LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 - Bernadette Bulacan - E14

0:00Bernadette Bulacan:Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast Legal Tech Talk Uncovered Mini Series 2025 sponsored by Clio. We're back with our red mic for a behind the scenes series all about legal innovation at Europe's largest legal tech event. So we're granted access to meet some of the greatest speakers, sponsors, brands in the whole legal tech world. We've got 300 speakers with over 70 sessions with over 4 ,000 attendees from all across the globe, hitting us here over the next two days at Legal Tech Talk live in London. From AI to access to justice to smart compliance, you name it, we're covering it all. This isn't just another conversation or another conference.

0:41Bernadette Bulacan:It's a blueprint for community and transformation. So buckle up. We're speaking with some incredible people about policy change, change makers, legal innovation, and so much more. Over and out. Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast, live from Legal Tech Talk. And I am joined by name, title, and organization. Well, I'm Bernadette Bullicon, Chief Evangelist at ICERTUS. And it's an absolute pleasure to be having you here at Legal Tech Talk. Let's get into it. In one sentence, what's one problem you're actually trying to solve in legal? Oh, that's one sentence. Could it be how lawyers are not concise and when limited to one sentence, it could be very troubling.

1:27But I will say one problem that we're trying to solve is to transform contracts from static documents stuck in metal cabinets to real strategic assets.

1:40Bernadette Bulacan:Love that. And to allow you to go further this time, explain how you're doing that. Yeah. So I work at iSertis. We are reimagining commerce through AI intelligent contracting. And you can imagine if we were having this conversation 20 years ago, we would be talking about how to, we'd be holding up yellow pads of paper and talking about the contracting process. Those contracts would go into metal cabinets and be forgotten. in. And right now what we are noticing is that the world is in a great deal of turmoil and legal departments, and not just legal departments, but the business need data and insights about their business relationships.

2:23And what we are doing is we are taking all of that data about those business relationships that are those four corners of the contract and giving it back to the business so they can make better decisions. Let me give you an example. Everyone knows that tariffs right now are an incredible challenge. And so one of the things we're trying to do is taking a look at contract portfolios and helping organizations understand who maybe new suppliers are in tax-neutral jurisdictions or finding ways to renegotiate those contracts with existing suppliers so that the costs are more evenly distributed. and you can only do that when you understand the relationship and that relationship is embodied in a contract and if it is in paper and not digitized and not pointed at ai it's very difficult to

3:19Bernadette Bulacan:to extract any of those insights i love that and it kind of leans on to what i was going to ask next in terms related to legal tech generally what's one assumption you think people are still getting wrong when it comes to legal tech oh you know what i would say that um for a while now one One of my assumptions was that lawyers don't use technology. And based on the energy across all three of these floors, the people that are here, it is unreal. I mean, the change that has happened, I think, in the last three years is so different. I've been in legal technology developing tools for lawyers for two decades.

3:57I mean, try having this conversations that we're having now two decades ago. We were talking to, I always tell this story about this one general counsel, and we were talking about technology that's transformational. And everyone, we were at a leadership meeting, and of course, lawyers that were in my peer group, they pulled out their iPhones. We were like, this has changed our practice. Another lawyer talked about how facts changed his. The general counsel at the time was like, oh, I remember at the law firm when we introduced the IBM Selectra typewriter.

4:34Bernadette Bulacan:Yes. The typewriter. And that changed our practice. It eliminated entire floor of word processors. And he really meant the people that were typing on those word processors. It was amazing. And so it's just amazing to me how much this profession has embraced technology. It still has. Way to go. But just based on the energy, all of the Incredivendors that are out there, all of the partners that are trying to evangelize the youth, it is night and day in just the last few years. Yeah, and we've seen that. And like to your point around the energy of this conference, I want to ask you, what surprised you most about Legal Tech Talk 2025?

5:19Oh, well, this is my first year. And I'll tell you what surprised me. I have a very U.S.-centric view of legal tech. And so the energy that's here is incredibly surprising, and that it is not just about contracts and contract transformation. Obviously, AI agents are so big right now, but it's just, it is ubiquitous. It is throughout the practice. And so that was a big practice. I'll say a second thing that has surprised me has been how, you know, we've been talking about this transformation of the general counsel office. And it's just, you know, you always feel that over the last few years, you've been planting seeds around what's important.

6:06And it's just so exciting for me to see how general counsel are not just risk advisors and legal advisors, but they want to be strategic. They want to be aligned. They obviously want to comply with laws and regulation, but they're being so much more purposeful around aligning their legal advice and the way they deliver that legal advice with the company's enterprise objectives. And it's very sad to say, I feel it's a long time coming. So that has been, I love hearing that in every single session, especially when I've been with the general counsel and the legal department track that has come through.

6:45And that is not that it's net new, but it seems very genuine.

6:49Bernadette Bulacan:Yeah, no, and I absolutely agree and absolutely hear where you're coming from with that regard. So I want to ask you, looking forward, you've given some examples of the typewriter and cabinets, et cetera, et cetera. Let's go forward five years. What will clients expect from legal services that they don't get today? Oh, gosh. Well, I am certain that every person that you've talked to who have brought up agents, I think it's really exciting. I think we're going to be testing a new muscle around management. So lawyers have learned to manage young associates. What does it look like to be a manager of sub agents or super agents?

7:32And what technology skills does that mean that you need to achieve? What's law firms and law schools role in developing that? And so I'm just curious about what the world will look like, because it will look like AI and agents will probably not, it'll be non-negotiable in the practice of law. It is here. And we could talk about the technology. What I'm really excited about is to see how we develop this next generation of attorneys to be subject matter experts in the law, and then to deliver the law, both humanly and with the expertise and the speed and the agility of agents.

8:16Bernadette Bulacan:Well said. Yeah, and I agree. Agents are only going to continue to get better, more common, etc, etc, etc. Before I let you go, what's been your biggest aha moment of Legal Tech Talk 2025? There have been so many aha moments. I can go back to the energy. Maybe it's the fact that there's a car in the middle of the floor that people are putting tires on. But I love the theme, right? You have to be a high performance team. High performance teams use data and they use technology and they work together as a team. um so my aha moment is that it takes a village um to transform legal um and it takes technology it takes people it takes data and it's all available to us now we just have to grab that brass ring and embrace it yep and i say it time and time and time again we is greater than me and i think you've articulated that fantastically and i've really enjoyed this interview and if people want to learn more about you or indeed i search it where can they go to find out more Feel free to shout out any websites, any social media handles.

9:21Bernadette Bulacan:We'll share them this episode for you too. Absolutely. So you could learn more about iSertis at www.iSertis.com. You can follow me. My handle is at in-house burn, B-E-R-N. And I love to share best practices, how I see the legal, how legal legal departments transforming. Share my thoughts there as well. Well, listen, it's been an absolute pleasure doing this live with you at Legal Tech Talk. But from all of us on the show for now, 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.

10:02Bernadette Bulacan:Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com for the link to join our community there. Over and out.