00:29:29 · Jay Madheswaran
[00:29:29] S0: Yeah. I mean, ultimately, my my framework for thinking about this is ultimately when you have an individual, they're gonna need representation. Whether that representation, like who does the work on the representation, you can assume it's 99% AI, maybe 99.9% AI. There's always going to be that little bit that is the human touch. And we do believe that people are going to make a positive difference to the outcomes of the case, and that is exactly what you have. So what do you have on the defense side, or really institution side, is what's always happened, which is they have more resources, they have more money, they have more time, which is actually another weapon they have, which is quite powerful, when individuals are in debt to pay their fees, and that is a very powerful tool they have. And that is the strengths they're working with, and they're trying to rely on centralization and standardization. On the defense side, you have a attorney that is fighting your case, and pushing them to get to litigation. And I think that is going to be what happens. I think a lot more cases are going to have teeth, and all the routine back and forths, I think is going to happen through agents talking to agents. It's a crazy future world, but I think that's where we're headed to. And the difference maker is, what does the attorney understand about that client, that set of facts, and their local environment of who they're going up against locally in that defense firm, and they're using that insight to make a difference for their client. And I don't think that ever goes away. It's in fact something we're seeing already, where many customers on Eve are actually choosing to spend more time on their trial work, because it actually enables that. Previously, going into trial took down your entire firm. Suddenly, you're just spending all your time doing trial prep, interviewing juries.
00:31:29 · Alex Rampell, Jay Madheswaran
[00:31:29] S1: You want things to settle. Exactly. It's more of a settlement motion. [00:31:32] S0: That's exactly right. And instead, I think things are going more into real advocacy. How do I actually make our point known? How do I... You know, my client is against back of the wall. They're doing bad things. They're doing good things. How do I represent them in what actually matters for them?
00:31:49 · Alex Rampell
[00:31:49] S1: Well, I imagine this is kind of the data science side of what you're doing as well with this giant dataset that's probably never been accumulated before. Because as you mentioned, all these things... It's so bespoke. There's no, like, communal repository for, like, all of the settlement amounts. But, like, I've seen this with litigation finance a little bit, where if I'm a lawyer, if I'm a trial attorney, and I'm not getting paid by the hour, by you, my client, well, where do I pay myself and my staff and my office rent and everything else? Well, there are companies that will show up and say, I will fund this case. That's right. Right? And I'm funding this case because I'm counting on you winning it. And, like, they'll do all sorts of clever things like, here's the judge and here's this. Like, they're using data. So outside of... I I think those guys have been very data science forward. But, historically, like, this data just, like, never really lived anywhere. And now that it does, you can make smarter decisions as an attorney. I'm like, do I take it to trial, or do I accept the settlement, or do I push back? Oh, GEICO offered me $12,000. Should I push back and fight for 15? Should I take it to trial and try to win a 100? Like, how do I make those decisions? That's exactly right. Which is why
00:32:56 · Jay Madheswaran, Alex Rampell
[00:32:56] S0: we can help them make the best decision in every single case, and know when an optimal outcome has been achieved. And it's still, I would say, it's still the attorney's responsibility to push it even further. And I think that is what I meant by data science like work, because they're using the power of software to do work you never even thought to do, to improve the outcome. [00:33:16] S1: And I mean, where do [00:33:17] S0: you... [00:33:17] S1: This is a very broad question, of course, but like, where does the legal system go? I was having some some trouble with Wells Fargo. And I'm like, you know what? I've tried, like, for four hours to do this. I'm just going to sue them. So I went to Codex, know, ChatGPT. I was like, sue Wells Fargo. Four hours later, it had sued Wells Fargo. It actually found a process server. I got the notice of cert... Like, we're going to court, but, you know, the date is in February. Like, another kind of similar vein is happening with patent law, where before it's so much work to go file a patent. Now it's less work to file a patent, but you still have the USPTO, which is the bottleneck. So I guess, I mean, if you were to prognosticate, like, where does the legal industry go now that AI is becoming table stakes and you're delivering... You're part of that table, obviously, for plaintiff law. But if you think about the entire practice of law in general, how does it change if you were to fast forward five years? What does it
00:34:11 · Jay Madheswaran
[00:34:11] S0: look like? What's similar? What's different? Most likely, I think it's inevitable that you're going to have to create systems where not everything goes to the court system. And this already is a framework that is used in law. For some types of Veterans Affairs cases, that goes through a different committee. For even labor and employment, that goes through EEOC in a lot of cases before it goes through. And employers have figured out different ways to mediate and have arbitration that doesn't necessarily go through the court system. And this is the framework that actually naturally evolves, and I expect that to happen more and more. And I think the tweak that's going to happen is that for some pockets of it, we're probably going to go through some version of ADR, Automated Discrete Resolution, where AI enabled mediators or central parties that have a neutral view of both sides are going to use AI to really speed up how they come up with judgment. And I don't think that judgment will really be replaced, but what they will get is a set of facts that shows, historically, here's how this happened. Here's how this happened. And it's up to them to remove the biases that might exist. And I think we're just going to spend more and more time on that side of things.
00:35:30 · Alex Rampell
[00:35:30] S1: And do you think the small law firms get bigger? Because that would be the other thing. It's like, if I could only handle a 100 cases per attorney, now I can handle 500, but in the future, maybe 5,000. You know, why do I limit my office to, like, a very, very small New Jersey location? You know, may... Maybe I should go more broad. And you're going to have kind of larger, almost like corporate, like, law entities. And, like, I I think the biggest trial attorney firm is Morgan and Morgan. Is that right? And they have billions of dollars in revenue, but your average firm is is quite small. Mhmm. But you could imagine powered by Eve and with all the changes that we're talking about, it's like the small firm could actually become a billion dollar revenue business. It's kinda like venture outcomes versus kind of like what you would call a lifestyle business. You were a VC once upon a time, you know that term. Somewhat pejorative term for like you make profits. But how do you think, like, is that a reasonable take that, like, some of these small guys can actually... I mean, obviously, you can't go public as a as a law firm for now. Maybe in Arizona or something, you can. But do you think there's a chance for some of these local mom and pop stores, if