LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 - Jonathan Williams - E04

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 from Legal Tech Talk here in London. I am joined by name, title and organisation. Jonathan Williams, Director of France for Legora. And just all round cool dude. Really good to have you on the show. We've had Chris Williams previously on the show as well. No relation. no relation this is i cannot stress that enough yeah just gonna really put that in there folks not related um okay in one sentence what's one problem that you are trying to solve in the world

1:24Jonathan Williams:illegal um my own personal uh poverty i'm trying to make myself as rich as i said lagora so from a professional point of view lagora is um uh an agentic ai platform for lawyers so it's trying to improve the way that lawyers are are doing things and we're trying to get rid of things that lawyers really shouldn't be doing anyway, which is sort of low-level tasks. Yeah. And look, you've made a huge commitment to Legal Tech Talk this year. And, you know, it's great to see Libra everywhere. And, you know, lots of people have been saying great things about Libra. And we're fans of what you're doing as well.

1:56What have you most enjoyed about Legal Tech Talk 2025?

2:00Jonathan Williams:It's just been crazy. So the first one last year I was at as well. I kind of, I vaguely know Bradley, we spoke when he first started spinning this thing up. Yeah. And it's been incredible to watch it sort of grow into this. I think it's doubled in size. There were two floors and it's like, it's gone really, really big. The things that I've enjoyed is the, the incredible vibe. I think the vibe is exactly right. It's where it needs to be. It's between sort of like a fun jovial thing and a more serious legal thing. And everybody is super friendly, super engaging. And there's been a really big crowd as well.

2:33Jonathan Williams:I thought, I don't know what the numbers are officially, but I've, I was on the booth all day yesterday from 7am till 7pm, which was an hour past the official end time. and I was just talking the whole, you might be able to hear, I was just talking the whole time. And people are, yeah, present. And what are the common pain points people have become from those conversations? What are some of the things that you're taking away from this that might help you in terms of future decision making? And yeah, I guess why people should come to conferences like this. Yeah, so the things that people have been telling me, so all I've seen is the booth and talking to people.

3:03Jonathan Williams:So I've seen other people's pain points and they've been really complimentary about the sessions. I didn't get to experience many of them personally. my wife was on a panel so I went and took photos but apart from that I haven't been seeing any of the sessions but I heard great things about the sessions so I think that's really helping people to sort of identify where their thinking might be going or where the market might be going to the extent that such a thing as the market and I think the rest of it is just connection, meeting people and meeting random people as well, meeting people you know already, meeting people you don't know but are in your space and can be helpful to you and you can be helpful to them but also meeting random people who've got nothing to do with anything and you get on great.

3:40As someone who's involved in a very serious legal tech that you've been through some raises, you're doing some great stuff, you're continuously innovating, what's one assumption lawyers and people in and around the world of legal tech still have that they get wrong?

3:54Jonathan Williams:Assumption that they get wrong? They assume they know what AI is, mostly. Lots of them have absolutely no idea. They assume that what they're looking at right now is maybe 1 % of AI. The entirety of the current legal market is maybe 60 % of what will eventually be possible with AI. The rest of it, we can't even imagine. So the idea that they can look at what we're doing right now and think, we know what it is, I can guarantee they're wrong. They'll be wrong next week. They'll be wrong the month after. That's typically it. Yeah. And this year's themes of Legal Tech Talk have crossed a lot of things.

4:30Access to justice, law and tech, evolution, revolution, compliance, you name it, purpose-driven law. Or is there any one of the themes that's most stood out to you and why?

4:39Jonathan Williams:I'd really like the well-being branch of the stuff that's been going on, simply because I'm exhausted. I need to take better care of myself. Yeah, revolution, not evolution, I quite like. I recognise that. I believe, I'm a very firm believer in the Jevons paradox. Like as we get more effective and efficient and productive as lawyers, we're using things like AI. We're just going to do more and more and more for our clients. That's it. And in the same way as the Jevons paradox, we use more coal, we use more efficiently, we use more of it same thing with lawyers we use them more efficiently we use more of them uh if you and if you look at the history of the profession um technical innovation after each technical innovation that's arrived you know faxes computers legal research e-discovery whatever it is ai now after every single innovation you've got more lawyers and more revenue across the industry and not fewer lawyers and less revenue across the industry so it's going to keep going like that love it and as i said before nagora's been on a huge drive of late uh looking forwards what are some of the exciting plans?

5:35What can you share? What can't you share?

5:36Jonathan Williams:The list of things that I can't share is extensive simply because I'm just not in the loop. There's just so much going on. I can't be in the loop on everything. Stuff that's coming up for me personally, I'm going to be hopefully travelling a little less over the summer. We've got lots more big firms starting up. We've got some arbitral institutions coming onto the platform. We've got some programmes we're putting together with some universities to make sure the students are hitting the market, you know, ready to start being useful in the AI era. um of course there is constant product development like just all the time we have like it's my full time job to work for this company i still can't keep up with our own product it's insane yeah okay before i let you go and save your voice what's been your biggest aha moment of legal tech talk 2025 um i think walking in walking in like the very first day i walked in to go and find the booth and set up early in the morning and i walked in i was like oh wow this is i this was bigger than This was not this big last year, so that was it.

6:31Yeah, new level, new devil, as I always say. I think Bradley and team have worked very hard and pulled it off once again. So if people have been sleeping under a rock, where can they find out more about Lugora or indeed yourself? If they want to get in touch, feel free to share any websites, any social media handles.

6:45Jonathan Williams:Lugora.com. Go and check it out. Everything's on there. It looks amazing. Team have done an incredible job, the marketing, the branding. We got the merch, our tote bags. where people were coming back for more and that kind of thing. No, they've done a really great job. So have a look at our website and you can find me on LinkedIn and I'll refuse to deny, I'll refuse to confirm any other social media handles. There we go. That's all we need. Just to say thanks so much for joining us. Wishing you and obviously all the Lagora team lots of continued success. But for now, thank you so much for having me.

7:15Thank 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.