LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 - Buddy Eastwood - E09

0:00Welcome 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.

0:41It'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, recording live here at Legal Tech Talk. And I am joined by name, title, and organization. So you have Buddy Eastwood, regional director at Consilio. And one of the best collaborators, community builders, and all-round great humans that we've known each other a long time in the legal world. and we'll just say off air, it's finally good to do this in person at the largest legal tech conference in Europe.

1:20So let's get into it. What's in one sentence, what problem are you trying to solve in legal?

1:25Buddy Eastwood:Really trying to just reduce the cost when you're handling any litigation, investigation, anything e-discovery related, really reducing that cost of that process, really. Yeah. And look, we're here for that. I think the more that we can make these services accessible so people get the best outcomes. We're absolutely in support of that. As an extension of all things legal tech, what's one assumption people have about legal tech that they still get wrong, in your opinion? There's a magic button that will do everything. I think that seems to be the thing. But I mean, sophisticated users are not like that.

1:58Buddy Eastwood:But I mean, a lot of people that are maybe less sophisticated would be one button and I don't have to do anything more. But it's not as simple as that. Yeah, I agree. And look, Consilio is doing some huge things. You're obviously major sponsors here. Indeed. And you've got some new exciting things happening. So do you want to tell our listeners a bit about it? Sure, yeah. I mean, this is all about a big launch of an AI tool called Aurora. If you're involved in any sort of corporate that is needing to deal with investigations, litigation, then do come and say hello if you're here, but always after.

2:27Buddy Eastwood:But it's really there just to give clients a lot more control over their data, give them early insight. so you don't have to be concerned about reviewing data and having a huge cost of irrelevant data. Aurora's there to really give that early intelligence and insight to give you AI power at a very early stage. So that's what we're launching it here in the UK. The anticipation of this event has been building up over the last few months. I'm glad we're here now and it's been a great morning so far. Yeah, it's been fantastic and it's been great energy. You and I were here last year as well. We were.

3:00I guess with that then, what surprised you already when it comes to Legal Tech Talk 2025, maybe versus last year?

3:06Buddy Eastwood:Well, last year was incredible. I mean, Brad, Joe, and the whole team have done an amazing job last year, which just blew me away about how great it was for a first time. Yeah. You know, and for them to keep that level, I think it's a surprise. I thought there was going to be something here, maybe go wrong or problem with the registration. But everything has been so smooth. And some of the booths here have been incredible. I mean, we thought we've got a good booth with espresso martinis and coffee. but you have like a Formula One car where you're changing tires and you've got basketball hoop games.

3:33Buddy Eastwood:So I think it's a great testament to what they're allowing companies to do on the booths. So for me, the surprise is just the freedom that they allow everyone to have fun with it, you know? Yeah, and it's so creative, isn't it? When they come to things like this, it's a really fun, immersive experience and everyone's smiling, everyone's kind of connecting, learning new things. Absolutely, yeah. You know, it's all those side chats that I'm seeing people have as well, people connecting that's hopefully going to, you know, transform. And that's ultimately what these things are about, what our show's about.

3:58Okay, let's fast forward five years. Let's say it's 2030. What do you hope will be finally fixed within the world of law?

4:05Buddy Eastwood:That is a great question. I mean, everyone talks about billable hours and they talk about the costs, predictable costs and stuff like that. I'm hopeful that AI can really help companies be more transparent and more understanding about what's going to happen with their legal costs. So I think in five years from now, there is hopefully going to be a lot more predictability before they start any sort of case or use any sort of technology, knowing what's going to be the cost, right? And what's going to be the outcome? I think AI is really going to develop that and change that. So I think even that might be closer than five years away, but we'll see in five years what it's like.

4:40Yeah. What do you think makes this conference different to so many others out there? Because it is a saturated space.

4:46Buddy Eastwood:Absolutely. I mean, I've already said very publicly on LinkedIn, this was the highlight of my year last year. And I've got to also thank Suzanne because Suzanne was able to get me a guest ticket last year, very last minute. So a big shout out to Suzanne, who I know is here today. But yeah, I just think it's just the way that they bring people together. It's got a huge international crowd. You've got people from very different types of companies. And it just seems like everyone seems very open to talk. I mean, I've been to many conferences where there's lots of people, but it seems a different atmosphere where it's quite difficult to go around the room and create that relationship or that first conversation.

5:17Buddy Eastwood:Whereas here, I feel like everyone just seems very open to have a conversation, you know. And everyone's relaxed. I mean, you're wearing the red jacket associated with the show. So people are happy to wear it. People are happy to have fun, be themselves, be human and have a good time. OK, what's been your biggest aha moment of the conference thus far? Well, I think just seeing what other providers out there are doing. I mean, our competitors, but also complementary businesses. It's just like the amount of development that's happened in a very short space of time. I mean, for me, that's just amazing to see.

5:43Buddy Eastwood:So for me, it's just seeing how far and how quickly everyone is developing tools. So for me, it's just seeing that in the flesh. I mean, you hear a lot about it and you see a lot of people share things on LinkedIn. But here you're amongst it, right? And you can see people doing demos on every one of their booths and people having very deep conversations. So for me, it just goes to show how far we've come already in the kind of journey of legal tech and AI. And yeah, I mean, for me, it's just so it's exciting. You know, it's exciting to see that. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I guess, you know, Consilio, it's been a big year for you.

6:15Like you say, new product out. Give people just a little bit of the behind the scenes. like what are you thinking about before launching a product? Because legal tech space is saturated, the AI space is becoming more saturated. Are there things maybe to inspire or help others that might be thinking about trying to launch something that you've done that you would do again and maybe some things you wouldn't do again?

6:32Buddy Eastwood:Good question. I mean, look, we're in a very competitive space and we've seen a lot of our competitors go public with a lot of AI solutions. And ultimately they are AI solutions, but we've taken time. We've been spending a lot of time building the AI tool on a private infrastructure. And a lot of that has come from our clients, right? Our big corporate clients, like the big banks that we work with, you know, it's important to have data security and all of that. So it's been a, we've been kind of taking time and our team have had to be very patient. And I got a big, big shout out to all of our development team.

7:04Buddy Eastwood:But for me, it's all about, you know, listening to clients, you know, what, what, what are their problems? You know, what do we need to build to resolve and be, you know, solving those, those big problems. So really, I think, oh, I mean, it's just like taking time and listening to the clients and then building it to be future-proof, you know, and that's a big part of what we've done as well is to be future-proof. You know, we've built our AI on multiple LLMs. So how will they all develop over the next years? We'll hopefully we'll have one that's best in class at that time and we can pivot to each one, you know, and that's another reason why we've been patient and what we've done.

7:37Yeah. And I love that. And it's, you know, like you say, being client-centered, but we recently interviewed the CFO of Clio, and he said, when it comes to AI and innovating, it's like driving in the fog. The main thing is you keep going forwards, but you're driving with caution. You're taking your time, but you're still going forwards, and you've got that positive outlook. But like you say, you take your time and don't rush. And I think that's exactly kind of what you've done, taking the right approach, and then you've chose the right platform to launch it. And it's been successful, and we're fans of what you're doing over here on the Legally Speaking podcast.

8:06So if people want to know more about Concilio or potentially check out what's come to the market. Where can they go to find out more? Feel free to share any websites, any social media handles.

8:13Buddy Eastwood:Absolutely, yeah. I mean, concilio.com, we've got a whole page on our Aurora platform there. You can go on LinkedIn. We've got a good page that shares a lot of the updated information, and that goes out pretty much daily, weekly. And please connect with me. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm quite active on LinkedIn. I'm not as active as you, Rob, but certainly trying to keep busy and so on. But everyone's welcome to reach out to me, and I'm happy to introduce them to our consultants and experts and so on. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's easy to say thanks so much once again for joining us on the League of Speaking Podcast.

8:41Thank you, Rob. Excited we managed to make this happen. But from now, from all of us, 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 hub, The Legally Speaking Club, over on Discord. Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com, for the link to join our community there. Over and out.