With the wrap of this year’s International Legal Technology Association Conference (“ILTACON18”), we are all reflecting on what we learned over a week full of educational sessions, hands-on brainstorming groups, swapped experiences with colleagues and the list goes on and on.  As I reflected on my takeaways, I attempted to sum them up in three words:  trust, time and technology.

Trust

From blockchain to artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, trust was an overall theme of the conference.  From trust that the data is accurate to trust in the cloud and trust in partnerships.  In the Future of e-Discovery session, there was discussion of trusted partnerships between developers’ and customers’ trust in the technology.  This also resonated from the general counsel sessions discussing trust in their various partners from outside counsel to software vendors and the preference of sometimes just picking up the phone.  As we leave the conference, this trust will continue with our own internal teams, our own partners as well as our continued trust in technological advancements.

Time

Speaking of technological advancements and trust, brings me to time.  A recurring theme over the week was the need to trust in the technology to automate the simple tasks that inundate our daily lives so that we have more time.  More time to think, as this critical thinking will help advance our internal organizations, our client deliverables and our litigation strategies.  Automation is here so that we can do more in less time and have more time for innovation.  While some may fear the day of robots, let’s be sure to trust and accept the automation that technology can now offer us so that we have more time for the advanced work.

Technology

I don’t think I can leave a conference specifically geared to those of us in the legal technology industry without discussing the technology itself.  Software developers are continuing to improve upon their existing products. New players are entering the legal industry venue with their new products and these conferences provide us with an opportunity to see what is available to think about what tools may benefit our organizations and clients and how we may be able to implement them going forward.  At the same time, we should continue to think about how we can better leverage our current tools in our individual tool boxes.  These pieces of technology that we already use may be under-utilized and may be able to automate more to further provide efficiencies in the legal industry.

I know I’ll continue to think about how we can do more in less time, how we can automate more tasks to continuously increase efficiencies, until the next conference, where I look forward to discussing the innovative projects we’ve accomplished since our last meeting and brainstorming innovative ideas that we can take back to our own city.