I'm very excited to announce an impromptu May 8 Meetup with three internationally recognized leaders in the NewLaw and LegalTech movements: Cat Moon, Jeena Cho, and Portland's own Alexandra Devendra! 

These forward-looking lawyers will lead a panel discussion ranging from hot topics like the blockchain and AI in legal, to less buzzworthy (but perhaps more important) concepts like what legal teams can learn from the ResponsiveOrg and Holocracy movements, why a meditation practice can help you deliver better client value (and how to start one), how to innovate using the tools of design professionals, and why diversity is the key to achieving better outcomes.

Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) teaches legal design thinking and agile project management at Vanderbilt Law School, her alma mater. She is a contributor to the ABA’s Legal Technology Today blog and writes there and elsewhere about legal technology, blockchain, kanban and agile project management, design thinking, diversity/inclusion in the law, and work/life alignment. Cat also is co-founder, COO and CDO of Legal Alignment, a legal tech startup developing an AI-powered, interoperable platform for legal workflow and project management. She just wrapped up an international conference on Blockchain in the Law and the first Music City Legal Hackathon. 

Jeena Cho (@jeena_cho) is the co-author of The Anxious Lawyer, An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through Mindfulness and Meditation (ABA). She is a regular contributor to Forbes, Bloomberg and Above the Law where she covers resilience, work/life integration, and wellness in the workplace. She regularly speaks on women's issues, diversity, wellness, productivity, mindfulness and meditation. She also co-founded Shape The Law, an unconference for lawyers, with Alix Devendra and Mary Redzic.

Alix Devendra (@alixdevendra) is an attorney and legal design consultant based here in Portland. She helps lawyers make their work product more effective using typography and other principles of visual communication design. She is the co-author (with Cat Moon) of the forthcoming Designing Your Practice: A Design Thinking Approach to Legal Services. Alix also consults for legal-tech startups, who value her experience in both law practice and design thinking. She travels internationally to speak and facilitate workshops on legal design.

We'll be at a new location this time, BackPedal Brewing at NW 15th and Flanders. They are opening especially for us and their (excellent) beer will be on tap--please plan to support them!

Finally, we're looking to grow this group. Please forward this invitation to anyone you think would be interested in these topics, including listservs or other groups you're a part of.

Let us know if you have any questions; we hope to see you on Monday May 8!

--John & Zac

Hello LIT-Lab PDX!

We're on track for our next Meetup on Tuesday June 20, when we'll be returning to the Jaguar Land Rover incubator for a very special presentation from Amber Hollister, General Counsel of the Oregon State Bar. 

Among other things, Amber provides ethics assistance to Oregon lawyers and others servicing the legal needs of Oregonians. More recently, she has spent the past several months as the Bar's primary contact to the Regulatory Committee of the Futures Task Force of the Bar (the sister committee to the Innovation Task Force that we kicked off here at LIT-Lab back in the fall). 

Both committees of the Futures Task Force are in the process of finalizing their findings and recommendations to present to the Bar's Board of Governors later this month, and Amber and I will both give you all a preview of those recommendations. (Teaser: if adopted, the recommendations should put Oregon at the national forefront of innovative approaches to Access to Justice issues).

Then, Amber will spend a little time talking about the ethics of legal innovation more generally, including plenty of time to answer your questions.

NW Corporate Law is generously providing pizza again this time. Hope you can make it!

Happy New Year Legal Innovators!

We're looking to kick off 2018 with a Feb 8 meetup featuring local legal technology product Tali, a voice-assistant-based time tracking tool for lawyers and other professionals. We'll hear from Matt Volm, one of Tali's creators, to talk about Tali's startup journey so far, what he's learned about working with lawyers, and what advice he has for lawyers and other technologists looking to build legal tech products.

Tali currently works with Amazon Alexa and will be expanding to Microsoft Cortana and Google Assistant later this year. See https://www.telltali.com/ for more.

We're also hoping to spend some time with Andrew Schpak, current president of the Multnomah Bar Association, to talk about a possible Legal-themed Hackathon that the MBA is mulling.

Oh, and there will be Pizza courtesy of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe!

Hope you can make it!

--John

P.S. We're looking for folks to help organize more Legal Innovation Meetups in 2018. If you have an idea for a topic, a speaker, or would be able to help organize a specific session, please let me know!

Hey Legal Innovators:

Join us for our final Meetup of 2018, where we'll feature two Portland-area companies who are using technology and business model innovation to better connect legal consumers with lawyers. We'll be hosted by Text-a-Lawyer and Collective Agency, and our presenters will include Kevin Gillespie of Text-a-Lawyer and Eli Marchbanks of Basic Counsel. Both companies are working to better connect lawyers and clients using a convenient tech-enabled marketplace.

Kevin and Eli will showcase their products and answer questions about their process for building them--should be an interesting and informative evening. Space is limited so be sure to RSVP early.

Hope you can join us!

--John & Zac