LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 - Isabel Bathurst - E12

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 2025. Please introduce yourself, name, title and organisation.

1:04Isabel Bathurst:Well, hello, it's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me on the Legally Speaking podcast. It's Isabel Bathurst. I'm the owner and founder of Legal AI Limited, a legal tech company. But it's also got an AI tool, an agentic AI tool for AI, and it's built by lawyers for lawyers. And it looks at all those issues that lawyers are really not happy about with AI and looks at how we can bridge the gap and provide the type of AI that lawyers will be happy and content to use. I love that. And I guess that leads nicely on to what's the one problem you are specifically trying to solve in the world of law?

1:42Isabel Bathurst:Pain points. Got very cross with my computer with everything that I'm doing on case management systems and different systems that just don't talk to each other very well. Quite clunky. The business of law on my day to day is just not as seamless as it might ought to be. and it's systems that could just talk to each other better so a whole host of problems that then when you start saying what's my pain point here you start to look at actually ai can be like a little bridge gap between systems that really assist i love that and what i love what you said before is uh built by lawyers for lawyers so with that what's one assumption about legal tech you think most people get wrong okay well legal tech is fantastic some of the best tech that you could have in systems.

2:28Isabel Bathurst:The problem I've had in implementing it as a partner in law firms is the legal tech doesn't quite do what the lawyers want it to do. And I think that's one of the biggest problems. And also that the lawyers and the tech people speak different languages. So there's a complete disconnect between what the lawyers want the tech to do and what its capability is. But it doesn't mean the technology is not super duper capable, brilliant. It's just not quite doing what it needs to. Not doing what it needs to. Okay. Talking about what needs to, Are you doing any sessions here? Are you attending any sessions?

2:59If so, tell us about them.

3:00Isabel Bathurst:I am attending sessions. I'm going to some of the keynote events, but I'm also interested to what the legal startups are doing. Since I was on the stage last year, the number of technology startups and companies working with AI specifically is increased exponentially. It seems to be much more in terms of contract work and e-discovery than what I'm dealing with in terms of process and litigation and systems speaking to each other. But I just want to just look around and see what's the competition, what's going on, but also what's new and how has the conversation and the interest changed just in the last 12 months.

3:41So I'm really looking at what people are talking about, what they're worried about, what they're concerned about,

3:46Isabel Bathurst:but more importantly, what they're excited about, what they want to implement in their firms. Listening with all ears from all angles by the sound. I'm here just to go and listen, listen to the keynotes, listen to the speakers, talk to as many people and connect as possible. I'm here in person to just I've got various meetings lined up to talk to people. I've got some investment rounds coming up. The first people I connect with are investors. It's got so many conversations going and just within half an hour of walking in, I've already had five connections. So I can't. It's just a brilliant event for that.

4:18And we get to meet in real life from LinkedIn, which is always very nice as well. Okay, so this year's themes, there's six of them, law and tech, evolution, revolution, access to justice, purpose-driven law, collaboration, and smart compliance. Which of those speaks loudest to you and why?

4:33Isabel Bathurst:Out of that one that jumps out, well, there's two that jumps out. The first one was collaboration. Yeah. The reason I think that's important is that lawyers and professionals operate in business through relationship building. Technology, in order to succeed, requires collaboration and partnership. it can't be an old way of working it can't be build a product and sell it with competition collaboration is king it's the way of working and technology understands that legal world it's absolutely essential and in business that collaboration is what's different new and destructive and it's what will afford technology companies to move forward it's it's the businesses that you collaborate with yeah that will move the technology forward in a way that meets particularly how lawyers work.

5:22Isabel Bathurst:The issue, the second one, is the smart compliance. You need trust and understanding with your business partners. And if you haven't got that, your compliance is at risk. And so that's why I put those two together. Love it. I'm really well put together, I might add. Okay, what's been your biggest surprise of Legal Tech Talk 2025? Just how many people and how many new companies. How many new companies are there here this year? That, to me, is really exciting. It shows that it's a really exciting, innovative, dynamic new space. There's a lot of new companies doing really incredible work. There's a lot of, whilst there's a lot of overlap, there's a lot of new ideas.

6:00Isabel Bathurst:And that's really exciting. And it's really exciting to see. And it's exciting to see how in business they're actually making products that are working and changing how we operate. and to see them all here and have an opportunity to see their demos and to talk to them, find out where they're going. As a founder as well, that's really encouraging. There's just a lot more of those businesses here than there were last year. And that's just the best, really. Real sense of innovation, isn't there? And like real energy about it. Real energy. Okay. And then what if we fast forward five years, say it's 2030, what's one thing you think clients will expect that they're not necessarily getting today?

6:41Isabel Bathurst:They will expect that their lawyers do utilize a properly thought out and driven technology and AI solution for their work. They will require that we as lawyers utilize it, that we utilize it well. The things that we're concerned about, our clients won't be because they will see the opposite. They will want it to be quicker, faster, cheaper, but they'll want it to be right and accurate. So some of that which we are concerned about as lawyers, they will want, but they will want the quicker, straightforward solutions. And they'll want it to be easy. They don't want to read all your legal stuff. They want the answer and to get to it quickly.

7:18Isabel Bathurst:And that's something as lawyers, we've kind of been dragged with kicking and screaming, forgive, but the best lawyers do it. They cut through and give advice that's practical and a solution, especially for businesses. Yeah. And I always say, if you confuse people, you lose people and you build trust if you can get your message across and not leave them in the legalese. Okay. I've really enjoyed this. Before I let you go, what's been your biggest aha moment of the conference thus far? The biggest aha moment is actually realising that AI can really disrupt this industry well. Yeah. And it's actually been bubbling under as a concept for a while, but it's actually now in action.

7:56Isabel Bathurst:I'm seeing technology companies actually meeting the need of lawyers well. I love that. And that's brilliant. AI in action. That's a great way to close. So, Isabel, if people want to know more about you or indeed Legal AI, where can they go to find out more and which platforms you're on? I'm on LinkedIn mainly. At the moment, we're going through an investment round. So I'm literally building a swanky new website with what we're doing. So just about to launch in Dubai as well as in the UK. So we've got a lot of new things happening. I've got some new people coming into the team. Some very exciting people, including a judge, someone from the recent honours list and some very senior solicitors.

8:31Isabel Bathurst:So it's very exciting. So actually go to my LinkedIn page with my website and links to various collaborative partners are also there as well in that collaboration piece, just to show just how LinkedIn works well. Exactly. Well, it just leads me to say thanks ever so much for joining me today and doing this live. But from all of us on the Legally Speaking podcast 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 hub, The Legally Speaking Club, over on Discord. Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com, for the link to join our community there.

9:09Over and out.