LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 – Buddy Eastwood – E09

You can hear Rob and Buddy discussing:

Connect with Buddy here: 

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/buddyeastwood

Transcript

00:00

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast, Legal Tech Talk Uncovered Mini Series 2025, sponsored by Clio.

00:07

We’re back with our red mic for a behind the scenes series all about legal innovation at Europe’s largest legal tech event.

00:15

So we’re granted access to meet some of the greatest speakers, sponsors, brands in the whole legal tech world.

00:22

We’ve got 300 speakers with over 70 sessions with over 4,000 attendees from all across the globe, hitting aus here over the next two days at Legal Tech Talk live in London.

00:33

From AI to access to justice to smart compliance, you name it, we’re covering it all.

00:38

This isn’t just another conversation or another conference.

00:41

It’s a blueprint for community and transformation.

00:45

So buckle up.

00:45

We’re speaking with some incredible people about policy change, change makers, legal innovation, and so much more.

00:52

Over and out.

00:55

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast recording live here at Legal Tech Talk.

01:00

And I am joined by name, title and organisation.

01:03

So you have Buddy Eastwood, Regional Director at Concilio.

01:07

And one of the best collaborators, community builders and all around great humans that we’ve known each other a long time in the legal world and we’ll just say off there, it’s finally good to do this in person at the largest legal tech conference in Europe.

01:20

So let’s get into it.

01:21

What’s in one sentence, what problem are you trying to solve in legal?

01:25

really trying to just reduce the cost when you’re handling any litigation, investigation, anything e-discovery related, really reducing that cost of that process, really.

01:34

Yeah, and look, we’re here for that.

01:36

I think the more that we can make these services accessible so people get the best outcomes, we’re absolutely in support of that.

01:43

As an extension of all things legal tech, what’s one assumption people have about legal tech that they still get wrong, in your opinion?

01:51

That there’s a magic button that will do everything.

01:54

I think that’sseems to be the thing.

01:56

But sophisticated users are not like that, but a lot of people that are maybe less sophisticated would be one button and I don’t have to do anything more, but it’s not as simple as that.

02:05

I agree.

02:06

And look, Concilio’s doing some huge things.

02:08

You’re obviously major sponsors here, and you’ve got some new exciting things happening.

02:12

So do you want to tell our listeners a bit about it?

02:13

Sure, yeah.

02:14

This is all about a big launch of an AI tool called Aurora.

02:18

If you’re involved in any sort ofcorporate that is needing to deal with investigations, litigation, then do come and say hello if you’re here, but always after.

02:27

But it’s really there just to give clients a lot more control over their data, give them early insight so you don’t have to be concerned about reviewing data and having a huge cost of irrelevant data.

02:38

Aurora’s there to really give that early intelligence and insight to give you AI power at a very early stage.

02:45

So that’s what we’re launching it here in the UK.

02:49

The anticipation of this event asbeen building up over the last few months.

02:52

I’m glad we’re here now and it’s been a great morning so far.

02:55

Yeah, it’s been fantastic and it’s been great energy.

02:58

You and I were here last year as well.

03:00

I guess with that then, what surprised you already when it comes to Legal Tech Talk 2025 maybe versus last year?

03:06

Well, last year was incredible.

03:08

I mean, Brad, Joe and the whole team have done an amazing job last year, which just blew me away about how great it was for a first time.

03:15

And for them to keep that level, I think it’s a surprise.

03:18

I thought there was going to be something here, maybe go wrong oror problem with the registration, but everything’s just been so smooth and some of the booths here have been incredible.

03:25

We’ve got a good booth with espresso martinis and coffee, but you have a Formula One car where you’re changing tires and you’ve got basketball hoop games.

03:34

I think it’s a great testament to what they’re allowing companies to do on the booths.

03:38

For me, the surprise is just the freedom that they allow everyone to have fun with it.

03:43

Yeah, and it’s so creative, isn’t it, when they come to things like this.

03:46

It’s a really fun, immersive experience and everyone’s smiling, everyone’s kind of connecting,Learning new things, absolutely, it’s all those side chats that I’m seeing people have as well, people connecting, that’s hopefully gonna transform, and that’s ultimately what these things are about, what our show’s about.

03:58

Okay, let’s fast forward five years, let’s say it’s 2030, what do you hope will be finally fixed within the world of law?

04:06

That is a great question.

04:06

I mean…

04:07

everyone talks about billable hours and they talk about, the costs, predictable costs and stuff like that.

04:13

I’m hopeful that AI can really help, companies be more transparent and more understanding about what’s going to happen with their legal costs.

04:22

So I think in five years from now, there is hopefully going to be a lot more predictability before they start any sort of case or use any sort of technology.

04:29

knowing what’s going to be the cost and what’s going to be the outcome.

04:33

I think AI is really going to develop that and change that.

04:35

So I think even that might be closer than five years away, but we’ll see in five years what it’s like.

04:39

What do you think makes this conference different to so many others out there?

04:44

Because it is a saturated space.

04:46

Absolutely.

04:46

I’ve already said very publicly on LinkedIn, this was the highlight of my year last year.

04:49

And I’ve also thanked Suzanne, because Suzanne was able to get me a guest ticket last year, very last minute.

04:54

So big shout out to Suzanne, who I know is here today.

04:58

But yeah, I just think it’sThe way that they bring people together, it’s got a huge international crowd.

05:03

You’ve got people from very different types of companies, and it just seems like everyone seems very open to talk.

05:08

I mean, I’ve been to many conferences where there’s lots of people, but it seems a different atmosphere where it’s quite difficult to go around the room and create that relationship or that first conversation.

05:17

Whereas here, I feel like everyone just seems very open to have a conversation.

05:20

Everyone’s relaxed.

05:21

You’re wearing the red jacket with the show.

05:23

People are happy to wear it.

05:24

People are happy to have fun, be themselves, be human, and have a good time.

05:28

Okay, what’s been your biggest aha moment of the conference thus far?

05:32

Well, I think just seeing what other providers out there are doing, our competitors, but also complementary businesses.

05:38

It’s just like the amount of development that’s happened in a very short space of time.

05:41

I mean, for me, that’s just amazing to see.

05:43

So for me, it’s just seeinghow far and how quickly everyone is developing tools.

05:48

So for me, it’s just seeing that in the flesh.

05:50

I mean, you hear a lot about it and you see a lot of people share things on LinkedIn, but here you’re amongst it, right?

05:56

And you can see people doing demos on every one of their booths and people having very deep conversations.

06:00

So for me, it just goes to show how far we’ve come already in the kind of journey of legal tech and AI.

06:06

And yeah, I mean, for me, it’s just so it’s exciting.

06:09

It’s exciting to see that.

06:10

Yeah, no, absolutely.

06:11

And I guess, Consilio, it’s been a big year for you.

06:15

Like you say, new products out, give people just a little bit of the behind the scenes, like what are you thinking about before launching a product, because legal tech space is saturated, the AI space becoming more saturated.

06:24

Are there things maybe to inspire a hope others that might be thinking about trying to launch something that you’ve done that you would do again, and maybe some things you wouldn’t do again?

06:32

Good question.

06:33

I mean, it’s look, we’re in a very competitive space, and we’ve seen a lot of our competitors go public with a lot of AI kind of solutions, and ultimately they are AI solutions, but we’ve taken time, we’ve been spending a lot of time building.

06:47

The AI tool on a private infrastructure, and a lot of that has come from our clients, right?

06:51

Our big corporate clients, like the big banks that we work with, it’s important to have data security and all of that, so it’s been a we’ve been kind of taking time and our team have had to be very patient, and I got a big shout out to all of our development team.

07:05

But for me, it’s all about, listening to clients.

07:07

what are their problems?

07:08

what do we need to build to resolve and be, solving those big problems?

07:14

So, really, I think, I mean, it’s just like taking time and listening to the clients.

07:19

and then building it to be future-proof.

07:21

And that’s a big part of what we’ve done as well, is to be future-proof.

07:25

We’ve built our AI on multiple LLMs, so how they all develop over the next years, hopefully we’ll have one that’s best-in-class at that time, and we can pivot to each one.

07:34

And that’s another reason why we’ve been patient in what we’ve done.

07:37

Yeah, I love that.

07:38

Like you say, being client-centered.

07:41

We recently interviewed the CFO of Clio, and he said, When it comes to AI and innovating, it’s like driving in the fog.

07:48

The main thing is you keep goingforwards but you’re driving with caution you’re taking your time but you’re still going forward so you’ve got that positive outlook but like you say you take your time and don’t rush and I think that’s exactly kind of what you’ve done taking the right approach and then you’ve chose the right platform to launch it and it’s been successful and we’re fans of what you’re doing over here on the legally speaking podcast so if you want to know more about Consilio or potentially check out what’s coming to the market where can they go to find out more feel free to share any websites any social media handles absolutely yeah I mean consilio.com we’ve got a whole page on our Aurora platform there you can go on LinkedIn we’ve got a good page that shareslot of updated information and that goes out pretty much daily, weekly.

08:24

And please connect with me.

08:25

I’m on LinkedIn.

08:26

I’m quite active on LinkedIn.

08:27

I’m not as active as you, Rob, but certainly trying to keep busy and so on.

08:31

But everyone’s welcome to reach out to me and I’m happy to introduce them to our consultants and experts and so on.

08:37

Yeah, absolutely.

08:38

Thanks so much once again for joining us on the League of Speaking podcast.

08:41

Sorry to make this happen, but now from all of us, over and out.

08:44

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode.

08:47

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08:57

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09:04

Over and out.