counsel and trust in their advice because they're the subject, but they're closer to it than you are. And politely but firmly push back when your stakeholders say, well, ChatGPT told me X. Well, ChatGPT lies a lot, so external counsel don't. So I'm going to go with the people I'm paying for the right answer.

4:16Niamh Pollak:Yeah, and just that bit of small print underneath ChatGPT people might need to look at with the odd mistake that's turned in. Yeah, very good point, very good point. Okay, look, in terms of products, I mean, Clio has come out the gate again this year with products. Clio Payments, Clio Capital. So entering a very regulated financial space, how do you ensure compliance and trust remain at the heart of the innovation that's going on at the company? Yeah, at its centre base, our clients are still consumers. They're consumers of legal products and there's optionality in the marketplace. And you just have to be very transparent and frankly very ethical about any type of payment product.

4:53You know, I have the task of drafting the terms and conditions, So the terms of service and connections with every single payment product. And my bright line rule is plain reading of the provision. Yeah. Plain drafting so there's no surprises. Everybody understands what they're contracting for. And then making sure that my sales team are fully confident with socializing that messaging to our customers. So you never want to oversell and under deliver or just confuse your customer base. So especially with regulated products like a payment or a fintech product line, you just want to make sure your customers know exactly what they're getting.

5:26And then what not to do at the same time. So it's education, but it's also just being transparent.

5:31Niamh Pollak:Yeah, I love that. And very clear. So people, it's easy to understand. The plain reading of the contract is my mantra. I tell my team all the time. I want it short, succinct, and I want it to be easily understood. So could I go as far as saying anti-legalese? I like to say jargon free. It's a kinder way of saying it. Yeah, fair point. I won't be adding Ray's ipsa locator to my drafting. So, yeah. Let's leave the Latin behind. And look, Jack was very intentional in his keynote. I think it was one of the best keynotes I think we've ever seen, undoubtedly. Very inspiring. But Clio is the first legal tech business now to service the whole market, from solos to mid-market and now to Clio for enterprise, Clio Operate, of course.

6:12Niamh Pollak:And that brings a new level of complexity to the show. So how does your team support enterprise clients while maintaining agility that Clio is very well known for? Yeah. I think you have to know your customer base intimately. And enterprise clients can and should expect a more white glove service approach. It's a larger account. The stakes are bigger, frankly. It's a lot more users, a lot more people in the firm who are depending on this solution to really do its magic. So I think our sales team are more than capable of rising to the occasion. And again, just making sure that the product market fit has been really thought through before we present it to that segment.

6:51and then just bringing along on the journey, like superior customer service, dealing with escalations in a very, very timely manner. And sometimes you might not get it right and just admit it and assist the customer with a remediation. And that's going to encourage retention. And we want happy customers at the end of the day.

7:10Niamh Pollak:A person who never made a mistake, never existed, as my late grandfather said, a lawyer himself. Very, very true. A question now more about stakeholder management internally. You know, you've referenced sales, legal. There's a lot of, you know, you see a lot of things online about the Department of Know and everything else, et cetera, et cetera. But clearly not the case because Clio is very pro collaboration and it's very connected as an organization. So what tips would you give for other businesses, hyper growth businesses in terms of getting that right between the link between legal and sales?

7:37Niamh Pollak:So you move forward to this business of action. I know you talk about a system of action, but yeah, what are some of the things you've implemented that make it real good fusion between the two? Again, I think like having really good, strong starting documentation and training your sales team so they're fully familiar with just the vernacular, like they have all the talk tracks down. They shouldn't really need us for the day-to-day routine matters, but there is an appropriate time to hand it over to us. And again, your customers want quick responses. They're selecting a solution and you don't want them sitting in the weeds waiting for a turnaround.

8:10So, you know, we use AI in our practice to accelerate our processes and our speed. And it's been a game changer, like just to be able to, you know, pressure test even your own thinking or your own drafting. And I think we're fortunate that we lived in a pre-AI world, at least I did. And I'll know when something maybe isn't going in the direction I want in terms of a response and I can course correct. But again, enjoying the chaos, but being responsive and moving fast. No different to any high growth company.

8:39Niamh Pollak:Yeah, absolutely. And you were touching on there where I wanted to go next, actually, because you do sit at the intersection of law and tech. But how is AI changing the way in-house legal teams operate, both in terms of legal strategy, but also day-to-day work? Any examples you would give? I think that you have less reliance, frankly, on external counsel, except for maybe very discreet, as we talked about, regulatory payment matters where you just can't miss a beat. But for day-to-day, even more complex day-to-day matters, there's just an absolute wealth of information you can mine from AI. If you use a finely tuned AI solution, that is the key.

9:19Do not use ChatGPT as your default. Even Gemini or co-powered, these are great tools, and they're getting better every day. But I always recommend to lawyers to use a finely tuned legal AI solution because the returns you're getting are from legal data sets, not the internet writ large. So, you know, we have a tracker, actually, with the tool we use. We use a tool called GCAI, which has been really a game changer for many in-house lawyers. And it shows our metrics, and it shows you the time you've saved. you're actually freeing yourself up to do what I like to say is the more sophisticated deep thinking because a lot of the routine stuff can be taken off your plate with AI like redlining agreements, creating tables, you know, something tedious like creating a table or an issue list, AI can do that for you.

10:06So I have a mandatory AI use case in my team. Everyone has to love AI, frankly, and we're all like super users at this point.

10:16Niamh Pollak:And that's obviously why Clio is doing so well as a business And we've had a whole raft of guests come on the show. One was Piers Linney, former Shark Tank investor and lawyer himself. And he talks a lot about a value pyramid in terms of it doesn't matter if you're a lawyer, if you're an accountant, if you're an insurer. You as a service provider, technology is coming in and filling in the mundane. And it's going to continue rising up the value. So you as a service provider need to find a way as your human input to add value to your clients. And like you said, this frees up a lot of time. So you can use that way you train to be a lawyer.

10:44Niamh Pollak:So you can add that value, give that real creative thought, have that empathy and really add value. And I think that's what's super exciting about AI and people who embrace it, but then also ensure they bring that human touch. Exactly. And I think, you know, we sometimes forget and assume that the law is stagnant. It's all been written and therefore the AI will almost like cannibalize the legal industry, whereas we're constantly iterating and changing the law. And if we now have the time, as I said, to think the deeper, more sophisticated thoughts, we can just keep improving the law. There's a better way of doing things.

11:17Maybe laws shouldn't be on the books indefinitely. Maybe they should expire after a period of time. And then you press your test. Is this piece of legislation still fit for purpose? Did the legislatures of 30 years ago have the same future context we now have? So I just see AI as a way to accelerate all of us into a better way of organizing society, frankly. So that can only be a win.

11:41Niamh Pollak:And I love that positive outlook. And it's exactly the view we share as well. And I think it's super exciting. This year's theme, we talked about last year Amplify Your Impact, obviously in Austin. But this year, it's all about uniting brilliance. And obviously, it's been very clear with Vlex and Shardu. I could go on and on. But what does uniting brilliance mean within your legal team? And how do you encourage collaboration between lawyers, engineers, business leaders and beyond? Again, plain English, you know, translating the jargon. But also challenge yourself to learn new jargon. Understand the tech speak, get really, really into the product launch cycle.

12:15The demand for product counsel is growing. The demand for legal ops is growing. So don't just view yourself as an excellent practitioner. You have to be more multifaceted. And legal operations, as I said, that's intake, matter management, the user experience, the journey of how they use us as a team. That's all critical because if your stakeholders aren't happy, then, you know, at the end of the day, you're only as good as your last goal. So, yeah, I just encourage the team to seek out mentors and just challenge themselves to, you know, stretch beyond their limits, I guess.

12:48Niamh Pollak:Yeah. And a mind once stretched never returns, as I was once told. So I think that's very, very true. OK. And you were touching on there and I'll go a bit deeper because many in-house lawyers want to become true business partners, not just advisors. So what's your advice for in-house counsel who want to elevate their impact? Yeah, I think if you work at a company like Clio, you don't have the choice to be only a legal advisor. You're fully immersed in a business and you're assisting so many different teams with so many different niche areas. And inevitably, you're going to find that your practice area and your understanding of the business in general has broadened beyond even your own expectations.

13:29So it's not really a question of you having the luxury of maybe staying in a silo. You are by default unsiloed. But just come with it with a curiosity and just spend a lot of time with your senior stakeholders. And also be humble. You don't understand an acronym. Like maybe look it up or ask somebody and have the humility to say, like, I don't understand what you're saying.

13:51Niamh Pollak:Yeah. And then you will understand. so yeah I mean I have a great team and they've had to really rise to the occasion this year because I've been so tied up with the VLEX deal so they have been pushed outside of their comfort zone which is appropriate I hire you know folks who want to thrive in the chaos and the the excitement that is Clio but you know then we come to ClioCon and everything runs like clockwork so yes it sure does the chaos translates into this this wonderful experience for our clients absolutely and I guess before we we look to take a zoom out and get your kind of thoughts on ClioCon and highlights.

14:24Niamh Pollak:Looking ahead, what excites you most about how the legal profession and the role of in-house counsel will evolve in the coming years? So the first part is how the legal profession will evolve. I absolutely love the combination of the practice of law and the business of law. And the way, you know, the tech tools are there. I mean, Cleo's just launched a bunch of them. You're using agents to guide you through your day-to-day intake, workflow, output. Again, and it gives you the time to do this deep thinking. It does feel like we're at this real pivot point where the old days are well and truly gone.

15:01So very excited about the future for private practitioners. And then for in-house, I think it's a similar path, a little bit different in terms of some of the needs. We're not billing. We're not dealing with external clients. It's all internal facing. But we do need similar tech solutions and something as simple as intake and matter management and tracking of a matter, you know, it's something that the in-house team is more heavily leaning into from a tech stock perspective. What I would love to see in the future is a tech solution for very large scale M &A transactions. I'm in the middle of one, as people may know.

15:40We're rounding the bend of the VLX deal, which is close to closing. and surprisingly it's very much a email pdf and checklist based interface yes and i think you know in 2025 that's just not acceptable anymore frankly and i would challenge any entrepreneur and legal tech including clio to produce a solution where we can interact real time in a platform and we already have the interlinks of the world we have the document the sites for diligence. And we just need to take that much, much further where we can all interact rather than having email updates where a human, frankly, is required to share the status update.

16:23It's a very human-centric process and it works. And that's why people are comfortable with it. But I think, you know, as VP of Legal in a legal tech company doing the largest M &A deal in Canadian in legal tech history, global legal tech history, to have an email, Zoom, and checklist and PDF process, it feels like there's an opportunity there. And I think in no time someone's going to seize that opportunity. And I will be the first person to trial that product. I demand that all external counsel follow me, if they're working with me, to trial this product and do M &A in a real-time live update environment where we're all collaborating in the same portal.

17:05Niamh Pollak:Sounds like we've got a willing beta tester. It's on you. Absolutely. Well, look, it's been an absolute pleasure having you back. Before I let you go, what's been the highlight view of ClioCon 2025? The highlight of ClioCon? I think the product announcements. Yeah. My team was heavily involved in all of the drafting for, you know, the terms of service. So we are so intimately familiar with every component and every feature. and of course the VLEX announcement, everything we're doing with our incredible partners at the VLEX team, the Vincent AI tool. We're so excited about the closing and just combining the two companies and what the VLEX team have done over the last 25 years.

17:49Angel and Louise has been nothing short of astounding and that's why they were so attracted to us as a target and we're absolutely thrilled to be, as I said, rounding the bend and closing this deal And the next time we're at ClioCon, it'll be one company. So we're just very, very excited about that.

18:04Niamh Pollak:Yeah, and we're very excited about coming back here to Boston next year where ClioCon 2026 is. It's been an actual pleasure having you back on the Legally Speaking podcast. If people want to know more about Clio or indeed get in touch with yourself or maybe interested in learning more about what's going on, where's the best place for them to go? Feel free to share any websites or any social media handles. Sure, yeah. You can find me on LinkedIn. I do check messages. I will respond to them or you can reach out to me through Clio, through my email at Clio, which I think you can find online. Yeah, or just connect with any of your stakeholders at Cleo and they can make an introduction.

18:36Niamh Pollak:Well, it just needs me to say thank you so much once again for joining me back here on the show and looking forward to hopefully chatting with you next year. That's a matter from all of us on the Legally Speaking podcast sponsored by Cleo, over and out. Thank you for listening to this week's episode. If you like the content here, why not check out our world-leading content and collaboration of the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord. Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com. There's a link to join our community there. Over and out.