Latest / Legal Late Night / Document Automation & AI: The Future of Legal Tech with Andreas Becker
Transcript
- Jared Correia (00:00): Hello everybody. We've got a show that promises to be mildly interesting for your listening and or watching enjoyment. Why not both? We start things up with an entirely new recurring monologue segment. I'm calling you with apologies to John Steinbeck travels with Jared in Search of America. Then we've got Andreas Becker of Cleo Draft in the hissy. There are lots of things he can't talk about, but then there are lots of things that he can talk about. So we thread the needle and in the counter program the Wheel of Justice returns. I've wanted to do a travel log for the podcast for quite some time, and I feel like it's about time to do so. Now, you may be asking yourself, why would I call it travels with Jared in Search of America? That's because I am an ugly American and I only really travel within the parameters of the contiguous United States and Hawaii. (01:12): That's not entirely true. I've been out of the country a few times, but mostly I'm hanging out in America. I don't know that I do all that well in Europe. The French don't like me in Canada or in France. So here's chapter 37. In travels with Jared and we call this one let the buffalo chips fall where they may. Now, I've got a partnership with the Wyoming State Bar Association, which I've had for quite a while now. I do some consulting for them. Occasionally I'll go out to the great state of Wyoming. So I've done a number of conferences out there. I've got a sister-in-law who lived in Colorado until recently. Producer Evan Cheri, lives in Colorado. My favorite college football team is Buffaloes. So I like being out there. I saw fly into Denver. I'll drive up to Wyoming. So been in Cheyenne, kicking around Laramie. (02:12): I drove across the entire state one time I told you, travels with Jared across America in Search of America. Have we found it yet? Stay tuned. So the last time I was out in Wyoming, I thought to myself, Hey, I'll bring my travel companion. My daughter will still talk to me, unlike my son. So she's good to go on the road with. And she likes horseback riding. She likes animals. So I said, oh, this is cool. Let's go to this place that I found in Cheyenne called Terry's Bison Ranch. I don't know who Terry is, but I know that there are bison at this ranch, which I'm pretty sure are similar to buffalo and I know what buffalo are. So by the way, I eat bison instead of ground beef. Really lean and quite delicious. So I don't know if I'd ever seen a bison outside of in a pan somewhere. (03:06): So we go to the bison ranch in Cheyenne and I'm like, okay, it's April. It should be pretty warm out here, but I've terrible news. It's actually not warm in Wyoming. In April, I actually hit two white out snowstorms one's driving across Wyoming and one's driving across Colorado unexpected. So we get to the bison Ranch, right? This is an actual place. Look it up online. Cool vistas, a hundred bison, literally like a hundred bison, baby bison, adult male bison, adult female bison just roaming the land. And they've got these cabins set up and we can kind of look at the bison from the cabin and they've got the restaurant where they serve up bison. So it's kind of fucked up in that way, but you can't get a bison burger there. So this is great. We're going to be like one with nature. We're going to be one with the bison. (04:04): And we get to the cabin and the cabin's got two beds and my daughter's like, awesome. I get my own bed. This is great. Giant queen bed only the thing we underestimated was how fucking cold it is on the planes in Wyoming in April, and it was about 12 degrees the first night we were there. Now the bigger problem we had was that there was no heat in our cabin. So so much for one bed we had to huddle for warmth under 47 blankets. But I'm like, it's cool. The next day we'll get up, you'll do a little horseback riding and then we get the big event. It's called the bison train. So they have a little train, they take that tiny train out into the field and you're amongst the bison. You get to feed the bison, throw 'em a couple pellets of food you can pet the bison, real American experience that I'm giving to my child. (04:59): So we get to the bison train, load up the bison train, doesn't have any heat either, and it's still cold as balls. Now another issue arises the conductor of the bison train who, so apparently you don't need a lot of training to be a bison train conductor. There's not a course for this at the community college. So the bison train conductor comes in drunk as balls and we find out that the heating mechanism in the bison train is actually propane. So he fucking fires up the propane as high as it can go, and he's like, hold on, I'm going to get a blow torch. And there are about six of us, maybe eight of us, and the bison train. And we're like, no, no, we're good. We'll be warm enough. Don't fucking blow us up. So the drunk bison train conductor gets in and there's a few ladies from England there, mother and a daughter and I think somebody else like a granddaughter. (06:04): And the drunk bison train conductor begins to hit on the English lady. The grandmother clearly not interested in the stew, maybe not the best maneuver on his par, not a ladies man per se. And now we're stuck on this fucking train that's going like two miles an hour and we got like 45 minutes ahead of us. Should I have gotten off the bison train? Probably, but why would I have robbed my child of this great American experience through the prairie to see the bison? So bison conductor gets his shit together, gets on the mic and is like, the thing about it is, I don't know a fucking thing about bison, to which I say, sir, this is the bison train. That's the one thing you have to know, knows jack shit about bison. So we're not learning anything about bison on this trip. So you get out to the middle of the field and there are literally like a hundred bison, tiny ones, as I said, bigger ones. (07:14): These things, bison are fucking huge. So you're supposed to take these little pellets and throw 'em out of the train to get the bisons to gather around the train so you can view them, take pictures of them, maybe pet them. But our guy, the drunk bison train conductor takes the whole fucking bucket, a bison chum and throws it out into the field. Now we're being ransacked by bison. Bison to the left of us, bison to the right of us, bison everywhere, shaking the train back and forth, trying to get on the bison train. I'm cut at one point my hand is bleeding and this guy's like we got to get the fuck out of here. And so he fires up the bison train and he starts rolling through the tracks, knocking bison over as we go. So complete shit show Hindenburg level disaster. And so we're rolling back at top speed of about four miles an hour and we get to near the end of the tour and the bison train conductor points to a little house and he's like, there was some president who slept there and visited the bison ranch. (08:22): And this guy in the back goes, it was Teddy Roosevelt. I read it online and the bison train conductor guy is like, I fucking hate Teddy Roosevelt. And I'm like, wait, you had beef with Teddy Roosevelt? How old are you? So the good thing is that the bison train remains on track. We roll in to the bison train station after a 45 minute harrowing excursion, no deaths, and we get off the train. I tell the people who are standing outside the train, you got to come get your boy because somebody's going to be mauled by a bison. It ain't going to be me. And so I had the forethought as a regular traveler and experiencer of Americana to have two hotel room reservations for that night just in case. So we decided to check out early and advance to the next hotel in Laramie. And when I was checking out the desk clerk at the bison ranch was like, was it the drunk bison conductor? And I'm like, yeah, it was the drunk bison conductor. Next up, we have a sobering discussion with Andrea Becker of Cleo Draft about document assembly and more. No bison were harmed in the making of this podcast. (09:48): Well, I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because as you'll know, this is a podcast. So I'm simply going to hum show tunes to myself for the next several hours. Now I'm just fucking around. That sounds awful. Plus I don't know any show tunes. Let's interview our guest instead. Our guest today. He's back. Well I guess he's back for the first time on the show. It's my guy, Andreas Becker, the director of sales. Hello at Cleo Draft. How are you Andreas Becker (10:19): Sir? Hey Jeff. I'm great. How are you doing? Jared Correia (10:22): I'm doing great. It's good to have you back, man. How you been? Andreas Becker (10:25): It's good to be back. I've been great. Jared Correia (10:28): Let's ease into this, Andreas Becker (10:31): Please. It's a Monday. Jared Correia (10:35): If people don't know you, can I have your story? Give me the law ya story so people don't know what law is. That was a precursor to the CLE draft. Talk to me about that. How'd you get into this shit? Andreas Becker (10:50): So the very short story is I'm a recovering attorney and in law school I met this cat named Tucker Cottingham who went on to found a company called Law Ya. Definitely a polarizing name. I miss it honestly. Do you? Yeah, I do. It rolled off the tongue. It got people's attention for sure Jared Correia (11:15): It did. Yes. Andreas Becker (11:16): And he and another classmate, Justin White, we were all a study group randomly and we all went off to practice our separate ways. He, Tucker started law y went through Y Combinator, I saw what he was doing and I thought, hey, this makes sense to me. You need someone to sell this and didn't have a massive tech background, but it made sense to me as an end user of products like the one that you had created. I thought it was better than what was out in the market and it allowed me to kind of close the loop on what was an expensive and long travails as an attorney trying to figure out what I was going to do next. So I found a really nice place in law. We integrated early with Cleo. We were highly utilized and solved a very clear problem. And God, it's almost four years ago we acquired. Jared Correia (12:13): I know that Andreas Becker (12:13): Is crazy. Jared Correia (12:14): An Andreas Becker (12:14): Entire Olympic cycle. It's been a really cool story. Jared Correia (12:18): Can I ask you, so the startup stuff is kind of crazy, especially early stage startup. You got to do a lot of shit. Everybody's like chief cook and bottle washer. Did you have sales experience before you went to LA or did you just figure it out? Andreas Becker (12:33): It's funny. I had sales experience, but I wouldn't say I was good. I wouldn't say was good at all. It was interesting having Tucker like hover over my shoulder during those first initial sales calls I had. Yeah, Jared Correia (12:55): Like you three des and that's it, right? And they're like, don't fuck it Andreas Becker (12:59): Up, basically. Well, I mean I was worried you don't want, it's great working with friends, (13:06): But you don't want to mess their thing up, especially early on. And Tucker and I and Justin, we still have very direct conversations every once in a while and we've kind of developed a shorthand so that we can be efficient with that. But I think we've all managed to be able to stay really close friends, put our business hats on when we need to. Yeah, it's crazy that we're here now. How many total years at this point at LA coming up on seven years, which is crazy. I want to put a bow on this. I was not good at sales, but I understood the market. I sucked to ask, but I understood the market and I just started, I had tons and tons of repetitions. I was really the only sales person, if you will. So I probably got three years of sales experience in my first year and it just, something started to click and so I am happy. It was an uncomfortable period for sure, Jared Correia (14:06): But Andreas Becker (14:06): Then things just started to make a little bit more sense for me still Jared Correia (14:09): Growing. I feel like that's a lot of what it's too is I find that having the industry knowledge is really important for that kind of role. And a lot of people don't have it just fucking winging it and attorneys, I dunno how you feel about this, but I feel like attorneys get pissy about that. If I'm talking to them and they're like, what the fuck do you mean you don't understand that I filed this particular motion in this particular accord? I'm sorry, my bad. Andreas Becker (14:39): They can. And I've got a number of salespeople who have felt the brunt of that, and so I do my best to kind of scale some of that. I can tap dance when I need to, but I know I've practiced for three and a half years. There's plenty of stuff that Jared Correia (14:52): Oh Andreas Becker (14:53): Sure, Jared Correia (14:53): No clue. I tell people the same thing. I haven't practiced long in like 20 years, bro, take it easy. I don't remember any of this. I might as well be Abraham Lincoln over here. But Andreas Becker (15:02): I think it is important, I think there's a growing interest to get more and more legal talent into the legal tech space. That wasn't a thing when I was graduating law school. Jared Correia (15:16): Oh yeah. Option. Nobody was like, I need my legal tech job. That wasn't a thing. Andreas Becker (15:23): No, they were not. You're right. Jared Correia (15:25): But now Andreas Becker (15:28): It's starting and I think there's a lot of opportunity to get this into the actual curriculums at law school. There are a lot of really cool people who are kind of on the cutting edge there. We'll talk about our boy ton Bryce. Jared Correia (15:42): Oh, go ahead. Sure. Would you like to explore that a little bit? Explore studio spikes. Andreas Becker (15:50): Can Bryce a shadow, a call out? He's one of the OGs that I remember from the early a tech show days. Jared Correia (15:56): This is good. It's a positive call out. Sometimes people catch strays on this podcast, but not right now. Andreas Becker (16:03): I'm trying to think of who my negative call out is going to be, but yeah, no, I know, but he's super interested in really equipping his students and kind of fundamentally changing what the law school education could be or what a master's program could look like to be a law firm administrator, what have you. Jared Correia (16:22): Let the negative shout out percolate for a little bit. I'm sure we come up with Andreas Becker (16:25): Something. I'm still trying to think. Jared Correia (16:27): So you do the laa thing, then you get acquired. So were you guys thinking this is our play, we're going to get acquired by a larger vendor? Or were you just like, we're going to make this as big as we can and see where it goes? Andreas Becker (16:43): I didn't know what I was doing. Jared Correia (16:44): You were just like, Andreas Becker (16:45): I was just trying to sell. I mean, I thought that there was absolute, the opportunity there. Once things start kind of working and I had the benefit of, I understood the market to a certain extent, but I had a really good product to sell. You're trying to think how big could we make this, but it's just like there's a series of peaks and then valleys and peaks and valleys, and so when the opportunity presented itself with Cleo, you're thinking this is going to change a lot of things about my day-to-day and the latitude I have to do what I want to do, how I want to deal it. Jared Correia (17:29): Massive. Andreas Becker (17:31): I can't believe it's been four years. Jared Correia (17:32): I know. It's Andreas Becker (17:33): Nuts. It's crazy. Jared Correia (17:34): Okay, can I ask you about this? Let's change direction a little bit. Let's not talk about VL because I don't want you to get fired, so we're bypassing that. If folks want to hear about VL fast or rewind to the last episode, I talked about VL Cleo's acquisition of VL. Let's talk about con instead. Boston 2025. We're going to be there. Let's Andreas Becker (17:56): Talk about it. Jared Correia (17:57): I mean, do people need another reason to go? I don't know that they do to con. Yeah, other than the fact that we're both going to be there. What more do you need? Andreas Becker (18:09): I think that'll suffice. Jared Correia (18:10): Yeah, but in all seriousness, what's going on this year? This is going to be the, I feel like this one's going to be the biggest one ever. Right? Because the next one is always the biggest one ever. Andreas Becker (18:20): Exactly. I mean, I'm in the process of fashioning a couple of sessions. I think it's always, especially when we have new venues. We only did Austin for one year. We had been in the Jared Correia (18:33): Year. Can you say why That was odd Andreas Becker (18:37): To me. Again, another subject I don't want to get fired over. No, I Jared Correia (18:40): Honestly, moving on, Andreas Becker (18:42): I don't know if we're going to do Boston for two. I don't know how it works. Jared Correia (18:46): You should probably stop talking now anyway. What's happening in Andreas Becker (18:49): Boston this year? I think Boston's going to be really excited. There's a lot of stuff that we're trying to cook up on the draft side of the house. The company just continues to build new interesting products and obviously VL will be on the table. There'll be a lot more information and guidance on all of that if you haven't been to a CCLE con before. I mean sometimes it's very geographically based and we finally made it to Northeast, made it to New England. Jared Correia (19:22): Cleo's the best legal tech conference. I think there is full stop. I'll say that. Andreas Becker (19:27): I'm not afraid to say that Jack and everyone take a lot of pride in it. It's not something, I mean, the planning begins really, really early and I think they continue to do a great job every year. I can't believe I've known this long. Jared Correia (19:40): Can you talk about the sessions you're going to do or is that awaiting a release? Andreas Becker (19:44): Oh no, they're going to be, I mean we're going to do a series of sessions just in terms of kind of novice, intermediate and expert introductions to document automation. There's nothing particularly sexy about them right now. Jared Correia (19:58): Not Andreas Becker (19:59): Yet. I got anointed. Yeah. I'm trying to inject a little sizzle into them, but there's only so much you can do with the topic. Right. But we try and be functional. It's not all about the sizzle. Jared Correia (20:14): I'll bring you some pasties Andreas Becker (20:16): Steak, Jared Correia (20:17): I'll help you out. Yeah, okay. In terms of, let's talk about the document assembly process. This is always interesting to me, so let's do intake. I think it's really helpful to have. Yeah, I mean I feel like it's helpful to have a, Andreas Becker (20:36): It's all a process. Jared Correia (20:37): Yes. Unified integrated intake with document assembly. You just want to vibe on that for a little bit? Andreas Becker (20:43): Yeah, I mean I think there's, okay, so backing up just everything. AI is infiltrating every component of legal tech in general for the most part, for the better. I'm seeing a lot in the ways of AI informed intake that a lot of firms are interested in. I think this is ultimately good. What I've found over the years is the idea of intake. It's kind of thought as it's very often used as kind of this crude instrument and just like, oh yeah, I can send out a questionnaire, pile it up with 50 questions, a hundred questions, however many questions you may have, and oh yeah, they'll fill it back in and I'll go into my documents. I've started increasingly seeing in a good way that people are using it more strategically and understanding the data shows no more than nine questions if you want Jared Correia (21:43): To Andreas Becker (21:45): Put an intake on your website, because people just stopped filling this stuff out now, Jared Correia (21:51): Data feed 37 page intake form, people send Andreas Becker (21:58): Their links. People would send me their links and they'd be like, I don't know why no one's filling this out. And I'd be like, okay, well, so question 62 was have you ever been on a pip? Which is a pretty technical term and people are asking for a lot of personal information before pen is the paper. There are a lot of people who listen, Jared Correia (22:23): Right? That's the thing Andreas Becker (22:25): To understand that, but there are a lot of people who have just used intake and thought of it as just like, this is when I collect all of my information and you really need to think about when and how you're collecting that information. I used to do the same thing. I would have back in, I don't want to date myself, but sending out A PDF, just asking people to fill in that information for me and then people, they struggle getting some of the financial information or some of the medical information that you don't need quite yet, but it holds the entire process up. So figuring out how to tranch the information that you want to collecting, Jared Correia (23:02): Staging it, I think is Andreas Becker (23:03): Helpful for sure. Even though Jared Correia (23:05): A lot of people don't view it that way. So what do you think the impact of AI is going to be on all that stuff? In theory, it should make the intake process easier, including feeding stuff into documents. But is that happening now? Andreas Becker (23:18): It should make things a lot easier and you're starting to see it in certain softwares that are taking kind of like an agentic approach to that and the curated, oh, do you think you need this? I think there's still a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of these models. Can they handle the nuance that sometimes people respond with because the more open that you can give people guidance as to here's how to answer the question, but people say all sorts of things. I think ultimately it'll be very, very helpful in terms of feeding into document automation, but I think they're separate in terms of yes, we want the AI to collect information in a certain way and then thinking about how to structure it the proper way is the other component. Jared Correia (23:59): Yeah, I think people worry about putting rails around ai, which is hard to do, but I think it's interesting that you brought up the agent piece of this too. Where do you see that going in terms of document assembly? Because in theory you don't necessarily need a human to do that work anymore. Well, I mean in theory I could have an AI agent that drafts and sends the clients, right? Is that crazy here? Andreas Becker (24:23): It's a good question. I think we're still a ways out from that. I think we get a lot of people coming in with questions about just generative ai. Where's the generative element of this, Andreas, or what have you, and I have to kind of back people up and totally understand that the general components are very, very attractive, but it's not an either or. They kind of layer on top of each other. What we really specialize in is having these consistent, really trusted frameworks for a lot of that repetitive work that you don't want generative AI to do. (24:58): You do not want hallucinations in any sort of potential for variations in some of these consistent workflows that don't have tons and tons of variations, but maybe they're variations. You productize your practice over the years to use this certain type of language and to use these specific type of workflows and the generative development comes in is very helpful. And maybe that second layer, if you have a unique case or a unique instance that you need some guidance on, or when people are trying to come up with that first draft, and so that's where the people will come in and they'll say, Hey, I needed to draft me this motion to suppressor or what have you. I've never done one like this. And it's like, that's not what we do. If you can get the generative AI to build you something that you can check yourself and sign off on that, this is good, then turn it into a template and then continue to reuse that. Jared Correia (25:56): Yeah, Andreas Becker (25:57): The Jared Correia (25:57): Hybrid idea is the way to go. It sounds like at least for now you've Andreas Becker (26:01): Got hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent. Obviously as we just keep on seeing in the news, check your work. Jared Correia (26:09): Oh my god. Well, I think some of this is this traditional lawyer desire, and I don't think it's just lawyers. I think it's other businesses as well where the business owner is kind of, I just want to push this off my desk and give it to somebody else to take, right? That's a big part of it too. So I think with document assembly, sorry, I think with document assembly, I tell people this all the time, you need to put in the effort of crafting the process before you do anything. Andreas Becker (26:37): Yes. Jared Correia (26:38): Am I overstating that? Maybe I'm overstating it. Andreas Becker (26:40): No, no. I mean that's the place where we want to continue to meet people where they're solo solos and smaller law firms, it's like they need these types of tools, but maybe they're already kind of short on bandwidth, so we want to try and find ways to make it easier for them to create these workflows. A hundred percent. But yeah, you do need to put in time. Otherwise this whole thing, it just becomes an arms race. There's no future where you're not going to need to put in any time. Otherwise you just have a commoditized application or just like everyone else is. Jared Correia (27:15): You might as well legislate your job out of existence. Two AI's talking to each other. Andreas Becker (27:19): That's the thing. I mean, paralegals are going to be paralegals, but they're going to be legal program managers in a lot of this. They already are. I mean, it's the same thing as just moving from a typewriter to Microsoft Word. Honestly. It's just this next iterates that next dynamic element to the practice, but it is very novel still at the moment. It's crazy. I shouldn't underplay it. It's crazy how powerful AI is. Jared Correia (27:46): Alright, so let me ask you this. You brought this up before. I think this is interesting. I think the tough thing is if you've got templates, you're good to go built those. You have an understanding of how they work for the most part, but this use case of I don't have a template for this. I need to create this new document and using AI for that, that's got to be a big thing on a go forward basis. I feel like that's happening with attorneys and pro se people right now. Andreas Becker (28:12): A hundred percent. It's just, again, it's just the next iteration of some of these companies that provided them out of the box. I mean, there are plenty of secondary source providers and people who provide, here's your model, your model template. This is just the next generation of boilerplate. It's AI boilerplate stuff. Again, it's going to take your understanding of the practice area, your ability, the new ability to understand prompts and how to design exactly what you're looking for. That's where the variation is going to come in. Again, otherwise, we're just looking at an increasingly commoditized, I know product, everyone's going to be selling. Jared Correia (28:53): The logic tiers is where it gets complicated too, I feel like, and figuring that out is difficult. I mean, I could see people using AI to help with that, but I think you have to have a good idea of how that all works, especially in certain Andreas Becker (29:07): Product. And I think just building workflows. Actually, the maps and Miro boards, those were all the rage maybe five years ago. Understand your workflows are working backwards from all the different iteration. I think those are going to make a major comeback as well. I can see that as people try and establish some guardrails even though you don't like those guardrails. Jared Correia (29:30): I guess that's part of the question. AI is basically unregulated at this point. What are your thoughts on AI generally for the future of legal? Are we talking robot lawyers? Did we get there? This is always something I'm really interested in. Andreas Becker (29:51): Again, I think it's an arms race. It's just people. People are going to keep on pushing the envelope. The big firms are going to want more powerful, more of this, more that in terms of the case law, that it can surge. I mean, at a certain point, I don't know if it becomes a zero sum game, if we finally get to a point where, no, this is actually Jared Correia (30:11): Scientifically Andreas Becker (30:12): Proven as this is the only outcome that you could come to. I think we just get more and more precise gets it. I don't know when we get to that point where I don't think lawyers will let it happen. Honestly, Jared Correia (30:25): To get to point, Andreas Becker (30:26): There's still little bit of a guilt. Jared Correia (30:27): 2037, I'm putting it on the calendar right now. Andreas Becker (30:30): We got a little bit of time ahead of us. What everyone's probably, and I mean I hope that this is the case, is every pitch deck you see in every legal tech company, it's the thing we want to do, 80%, 90, whatever it is, of people with a legal problem. Those people are not getting legal assistance. So I think you'll continue to start seeing that hopefully more in the public space and the non-for-profit space. I mean, that's where AI can just help so much. Jared Correia (31:07): Well, yeah, we'll see where that lands. We talked about this on a prior episode, which is like you got the Legal services corporation and all these entities funded government resources. Andreas Becker (31:15): I don't know how all of that's, Jared Correia (31:17): If that goes away, who kind of fills that gap? I don't know. Yeah, so let me ask you one more thing before we get to the next segment is on the other side of this coin. So I think there's plenty of reasons to be worried about ai, but I also as a business owner, would not want to be like, let me not do this. I would want to be able to figure out how to use it and at least understand it. So when you get people who are reluctant for whatever reason, okay, I've read about hallucinations. It's like, how do I put rails around this software? What do you tell 'em? Like do you try to comfort them or you just like, yeah, sorry, it's rough out Andreas Becker (31:55): There. I mean, I'm not the one pushing the AI solutions. Jared Correia (31:59): Yeah, not I could push it, but just in terms of having a conversation, how do you think people could broach that? Andreas Becker (32:06): I think people need to give themselves both a kind of actual economic budget of sorts and a time budget to explore things. And it's no different than it's been with document automation or legal resource, any of these other tools. It's hard to do that, but you need to budget in some time for actual progress or process growth and whatever technology as accompanying that. Very difficult to do. And maybe you do it once a year, maybe you do it once, twice a year, what have you. But you give yourself a budget. I mean, this is what's happening with these large firms. Everyone has a set budget to go out and just get AI and play around with and see what happens. And the license to do that as a smaller business owner is, it's more difficult to justify that. So kind of running the numbers, but there are a lot of freeways to play around with it as well. I would be looking to thought leaders like yourself, Jared, Jared Correia (33:03): Yes, naturally or my Andreas Becker (33:06): Mom, but I would try those easy use cases to try and implement something. It might be harder for the solo attorney, but depending on your practice area where the easiest, lowest lip places I can just start to play around with things. When people start, if they're wanting to experiment, the grander this experiment, the less likely it is for you to have any sort of positive outcomes, especially with document automation. I get people, yeah, I want to do your entire discovery workflow and we'll do everything to end to end. It's like, why don't we just start with an engagement agreement? Why don't we just start with this correspondence so you can get at least a positive. Oh, I figured out how to do that. Jared Correia (33:47): I Andreas Becker (33:47): Figured. And then it starts to build a little bit, Jared Correia (33:50): But what you talked about that's accessible to small firms, that's accessible to small firms, let's do this project kind like a Skunk Works project and we'll test it out and then we'll see how it Andreas Becker (34:02): Does. That's Jared Correia (34:03): Totally Andreas Becker (34:04): Viable. That's the way just do something small, honestly, and see if you can just complete that little experiment in C automate. And if it feels like, and you don't automate something, you don't create a template, you don't create a workflow for the first time or the second time. It's the fifth time, it's the 20th time, it's the 50th time that you have to do it. I work for an automation company. I've got all the access. I want to create email templates or whatever. I still write emails manually (34:31): Because it's just not in our nature to put in the work to do the thing that's going to save you time over the next 50, 60, a hundred times you do it. But that's why the little things start to add up really quickly. And if you can complete them and start to build on those, those are the people that I tend to see have the most success with any sort of technology implementation. They've just scaled it the right way as opposed to just biting off way more than they can chew early on. And again, that comes down to budgeting time and money for the build out and the pace at which things need to be built out. Jared Correia (35:06): Beautiful. I want to end it right there. I don't think I can top that beautiful way to put a bow on this. Will you hang around for another segment perhaps? Andreas Becker (35:15): Yeah, let's do it. Jared Correia (35:16): Alright, let's Andreas Becker (35:17): Do it. Jared Correia (35:31): Welcome back, everybody. That's right. We're at the counter program portion of the program at this point. It's a podcast within a podcast. This is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at a greater depth with my guests. Expect no rhyme and very little reason. Andreas, as I mentioned, we've got a new recurring segment just for you called The Wheel of Justice that I'll turn to now. This is based on the wheel of drinks at Bukowski Tavern in Boston where you spin the wheel and buy whatever drink the wheel dictates because the wheel is wise and the wheel is just, first of all, Andreas, you ready to hit up Bukowski's? When we come into town, there is actually a wheel that you spin. Andreas Becker (36:18): I would hope you hadn't just made that up. It's real. Yeah, it's going to be cows Jared Correia (36:24): Pieces. I have an active imagination. Andreas Becker (36:26): My first thought, Jared Correia (36:27): As I said, we're we got eight categories. We may not get to all of 'em, but we're just going to spin the wheel and then I've got questions teed up on each of these categories for you. It's like wild potpourri set of questions. So Evan, when you're ready, just give her a spin. Second. Second spin. Oh, it's spinning. There it goes. The wheel of justice is just, but it also lags. Okay, dive in. Our category is dive in. Andreas, what is the greatest dive bar you've ever been to and why? Andreas Becker (37:05): The dive bars that I got. I mean R Bar in San Francisco and it was just a local staple right above Polk Street and just have lots of memories from our bar and feel like it dates me quite a bit just thinking about how the pictures and all of the scenery has changed over two and a half decades it feels like. But I mean the dive bars you go to, it's because you bit, you go back to them. So Jared Correia (37:39): Wait, is it called R Bar? Is that the name of the bar? Andreas Becker (37:41): A letter R bar. Really? Yeah. One of my friends, he started selling brisket and nachos out of there to start his culinary career as well. So a lot of late night and midday nachos and brisket, especially. Jared Correia (38:01): Now that's a real dive bar when I can get brisket at the same time. You just need an attached gas station and we'd be good to go. Andreas Becker (38:08): There's one across the street. Jared Correia (38:09): Of course there is. (38:11): Are you like, oh, there's me and Diane Feinstein at the R bar from 30 years ago, that old R bar. Call out Evan. Let's give it another spin. All right, let's see what we come up on. This time the wheel of justice is turning and we have, oh, you don't like this one. This category is called Original Gangster. Now I know this is a subject that you are aware of and happy to discuss as an OG yourself, but the question may be hard for you to answer. What's the best rap group of the 1990s? Just Andreas Becker (38:51): Of the nineties loaded category? I mean, I would go with why You got to ask a question like that. I got to go try it, but that's a good answer. I would ask you, give me a top three if you feel like I want to do Go Wu-Tang or Far Side or Souls of this. I mean there are too many, but I feel good about Tribe. That's a hundred percent Jared Correia (39:19): A good favorite song. Andreas Becker (39:21): Do you have electric relaxation? I mean, we covered this. We covered this in the last podcast. Jared Correia (39:28): We got a newer HIPA audience now plus OGs in the audience Ed year. Andreas Becker (39:34): Ed is Tribe not edgy enough for them? Jared Correia (39:35): We she had some of the No, no, I like Tribe as well. So for those non edgy members of the audience, I should say Tribe Call Quest is the band you want to look at. Check that out on Spotify. Alright, that was good. I knew you'd be prepared for that one. Let's give it a spin. See what category comes up Andreas Becker (39:54): Next. Jared Correia (39:55): That was hard. I know. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. Well, I knew this was in your field of expertise. I feel like it goes nineties. Rap and then document generation next category. Monkey business. Monkey business. Okay, this is a meme that's been going around 100 men versus one gorilla who wins. Andreas Becker (40:19): So I've heard a couple of answers to this. Jared Correia (40:23): I knew you'd have a theory. Andreas Becker (40:24): No. Well, so it's all about stamina. So the gorilla can absolutely the first 50 people Jared Correia (40:32): Done, Andreas Becker (40:33): But they're built. You Jared Correia (40:35): Want to be in the last 50. Andreas Becker (40:36): They're built for short burst. So I'd be in that last tranch. Speaking of tranches, I've heard scientifically that at least 30 will live, but the first 50 are done for Jared Correia (40:51): 50. Dude, that's crazy though. Girl could take us. 50 dudes. Andreas Becker (40:57): Have you seen There's another meme of one of the grills just splashing some water on a bunch of people who are like a football field away. Great. The Jared Correia (41:10): Moral of the story, don't fuck with Go. Andreas Becker (41:12): Yeah. Jared Correia (41:13): Planet of the Eighths is going to be bad news. No, that shit starts in San Francisco. Just so Andreas Becker (41:19): You know, I haven't seen any of those movies. Jared Correia (41:22): You got to see the new plan of the eight movies. They're good, but all the action takes place in San Francisco. Alright, let's spin it. What do we got next? We got some fun capital. Andreas Becker (41:31): I started to catch up the Venom movies that you were telling me about. Jared Correia (41:34): Oh, Venom's good. Those are really funny. Alright, James gang. James Gang is the next topic. There are lots of actors named James. Do you have a top three of actors named James? Let, let me give you some chew on. Okay. James Coburn, who once met a friend of mine on the subway, but when James Coburn asked him to shake his hand, my friend instinctively itched his armpit and then James Coburn was like, nevermind. James Caan from the Godfather. Sonny Guy. Yeah, James Stewart. Jimmy Stewart is a wonderful life. James Dean from Rebel Without a Cause. James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader, James McAvoy from Split and other movies. James Garner, Maverick. Brett Maverick himself. James Franco. The less set about Andreas Becker (42:31): The better. He's canceled. Jared Correia (42:33): Any James's you like? Andreas Becker (42:36): Let's go with Gandolfini Jared Correia (42:36): Oh shit. I didn't even repeat that. I don't know how that was not Wow. That is on me. James. So many. James number one a lot. I got a little That's a good one. Andreas Becker (42:50): James Caan is a great pick as well. Yes. And then lemme get Jimmy Stewart. Jared Correia (42:56): Yes. Andreas Becker (42:57): Lemme get James Stewart. I think that's a pretty solid top three. Jared Correia (43:02): James Caan doing yeoman's work in Elf, by the way, the visible hatred of apparel. Andreas Becker (43:08): He did so much yeoman. I'm actually looking up his IMDV right now because he has Oh, yeoman's work Misery. Oh yes, yes. Jared Correia (43:22): Oh Andreas Becker (43:22): My God. That nightmare. That's a good one too. Jared Correia (43:25): Oh my God. Jimmy Stewart though. I like that. I'm a big Jimmy Stewart guy. I like Andreas Becker (43:29): That Jared Correia (43:30): Classic 50's hero. I got to seem somewhat cultured. No, that was pretty good. All right. Spin the wheel. Maybe one more, I dunno. Maybe we'll do 'em all and we'll just cut the ones we like. Put James Andreas Becker (43:42): Caan starred in a movie Jared Correia (43:44): Called Con Man. No, but that's amazing. Do you want to keep going down James Caan, IMDB or shall we move to the next one? Andreas Becker (43:55): No, I'm good with this. Next subject is, Jared Correia (43:58): Hey, jealousy is the subject. Here's the deal. There are actually a lot of Andreas Becker is online, believe it or not. I picked out three and I'd like you to tell me which one you're most jealous of. Which person would you most like to be? Who's not you, Andreas. Sorry. Still going on the James Conn route. Andreas Becker number one is a physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and he's interested in the analysis and simulation of ultra fast phenomenon in atoms, molecules and clusters. That sounds impressive. Number two. Andreas Becker is a German men's field hockey player who won a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games. I didn't even know Men's Field Hockey. He was part of the summer games in 92. And lastly, we got an Andreas Becker from the legal industry. He is the director of legal at Warner Brothers Pictures, a seasoned film production lawyer with significant development and production experience. You could green light the next James who ever movie. Not James Conn. He's not getting much green lit these days, but we got the field Andreas Becker (45:09): Hockey player. Lemme get the physicist. Really? I am. Can you tell me why of the more impressive Andreas Becker and the legal. So lemme get Jared Correia (45:17): The, yeah, this dude, senior director of legal at Warner Brothers. That's legit. That Andreas Becker (45:22): Is legit. But Dr. Becker, that kind of rolls off the tongue, right? Beck is Jared Correia (45:28): Pretty sweet. Yeah, I like that. You could be the guy on the soap opera who comes in Andreas Becker (45:32): And I'm sure the field hockey. Yeah, you've got a gold medal. That's great. Jared Correia (45:38): Those were the three that you've done. Those were the three. There's many, but those are the top three. All let's do, lets do all Andreas Becker (45:45): Out of today's a good category. I like it. That's a good category. Jared Correia (45:47): Thank you. Let's do the rest of 'em. Fuck it. Why not? Let's spin the wheel. Let's do 'em all and then we'll edit this after the fact if we need to. This is a good one. Love the drape. Andreas Becker (45:58): I'm in Toronto right now. Jared Correia (45:59): Are you? Okay? What are the best things to, I'm in six. What are the best things to do in Toronto? I want to go to Toronto. What advice would you give me? Andreas Becker (46:10): I mean, the food is incredible. So go to Boston Pizza and just people watch. No, I mean, not for the food, but people watch, say, I actually haven't been to a Blue Jays game yet, but I'm going to be going because the Jets are coming and I'm staying right across from Blue Jays stadium and it just looks incredible. Yes. Awesome. Going to the islands. I would highly recommend on a weekend, and this is like concert season, so I can't remember what it's called, but it's the Budweiser Center. I think I'm going to go see the offspring there on Friday Jared Correia (46:46): Nineties. Andreas Becker (46:47): Yes. I was supposed to go see Big Sean and Russ on Saturday night. I was just like, look, I can't, I'm tired. I'm 40 till I've got come out. I got to prep for my podcast with Jared Correia (47:07): Jared. Right. I'll wait for the little Sean concert to happen, then I'm all in. Andreas Becker (47:11): Yeah. Jared Correia (47:11): Alright, just quick, quickly. Raphael, devs on the Giants, thumbs up, thumbs down Andreas Becker (47:17): To work tv. TBD. Jared Correia (47:19): Yeah, Andreas Becker (47:20): I mean that's a lot of money. I mean, same thing right back at you. I was happy to move on. I bet you were. Everyone thought we stole him away and I said, that's a lot of money. And he's, he's a dh, like a, it's tough. We'll see what happens. It feels like kind of a desperate move by us. Yes, Jared Correia (47:41): But they're playing well this year. Alright, let's spin the wheel. We got two categories left. Wheel of Justice. What are we going to hit this time? We have Glide path. Glide path. Simple question for you. Cleo has come out with their after dark mode, which is what I'm calling their dark mode. So congrats on that. I think you can probably speak about that. So let me ask you this. I think the next logical thing is for Cleo Lube tit the shelves. When do we think that's happening and what flavors will Andreas Becker (48:13): We Jared Correia (48:14): Come out with? Wait, is that not in the product design roadmap? Andreas Becker (48:21): Cleo Dark, CLE Jared Correia (48:21): Lube. What's after that? Andreas Becker (48:23): I don't know. Come to Cle Con. Jared Correia (48:24): I dunno if we want to speculate (48:27): To come to Cle Con to find out. All right. In our last category, we don't need to spin the wheel. This one's balls out. Balls out. Okay. Ready? All of these animal testicles are eaten this food by humans in various parts of the world. We've got bowls called Rocky Mountain Oysters. We've got lamb testicles called lamb fries. We've actually got buffalo testicles called CREs. I had not heard of this before. And then you can actually eat whale testicles called Cura. No GaN, which I think you may have had in Japan. Do you have a preferred testicle of choice to eat whales Andreas Becker (49:08): Lambs. So did you plan on this being the last one? Was there potential? I was Jared Correia (49:13): Hoping this Andreas Becker (49:13): Would be the first one. Jared Correia (49:14): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Andreas Becker (49:17): No, Jared, you've got to be Jared Correia (49:18): Prepared for anything. Andreas Becker (49:19): I don't have a Jared Correia (49:20): Preference. Andreas Becker (49:21): I do. I do. Rocky Mountain Oyster. You like Rocky Mountain oysters? Jared Correia (49:25): Yeah. I Andreas Becker (49:26): Feel like they, you've mentioned them on one. I think you might've mentioned them on Jared Correia (49:32): I sampled file. Andreas Becker (49:33): Lay that shit up. Lamb. They're called lamb fries. Jared Correia (49:35): Yeah, I think it's like an Australian thing. It's crazy. People just ingesting testicles everywhere. Andreas Becker (49:43): All right. Well, let's see. Do they serve those in Boston or just in Colorado? Jared Correia (49:49): There's no heavy testicle food based thing happening in Boston, sadly. As far as you know, who Andreas Becker (49:56): Knows what's next. Jared Correia (49:57): As far as I know, there could be some underground check going on. Are these clams? No. Thank you for coming on. I Andreas Becker (50:07): Had a lot of fun. That Jared Correia (50:07): Was fun. Wheel of Justice. The Wheel of Justice never loses. Anyway, we'll see you next time. Andreas Becker (50:15): I'll see you out in Boston, Jared. Jared Correia (50:17): Hell yeah. Come out and meet us. To learn more about Cleo Draft, visit cleo.com/draft, or if you're an OG like me and andreas law yacht.com still redirects their homies now because I'll always be a nineties kid with a fat-ass parental advisory, explicit content through passions burning CDs for anyone who would listen. I'm now just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlist for every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist is songs about America Pre Fascism America, which was still kind of shitty in a lot of ways, but still way better than the current shit version of America. And it's sponsored by MyPillow. I'm just kidding. By the way, I would never let MyPillow sponsor my shit. Don't call, don't write. Join us next time. When I challenged JD Vance to a prance off at a Disney property of my choosing is Alani. See you next time.