LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 – Shennind Awat-Ranai & Maria Madara – E20

You can hear Rob, Shennind and maria discussing:

Connect with Shennind here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/shennind-awat-ranai-b26418141/?originalSubdomain=uk

Connect with Maria here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-madara-96738365/?originalSubdomain=uk

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 live here at Legal Tech Talk.

01:00

I am joined by Shen from KaurMaxwell and Maria from KaurMaxwell as well.

01:05

Absolutely.

01:06

And we’re big fans of KaurMaxwell and indeed Mandeep, the founder, who’s a dear friend of mine as well.

01:12

Let’s get into it then.

01:14

What’s one thing you would describe you’ve most enjoyed about Legal Tech Talk?

01:19

I think it’s just seeing a lot of the law firms come to terms with the fact that they’re going to need to change, you know, and I think aA lot of them are realizing it now, and it’s better later than never.

01:31

Yeah, and I think just to go off the back of what Chen said, I think it’s the acceptance that this is the way forward and the notion that I think everyone is starting to feel that if you don’tIf you don’t keep up with the tech and the software that you’re going to get left behind, so I think, especially for us at KaurMaxwell, like we you know Mandeep very well she’s so forward-thinking in terms of tech, and so that’s we’re really on the front foot on that, so it’s nice to see that, like everyone is kind of…

02:04

adopting that willingness to change and to take on new tech.

02:09

And that’s right, because you’re a modern firm, you are tech forward.

02:12

So maybe to inspire other law firms, what would you say you would tell other people to come to conferences like this?

02:19

Because, you know, what are you learning?

02:21

What are you seeing?

02:22

Give us a bit of a flavor.

02:24

I would say I think for law firms, especially, you know, larger firms,I think it’s the being open to change.

02:32

I think with, so for us at KaurMaxwell, we’re a small team, we’re very agile, so it’s easy for us to adopt and implement new software.

02:40

There’s not a lot of red tape, whereas with larger firms, you know, there’s a lot of processes that need to be approved.

02:47

So I think it’s just being open and willing to change and to adapt to the new tech, I think is one of the biggest hurdles, I think.

02:55

Yeah, and how about you, Shen, because obviously we’ve met in Web3 Circleyou’re very kind of forward thinking, what would you say?

03:02

So I think it’s good because for smaller size firms, ’cause we’re a team of 16, 17, as she said, it’s very easy to adapt and be nimble, but it’s also good to kind of see what’s available for us to use out here.

03:15

And if you don’t come to these kind of conferences, you’re never gonna know what’s out there.

03:19

And there’s so many booths here that actually solve different problems in the legal industry.

03:25

like timekeeping or document review or DD for M&A deal.

03:30

And if you’re not gonna understand what’s out there, you’re gonna be stuck in the old ways and your billable hour’s gonna still be there, but the value other people can provide to clients will be way above what you can provide without AI.

03:43

So I think you should definitely, that’s why you should definitely attend these conferences.

03:46

And as two people obviously working in the world of law, in a modern law firm, around a lot of legal tech, what’s one assumption you think lawyers have that they still getwrong when it comes to legal tech?

03:56

I think the wrong way to see it as legal tech is something that would replace you.

04:02

It’s more of something that will aid you and work beside you as a personal assistant, for example, like another person.

04:08

So they mentioned a lot about the human in the loop.

04:11

And I think that’s where you actually have to be there and know what you’re doing before using AI or before bouncing it with another person.

04:19

Because if you don’t know what you don’t know, then you’re just going to copy it wholesale and that’s the wrong thing to do.

04:25

Yeah.

04:25

How about yourself?

04:26

I would say I think it’s a misunderstanding of, you know, how, for example, generative AI works.

04:32

I think a lot of people are have the misconception that it’ll just spit out the answer that you need.

04:38

But actually, it’s so much more than that.

04:40

It’s about understanding how to produce and draft good prompts for the AI, because with AI, it’s the output is only as good as the input.

04:49

So, you know, I think it’s alsoHaving that education piece of teaching lawyers how to draft prompts for AI, because it’s not the same as drafting a legal document.

05:00

meant for a human.

05:02

So yeah, I would say that’s probably one of the things that I think people just think like, oh, you can just type it in and it’ll spit out exactly what you want, but that’s not the case.

05:10

Yeah.

05:11

Okay.

05:11

Let’s fast forward to 2030, a long time, particularly given the world we live in, but what do you think people will expect from legal services that they’re not getting at the moment?

05:19

I think it depends on what they’re asking for, right?

05:22

So for example, if you’re coming to a law firm to do M&A and stuff like that, a deal right now could take six months per year,right?

05:30

And with legal tech and with some of the solutions I’ve seen down there, you could easily reduce that period by half easily.

05:39

And if that’s in six months, what about the technology that comes forward in the next six years, you knowYeah.

05:46

And I always say success loves speed.

05:48

Okay, so sort of still continuing to be around that period five years on from now.

05:53

What do you think is going to be something that will be gone from law that’s perhaps here today?

05:59

You can say the billable hour.

06:00

In five years.

06:01

In five years.

06:02

Yeah.

06:03

YeahI would love to say timekeeping, but that’s not…

06:09

Well, I mean, that’s true.

06:11

You will be there, but you don’t have to manually do it, maybe.

06:13

True.

06:14

I mean, well, yeah.

06:15

But I think the whole concept of timekeeping, I think we’re probably still far away from that, especially in the contentious space.

06:25

But I think in five years, we’ll probably have less touchpoint.

06:29

points with admin admin stuff.

06:31

So I think a lot of processes will and they are already are now automated in terms of onboarding and things like that.

06:38

But I think that will extend much more to, you know, cut out a lot of the back and forth between clients.

06:45

So automating more systems and less touch points for the fee earner to kind of have to step in and, you know, send an e-mail or put together an e-mail.

06:53

It’s all just kind of in that automated space.

06:55

Yeah.

06:56

Okay, great.

06:57

What’s been your biggest aha momentfrom being here over the last sort of day or so.

07:02

My aha moment is more of a, right, this is good, but we can get better.

07:06

And in that sense, this is a good start in terms of the solutions being provided.

07:12

But in my opinion, there are a lot of solutions that identify individual problems.

07:19

Lawyers don’t want 10 more softwares to use.

07:21

Lawyers want one with everything in it.

07:23

And I think that’s the next step in terms of combining all these solutions into one big ecosystem and providing that to lawyers to use.

07:31

And that will change the industry, I think.

07:32

Yeah.

07:33

How about yourself?

07:33

What’s been your aha moment being here?

07:35

I mean, I think definitely it’s the amount of service providers and software providers that are now coming to market, a lot of them whichare come from the states in America.

07:50

I think the more players and the more options that are there in the market for these tech advances are obviously great for the industry.

07:58

But as Shen said, there has to be more integration.

08:02

It has to be a more cohesive solution where a service provider is providing a solution tomultiple different issues rather than, like Shan said, you know, each service provider just solving one issue.

08:16

Yeah.

08:16

Okay.

08:17

And before I let you both go, where can people go to find out more about KaurMaxwell and some of the services that you offer?

08:25

So they can go to our website, CoreMaxwell.com.

08:28

We are also on LinkedIn, on socials, Instagram, X or Twitter.

08:34

But yeah,do reach out.

08:37

You can speak to any one of us.

08:38

We’re a small team, so that means you’ll most likely be speaking to myself or Shan or anyone else in the team.

08:44

But yeah, we are online.

08:46

Absolutely.

08:47

And I would encourage folks to also listen to Mandeep’s story, who was on the podcast a good few years ago now.

08:52

Very inspiring how she’s gone to build KaurMaxwell and bring on great people like yourself.

08:56

And it’s been an absolute pleasure doing this with you both today live at Legal Tech Talk in London.

09:00

It’s been a real energy.

09:01

But for now, from all of us, over and out.

09:03

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode.

09:06

If you like the content here, why not check out our world leading content and collaboration hub, the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord.

09:16

Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com for the link to join our community there.

09:23

Over and out.