LegalTechTalk 2026: Why the Best Legal Tech Demo is Rarely the Best Decision – Matthew Letts – E09

You can hear Rob and Matthew discussing:

Connect with Matthew Letts here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-letts-3a430a9a/

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 in London. And joining me is a fantastic guest. Please kindly introduce yourself, name, title, and organisation. Great to be with you, Rob. So I am Matthew Letts. I am the founder and CEO of Codified Strategy Limited. You absolutely are, and you’re doing a great job of building community, getting out there, coming to events. You and I have met at a few events recently over the ⁓

Course of this year. So it’s great to have you, and it’s clear this year there’s a big shift. Everyone is talking about transformation. Bradley Collins was touching on it in his opening of Legal Tech Talk 2026 here today. So, in your view, what’s the biggest shift happening in the legal industry right now that leaders can no longer afford to ignore? Understanding that clients are expecting law firms to be using technology and actually.

People are voting with their feet. If they don’t think their lawyers are tech enabled, they will simply choose other lawyers. Yeah, I think that’s that’s that’s true, isn’t it? I think there’s been a bit of a grace period, but now when you come to conferences like this, you just look at the scale of Legal Tech Talk, how it’s grown ⁓ over the course of the three years, there’s there’s a real clear demand for it and need and expectation. ⁓ okay, so we’re here at Legal Tech Talk, ⁓ one of the most influential events. They’ve announced obviously they’re going to the US as well.

What brought you specifically to Legal Tech Talk 2026 and what’s been the biggest insight or conversation you’ve had? I appreciate we’re early into the sessions. So yeah, what brought you here and any insights you picked up already? Well, I think it’s it’s a sort of place for me to sort of put myself on the map, so to speak. ⁓ it’s a startup business that I started ⁓ you know, only first sort of started from January this year, and yeah, thought it’s you know, the the leading UK legal tech.

conference so if you’re going to be in legal tech you sort of have to be here I think and yeah if you want to be part of the conversation you’ve got to turn up. ⁓ in terms of conversations I think meeting Sophie best on the ⁓ run that was sponsored by Harvey this morning was quite cool. ⁓ probably not the the place I expected to meet her in person for the first time but ⁓ yeah it’s you know it’s not just the conference it’s the side events as well and I’m really looking forward to meeting

An awful lot more people that I know over the the coming days and a lot of new people as well. Yeah, no, and we love Sophie. Sophie’s been on the show, so folks encourage you to go and check out her episode as well, which we recorded as part of our Legally on the Move series out in Dubai a couple of years back now. Okay, let’s talk about problems. You know, you spend your time at the forefront of the industry. You mentioned obviously you’re a new player coming into the market. What’s the legal problem or challenge you’re most passionate about solving right now and why does it matter? I think enabling lawyers to make

good choices when essentially procuring and buying technology. ⁓ I think the market is somewhat noisy. I think there are a lot of people competing for attention and I think at some t at some points that leads to overpromising and under delivering and particularly for small and medium firms, they’re not really in a position to get this wrong. They need to they need to make the right decision the first time.

⁓ if they want to try and stay competitive. Yeah. And one thing that I’ve already picked up from the conference is the the human impact, because we’re obviously talking a lot about technology, automation, innovation, the AI wave. But if we get this right, what is the real human impact? How does that improve the life for lawyers, for legal teams, clients, and overall society? I think that’s a really good question. I think it’s a question that

Leaders in all fields, so in politics and in corporates, ⁓ need to decide upon because I think we have the greatest opportunity to increase productivity ever, but we need to decide what we do with the surplus essentially that we get from that. I mean within the businesses that I run, Codify Strategy is one of those. All of my employees have a four day, thirty-two hour work week because I think it’s important.

Sort of if you’re evangelizing about the benefits of tech, ⁓ that you need to practice what you preach and not sort of have people working nine nine six while saying how great these technologies are going to be for work life balance. Yeah, we talk a lot about tech for good on the show and I I I absolutely agree with you. There’s no point bringing these gains, these efficiencies and still putting three people through the paces, you know, people with years gone by who have had to sacrifice family holidays

Big moments, you know, all of these things. Let’s give people that time back to have a balanced career, fair full-in career, but also have a life ⁓ as well. Okay, let’s look forward and I know it’s very hard to predict because things are changing daily, very much so in the the world we live today, but what would seem completely obvious in 2030 say that many legal professionals are still underestimating today? I think the number of clients that will be interacting almost entirely digitally.

Like I think, you know, there there will be clients who don’t actually necessarily want or need a human touch point in a matter. ⁓ that doesn’t necessarily mean that lawyers need to be cut out of the loop because you can build and orchestrate systems that would allow you to offer those services. but I I think, you know, lawyers perhaps ⁓ overestimate how much clients want to talk to them some of the time versus them just wanting to get to a solution in the most

speedy and cost effective manner. Absolutely. And and things have changed, won’t they? So you know, typically they would be used to the phone call or the interactions, but now actually with digitalization and smoother processes, improving the experience, I think it will become more seamless and perhaps less touch points. ⁓ okay, if you had the attention of every law firm leader, managing partner, general counsel, legal operations professional listening right now, watching this, what’s one action they should take in the next ninety days to better prepare for the future? One action.

⁓ if you haven’t looked at and prepared your tech strategy or at least updated your tech strategy within the last twelve months, my view is you basically don’t have a tech strategy. the position is moving so quickly, the sand is moving but beneath people’s feet, you need to stay on top of this stuff if you want to remain relevant and competitive. Perfect. Okay, and what’s one belief that the legal profession, legal technology or the future of law that you hold strongly

But most people might disagree with. I think I believe that there will be a place for lawyers, but I think it will I think the there is a prospect that private practice contracts much more significantly than others are expecting. I think that actually without innovation that becomes almost an inevitability. Yeah, no, absolutely. Okay, a couple of closing questions.

The League of Speaking Podcast is all about inspiring legal minds, transforming legal futures. So my question is this What skill, mindset, or behaviour do you believe will separate tomorrow’s legal leaders from everyone else? ⁓ curiosity. I think curiosity and constructively challenging status quo. Love it. And finally, if people would like to learn more about you, your organisation, where can they find out more? Feel free to share any social media handles, any website links. We’ll also share them with this special recorded episode live too.

Great, thanks, Rob. you can find me on LinkedIn, Matthew Letz, or you can visit codifiedstrategy.com and reach out to myself or Lorraine Jim Gur, who’s joined the business today. Yeah, who’s brilliant. Love Lorraine and love the interview and it’s been great having you. So thank you so much for joining me here live at Legal Tech Talk twenty twenty six on the Leeds Bean podcast, sponsored by Clio. But from all of us now, wishing you lots of continued success with your own career and entrepreneurial 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.