Pearls On, Gloves Off: The Legal Innovation Podcast

Mary sits down with Erica Zolner, Britney Colton, and Ray Mangum of Redgrave LLP, an information law firm that runs nothing like a traditional firm. They dig into what happens when lawyers and technologists work side by side, how AI turned 600,000 contract PDFs into a risk picture in five days, why disrupting yourself beats waiting to be disrupted, why clients still hold on to the billable hour, and how real-time feedback shapes how the firm rewards its people.
This episode is presented by PLI.
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Mary sits down with Stanford Law's Adam Sterling and Irene Liu to unpack the school's new Legal Engineering Academy. They dig into what a legal engineer actually is, why the legal apprenticeship model has been broken for years, how AI-powered 'flight simulators' could compress a decade of experience into months, why AI may be pushing demand for young lawyers up rather than down, and what the legal talent ecosystem could look like ten years from now.
This episode is presented by Workday.
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Mary sits down with Dr. Larry Richard, psychologist, former lawyer, and the foremost researcher on lawyer personality, for a return visit that goes even deeper than their first conversation. They dig into the seven personality traits that make lawyers uniquely wired for the law and uniquely challenged by everything else, why nine out of ten lawyers are thin-skinned, why empathy has dropped 50% in the last twelve years, what that means for legal leadership in an AI-driven world, and what the science actually says about how to change any of it.
This episode is presented by Workday.
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Mary sits down with Ryan Daniels, Co-Founder and CEO of Crosby, for a rare look inside one of legal tech's most talked-about AI native law firms. They dig into why Ryan built a law firm instead of a legal tech company, how fixed fee pricing completely changes the unit economics of legal services, why Crosby lawyers are evaluated on speed not hours, how they're building a data moat from every contract they touch, and what it actually looks like when a law firm is designed from day one to hand work off to agents.
This episode is presented by Workday.
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Mary sits down with Darth Vaughn, Associate General Counsel and Managing Director of Policy and Legal Ops at Ford Motor Company, for a candid conversation about what it actually looks like when one of the world's largest legal departments stops waiting and starts building. They dig into why the billable hour model is structurally broken, what Ford actually expects from its outside counsel, why AI native firms still have a trust problem, and what the legal department of the future really needs to look like - from someone already living it.
This episode is presented by Workday.
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