LegalTechTalk Uncovered Ep 1 – Bradley Collins 

Transcript

Robert Hanna:

Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast, LegalTechTalk Uncovered mini-series powered by Clio. I’m your host, Rob Hanna. I am thrilled to take you behind the scenes at Europe’s largest legal tech event of the year, LegalTechTalk 2024.

Our Legally Speaking Podcast was given the exclusive access to record a 17-part live series at the conference. So every day over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be diving deep into the innovations, challenges, and standout moments that are shaping the future of the legal industry. From insightful conversations with industry leaders to firsthand experiences from the event floor, we’ve got a lot in store for you.

So sit back, relax, enjoy, as we uncover the future of legal technology, the world of law, and lots more. Let’s get started. Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast, LegalTechTalk Uncovered mini-series powered by Clio.

Please introduce yourself.

Bradley Collins: Hi, I’m Bradley. I’m just organised this event that we’re at, LegalTechTalk.

Robert Hanna: You absolutely have, and I think you’ve done a fantastic job. But how have you found the experience?

Bradley Collins: It’s been insane, walking around, so many happy faces, so many smiling faces. And I’ve never had more people congratulate me in a day or two days than ever before. So it’s gone to plan. We did what we said we’re going to do. We, yeah, very happy.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, and I think, you know, I’ve just had nothing but positive feedback from people. I think there’s been a real energy. I’ve spoke to people as far as Singapore, to the USA, India, Europe, you name it.

Bradley Collins: Australia.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, it’s been wild. It’s been absolutely wild.

And you’re absolutely taking a swig of beer at this point because you deserve it. Can you describe what the focus of the event’s been all about?

Bradley Collins: We are here to help drive positive change within a sector that could maybe do with a bit of positive change. So we’re called LegalTechTalk, but we’re not about LegalTech solely. We’ve got to think about the change that can happen with well-being and mental health and making a better place for people to work in, you know, access to justice. There’s so much good stuff that we can do for the world by bringing the whole industry together, putting in a bit of pressure on the industry to innovate in a good way. It scares some people, but the first question I asked on the stage yesterday was put your hand up if you’re scared by change and nobody put their hand up. I think some of them are, but everybody put their hand up when they said they’re excited by it and that’s pretty awesome. So we’re gonna build the biggest event in Europe. I think we’ve already done that and it’s just gonna get bigger and better, bring more cool people together. So it’s super exciting. We’re on the journey with everyone. I think we’re all on a journey together, which is nice.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, we are. We’re all doing good things for law, tech for good. And for people who haven’t been able to get here, but hopefully wanna get them a flavour, just describe the experience and what people can expect from coming to something like this.

Bradley Collins: I think if anyone switched on LinkedIn in the last day or two, I’ve been tagged in so many things that I can scroll for hours. It’s insane. They can see it all.

But we don’t see this as a business. Like I don’t, I’m not from the legal industry. I mean, I can do events, and I’ve been doing events in many other industries. So I think of it, I think about the people element when organising an event. You know, the small touches, making people happy.

Robert Hanna: Yeah.

Bradley Collins: People are so relaxed here. It doesn’t feel like you’re here to do business, but everybody’s doing business.

Robert Hanna: Yeah.

Bradley Collins: And it’s really cool.

Robert Hanna: I always say like, not selling is selling. Like come and be your authentic self, build that human connection. It’s no longer B to B, B to C, it’s H to H.

Bradley Collins: B to P, business to people, or people to people.

Robert Hanna: Or I call it H to H, human to human, right?

Bradley Collins: Yeah.

Robert Hanna: And I think if you can get that connection right, and I think a lot of people have, it’s brilliant. Okay, so what’s like a kind of challenge or issue you’ve seen in the legal sector, and how do you feel like this event really kind of supports that?

Bradley Collins: It’s an industry that has no incentive to innovate. When you charge by the hour, why do you want to invest in tech that makes you do things quicker?

Robert Hanna: Yeah.

Bradley Collins: But I think the business model will have to change because there will be alternative legal service providers, there’s startups that will compete with law firms, smaller law firms that innovate, so bigger law firms will then have to retaliate. Eventually, I see this all happening. And we want to be the place that puts pressure to make this happen, but it will happen. 

Robert Hanna: Yeah. 

Bradley Collins: It’s inevitable.

Robert Hanna: It will. And look, this is a mass operation, but has there been a standout moment for you?

Bradley Collins: A moment? Yeah, when everybody showed up.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, that’s true. You’ve had thousands of bodies through the door.

Bradley Collins: We had a 9 a.m. session, and the stage was empty, and we’re backstage, and then 9.05, we put the music on, and then the stage was completely full. And I was like, okay, that’s good. I can relax.

Robert Hanna: And look, you’ve been working on this for, well, a long time, so I’m genuinely pleased to you. And you’re obviously leading this ship, but you have a wonderful team. So would you like to give a shout out to the members of your team?

Bradley Collins: Yeah, first of all, Mikkel, my co-founder. He, if I could choose one person in the entire planet to be my co-founder, he’s the complete opposite to me. He works hard. He doesn’t sleep. His attention to detail. Like the experience that everybody had at this event here, okay, me and Joe were responsible for making the money so we could fund it all. But he made it all happen. Everything. Single-handedly. He does finance as well. He does accounting. He does marketing. He does website. He does, you name it. We need to build a team for him next year so he doesn’t do it all on his own. And Joe Dixon, she, her clients love her, and she has lots of them. Everyone on the team has been really amazing. Like Merlin and Charlie on the content team have come in and done a great job. Sonia, she’s been here for a little while, but has held us together the last couple of days. So yeah, they’ve all done a great job. Matilde, our intern, she’s been phenomenal.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, it’s been a real collaborative effort. And I’ve already been getting kind of glimpses from the team of like new ideas, things like the future of what LegalTechTalk looks like. This is the inaugural year. I think it’s been a fantastic hit. But what are the future plans and where can people go to find out more about LegalTechTalk?

Bradley Collins: Well, we’re right by the Thames. So next year, we’re gonna get a yacht. You can hire one.

Robert Hanna: Yep.

Bradley Collins: And we’re gonna do our evening fun there. We’re gonna take two floors of the venue rather than one. I mean, there’s a bit of the second floor we’ve used, but there’s a lot more that you haven’t seen. The third year, we’ll take the ground floor as well. We’ll get to 6,000 attendees in year three. I’m just following the blueprint of what I’ve been involved with before. It’s gonna be… Maybe we can build an event that’s bigger than all the American events in Europe, and then we’ll come for America afterwards.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah.

Bradley Collins: Come for America. That sounds a bit aggressive, doesn’t it? No, we’ll go to America.

Robert Hanna: You’ll go to America. If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough, right? And I think this has been a tremendous event. I think it’s been great energy. And back to the, I always say little touch is big impact. You know, even for me as a podcast host here, you know, you’ve made sure that everything I asked for was delivered or if there were things that needed change, it was done instantly. So I think you really care about, everyone who comes here gets a great experience. And I feel like you’re going to get really good, positive feedback. And they’ll continue to be noise on LinkedIn and the social media for a good few weeks and months and maybe years to go. But from now, from all of us on the Legally Speaking Podcast, before you let you go, where can they go and find out more about you? Where’s the best website, social media handles?

Bradley Collins: Just hashtag LTT or LegalTechTalk24 or just message me. I like talking to people, that’s my favourite thing.

Robert Hanna: Message Bradley over on LinkedIn. Bradley, it’s been a pleasure, but from now, from all of us on the Legally Speaking Podcast, over and out.

Bradley Collins: Thank you, thank you very much.

Robert Hanna: Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you like the content here, why not check out our world leading content and collaboration hub, the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord, go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com for the link to join our community there. Over and out!