LegalTechTalk Uncovered 2025 – Jonathan Williams – E04

You can hear Rob and Jonathan discussing:

Connect with Jonathan here: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/inlegalopswetrust/

Transcript

00:00

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast, LegalTechTalk 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, hittingus here over the next two days at LegalTechTalk 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.

00:41

It’s a blueprint for community and transformation.

00:45

So buckle up.

00:45

We’re speaking with some incredible people about policy change, change makers, legal innovation, and so much more over and out.

00:55

Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast recording live from LegalTechTalk here in London.

01:01

I am joined by name, title and organization.

01:04

Jonathan Williams, Director of France, for Legora.

01:07

And just all around cool dude.

01:09

Really good to have you on the show.

01:11

We’ve had Chris Williams previously on the show as well.

01:13

No relation, no relation.

01:14

This is the show.

01:15

I cannot stress that enough.

01:17

Yeah, just going to really put that in there, folks.

01:19

Not related.

01:20

Okay.

01:20

In one sentence, what’s one problem that you are trying to solve in the world of legal?

01:25

my own personal poverty.

01:27

I’m trying to make myself as rich.

01:31

So from a professional point of view, Legora is an agentic AI platform for lawyers.

01:38

So it’s trying to improve the way that lawyers are doing things, and we’re trying to get rid of things that lawyers really shouldn’t be doing anyway, which is sort of low-level tasks.

01:46

And look, you’ve made a huge commitment to LegalTechTalk this year, and it’s great to see Legora everywhere, and lots of people have been saying great things about Legora, and we’re fans of what you’re doing as well.

01:56

What have you most enjoyed about LegalTechTalk 2025?

02:00

It’s just been crazy.

02:01

So the first one last year I was at as well.

02:04

I kind of, I know Bradley, we spoke when he first started spinning this thing up.

02:08

Yeah.

02:09

And it’s been incredible to watch it sort of grow into this.

02:11

I think it’s doubled in size.

02:12

There were two floors and it’s like, it’s gone really, really big.

02:15

The things that I’ve enjoyed is the incredible vibe.

02:19

I think the vibe is exactly right.

02:20

It’s where it needs to be.

02:21

It’s between sort of like a fun jovial thing and a more serious legal thing.

02:28

and everybody is super friendly, super engaging, and there’s been a really big crowd as well, I thought.

02:33

I don’t know what the numbers are officially, but I was on the booth all day yesterday from 7 A.m.

02:38

to 7 P.m., which was an hour past the official end time, and I was just talking the whole, you might be able to hear, but you’re talking the whole time, like, and people are, yeah.

02:47

present and what are the common pain points people have been coming from those conversations?

02:51

Like what are some of the things that you’re taking away from this that might help you in terms of future decision making?

02:56

And yeah, I guess why people should come to conferences like this.

02:59

Yes, so the things that people have been telling me, so all I’ve seen is the booth and talking to people.

03:03

So I’ve seen other people’s pain points and they’ve been really complimentary about the sessions.

03:07

I didn’t get to experience many of them personally.

03:10

My wife was on a panel, so I went and took photos.

03:12

But apart from that, I haven’t been seeing any of the sessions.

03:15

But I heard great things about the sessions.

03:17

So I think that’s really helping people to sort of identify where their thinking might be going or where the market might be going to the extent of such thing as the market.

03:26

And I think the rest of it is just connection.

03:27

Meeting random people as well, meeting people you know already, meeting people you don’t know but are in your space and can be helpful to you and you can be helpful to them, but also meeting random people who’ve got nothing to do with anything, and you get on great.

03:40

As someone who’s involved in a very serious legal tech that you’ve been through some raises, you’re doing some great stuff, you’re continuously innovating, what’s one assumption lawyers and people in and around the world of legal tech still have that they get wrong?

03:54

assumption that they get wrong.

03:56

They assume they know what AI is, mostly.

03:58

Lots of them have absolutely no idea.

04:02

They assume that what they’re looking at right now is it.

04:05

What they’re looking at right now is maybe 1% of AI.

04:08

The entirety of the current legal market is maybe 60% of what will eventually be possible with AI.

04:14

The rest of it we can’t even imagine.

04:16

So the idea that they can look at what we’re doing right now and think we know what it is, I can guarantee they’re wrong.

04:21

They’ll be wrong next week, they’ll be wrong the month after.

04:25

That’s typically it.

04:26

Yeah.

04:26

And this year’s themes of LegalTechTalk across a lot of things, access to justice, law and tech, evolution, revolution, compliance, you name it, purpose driven law.

04:36

Is there any one of the themes that’s most stood out to you and why?

04:39

I really like the wellbeing branch of the stuff that’s been going on, simply because I’m exhausted.

04:45

I need to take better care of myself.

04:48

Yeah, revolution not evolution, I quite like, I recognize that.

04:51

I believe, I’m a very firm believer in the Jevons paradox, like as we get more effective and efficient and productive as lawyers, we’re using things like AI, we’re just going to do more and more and more for our clients.

05:00

That’s it.

05:01

And in the same way as the Jevons Paradox, we use more coal, we use more efficiently, we use more of it.

05:06

Same thing with lawyers, we use them more efficiently, we use more of them.

05:09

And if you look at the history of the profession, technical innovation, after each technical innovation that’s arrived, faxes, computers, legal research, e-discovery, whatever it is, AI now, after every single innovation, you’ve got more lawyers and more revenue across the industry and not fewer lawyers and less revenue across the industry.

05:27

So it’s going to keep going like that.

05:28

Love it.

05:28

And as I said before,has been on a huge drive of late.

05:32

Looking forward, what are some of the exciting plans, what can you share, what can’t you share?

05:37

The list of things that I can’t share is extensive, simply because I’m just not in the loop.

05:42

There’s just so much going on, I can’t be in the loop on everything.

05:45

Stuff that’s coming up for me personally, I’m going to be hopefully travelling less over the summer.

05:51

We’ve got lots more big firms starting up, we’ve got some arbitral institutions coming onto the platform, we’ve got some programs we’re putting together with some universities to make sure that students are hitting the marketare ready to start being useful in the AI era.

06:04

Of course, there is constant product development.

06:06

Just all the time we have, it’s my full-time job to work for this company.

06:10

I still can’t keep up with our own product.

06:12

It’s insane.

06:12

Yeah.

06:13

Okay.

06:13

Before I let you go and save your voice, what’s been your biggest aha moment of LegalTechTalk 2025?

06:19

I think walking in.

06:20

Walking in the very first day, I walked in to go and find the booth and sat up early in the morning and I walked in, I was like, oh, wow, this was bigger than this was not this big.

06:30

last year.

06:30

So that was it.

06:31

Yeah, new level, new devil, as I always say.

06:33

Bradley and team have worked very hard and pulled it off once again.

06:36

So if people have been sleeping under a rock, where can they find out more about Legora or indeed yourself?

06:41

If they want to get in touch, feel free to share any websites, any social media handles.

06:45

Legora.com.

06:47

Go and check it out.

06:48

Everything’s on there.

06:49

It looks amazing.

06:50

Team have done an incredible job.

06:52

The marketing, the branding.

06:53

We got the merch, our tote bags.

06:56

People were coming back for more and that kind of thing.

06:59

No, they’ve done a really great job.

07:00

So have a look at our website and you can find me on LinkedIn and I’ll refuse to confirm any other social media handles.

07:07

There we go.

07:08

That’s all we need.

07:08

Just please say thanks so much for joining us.

07:11

Wishing you and obviously all the Agora team lots of continued success.

07:14

But for now, thank you so much for having me.

07:15

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode.

07:18

If you like the content here, why not check out our world-leading content and collaboration club that Legally Speaking Club over on Discord, go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com for the link to join our community there.

07:35

Over and out.