LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 – David Harper – E10

You can hear Rob and David discussing:

Find out more about AX-AI here – https://www.axai.co.uk/

Transcript

00:00

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast, Legal Tech Talk Uncovered Mini Series 2025, sponsored by Clio.

00:07

We’re back with our red mic for a behind the scenes series all about legal innovation at Europe’s largest legal tech event.

00:15

So we’re granted access to meet some of the greatest speakers, sponsors, brands in the whole legal tech world.

00:22

We’ve got 300 speakers with over 70 sessions with over 4,000 attendees from all across the globe, hitting ahere over the next two days at Legal Tech Talk live in London.

00:33

From AI to access to justice to smart compliance, you name it, we’re covering it all.

00:38

This isn’t just another conversation or another conference, it’s a blueprint for community and transformation.

00:45

So buckle up, we’re speaking with some incredible people about policy change, change makers, legal innovation, and so much more.

00:52

Over and out.

00:55

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast recording live here at Legal Tech Talk in London.

01:01

I am joined by name, title and organization.

01:04

Yeah, so I’m David Harper.

01:05

I’m the Chief Executive Founder of Ax-AI, an organization that was born to help the legal professional.

01:11

to make sense of artificial intelligence and transformation.

01:13

And I love it.

01:14

And it’s very rare that I meet someone who can match or surpass my energy.

01:18

But I think you’re absolutely that and you’re a really good person with just great energy, great enthusiasm and great community spirit.

01:24

So with that, building on what you just said, what’s the one problem specifically you’re trying to solve in and around the world of legal?

01:30

Thank you.

01:31

Very kind comments.

01:34

There’s…

01:34

an overload of information available to lawyers, litigation financiers around where AI features in the new world.

01:42

The next generation of law, the next generation of consumer demand, business demand.

01:47

And even being at this amazing conference, meeting these amazing people, there are so many vendors selling so much good stuff.

01:53

But for lawyers, and we spend time hanging out with the C-suite and understanding where the need is in terms of transformation and why, there’s just a lot to take in and where they integrate some of these solutions that are truly transformative.

02:06

It’s key that they make the right decisions and choices to not have technology that they’re working for.

02:11

The technology needs to work for them.

02:14

And we see executive fatigue and burnout because there’s so many new bits of technology.

02:19

It’s leading and changing the way that we work, but it takes control.

02:23

I sat with my business partner, who’s an old boy, he’s in his 80s, right?

02:26

This guy’s like an old owl that sits on my shoulder.

02:29

And I said to him, when he was asking me to get on with some stuff, I said, Gerald, you come from a world where you had a Chesterfield sofa, smoked cigars, drank whiskey, and made one decision per day.

02:40

I’m making 400 decisions on WhatsApp every two hours.

02:43

It’s crazy.

02:44

Information overload, we don’t switch off.

02:45

And we have all these tech platforms that can make us faster, make us more efficient, make us richer, make us slower, calm us down, speed us up.

02:54

It’s like overload.

02:55

And I think for the work that we do with our clients, and we build phenomenal tools and solutions,to help law firms scale and grow in a way that’s data sensible, got integrity, scalable, good governance.

03:07

But before we do all that, we need to understand how we design our organisation and why we want to change it.

03:12

Why do we want to take something that works and do something digitally?

03:17

And actually, I go back to the internet age of things when in the ’90s, when I picked up the phone and there was a funny noise.

03:26

Everything then was like, every business, oh my God, do I get a website?

03:29

How do I do that?

03:30

How do I lead this change?

03:31

Feed I’m missing out.

03:32

I best get something to do.

03:33

Look at where we are now.

03:34

We’re still doing websites.

03:35

We’re still building technology.

03:37

AI is just at the beginning of its evolution.

03:39

And there’s a frenzy of everybody worried about not doing enough.

03:42

Well, I always say to our clients, Cam, Cam, you’re already brilliant.

03:47

There’s a quote that Warren Buffett, I shared this on stage yesterday.

03:49

Warren Buffett was interviewed in an interview like this.

03:52

Maybe the host wasn’t as cool as gorgeous.

03:54

But he was asked about his prediction on artificial intelligence and he told a story and I just want to share this story.

04:00

I think it’s really important for lawyers to hear this.

04:03

He said, when the refrigerator became a thing that came into everyone’s houses.

04:07

It never used to be there.

04:08

We never used to chill our drinks and our meats with a fridge, but when they were manufactured, the guys who made the fridge made a fortune.

04:14

The people who made the white goods that came into our houses did well.

04:17

They transformed how we lived our life.

04:20

But they didn’t make as much money as Coca-Cola.

04:22

Coca-Cola, who used the fridge to sell more drinks, made a fortune even more.

04:27

They sold more drinks.

04:28

We, as Coca-Cola, Warren Buffett says, used the fridge to propel our business.

04:33

We sold more soft drinks in the world than we ever had before because cold Coke tastes better than warm.

04:39

And I say to the professionals, the accountants, the lawyers today, be theindustry that adopts the use of AI to transform what you do, to do more, to scale, to reduce the cost that you spend charging customers for certain things.

04:54

Could you do it more cost effectively by using technology, but actually make more margin?

04:58

So I think that’s the opportunity for law firms to build their businesses around their customer.

05:03

But start with why.

05:04

I know it sounds Simon Sinek, but why do we want to do this and change it?

05:07

And if it’s not going to do two things, make you better as a business and delete your customers more, don’t do it.

05:12

Don’t download the app that’s 100 bucks a month.

05:14

and per person, only do it when it makes you better as a business and your customers happier.

05:19

And I think talking to one of the global leaders yesterday.

05:23

who runs the biggest law firm in the world, he said, in his advice, and I asked him, I chaired his panel, what advice would you give any law firm here today or litigation financier looking at scaling their business and using AI or doing any transformation?

05:35

He said, be careful.

05:37

Be careful not to have 30 or 40 different applications that aren’t integrated properly and there’s no central control over it.

05:43

It’s so true, isn’t it?

05:44

Don’t fall into shiny object syndrome as well.

05:47

Fear of missing out, FOMO.

05:48

All of these things.

05:49

But I think that nugget of wisdom you shared with what Warren Buffett said is so true, isn’t it?

05:52

I think the opportunity is now.

05:54

I think embrace, come to events like this, be curious, and then go and really be adaptive to actually implement and utilize what’s available so you can be faster, smarter, more effective.

06:03

And like you say, it’s not about keeping your clients satisfied.

06:06

Delighting them, and it’s a real opportunity to take that level up, isn’t it?

06:10

I asked a question I said to a lawyer yesterday, How important is customer satisfaction?

06:14

Yeah, and they told me how important it was to them and what measures they use and the things they do to make their customers happy, and I said, I think satisfaction is worthless.

06:22

It’s worthless.

06:23

Loyalty’s priceless.

06:24

I went to a hotel this week and there was a V in the toilet roll, right?

06:28

I mean, they go out their way to make their customers happy.

06:31

Am I a raving fan and going back?

06:32

No.

06:32

Not with having clean towels and a clean bed.

06:34

That’s what I pay 200 bucks for, right?

06:36

I’m a raving fan.

06:37

I’m loyal when they know my name.

06:39

They see that I’ve got sore throat.

06:40

They can hear it.

06:40

And by the time I get to my room, there’s some cough medicine.

06:42

They say, I know you’re speaking at a conference, David, but just happen to have a spare bottle of stuff.

06:46

It’s in your room.

06:47

That’s the stuff and technology can help law firms do that.

06:49

Know your customers better.

06:51

Get close to the detail.

06:52

Delight them.

06:53

Specific is terrific, and the more you can laser that down to that individual and get those little touches for really high impact and loyalty, I think the better you go.

07:01

Okay, tell us a little bit more about the session.

07:03

The session yesterday was all about how you use artificial intelligence and data to make better decisions to inform outcomes.

07:11

I’m going to tell you a quick story.

07:12

I heard the audience yesterday about that.

07:15

How do you use data and AI to drive better outcomes?

07:18

I’m sat at my desk.

07:18

We launched a new startup business.

07:20

It was a legal tech business, helping do data stuff amazingly well, rather than humans.

07:25

We got a call from America, e-mail coming in.

07:28

We are the former FBI director general, white collar crime fighters.

07:32

We want to bring justice against the people that stole money from the US government during COVID.

07:37

We want $22 million to build a team of people that can go and investigate those crimes.

07:41

We looked at it as an investment opportunity and we challenged thought and said to the guys that asked us to help, why don’t we build some technology to do these investigations rather than humans?

07:51

The $22 million that they were asking litigation financiers to fund went down to 1 million.

07:55

Wow.

07:55

We’ve filed almost 2 billion in…

07:58

claims that have been all found digitally trained agents with AI.

08:03

And the great we’re doing that, I woke up this morning and there was another 65 million of fraud found overnight last night.

08:08

The robots did that and they did it better than us humans could do.

08:11

But when you put robots with humans, we’ve got superpowers.

08:14

Example of where you should be using AI today to help you do what humans couldn’t.

08:19

But put them alongside the guys who can do the job brilliantly too.

08:22

I love that.

08:23

And you create superpower, don’t you?

08:25

And I guess before we let you go, what’s been yourbiggest aha moment?

08:29

I know you shared the Warren Buffett piece earlier or your biggest surprise of Legal Tech Talk 2025.

08:34

Okay, it happened four months ago that aha, was the Amazon Web Services Legal Summit, the Executive Summit, right?

08:40

Where they brought all the global leaders together and said, here’s what we think about AI transformation.

08:46

I was a little boy amongst giants in that room, right?

08:48

These were the captains of industry thinking about how they transform their business.

08:51

And you know what they all said, every one of them that day said, this is a tech conference, but theThe one biggest challenge we face is the hearts and the minds of humans.

09:01

We have great leaders in our business that know how to inspire people, but they don’t know how to lead technology and transformation.

09:07

We never taught them that at uni.

09:08

We never taught them that in the last 10 years of our FTSE 100 business of how to manage transformation digitally.

09:14

Law firms, great lawyers, great trial room sort of advocates, great back office professionals, but nobody’s had the experience of what AI is bringing today.

09:24

So the aha moment for me isBuild great tech, do great tech, sell great tech, integrate great tech.

09:30

But start with the business first.

09:31

Hearts and minds, how do we get tech working with the humans that need to use it and design it around the customer and start with the design and stop the fear of missing out.

09:41

Slow down, chill and design the tech to work for you.

09:44

I’ve got 40 apps in my life right now that stress me out and I never stop.

09:48

I need to get that down to some more time for me to think and leave more inspiring sessions with people and tech should make that happen rather than make me busier.

09:56

trying to make tech work for me.

09:57

That’s my aha moment.

09:58

Hearts and minds first, then lead with tech.

10:01

What a lovely way to close.

10:03

So thank you so much for joining me.

10:05

If people want to know more about what you’re getting up to, feel free to shout out any websites or any handles and we’ll also make sure we share them as a very special episode for you too.

10:12

Thank you.

10:13

axai.co.uk.

10:14

Really appreciate it.

10:15

And you’re amazing.

10:16

I love what you do.

10:17

Thank you very much.

10:18

Well, thank you.

10:19

And from all of us here live at Legal Tech Talk, over and out.

10:22

Thank you for listening to this week’shere, why not check out our world-leading content and collaboration hub, the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord.

10:34

Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com for the link to join our community there.

10:42

Over and out.