LegalTechTalk 2026: The World’s First B Corp eDiscovery Provider? – James Macgregor – E13

You can hear Rob and James discussing:

Connect with James MacGregor here:

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

Transcript

What happens when the brightest minds in legal, technology, and innovation come together to shape the future of our profession? Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast Legal Tech Talk 2026 miniseries. As the UK’s number one legal podcast and show ranked in the top 1% of podcasts globally, we’re delighted to be returning as the official media partner for Legal Tech Talk for the third time. Having supported this event since the beginning.

We’ve witnessed firsthand how it has become Europe’s largest legal technology conference, bringing together the people, ideas, and innovations transforming the legal industry. Across this special series, we’ll be speaking with some of the world’s leading legal professionals, founders, technologists, change makers to explore what’s next for law. Because our mission remains the same. Inspiring legal minds, transforming legal futures. Let’s get into it.

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast, sponsored by Clio, recording live here at Legal Tech Talk 2026, where I’m joined by another fantastic guest. Please kindly introduce yourself, name, title, and organization. Hi Rob, my name’s James MacGregor. I’m the founder of Ethical eDiscovery, which is a boutique e-discovery consultancy firm. Absolutely pioneering in your space as well, it has to be said. Huge congratulations on the milestones you’ve hit in recent times. We’re obviously here at Legal Tech Talk. There’s a big shift regarding

Transformation. So in your view, what’s the single biggest shift happening right now in legal that folks can no longer afford to ignore? So I’m I’m probably gonna sound like a bit of a naysayer here, and I don’t want to be an AI denier. and I think that it’s always dangerous when people say that because immediately you assume they are an AI denier. I’d say the biggest shift is the fact that lawyers are now paying attention to the use of technology. I’ve been doing this for a long time and there have been various versions of AI that we’ve used throughout my career.

And it used to be really hard to get people to be engaged. Now I would say that the opposite is true. And in fact, people are so convinced that AI is going to solve all of their problems that perhaps the expectations are unrealistic. So I would say, in fact, rather than suggesting that there is any tool or technology that people have to be on top of, I would encourage people to slow down and pause and think, what’s the problem and how do I solve it? And are there tools that can solve it? Rather than wow, this looks really good, maybe it can do everything.

Yeah, well said, well said. There’s something for jumping on the bandwagon rather than taking stock first and then making strategic decisions. And I appreciate that we are at a Legal Tech Talk conference whereby everyone is speaking about AI. And so yeah, it’s it’s a bandwagon that I have also jumped on, but I just think it’s important to be cautious. Yeah, and I think having that balance for you makes sense. but sticking with Legal Tech Talk, what’s brought you here and what’s been a highlight for you thus far?

So Sabrina, who you can’t see, who’s off camera, has been to Legal Tech Talk many times and she’s been a a part of what’s Layla’s Beautiful Souls, which is an organization that’s run by Layla, who’s all about the human people within Legal Tech. and she’d attended the Legal Tech Talk conference a few times previously. And so yeah, I’ve I’ve never come, I’ve always been interested in it. I’ve been to lots of legal tech conferences previously. I’m a member of Ilta, the International Legal Technology Association. I go to Iltacon in America every year.

That’s a massive legal tech conference. I’ve also done the future lawyer events. I’ve also done Relativity Fest, ’cause I’m in the discovery world. so never been, wanted to see what it’s about, and yeah, that’s why I’m here. And so far so good, I’m sure. And Leila we love by the way, fan of the show, also been on the show, so do check out her episode as well, and she does great things and look out for her crowns. Okay, we talked about problems, or you touched on problems a moment ago. So you’re at the forefront of the industry. What’s the one legal problem or challenge you’re trying to solve right now and why should people care about it?

I mean it’s sort of going to be retreading much of my answer to begin with. I would say that everyone thinks that there’s an AI solution to every problem. But one of the things that and it’s not very sexy, but one of the things that I think people should pay attention to to start with is data hygiene. Ultimately, AI products are only going to be useful if the data that they’re running on is properly cleaned and collected. And at least in the world that I operate in, and that’s always in the contentious space where we’re dealing with the gathering and searching through of digital evidence.

The most important thing is to find useful evidence, but also narrow the scope of what you’re looking at. I think lots of people think, I’m just going to point this tool at everything and that’s going to surface all of this useful information. It’s going to be incredibly costly. I mean there are also unnecessary energy use and costs associated with that. And I just think that you could start a bit smaller, think carefully about trying to minimize the data set that you’re running stuff across, because that’s in your interest. Again, you know, in a in a place like this where

Everyone is talking about buying more software and using more data. It’s not a very popular opinion, but I think you could start by cleansing what you’ve got and perhaps trying to do do more with less. Yeah, well said, well said. Okay, I guess extending this point and maybe going a little bit more to the to the side to that, human impact. Because we are talking about technology, automation, innovation here at Europe’s largest legal tech conference. But if we get this right.

What will be the real human impact? What is going to actually happen in terms of improving the lives of lawyers, legal clients, and overall society? So I sit on a volunteer group for Law Works, which is a charity which is dedicated to trying to increase access to justice. And one of the things that we’ve been trying to talk about is how can we use artificial intelligence in order to promote and increase access to justice? And there are definitely use cases where we can benefit people through the use of this technology.

So an example that was cited in a conversation that I was a part of yesterday was for for litigants in person, so people who don’t have lawyers representing them, who need to understand the process of the courts and legal proceedings, using AI in order to basically translate from legalese something into plain English that they can understand, so they understand their role and what their rights are, I think has been invaluable already. Conversely, the other challenges are that.

Actually, you now have many people who immediately go on ChatGPT or some other legal AI tool, type in information, and they’re provided with reams of advice which then can clog up the court’s times and conversely prohibit access to justice. So it’s really challenging. I definitely think there are some great tools here which will hopefully reduce the need to do manual, dull, boring, menial work. but I s the other the other side of that is you also need to ensure that

The work that is being done by these tools is being checked by people. So it’s a balancing act. I mean I think anyone who tells you that now that the AI revolution is here, people won’t have to do anything, we could just press the button and it’s all sorted, are living in a fantasy land. But there are definitely things that can be eradicated and streamlined. Okay. Not fantasy land, but future land. Looking forward. What will will seem completely obvious in say twenty thirty that most people are still ignoring today?

So I’m gonna talk just about my own experience in this area and as I say most of my focus is on disputes. So generally high court litigation, albeit I work on investigations, arbitrations, etcetera and at the moment in high court litigation in the courts of England and Wales, when you negotiate over how broad to search your data in order to provide that that’s relevant to the other side, you negotiate on how that search process happens. So you might

exchange search terms, you might talk about technologies. I think at some point in the future, in twenty years time, we’ll get to a point whereby you it won’t be an adversarial process like that. Instead there will be an independent intermediary who says this is the tool we’re using, this is the these are the instructions that we’re going to provide it. It will go out and it will search both sides and then it will come back with useful evidence. That’s bad for me and people like me because ultimately it makes the need for our services significantly lesser.

But I think that’s probably where this is going. At least I mean, do I hope that’s where it’s going? I don’t know if I want to make myself redundant, but I think it’s probably inevitable. Yep, fight it or ride the wave, I guess. Okay, if you had the attention of every law firm leader, general counsel, legal professional, legal ops professional watching and listening to this podcast right now, what’s one action they should take over the next ninety days to have a better future?

Understand where your data is. Understand what you’ve actually got. I mean I was speaking to the CIO of a law firm and I won’t say who it was, who bought Harvey, bought Lagora and said, great, we got this, now what do we do with it? And I think lots of people at the moment are jumping on the legal tech AI boom thinking we need to buy a tool, we need to buy a widget, it’s gonna solve all of our problems. But actually what you need to do is understand what do you have already in your existing tool suite, where is your data currently and what can you do that’s simple and straightforward.

In order to minimize your data footprint, get your house in order. Ideally, delete anything that’s old legacy and that isn’t being retained by legal hold, such that you’ll no longer have that risk sitting around waiting for an investigation or something else to surface. Don’t try and buy the new shiny thing. Do some of the old-fashioned work of data remediation, data organization, because if you do that, then it makes far more sense to buy a great tool that’s going to solve all of your problems.

So don’t be sold by all of these legal tech evangelists. Instead, think about doing the fundamentals. And said with conviction, and now leading to a conviction-focused question. What’s one belief about the legal profession, future of law, legal technology that you hold that most people might disagree with? So I I’ve seen legal tech evangelists talk about the fact that lawyers are

Allergic to or previously were allergic to using legal tech is because they want to bill as many hours as they think fit. And that you know it’s very difficult to separate the business of law and the fact that most lawyers make money by billing more hours from the practice of it. But I don’t think that’s true. I think ultimately lawyers are incredibly risk averse and incredibly cautious and that’s why they spend such a long time and they might be so against the idea of using a piece of technology that hasn’t been proven and trusted.

And I think that in order to encourage lawyers to use more technology, what you need to do is not start telling them that they have to reduce their billable hours, but instead think about the opportunities that they have to try and spend their time in more useful places. So every law firm, every lawyer at a law firm has high billable targets and they have to make those billable targets. And I think many people now feel the pressure to spend hours and hours on a matter perhaps doing more.

redundant menial work in order to make that quota. Whereas in fact if you talk about technology as a tool whereby they can use the technology to simplify some of those processes and then dedicate their time to areas that are more interesting to them. Basically the the technology can be a useful way for you to do the stuff that you want to do rather than the stuff that you have to do. And I think that’s something that is probably not said by many.

Well said, and I think you said it and hopefully you have convinced people otherwise. Okay. The Legally Speaking Podcast, all about inspiring minds, transforming legal futures. So my final question is this what’s one skill, behaviour or mindset you believe will separate tomorrow’s leaders from everyone else? So I’ll I’ll relate this to my own business and I and my ethos. So

I mean I started my company about three years ago. Prior to that I’d worked at much bigger consultancy firms. Those consultancy firms were very money motivated and money driven. I realise I sound like a bit of a crazy and rampant leftist on this podcast, and that’s not a million miles away from the truth. But ultimately I think that in business and in legal business, people are always focused on money and on revenue. And I think that that inevitably creates a

strata within an organization where you have the people at the top who have all the money and make all the decisions and you have the people at the bottom who do all the work and don’t get to share in any of the rewards. And one of the things that I’ve tried to do with my business and part of the ethos of the B Corp certification that we worked hard to achieve is to create a more equal community whereby it’s a flat structure and everybody has a voice and everybody’s experience and expertise is valuable. And I think that what’s important is

Trying to recognise that for a for-profit business, everyone who works in that business should share in the profits. And what’s more, growing a business, I’m growing a business in order that everyone who is a part of it shares in how it succeeds rather than the action, and again to I point around the room here of many who start a business with the intent view of selling it to a much larger organization. And I think we need to change that culture. I think in order to lead a business, you should be thinking about.

How do we collectively grow something that is in our mutual interest? And how do we build something that is sustainable rather than try and rocket ship something to accelerated growth so that we can sell it on and line our own pockets without thinking about other people? Good for you. Appreciate you being here. If people want to know more about yourself, your business, where can they go? Feel free to share any websites, any social media handles. We’ll also share this episode for too.

yeah, sure, Rob. I mean, I guess you can check out my website, ethicalediscovery.com. I’m pretty prolific on LinkedIn. You can also get me there. or you maybe even through this podcast, there’ll be various links. Absolutely. So thank you so much for joining me here on the Lead Speaking Podcast, recording live at Legal Tech Talk 2026. From all of us on the show, wishing you lots of continued success with your business and indeed future pursuits. But for now, over an hour. 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 of the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord. Go to our website www.leegalispeing podcast.com as a link to join our community there. Over and out.