“You’re now responsible for your own trajectory.” – Kenzo Onumonu 

On today’s Legally Speaking Podcast, I’m delighted to be speaking with Kenzo Onumonu.

Kenzo Onumonu is the founder and CEO of Correm, a platform that connects experienced independent lawyers with growing companies seeking flexible senior legal support. After training at Bird & Bird and working in-house at fast-paced businesses including Deliveroo, Entrepreneurs First, Wheezy, and Modern Milkman, he saw how legal teams could better support scaling companies—and what infrastructure lawyers lose when they leave traditional firms. Kenzo founded Correm to provide independent lawyers with operational support and AI tools, while helping businesses access fractional legal expertise. He speaks about the changing legal careers landscape, AI’s role in legal work, and the importance of sound judgment, adaptability and trust.

So why should you be listening in? 

You can hear Rob and Kenzo discussing:

– Legal roadmaps mattering more than company stage

– Fractional lawyers owning entire legal functions

– Independent lawyers needing infrastructure and support

– AI strengthening the fractional legal model

– Relationships remaining central to legal services.

Connect with Kenzo Onumonu here – https://ae.linkedin.com/in/kenzo-onumonu-2584a03b

Transcript

Stage matters, but I think the thing that matters even more is an understanding of your legal roadmap. 

A fractional lawyer is not just coming in to do a task and leave. They’re coming in to own a function and be the responsible person for that function. It’s not the same as going to an external firm. It’s somebody that owns the entire process, owns the relationship and is accountable, which means it’s taken off incumbent’s plate. 

Somebody is doing a lot of legal themselves, either using general purpose AI or it’s taking up too much of their time and it’s not their job and it’s not their expertise. That’s where a fractional lawyer would be really good to come in. If you’re using a Correm lawyer after a month, you’ll see a data picture of exactly where they’re working and exactly where that work is coming from within your business. That will inform you as to what sort of legal you need. 

On today’s Legally Speaking podcast, sponsored by Clio, I’m delighted to be joined by Kenzo Onimonu. Kenzo is the founder of Correm.

A platform connecting experienced lawyers with scaling companies seeking senior legal expertise on a flexible basis. Kenzo trained at Bird and Bird before moving in-house. He gained experience working with high-growth businesses and developing a broader perspective on how legal support can best serve growing organizations. From his experience in private practice and in-house roles, Kenzo founded Correm to address two challenges within the legal market: providing independent lawyers with infrastructure for success.

And enabling businesses to access senior legal expertise. Today we’ll discuss the growing number of lawyers choosing independent careers, the changing needs of scaling businesses, and the perspective on the future of legal services. So a very big warm welcome to the show, Kenzo. Lovely to be here and th thank you for having me on. it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. And before we dive into all the great work you’re doing, a couple of quick fire icebreaker questions for you. Firstly.

What’s your favourite beverage and what’s your preferred choice of footwear on a typical work day? preferred beverage. I’m probably gonna sound super boring here, but it’s probably just kind of like water and electrolytes on a normal day. If I’m out a rum. yeah, but just typical water whatever’s in my in my Stanley. Yeah, as I’m sipping my water now. footwear on a typical work day, what would you go for?

So I work from home a lot and yeah, so it would be some sort of flip flop buck and stock combo, sometimes one on each foot, it depends. That sort of thing. Like it. Okay, and one piece of technology, legal tech or everyday technology you now rely on, you would have thought unthinkable at the start of your career. I’m gonna go for is a toss up between granola, which I think is just so underrated.

And Calendly. So I actually love the story of Calendly. So Nigerian founder, I’m Nigerian as well, called Topi Awatana. he bootstrapped that business and knocked on every investor door and kind of no one wanted to fundraise. and then COVID happened. Everybody needs to go remote and you know, his business exploded. So I love that story and I love his product. So I I’ll probably just say Calendly Pips

I love that. I love that story. And yeah, not to segue too much, but Italian mother in law was born in Jos and yeah, Ocka and Starblager and all of that. We could have a real conversation. Yeah, absolutely. But I think we should talk about your journey. So could you talk us through the journey from training at Bird and Bird to your in house experience, including delivery, and then ultimately founding your own business? Yeah, absolutely. So I paralegaled at Travers first in the corporate private equity team.

That’s when I kind of I guess found corporate law and realized, look, I I quite like this. And then when I trained at and at Burling Bird, I only did three seats because I’d done quite a bit of paralegal work at at Travers. And the second seat I did was corporate. And, you know, before I ended up leaving the seat, I got introduced to venture capital and realised that’s where I wanted to be. Then I qualified into corporate venture capital and ended up doing kind of

lots of transactions from early stage to more mature companies and oddly s kind of worked in the food tech space on fundraising for food tech founders. So we did some stuff with Justy, we did some stuff with a company called Spoon Guru back in the day. and then one of my colleagues left to go to Bumble and she had been interviewing that Guru. And she said, Look, like these guys are looking would you be interested in chatting to them?

And I thought, why not? I’ll have a chat and went to see their offices and meet the team. And yeah. I actually applied for a corporate role and they went with someone who was slightly more senior, who’s now kind of a really good friend and an investor in Correm. And they sort of had a commercial role in the team. And I was about two years qualified and I thought, why not? I can learn something new and I’m sure I’ll be able to do some corporate work. So

Then joined Deliveroo and wow, like what a fast paced environment to work in. I’m sure you’ve heard. The great thing about Deliveroo was everything you were working on was novel. So it was like, Okay, cool, we’re opening the offices in Kuwait. Haven’t really had this sort of service before, and it was just like great and the pace was amazing. And I worked for a really great boss, lady called Chantel Zemba, and she was very much kind of like, as a lawyer, you should

Be ambitious about your practice and the different verticals that you can kind of get involved in. So although I started commercial, I ended up in the corporate team anyway. I was looking after IP, I was doing options, incentives. So I got a real breadth of work. And then after a few years, I decided to join Entrepreneurs First. And that was nothing against Liveroo, but I remember leaving Burn and Bird and a found and partner saying,

you’re now responsible for your own trajectory. And what they were really saying was if you want to build a practice, it might be that you have to kind of move to get different experiences. And that’s that’s what I’ve done. I’ve kind of gone to different companies to get different experiences and at Entrepreneurs First, it was very much working with their cohorts and doing early stage fundraisings and also kind of day to day commercial legal work as well.

but that was a lot of travel going to different offices, opening up a site in India, opening up a site in Canada. So that is still today probably one of the most electorate places I’ve ever worked and yeah, what they’re doing is is wicked. From there I went on to be legal director at Wheezy and then general counsel at Modern Milkman. So kind of a full spectrum and you know, lot lots of different legal verticals and lots of different legal experiences.

Some fascinating experiences as well, which I want to talk to. But I just that piece of advice that that partner at Burdenbird said, you I say a lot on the show about if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me, you know, taking that self-accountability. And you absolutely ran with that and hence where you’ve got to today. And with all of these experiences, with anyone’s careers, your skill stacking, your network stacking, your relationship capital stacking, you know, I’ve all of them it’s propelling you forwards, isn’t it, in terms of giving you these tools and experiences which makes you just a more rounded

individual for your for your areas of expertise. So on that then, private practice and in-house, you’ve had some really good experiences both. How did your perspective on the role of a lawyer change when you moved from businesses? And when did you learn about the type of legal support businesses really value? It became evident that the role of the lawyer kind of needed to be multifaceted. that was super obvious at Delivery. I remember kind of

being on a you know a project before and not knowing, you know, what I was doing in terms of we’ve never done this before. but you always, from a legal perspective, will know more than the business knows. So your job is to kind of decipher, calm down and be rational and give kind of reasonable legal advice. So you kind of have to be a a jack of all trades in-house. When I figured out kind of precisely what, you know, I believe you

Lots of corporates need from their legal function was when I started leading legal teams and when I started working fractionally. That’s when you sit really close to the decision makers and you’re setting legal strategy, you’re looking after legal budgets, and you’re looking after the legal function in its entirety, you you you quickly come to realize a few things that you may not have known when you’re a junior lawyer, kind of going through the motions in terms of legal’s place in the business.

in terms of how legal can insert itself at top of funnel so that it can be a really great business partner when things get you know parry or when decisions need to be made. And one thing you touched on a moment ago was sort of the the nature of being independent and and you know going out there on on your own. So

Is there an increase or there is an increase we’re seeing in experienced lawyers moving away from traditional law firms to more in house careers and other ventures? What do you think is driving that shift? And are flexibility, autonomy factors in the change between the private practice and in house the real driving factors for that? I think the underpinning factor was probably COVID. The big unlock was it’s you can completely be as efficient working at home.

Once you have that as an anchor, then the question becomes well, actually, can you work for multiple different businesses at home? And can you work from anywhere if you can work at home? And that’s kind of like a flexibility unlock for lots of lawyers. and I think a lot of lawyers are realizing now that kind of with AI as a superpower, they can leverage their experience in ways that probably weren’t, you know, possible before. So

It’s a the why now question is a is a multiple of things. AI is given lawyers the ability to operate like this and get closer to kind of what a firm would produce or s a boutique’s firm. Legal teams are shrinking generally, right? So I haven’t been a G C working with CFOs, one thing every G C will have to do is kind of justify spend. Typically you go to a CFO and say, Hey, we’re really busy, look, we need to you know hire and they’ll say why.

Show me some numbers and show me some metrics. And lawyers traditionally are quite bad at sort of metricising legal output, which is incidentally what what Correm is all about and what you can do there. But that kind of shift is I think is underpinned now because lawyers can say, Well, I have AI, I have my experience. The only thing that’s missing now is me connecting with businesses that kind of value that experience.

And then I can craft a career in a direction that I want to craft it in. I can work deliberately with in a sector that I want to work in. and yeah, not lots of lawyers want to work like that. They sure do. And yeah, it sounds good. before we talk a little bit more obviously about Cora and what you’re doing, for lawyers who do leave these leading firms, what are the challenges they face once they become independent? Because whilst lawyers may have the expertise and the experience to rely on.

What infrastructure or support do they lose when they leave these traditional firms? Great question. So if you think about what a firm does for you, I think I’ve heard quite a few lawyers on LinkedIn describe it as the human body, if you like. There are lots of processes happening that you’re just unaware of, but you need them to function. And a law firm is exactly the same. Someone is doing your B D for you, someone is d is chasing your invoices, someone is responsible for making sure you have all of the research and precedence and everything that you you need. And

And someone is responsible for ultimately giving you work. when you leave and you go independent, you have to find fixes for all of those to manage your practice. So what we found that most lawyers were doing is using kind of like a disparate set of tools or nothing. and in terms of kind of the business development aspect, you know, not everyone has like a huge network.

That they can draw on and sort of say, look, I’ve now got five or six clients that I’m working with. So you have to find solutions for that. And you have to be really scrappy and you have to basically think like a like a founder and an entrepreneur and go out and meet people and business develop. And it’s a super crowded market as well. Like let’s not forget that. So yeah, you lose all of that infrastructure. So it’s back end stuff and it’s also the business development stuff. And that’s kind of what we’ve, you know, tried to recreate with Correm.

And that that yeah, that leads nicely, doesn’t it? The the infrastructure gap in in in Corrum. So for folks who may be new to Correm, tell us exactly what it is that that you do and the problem that you’re specifically solving. We exist to allow really good independent council to serve companies directly. And the way we do that is we provide them with all the back end infrastructure and AI tooling to effectively give them the power of an AI native firm. And then for companies that can’t afford to hire council

Or it doesn’t make sense for them to hire counsel permanently. And it also doesn’t make sense for them to use law firms exclusively. We provide lawyers that they plug in on a fractional basis to manage the legal function. How simplistic is it? It sounds fantastic. Again, for people that may want to come and actually check out the platform, you you are providing the infrastructure. Is it as simple as plug-in and play? What are some of the timescales, you know, billing, ops, you know, then the network side of things? Talk us through like the

The reality of some of the case studies you’ve had thus far where people have almost been amazed by joining the platform? Yeah, so joining and onboarding is super easy. It’s apply on the platform, we review every application, you’ll get a response pretty quickly. And then onboarding is tell us about your background, tell us about your expertise, and tell us whether you want to be on the storefront or not. Some people just want to use it for their back-end infrastructure. and then

Clients and companies come to the platform, because it’s the system of record for the lawyers, the lawyers are kind of entering in what they’re doing on the platform. So they time record there, the data is aggregating there. So when a client comes to the platform or a prospective one and sort of says, I need this really specific thing and I might need it today or next week, or you know, I’m looking for a general counsel fractionally, our system will match them with a lawyer that has done something contemporaneously.

for a company within that industry or has that experience based on the input data. So it’s kind of like a in real time engine that kind of brings you to a a a client. Great example. So just to go further on that then, because trust and quality are very important elements of you know Grim’s model and and you’ve been very clear on that. So how do you assess lawyers before they join the platform? Because you mentioned there may be somebody that had had done that work but

Is it to the standard that would be required that would ensure clients were happy? So yeah, tell us a little bit about that and what qualities or experience are you looking beyond the sort of lawyers academic and sort of professional credentials for? I guess what we look for is experience having handled, managed or work with the sorts of companies that we that come through the door or that are I ICP and that we’re we’re going to work with. And those companies are typically venture backed and scaling really fast.

And those companies kind of like operate in mess, right? So everything is jumbled up and actually kind of these lawyers need to be really comfortable operating in chaos, but also be senior enough to kind of be a good trusted business advisor and have a level of kind of experience that is broad enough that they may not know how to do everything themselves in-house, but they know where to find the right solutions and lean on the network. So for us it’s less about kind of like

academic heuristics or like anything like that. It’s more about have you been senior or led a a legal team in a scaling venture backed company? and you know, have you had the experience of working within Chaos and can can you demonstrate that? We we have a call with everyone who joins. So yeah, we give everyone a chance to sort of demonstrate that. And I think that’s that’s that’s a really good way of looking at it, isn’t it? Because ultimately

It’s eyes wide open then. People are aware of what they’re getting into and also the experience matches what you’re you’re you’re looking for. You did mention before it’s very competitive this space. So what do you believe distinguishes Coram’s model from the traditional law firm and indeed other competitors out there? Well I think for us, we kind of provide the infrastructure for the lawyer to operate i in a fractional sense. We do not require lawyers to be exclusive. We basically

If you think about us like the infrastructure and like the Shopify, if you like, where the rails upon which this system and this model scales across an entire industry. So we think that makes us pretty unique in that sense. And then if you think about what a lawyer is typically capable of doing, they might be a commercial lawyer or a corporate lawyer. if they’re working with a company, they will have to go to a law firm and use a law firm if something falls outside of their specialism.

What we’re trying to do at Correm is think about the things that happen across every business as they’re scaling and the things that every business needs. We’re using kind of AI native tools and specialists to build them so that these individual lawyers can actually attach those strings to their bow and say, Well, I can do AMI, I can do IP, I can do all of these things. And it’s backed up and done and underpinned by Correm’s AI native law firm.

Okay, the matching side now, going deeper, and this is the the recruiter and me and just generally curious. how do you determine which lawyer is best suited for a particular company? Let’s just say for argument’s sake, MA case comes in, there’s two MA lawyers, similar experience, worked on similar things, both have bandwidth. How do you choose the difference between those two? For one, we don’t show one option. We show a couple and we do a percentage match, and that percentage might be matched by how recently have they kind of done a transaction. So

Our system rewards lawyers that use the platform contemporaneous like the more often you use it, the more you’re gonna be surfaced. And yeah, as I say, we give it a a number of options and it’s really then just like a feel of the the individual that you’re you’re working with. So it might be that somebody doesn’t quite have the exact experience for exactly what you’re looking for. They were number two or three in the list of lawyers that surfaced. But actually you get on really well with them and you like working with them. So

they’re gonna be your person. And relationships and and and that is just as important, isn’t it? Those sort of human skills and the you know the ability to define and sort of really nourish those relationships. okay. What are some of the misconceptions surrounding legal support you think? might be a bit controversial here, but Go for it. I think that if we look at the changes in legal AI and the fact that so many non legal founders are building businesses in legal AI, I think there’s a conception

And I may be wrong, but that law is low hanging fruit because it’s largely language and L LMs are largely language processors that it this should be easy, right? And I think that kind of is a lot of what lawyers do, and a lot of why lawyers are valuable. it’s not kind of just, you know, obviously as, you know, reading contracts and and and spitting out advice. It’s

when a founder calls you at eleven A eleven PM and or you know, in the afternoon and there’s kind of like a court appointed defender, you know, bailiff outside the door. Or, you know, the the random things that y you get as a let’s say you’re a solo counsel, the things that go beyond law that you have to kind of be involved in, have the context for, and allow people to run as fast as they want to run, but safely.

a lot of those things are looked over in terms of, you know, misconceptions. And also just people like working with people. A lot of the reason, you know, you you might want a fractional lawyer is because you want someone to manage the legal function because you have other things to do, like, you know, grow your business. And since switching and becoming a founder, I the things that we need to do as a business from a legal perspective, kind of I can do them, but I sometimes don’t have time to do them.

Right, so it’s it’s it’s it’s by agency as well and owning outcomes and owning functions. Today’s episode is brought to you by Clio. If you’re spending more time managing your practice than practicing law, it’s time for a change. Clio is the intelligent legal work platform built for modern solicitors, combining context aware AI with trusted legal research to help you work smarter, not harder. Switching is easier than you might think.

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That example of the eleven PM is a great example of being able to operate in chaos, right? And and be able to sort of be agile and be able to still deliver and and sort of not buckle under pressure. We’ve obviously talked about fractional and the and the power of that. And you know, switching toward well staying on that theme with full time general counsel now. There’s often a gap, isn’t there, between relying on external firms and hiring full time G Cs. So how do you see the legal support bridging that gap specifically and what type of business model is likely to benefit the most from it? Stage matters.

I think. Okay. And but I think the thing that matters even more is an understanding of your legal roadmap and what’s actually coming up and all of the legal work that you have. That will quickly tell you whether you need to hire someone, whether it should be fractional, and in terms of what sort of company what sort of profile of company requires this. I would probably say it’s at a stage where somebody is doing a lot of legal themselves.

and that person is either using general purpose AI or it’s taking up too much of their time doing legal and it’s not their job and it’s not their expertise, that’s where a fractional lawyer would be really good to come in. Now, on Correm, if you’re using a Correm lawyer after a month, you’ll see a kind of data picture of exactly where they’re working in terms of legal vertical and exactly where that work is coming from within your business. So is it

That your finance team is really relying on legal, or is it that your people team are really relying on legal? that data will inform you over a couple of months, let’s say you trial for three months, that will inform you as to what sort of legal you need and what level of requirement you need. it might be that, God, this is like crazy, we definitely need to hire. But at the end of using a Correm lawyer for a couple of months, you’ll know definitively, and there’ll be data to support that.

What we see most of the time is that in that sweet spot, that fractional lawyer is the most fit for purpose thing that you could do because a fractional lawyer is not just coming in to do a task and leave. They’re coming in to own a function and be the responsible person for that function. So it’s it’s not just it’s not the same as going to an external firm. It’s somebody that owns the entire process, owns the relationship and is accountable, which means it’s taken off the incumbent’s plate. Yeah.

And that’s a key point, isn’t it? They they do take that full accountability for it. okay, again, getting your sort of view on this from your experience, do lawyers underestimate the commercial potential of working independently? And what should a lawyer consider when assessing whether an independent career could be financially viable for them? They definitely underplay the commercial reality. Because

I think just like basic economics, if you take out overheads, there’ll be more left at the end of the day, right? So if you’re by yourself and you’re working from your laptop and you know, you’ve got a couple of thousand pounds worth of professional indemnity insurance, if you’ve got four or five clients and you and you and you’re on a retainer of three to four K a month or something like that along those lines, that is

far better for you than working in one job where you’ve got a salary where you don’t have the flexibility to upscale, downscale and do all of those things. Now, is it for everyone? No, because I think lawyers are inherently risk adverse. we surveyed this before we launched and we said to people, sort of, what would be the biggest blocker? The two things that came up were I I’m I’m risk adverse and I don’t have a client base, right?

Yeah. And I think the only thing that can qualify against risk aversion is data and our testimonials of other lawyers who have been in the same position and have done quite well. And we see now that there are quite a few fractional lawyers in the market and some of them are absolutely killing it and having, you know a and and not looking back. So I think kind of the risk aversion point can be qualified, but then the

Network point is one that is really make or break. If you don’t have a network, you need to generate one, you need to build one. and that is broadly on the lawyer, right? So what we do with Correm is we do all of our go to market and business development efforts are kind of platform wide. So we want to put eyes on the lawyers that are working through the platform. And that’s kind of what you get as part of Correm.

Again, that’s the the the value add, isn’t it, in terms of what what you get coming to a platform like that to really help you boost and and like you say get off there and hopefully remove that concern or risk aversion that some lawyers may have. We’ve touched on it, we haven’t really gone deep on AI yet. So it’s obviously rapidly changing the way legal work is being delivered. So what are your thoughts on AI affecting the role of senior lawyers and the fractional legal market? I think it’s gonna be a real tailwind for the fractional legal market.

like a real tailwind. Because I think kind of just using us as an example, you can position yourself as I can do this one thing excellently. I can also do all of these other things ’cause, you know, I’ve got these AI law firm behind me. And yeah, it breaks down the barriers that were there in terms of kind of I can only do X. so I think it’s going to be a real tailwind for fractional lawyers. And I think more companies are going to choose to go down that direction because it makes economic sense for them to

I think senior lawyers now are going to be okay. but I think companies are probably likely to not need as many senior lawyers as they did, you know, five years ago. will maybe thin out in terms of kind of what legal teams look like. Now that’s a theory. Another theory is that actually AI will create way more companies which will create way more legal work, right? So you’ll need more lawyers. I think there’ll be more law.

But I think there will be more optimization in who needs to do that law, at what price, and how many people need to to kind of look at something before it goes up. Yeah, and you like you say, it’s i it could go either way. I think with all of these things, we all just need to be curious, open to learning, you know, getting our finger on the pulse, having these sort of conversations, debates and all of that.

Good stuff. building on that tailwind you said you you sort mentioned there, because you previously shared, although the AI tailwind is strong and is fundamental to how we think the market will evolve, legal is still very much about people and relationships. So as the technology is going to continue to evolve, produce more legal work, as we’re sort of alluding to there, what human skills do you believe will add the greatest value? That’s a really, really good question. I think it’s the human skills that

already add really good value. I think it’s kind of being able to understand and assess kind of like the emotional outcomes that you know your client is potentially kind of interested in. It’s being able to organize and be clear and have clarity in how you deliver your legal advice. And it’s being able to ultimately really work well in chaos and

By that, to use an example, if you’re working for a a client and, you know, on day one they have really bad processes, you need to speak to seven people for context. it’s about kind of that calmness that you should get from your lawyer that sort of says, Here are the steps that we’re gonna do to make this run smoothly and seamlessly. Whether you have AI or not, those things are fundamental core tenants of kind of just being a good

business advisor and and a good lawyer. I think with AI, what’s going to happen is the people who are really good at that are going to be able to use AI to configure that. So that’s seamless. And then the businesses that they work with are going to get such a premium service because they’ve effectively used AI to get an order. Building on what you were saying before around the future outlook.

I want to sort of get your deeper thoughts on the legal team of the future because if technology continues to enable these lawyers to produce more and be more productive, how may that actually change the overall structure of these legal teams? And could we possibly see teams of senior lawyers supported by technology and fractional expertise actually replacing the larger traditional structures? I think that that is one thing that could happen, but I don’t think that

I think there’s a kind of tendency to think that because one thing could happen, it will happen in every instance. There will still be teams of twenty, thirty in-house lawyers. that’s not but it might be that some businesses choose a different model. When Uber arrived, black cabs didn’t disappear, right? They like we still use them, they’re still parallel. It’s just some people prefer this technology, some people prefer that technology. So I think that

It might look like you have one senior lawyer as and I was speaking to a CLO who who raised this. It might be that you have one senior lawyer that is advising the board and close to the management. They have a group of fractional lawyers that they’re managing, or they have a small number of permanent hires that they’re managing. What I think is gonna be universally harder to justify is bodies without data. I don’t think you’re gonna be able to sort of say, we’re just really busy.

Like we need we need more people. It’s gonna be scrutinized in terms of why. What can we do in terms of AI to avoid this situation? Are there other options? And I think one of those other options is quickly becoming can we get someone in on a fractional basis to manage this thing? And then can we see with data after three months whether we need to hire someone permanently before we make that decision? And you’re getting very, very important, valid points.

When it comes to your own looking back now, building a legal tech business, because you’ve gone from being a lawyer, operator, to obviously building this legal tech business today. What have you found most challenging about the transition and how have you been able to overcome them? I think the build part was actually the most fun part. Because I’m not a product person. so

I didn’t spend too much time kind of looking at other products and sort of saying, Okay, well, Wordsmith have this and Harvey have this, so we we must have it. I just looked at what makes our lives as fractional general counsels difficult and how we can use technology to kind of amplify that and and make it easier and better. So that part was kind of fun and and good. The challenging part is the is

the market education when you’re kind of doing something that hasn’t really been done before, and don’t get me wrong, kind of alternative legal service providers and the axioms of this world have existed before. But when you’re trying say to to companies, this is a different thing that you can do as opposed to, you know, the status quo, there’s a market education piece there. So you can build whatever you you like and be all well and good, but actually the thing that’s hard is

convincing and telling people, actually this is an option as well. And most lawyers are not i they’re not naturally kind of good at that, right? They we don’t get trained to sell in the same way we get trained to review documents, right? So that’s the bit that candidly what everyone on my team is is still learning and we’re still kind of looking for our our funnel and our way to kind of give that motion. We’re doing really well so far. But yeah,

that was definitely kind of a really nice challenge to have, but a challenge. Yeah, and and again it probably leads nicely to to where I was going to go next actually, because you you you’re touching on that. How has building Correm changed the way you think about lawyers, clients and the wider legal services market? To be honest, it’s excited me about the the wider legal services market. The more I build, every every day we spend doing this, the opportunities has become like way more obvious. And the more people we speak to

that kind of get wow moments from what we show them, whether that be a demo or i it’s kind of onboarding, it gives us more of a tailwind to sort of think, actually, why hasn’t this happened before? And what can we do to kind of like accelerate this and and go even harder? So I think two things. The legal industry is kind of proud. You know, it a lot of people worked really, really hard to write this law, right? So

I’m having conversations in private that are kind of like actually there’s quite a lot of anxiety about AI and then in public it’s kind of like everyone’s embracing it and it’s it’s it’s amazing and that sort of thing. So I think the two things I’ve discovered about the legal industry is that maybe not everyone’s being as honest as you know, it seems in terms of kind of how it all feels right now at the moment. But two, it is an industry that will embrace change. It’s done it before, right?

The billable hour is younger than the fax machine. So that doesn’t have to be like the status quo. It has been through rapid change before and it’s survived, and it will survive this one, I think. It’s definitely open to change, but we’re proud. We’re not we’re not good at talking about kind of like the things that terrify us about it.

And I think that’s why we try to hold an open space on the show to to have that, you know, and be our authentic selves. ‘Cause not all of us have the solutions or no, but leaning in and you know, coming together and all of that good stuff, we we can all try and get through and hopefully see the opportunities, like you said, I I really get that entrepreneurial vision that you seem to have in terms of it’s definitely a glass half full, we can go at this, there’s lots to be had. And leaning in on that, you’re a predictor.

In a recent LinkedIn post you shared what the legal industry will look like in five years’ time. Verification tax solved, tech becomes table stakes, individual lawyer models emerge, law firms will remodel and foundation models enter the game. So do you want to explain a little bit around those changes and what we expect or what you expect to see?

Yeah, so I’ll I’ll touch on a few and not all, otherwise we’ll we’ll be here all day. the verification tax is is kind of like an interesting one because I think LLMs are inherently probabilistic. right. So the best way I’ve ever heard it described is an LLM or you know, a Chat GPT or a Claude, it’s like a weather reporter. It’s looking at everything that’s happened before and then it’s predicting what will happen tomorrow, right?

Whereas lawyers, the way they operate, is more like a thermometer. We want to know that if you put something in a room, it will give you the same reading every time. So there’s a bit of a gap there, right? So it’s kind of like what we mean by verification tax is if the LLM is capable of getting something wrong, then a lawyer is inclined to kind of check the whole thing. So something that can produce documents really quickly actually ends up taking the same amount of time.

to review it unless you create something that reduces that verification tax. So I think lots of companies are working on this, including us. And the idea is to kind of reduce the time it takes for a lawyer to actually be able to pass something off as as good. And obviously AI improves every every time you train it and use it. So that’s a benefit. But until and unless it’s it’s zero, that verification tax will exist in in some respects. Now one of the other ones that I made was that

law firms will remodel. I don’t actually think it will make law firms cheaper at all. Okay. I think everyone calling for the billable hour to die kind of maybe misses something in terms of if a partner is using AI or a tool or something and they can do something really quickly, the reason they’re able to do something really quickly is because they have years of experience. That means that they can use something like a tool to go really quickly. So I think they’ll just price it as

Well, actually I’m pricing my experience now. This is expensive because you’re getting someone who’s worked on it and is really experienced. Someone who’s less experienced might have spent ages on it, right? Because that verification tax and that check-in will take them longer. And then we we’ve talked already about kind of like the emergence of the individual lawyer and the tailwind because of AI. And we’re already seeing it at at Correm and we’re already seeing that the companies that we’re working with. So

Those are my basic predictions. Now there’s lots that I haven’t touched on, like what about junior lawyers and you know that list of twenty. But yeah, I think it’s just fascinating. Loads of people are contributing to this conversation wider than myself. And I think, yeah, a lot of people kind of who knows? but it’s yet to be it’s yet to be seen, right? It legal AI is kind of mental because like

You could be working on something one day and it’s like, Great, like, we’ve we’ve invented like a a mobile phone and then it’ll be Tuesday next week and someone kind of like walks out with an iPad and you’ll be like, What on earth has happened like it moves so quickly. So no one really knows, but I guess you’ve just got to build in a direction that you’ve got strong conviction on. And with Correm, I guess what we’re trying to say is

It doesn’t matter what AI does, it will always kind of improve the lawyers that are using it. And fundamentally we’re providing lawyers as a service. So it it will always benefit them. Yeah, and I think, you know, some really interesting viewpoints and and predictions there. And I I think some I can see a lot of that playing out as well. So thanks for sharing and and really enjoyed, you know, the journeys and and and stories and lessons throughout the the conversation. So a final piece of advice and it’s

A question I would like you to or a sentence rather I’d like you to finish. If you had to complete it. The future of legal careers will not be defined by where you work, but by How you work. Nice. Okay. So if our listeners on that want to follow you.

Karim, learn more about your business, your story, or indeed the platform. Where can they go to find out more? Feel free to share any social media handles, any websites, resources. We’ll also share them with this episode for you too. Yeah, it’s just the website is Correm.ai. and yeah, you can you can find us there. You can get in touch with me via LinkedIn as well. So yeah, love to hear from everyone.

But it just leads me to say thanks ever so much, Kenzo. It’s been a really enlightening conversation and and congratulations on everything you and the team at Correm have achieved thus far and what you’re doing for the legal industry. And I think it’s about, you know, technology and how it’s changing the way lawyers are going to work. It’s creating new models. You know, if nothing changes, nothing changes. And you know, the legal delivery businesses are going to get access to the expertise they need is hopefully going to be better. So yeah, it’s all about this change and embracing change, isn’t it? I think it’s very exciting time for all of us in and around the world of law. So

From all of us here on the League is Beam Podcast, sponsored by Clio, wishing you lots of continued success with Karim and indeed your own individual future pursuits. But for now, over and out. 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. There’s a link to join our community there. Over and out.