LegalTechTalk 2026: Building Legal Tech for the World’s Top Law Firms – Fergus Plant – E07

You can hear Rob and Fergus discussing:

Connect with Fergus Plant here: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fergus-plant-374037137/

Transcript

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast recording live here at Legal Tech Talk 2026. Joining me now is another fantastic guest. Please kindly introduce yourself, name, title, and organisation. Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Fergus Plant. I’m a co-founder at ⁓ ILS. Our product is Provision, we do fun formation legal technology. Good stuff. And we’ve met here obviously at Legal Tech Talk. The theme this year has been a lot of discussion around transformation. So, in your view, what’s the single biggest shift happening in the legal industry right now?

That leaders can no longer afford to ignore? I think that it’s not necessarily the adoption of AI, but tackling AI as a problem, as an issue. You know, whether you’re going to adopt AI, whether you’re not going to adopt AI, having an AI strategy I think is vital and something that you can’t ignore. Yeah, well said. I think now we’ve moved away from debating about AI, it’s actually what is the strategy, how you’re going implement it, what’s right for your firm, what’s right for your business. We’re here at Legal Tech Talk 2026, it’s grown exponentially year on year. What attracted you to the event and what’s been your biggest highlight or insight?

You’ve received the star from being here? I think that ⁓ what attracts us to the event is just the quantity of people. You know, you see the same people on the circuit again and again, every single one of them is here. And to be honest with you, even most of the events in the US, you can’t really say that. ⁓ I think that that’s phenomenal. Also, it’s 20 minutes from my house, which is also particularly convenient for me personally. ⁓ I think the biggest insight that we’ve had this year is basically just seeing how the tooling has changed. I think that last year most of the stands were it’s generic AI for contracts, but now

I think we’re starting to see a few more point solutions in the market. And I think you can just walk around and see that in the stance. Yeah, no, I think so. You’re absolutely right. And talking about problems and challenges, what’s the main problem you’re passionate about solving and why should people care? Absolutely. So I think that the main problem that we’re passionate about solving at ILS is the pain points that fund formation lawyers live every day. Right. So I practiced funds for many years ago in Proctor and I had a great time. But the problem was that I spent an enormous amount of that time doing process heavy.

Tasks that could be done not even by AI but by software. Right. And fund formation lawyers are continuing to spend a lot of their time doing this. This doesn’t really add to their careers, it doesn’t really mean that they understand the fund very well. It’s just copying and pasting, it’s moving things across. And our job is to solve that problem for as many fund formation lawyers as possible. Yeah, and Claudia doing great work. we are obviously talking about technology, innovation, automation at Legal Tech Talk, but if we get this right in terms of those things, what’s the real human impact here? How does it

it improve life for lawyers, legal clients, and overall society? I think that there’s a couple of key points here to make. And I think the first one is the is the elephant in the room, you can’t ignore it, it’s access to justice. Yeah. The statistics vary but it’s a depressingly high percentage of people don’t have access to the law when they need it. And if you’re able to free the people up at the top of the profession, then they can spend more time and more of their focus engaged on those sorts of activities. I think that’s the first thing. Yeah. I think you know speaking particularly for investment funds lawyers and in the corporate world, I think that

Everybody

knows that lore is an incredibly intense profession. Spending many, many hours doing things and is the age old thing, you can have it done quickly or you can have it done well, you can’t have both. I think that software and technology gives you the ability to have both. And it means that you’re getting home earlier, it means that your quality of life is better, it means you have better relationship with your friends and your family, and you’re more intellectually satisfied. Could not agree more, yeah. Nothing changes, nothing changes. Let’s use tech for good to actually enhance the overall well being and have all those special moments as you go through life. Couldn’t agree more. Okay, looking forwards then by a good few years.

Say we’re in 2030, what will seem completely obvious in 2030 that many legal professionals are still ignoring today? I think that the answer to that question is that AI will not solve all of your problems. I think that a lot of people are using AI solutions as a well, I’ll have it do 100% of my work and then I’ll check how much of that work is good quality. I think that that’s not an approach that you should be taking. It should be let me break my debt work down into individual workflows.

What can be done with software, what can be done with AI, what do I need to do? And I think that we should be taking it from there. And I think that that’s going to be obvious in 2030 and it’s something that isn’t obvious to a lot of people now. Yeah, well said. Okay, you’ve got the attention of every law firm leader, global managing partner, general counsel, legal operations professional, people in and around the world of law, listening and watching to this podcast episode right now. What’s one action they should take in the next 90 days to prepare for a better future? Focus on point solutions. Okay. I think that your lawyers specialised, your legal tech needs to specialise as well.

The likes of Harvey and Lagora and other broad solutions are phenomenally powerful and phenomenally successful because they make people’s lives better. However, your lawyers want solutions that are tailored specifically for the practice area that they live day in, day out. Well said. Okay, and what’s one belief you hold about the legal profession, future of law, legal technology? You strongly hold that view, but perhaps most people might disagree or some people might disagree with it. I think AI is an incredible tool. I don’t think that AI will do as much as people think it will. I think that software is the incredibly undervalued commodity in legal tech. ⁓ and that’s my hot take. I don’t think many people would agree with me there. Good stuff. Okay, and the legally speaking podcast is all about transforming futures, so inspiring legal minds, transforming legal futures. This is my question. What skill, mindset, or behavior do you believe will separate tomorrow’s leaders from everyone else? Coachability. Okay. I think when I ⁓

When I speak to I speak to VCs and I speak to others about what makes a good entrepreneur, coachability is what comes out most. You need to be able to be open and willing to change, even things that you think you know a lot about. And I think that that is the skill that that I try and embody every day and I try and get my team to embody every day and it’s something that I think everybody should try and embody. Well said. Okay. And finally, if people want to learn more about yourself, your business, where can they go? Feel free to share any websites, any social media handles. We’ll share them with this episode you too. Thank you very much. Yeah, so my name’s Fergus Plant, so F-E-R-G-U-S and then plant like a houseplant. I think I’m the only person on LinkedIn with that name. So please feel free to reach out. Please feel free to connect. You can find us at ilsprovision.com, dot co.uk, sorry, and you can find us there. Or just Google Fun Formation Legal Technology and ILS will come up. There we go. Just need me to say thanks so much for joining me here live at Legal Tech Talk 2026 in London, wishing you lots of continued success with all the great stuff you’re doing in around the world of legal tech. But for now, from all of us on the Legally Speaking Podcast, sponsored by Clio, over and out.