Can AI Expand Access to Justice? | Ed Walters | ClioCon Clips 2026 | E04

Transcript

Robert Hanna (00:00)

Boston, we’re back. Welcome to ClioCon Clips 2026, a special mini-series from the Legally Speaking podcast proudly sponsored by Clio. I’m your host Rob Hanna and we’re back in Boston for our fourth ClioCon once again as an official media partner. What an exciting time to part the global legal community. We’re bringing you exclusive interviews and behind the scenes conversations with Clio’s leadership, legal tech pioneers, Riseman Award winners, and changemakers shaping the future of law.

Groundbreaking developments, legal AI and innovation to the future of our courts and access to justice, we’re getting to the heart of the biggest conversations transforming the legal profession. Expect bold ideas, fresh perspectives, exciting announcements, and practical insights from the people leading the way. So, wherever you’re tuning in from around the world, we’ve got you covered. Welcome to Cliocon Clips 2026. Let’s get into it.

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast recording live here in Boston for our ClioCon Clips 2026 series and I am joined by name, title and organization.

Ed Walters (01:07)

I’m Ed Walters, I’m the VP of Legal Innovation and Strategy at CLIO.

Robert Hanna (01:10)

And we finally got Ed on the show. This has been one I’ve been looking forward to for many, many years. During your FastCase days, actually, but you’ve been at the forefront of legal tech for three decades. As I mentioned, FastCase, then to VLEX, now Clio, alongside teaching the next generation. I know you have a great job of that, particularly Georgetown University of Chicago. And it’s a very exciting time now for the profession. We’ve just heard Jack’s keynotes. And you’re very much connecting legal intelligence, AI, practice management.

Also expanding into the courts. So this year’s Legal Trends Report produced some really interesting findings. Let’s get into what this all means for lawyers. Are you up for it?

Ed Walters (01:47)

Yeah, let’s do it.

Robert Hanna (01:48)

Okay, so first things first, what’s the biggest opportunity that hasn’t been fully appreciated right now by law firms and lawyers?

Ed Walters (01:57)

I for me it’s access to justice and the latent market for legal services. Okay. You know, we have a pretty well developed market to serve about twenty percent of people with legal problems, but there’s eighty percent of people with legal problems that it’s been very difficult, persistently difficult to serve with legal services. And I feel like AI is like a great opportunity to lower the overall cost.

And then to broaden the distribution of legal services. So there are lots of things that it wouldn’t make sense to address with billable hours. The the amount in controversy might be small. And even a few billable hours would overwhelm uh the costs. But with AI, you might be able to really reduce the cost. You could have law firms that are serving clients at volume. And instead of the traditional one-to-one lawyer, which isn’t gonna go anywhere, you can have services that are one to many.

I think AI is a huge unlock for that. I think the for the law law firms and lawyers who want to offer those services to help close the access to justice gap and to have volume services, Clio is going to be a major partner.

Robert Hanna (03:05)

Yeah, and you’ve made some really smart acquisitions as well, learned hand and so many other things that you’ve been doing and an acquisition announced today. In Jack’s keynote as well with Paige. Um, but here’s a question. The latest legal trends report, which I studied and it’s a long comprehensive document, you know, saw the biggest annual increase in recorded billable time in history, building on what you said. So AI is helping lawyers obviously progress more work, but s courts still have very limited capacity. So could we actually make a justice system slower by making lawyers faster?

and how might court technology address that challenge?

Ed Walters (03:39)

man, there’s there’s so much great in that question. So can I just address the predicate for one second?

Robert Hanna (03:43)

Go for it.

Ed Walters (03:43)

So I think one of the biggest worries that I heard from lawyers and law firms about adopting AI was that if I take the number of hours that I bill for a matter and compress it in some way, I’m gonna make less money. Yeah. and

Now, for the first time with Legal Trends Report, we have the data. And what we see is not only do lawyers make more money, but they are realizing more time and billing more time than they ever have before. And that increase is the fastest in every year that we’ve been able to track. AI is the catalyst for that. So not only is the concern unfounded, but the opposite turns out to be true. And then look, what happens if we have like a lot more people filing things before courts? uh I think it’s a real challenge.

And that’s one of the reasons why we’ve invested so much in uh judiciary grade AI. The idea is that courts need like a trusted, grounded solution that helps them to address these justice issues at scale. Because you’re gonna have more self represented litigants who are filing in court. The defendants are gonna have to answer using AI. ah But you know, courts don’t have more staff, don’t have more budget.

Robert Hanna (04:56)

Yeah.

Ed Walters (04:56)

And so y Clio is going to be an ally in that. CLIO is going to make sure that courts have the best, most reliable, most trustworthy, ethical and responsible tools that we can build.

Robert Hanna (05:06)

And I liked Jack’s note in the keynote about I like that, we should trademark that comment. We did, I loved it. Okay, so let’s stick with that theme then, because obviously technology is increasingly supporting both all as you say, lawyers arguing cases and the courts actually hearing them. How do we protect judicial independence, transparency, and public trust? And where should we draw the absolute line between AI supporting judicial decisions and actually AI making them?

Ed Walters (05:32)

I I am right there with you. Like there has to be a hard line between uh the kind of administrative tasks of judges and the, you know, really judicial decision making uh roles for judges that we need to protect at all costs. Yeah. And I I’ll say that it parallels a little bit what we’ve seen in law firms, right? Yeah. Because we’ve said the same things to lawyers. We want you to use AI to reduce the administrative burden. We don’t want it to replace you. We don’t want it to replace

the critical roles of judgment and discernment, counseling and advocacy, empathy, the things people go to law school for in the first place. And for courts it’s going to follow exactly the same path. There’s a million things that courts have to do every day that get in the way of their administration of justice. There are filing and procedural steps that they have to take that AI would absolutely help them with, that have nothing to do with deciding the merits of a case.

And so the more we can routinize and automate the most mechanical parts of judging, the more we create space for the really discernment pieces of judging that we w we want to protect.

Robert Hanna (06:45)

Really well said. Um and I want to take the interview to where I think is is the gold for Clio if you like. And that’s the the context in terms of context matters more than compute, right? We saw obviously all of the work that you did last year building up to this year. It’s been an astronomical sort of development we’ve we’ve seen in twelve months. But you know, you’ve written about why contents e context engineering matters more simply than having the most powerful AI mode. Yeah, of course. And now you’re newly obviously Clio connected, grow, manage, work

Allowing AI to understand more matter context, take supported actions, everything’s happening. So is this the breakthrough you’ve been anticipating and what can a connected legal intelligence deliver? Standalone AI tools simply can’t.

Ed Walters (07:29)

Yeah,

I I think that’s the whole bet with the V-Lex acquisition. So the whole idea was that if you have the business of law context, if you have the billing and the document management system and all the communications and everything that the lawyers in this firm have filed before courts, and you combine that with the V-Lex assets, with the judicial opinions and statutes and regulations and court rules, the global database, not just in the US but around the world, and then the dockets, you know, everything that’s been filed.

in these cases that provides context as well.

what you have then is uh context that is so rich you almost don’t even need to prompt AI. You know, um the the AI services are sort of working behind the scenes. And so uh I’ll I’ll just say that that context is very powerful. Uh there’s nothing like it in the world. You can’t stitch together a bunch of MCP services into a foundation model and create something like this. But the huge unlock for lawyers and law firms.

is that just like uh teammates who know you very well and who you know really understand how your firm does things, this context is a huge unlock and it makes work fun again. I mean this is this was something that Jack talked about in his keynote, but we have seen over and over again. We didn’t prompt this, we weren’t trying to brand Clio work as fun, but the number of people who have been responding to us with feedback and comments using the word fun.

is a welcome great surprise, but people are saying I I have not had this much fun practicing law ever in my career.

Robert Hanna (09:11)

I was at the channel partner day yesterday where I heard Damien Damien Real and he was talking about that as well, Litigator, you know, and he was saying, we’re making it fun again to practice, you know, all this work coming in, and I think it’s really, really interesting how you’ve gone through that. And one thing that stuck in my mind last ClioCon, we were in one of the afterdocs together, and you just casually came across. I was like, isn’t it incredible, Ed? You’re like, I think Jack is underhyped. What we’re gonna do. And I think roll forward to roll forward 12 months, you’ve absolutely delivered on that. I want to put my legal recruitment hat on now, have a legal recruiting business. So, you know, the report.

finds that little evidence evidence of widespread AI related reductions in junior legal roles. Again, there’s a bit of a fear around that. But the research, drafting, document review, traditional, you know, how junior lawyers learn to think like lawyers, given you’re teaching the next generation, how do you ensure they develop l genuine legal judgment rather than becoming overly reliant on AI to do everything?

Ed Walters (10:05)

man, there’s like a whole hour long class on this. But so listen. Um

Robert Hanna (10:09)

You’ve got time, you’re

on the show.

Ed Walters (10:10)

Historically, uh we have trained associates to become great lawyers. We have trained them to become superior partners, and we have sort of trained them by giving them the most routine, boring, terrible tasks in the world. They do document production work, they do discovery work, they do due diligence work, they do research and first draft work, the kind of work that partners, if they have the choice, would never ever do. Now look, we may end up with great lawyers at the end of that process. They may end up with judgment.

But it’s not because of this brute force compute work. And so I think this is a real invitation for us to think about what essentially human lawyer skills are important. And again, I I’ll come back to these kind of decision making, discernment, uh counseling, moral reasoning, risk balancing, understanding what’s important to your client, things that AI can never do. And I think this is an invitation for us to really double down on the way we train young lawyers.

and train them for those skills. So that we’re training them to be a lawyer of twenty thirty, not training them to say what we did nineteen ninety. Yeah.

Robert Hanna (11:19)

I think that’s good point. I had a question about 2030 I was gonna ask it at the end actually, so we might might hold on to that. You

Ed Walters (11:24)

You talk to

Robert Hanna (11:25)

touched on uh access to justice and and AI. So obviously one of Legal AI’s biggest promises is making you know justice more accessible. But how do we avoid creating a two tier system where those that can afford the best technology receive better legal support than those who can’t? And what role can Clio specifically play in closing that gap?

Ed Walters (11:46)

Yeah, I I think one of my favorite moments in my one year tenure of working at Clio was early on, I think I’m allowed to say this, behind the scenes. Um we had just gotten the Clio and the VLux together teams together for the first time. Yeah. And this was early, so using AI was very expensive for companies like VLux. Yeah. I mean some of the early tasks people would run would cost

$20,000, like a single task. And so V Lex had like a, you know, I think a very fair price for those services, and we were absorbing a lot of the cost, but we were also running it, you know, a profitable company, and we had to charge relatively high prices. And it was something like $400 per lawyer per month. And in that first meeting, uh the Clio team universally said, listen, we can maintain these prices, but if we’re gonna make sure that the benefits of AI are

broadly distributed, not just for big firms, but for small firms, not just for corporate clients, but for people law clients. We need to cut the price in half. It needs to work, people will need to adopt it to make that make sense, but I think we cut the price in half, the benefits will be broadly distributed so we don’t have a two-tier system. And there was not a single voice of dissent. Everyone at Clio had this mission really at heart.

Which, you know, for me, I mean, at Fast Case our mission was democratizing the law. And so it was really nice to see that alignment. And it worked. I mean, we launched it and it took off like a rocket ship. I mean we you know, it’s the fastest growing product in Clio’s history, already like the most successful uh kind of software company in legal tech. So anyway, I guess that’s a long way of saying that over time I think my hope is that the costs will come down.

More lawyers will adopt it, and that allows, that empowers them to do new legal services for new clients, clients of modest means, clients at scale. I’ve got nothing against the foundation models. The frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic are great. They’re not great at providing legal advice and they have no context. And you know, you can’t stitch together enough of these connectors to build a service that

a consumer could afford or make good use of. So our idea is a complete all-in-one under the same security umbrella service that lawyers could use to serve anyone.

Robert Hanna (14:10)

I think that was a key point in security, the trust and the protection as as well that comes with it. Um okay, I’m the go to the twenty thirty question after this. It’s just come to my mind uh given our conversation about underhyped the afterdog in twenty twenty-five. Jack put up a graphic today of G2 Clio number two and said, I think you’re point seven off Canva being number one. So

Ed Walters (14:30)

Point zero.

Robert Hanna (14:30)

point zero seven. So are we looking at being number one next year? Hell yes. Okay. What does Clio ne what does Clio need to do to ensure that happens?

Ed Walters (14:38)

I think it’s I think we’re on this track. I mean the the satisfaction and the response we’re getting back about Clio work has been dynamite. I mean people love, love, love this product. I love hearing it. But I don’t think people are writing to Canva and saying uh design is fun again. You know?

Robert Hanna (14:55)

Yeah, this is

Ed Walters (14:56)

So um I don’t know. I would love to be number one

Robert Hanna (14:58)

And that’s the key point, though, isn’t it? It’s not adding, it’s a complete rethinking of the you know the way you practice law, the way you deliver your services, and Clio building that and educating clients and going with their clients and being very client-centred throughout. because I asked a question to Jack about his book, if he has to rewrite the chapters given the air, and he said a lot of those fundamental principles of that book still apply, even more so in the early generation. Okay, so let’s look ahead then to 2030. I’m hesitant with these questions because things change so so so fast. But you’ve seen legal tech evolve over the years and major transformations and breakthroughs. What’s one change?

Coming to the profession by 2030, you believe most lawyers are still underestimating, and why should they be paying attention right now?

Ed Walters (15:37)

Well I I’ll go back to the place we started, which is the latent market for legal services. The 80% of people who have a legal problem and who aren’t getting help. And so I think the current model for delivery of legal services, especially billable hours,

makes that seem like a market that can’t afford or won’t buy legal services. I think that is a product market fit problem, not a legal services problem. And so uh there are there’s market after market that empowers that latent market for legal services and creates a giant market afterwards. I’ll just pick an easy one which is um Netflix. So Blockbuster said there’s not like a mail order business for the delivery of

movie services. You can’t make enough money. You need enough of the population for a brick and mortar store.

And they underestimated the size of the unserved market. And you know, I Netflix topped out at about six billion dollars of revenue, a big company. Um there were at one point more blockbuster stores than there are Starbucks in the world right now. But Netflix said, look, um that is one market, but there’s a market beyond that that’s unserved that’s even bigger. And you know, Netflix became like a thirty-two billion dollar company, I think even beyond that now. I think there’s that market for legal services. The biggest law firm in the world in

twenty thirty five might not even exist yet.

Robert Hanna (17:03)

Yeah.

Now that’s exciting. I mean we’ve had managing partners of some of the world’s biggest firms on the show and some of them talk about the four trillion dollar cottage legal industry that’s potentially out there and this is big, big stuff and I think it’s only we’re at an exciting time with this. Okay, what are you most looking forward to in your role within Clea over the next twelve months?

Ed Walters (17:20)

One of things I’ve really enjoyed is working with the most innovative lawyers in America. Small firms, big firms, yeah, corporate legal departments, and seeing what they’re doing. You know, and so uh these projects inspire me. It’s really cool to work in a legal innovation role to work with these innovators and to see what they’re building. Um and so we are putting all the tools in front of them. But the workflows they can build.

The services they can build with Clio going forward, I think it’s gonna be an amazing twelve months for innovation.

Robert Hanna (17:52)

Yeah, I’m excited for Seattle already. I’ve loved this year’s Clio Khan. A curveball question for you now. We try to do our research, we get given all the you know the media packs in advance of these interviews. We think we asked the right questions, but if you were interviewing you right now, what’s the key question we should be asking?

Ed Walters (18:08)

I think the question that is sitting in a lot of people’s minds is, uh, how can we absorb this much information this fast? Yeah. Right? I mean I think for a lot of lawyers,

the pace of change is really challenging. Yes. Um and and you know if you’re evaluating these tools, there are hundreds or thousands of them. There’s a lot of people who are coming at you trying to sell you stuff using AI right now. And you know it’s a lot to keep track of. Like I do this professionally, I follow this, I teach it. I’m having trouble keeping up with it. Yeah, this is true. So I think that is a big question. I’ll just say like uh one of the ideas behind Clio is that we are taking care of that for law firms. We’re going to do the vetting, we’re going to

follow what’s happening with the foundation models. We’re going to build out tools that are secure and trusted but under that same security umbrella with all of the SOC2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 certifications that law firms really need to protect their clients. So they don’t have to try and cobble it together with a bunch of connectors and figure out what the security thresholds are for each one of them.

so I would just say if you’re trying to navigate this pace of change, one of the most important things is to have a partner that you trust to go through it with you. And that’s what I think Clio really wants to be more than anything, a trusted ally for law firms who want to innovate in a very important time.

Robert Hanna (19:29)

Yeah, and and continue to innovate. Okay, last question before I let you go. I’ve been to four Clio cons now. I always come away inspired, motivated to be a better partner and to up our game. I think it’s good that you partner with the right types of people. And the amount of new people here this year. I think that showed the growth of the Clio community globally, the interest in the brand, the rebrand that’s happened. For folks that are umming and aring about why they should be in Seattle next year, what do you say to them?

Ed Walters (19:53)

Look, I I said this before I joined Clio, because I was a partner I in my fast case days and my VLux days. This is by far the best conference in legal. Yep. And this is not just about attending the sessions. It’s about finding your people. Yes. You know, and I I think this is a very common phenomenon.

The people who are doing the most innovative, best work in law firms right now, you know, on the business of law and the practice of law are right here. And the community is such an important and valuable asset. Sometimes it can feel like you are yelling at a cloud, you know, when you are talking about changing the way legal services go. And I think it’s a common experience for attendees to finally realize they’re not the only ones. There’s a whole community of people who are working on these same problems. They feel supported, they feel inspired.

uh And I I just think it’s, you know, I I’ve said this forever, ClioCon is by far the best conference in legal. If you attend one conference over the course of the year, it’s gotta be Cliocon.

Robert Hanna (20:53)

Yeah, and we have the privilege obviously of doing media at a lot of the big conferences, they ha they have their space, but this is the one absolutely categorically. Forget any media interests aligned, you have to be at. And I think there’s one thing that I enjoy about coming to Cliocon is the quality of the questions from the customers and the channel partners. They’re so motivated. Yes. You know, they’re almost, you know, it’s that collaboration, isn’t it? It’s like we want this, we want this, we want this, there’s real first, there’s real hunger. And Clio are like, bring it to us, you know, we want it, we want to go like this. And I think that’s uh you don’t necessarily get that at certain other conferences that people come here and and genuinely are, let’s all go together. this has been

an absolute masterclass. I’ve enjoyed having you finally on the show. We could talk for hours. I hope we get you back for a longer form interview absolutely at some stage in the future. But if folks have been living under a rock, where can they find you in terms of any social media handles or websites you want to shout out? We’ll share them with a special episode for you too.

Ed Walters (21:38)

Yeah,

awesome. Probably the best place um is on LinkedIn, which is just LinkedIn.com forward slash in forward slash Walters. Um You can find me on X, you can find me on uh Instagram, you can find me on most of the socials. I’m on like Blue Sky and Threads as well. Uh usually EJ Walters or EJ Walters3.

Robert Hanna (21:59)

There we have it. Just leads me to say thank you so much for joining me live here in ClioCon Boston. It’s been an absolute pleasure. But for all of us on the show, over and out. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you like the content here, why not check out our world 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.