At this year’s Legalweek, the Nextpoint team joined EDRM to host a “Live from Legalweek” webinar and connect with leaders across the legal tech industry. Nextpoint’s eLaw Evangelist Brett Burney sat down with legal tech leaders across the field to discuss what’s making waves – from privacy-first data collection to the practical evolution of generative AI in courts. In the Q&As below, we spotlight conversations with three standout voices: Jamie Beasley of Pinpoint Labs, Zach Warren of Thomson Reuters Institute, and Brandon Greenblatt of Remote Legal. Don’t forget to check out Part 1 of the series with Kelly Twigger and Part 2 with Doug Austin.
Q&A with Jamie Beasley
In this Q&A, Jamie Beasley, the Chief Technology Officer of Pinpoint Labs, shares how his team is adapting to meet modern privacy and collection demands, including their latest innovations in mobile phone data collection.
BRETT:
I am now with Jamie Beasley, who is the CTO at Pinpoint Labs. I’ve been following Pinpoint for a long time, Jamie, and I know you guys always have some good announcements at Legalweek. What are some of the things you’re talking about with customers this week.
JAMIE:
Well, this week we’re talking about our new mobile phone collection stuff, and we just added admin-level filters for mobile phone collection so you don’t have to have the custodian do everything for you. It just really keeps everything local for privacy reasons. You want to be able to tell them that we’re not transmitting any of your stuff that you don’t know about, so we’re not backing up your phone to the cloud first. We’re keeping everything local so that everything’s under control. So you’re in compliance with all the GDPR, privacy regulations, things like that, and the custodians are in control of their data. I think those are the big differentiators we’re talking about today.
BRETT:
Pinpoint Labs has Harvester, you’ve had some great data collection tools, but most of that’s been for computers or personal computers. Has the mobile angle been a response to requests from customers? Almost every discovery matter today involves some kind of mobile data. You guys knew this was coming, so you’re making sure there are tools available for that, correct?
JAMIE:
Absolutely. We had one person after another asking us if we could collect for mobile, and we couldn’t really. So we made a way to do it, right? The market is big, and it’s getting bigger everyday, and there’s plenty of room for all of these new entrants. We all do things a little bit differently, and we all get our advantages, right? And when you need privacy advantages, come to us. If you need, say, a forensic image, go to the other guys. [laughter]
BRETT:
Gotcha. That’s a good way to put it. Very interesting. There’s always a need for different aspects. I know you’ve probably been in lots of meetings today. Legalweek is always a little bit of a crazy thing. Anything specific that you’re excited about that the team from Pinpoint has been looking forward to this week?
JAMIE:
We’re just looking forward to getting to see everybody, getting to meet everybody, and see what people really need and make sure we’re solving the right problems. We want to create the most value that we can for everybody out there. That’s what I’ve enjoyed the most at Legalweek, so far, is just getting to know everybody and getting to see what kind of problems you guys are running into and what we can do to help you solve them.
BRETT:
Well said. So, any more information people want? It’s at PinpointLabs.com. Jamie, thanks for your time today.
JAMIE:
Thank you.
Q&A with Zach Warren
In this Q&A, Zach Warren, the manager for enterprise content for technology and innovation at the Thomson Reuters Institute, shares how courts are catching up with AI and the biggest shift he’s seeing this year: turning theory into practice.
BRETT:
Here now is Zach Warren from Thomson Reuters Institute. I’ve known Zach for a long time. Great panel yesterday about how to better educate state courts on the use of AI and frankly all technologies. But that’s really what it was coming down to. The Thomson Reuters Institute has been doing some work with the National Conference of State Courts, is that right
ZACH:
Close! The National Center for State Courts. You got the initials right. [laughter]
BRETT:
I got the letters right.
ZACH:
Absolutely. It was a good panel yesterday. The Thomson Reuters Institute has a consortium with the National Center for State Courts where we’re trying to educate judges and other court personnel around AI because they might not have the budgets of federal courts or especially large law firms, but the interest is absolutely there. No matter where you sit, you could be in New York, you could be in Alaska, and courts are trying to do more with less. The panel that you referenced yesterday, we had a local judge here in New York. We had Hank Greenberg-Trawring, and myself just talking about what courts need to do to be more tech-savvy, and there are a lot of different use cases and especially low-hanging fruit right now that we talked a little bit about, even chatbots for intake and getting people to understand the court system a little bit more.
We’re seeing that there’s a great initiative out of British Columbia called Beagle Plus that is exactly that. Well, just a chatbot, to try and understand courts a little bit more. There’s also a lot of things in the back end in terms of organizing data, case management. It’s a really exciting time.
BRETT:
That’s fantastic, Zach. I always love watching what you’ve been working on over all your career. It’s always great that I get to see you and so many friends. What’s one thing that’s standing out to you or you’ve been anticipating, other than just being able to connect with some folks and stuff like that?
ZACH:
The main thing is connecting with folks. I’m out in Minnesota and being able to see people in New York is great. We’ve been talking about generative AI for two years now, but the fact that some people are starting to go from theory to practice is extremely interesting. I’ll be looking forward to hearing more about how people are using this practically now compared to just talking about it.
BRETT:
Fantastic. Thanks Zach. Always good talking with you. Appreciate it.
Q&A with Brandon Greenblatt
Closing out our Q&A series is Brandon Greenblatt, founder and CEO of Remote Legal, who explains how remote depositions are evolving into rich, trial-ready assets – and why the future of testimony is more than just a transcript.
BRETT:
I am here with Brandon Greenblatt from Remote Legal. We’re excited, talking to several folks around the show floor here at Legalweek. Brandon, why don’t you just explain a little bit about Remote Legal? I don’t know exactly how long you’ve had the company, but there’s some pretty exciting stuff you’re working on.
BRANDON:
So Remote Legal is a technology-enabled court reporting service. We’ve recognized the need post-pandemic to really streamline what attorneys can take from a deposition. Historically, attorneys have relied upon a paper transcript to be created by their stenographic court reporter. And of course, since everything went remote, including depositions after the pandemic, we figured out a way to allow attorneys to get way more out of their testimony. They can capture videos of the witness, get automated transcripts that are synchronized to those videos, use digitized exhibits that can all be consolidated into one, easy-to-find, easy-to-use record of the proceeding. It allows them to take more depositions, get more valuable testimony, and ultimately build up more of what is an incredibly valuable evidentiary asset for many of our clients
BRETT:
It sounds like you’re kind of a one stop shop for a lot of these folks. You’re the one that’s kind of managing a lot of different pieces and parts that can go wrong. I don’t have to worry about maybe learning how to run Zoom or set up everything. You guys can take care of it all
BRANDON:
Yeah, so we use our own proprietary video conferencing solution. We provide the court reporter as well. One of the things that our clients have found to be really valuable is you really just pay one hourly fee for however much time you spend on the record. That’s not a litany of line items and different services. It all comes singularly packaged. So we really believe that the future of testimony capture is going to be done remotely. We think the power of the testimony that you can capture can be way stronger in this day and age. It’s not just a paper transcript that you read to a jury. You can show, not tell, and that’s a big takeaway. We really feel that you should treat every deposition like you’re going to trial, but if you’re able to find a settlement in the interim, you should have the work product available to you immediately to do so.
BRETT:
So you guys have been to Legalweek before, probably some other conferences – I think you mentioned ILTACON. So anything that you’re seeing this year that you’re excited about? Talking with customers, what are you guys looking for?
BRANDON:
I’ve never seen so much AI in my life. It’s obviously where things are going. We feel that the testimony capture is the birthplace of testimony. And so we feel that doing that online, doing it digitally, will open a gateway to way more features and services that can be done using AI that can enable our clients to practice far more efficiently and have better outcomes for their clients, which is ultimately the name of the game.
BRETT:
Yeah, that’s great. If folks want to learn a little bit more, it’s RemoteLegal.com, is that right? Yeah, that’s great.
BRANDON:
That is correct. Yeah, you can find all the information on the website. Everything’s up there. Listen, I hope you should be able to learn everything you need by visiting our website. If you’d like to see a demo, you can click on there or email us at info@remotelegal.com.
BRETT:
Very good. Thank you for taking a couple minutes to talk with us, Brandon. Stay safe this week.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
About Our Featured Experts
Jamie Beasley has spent the last 18 years as the Chief Technology Officer at Pinpoint Labs, where he heads up the engineering team responsible for delivering first rate forensic and ediscovery collection products. Jamie is an expert in the domains of data collection, file systems, computer forensics, and software engineering. Before joining Pinpoint Labs in 2006, Jamie engineered the web-based automation of manual customer contact systems at Image Capture Engineering. As an avid technologist, Jamie continues to innovate, secure, advocate, and investigate, supporting the needs of the Computer Forensics and eDiscovery industries.
Zach Warren is the manager for enterprise content for technology and innovation with the Thomson Reuters Institute. At Thomson Reuters, Zach charts the future of professional services industries, including legal tax, and risk & fraud, through writing, podcasts, and more. He has been writing and speaking on tech and innovation for a decade, and before coming to Thomson Reuters, Zach was the editor-in-chief of ALM’s Legaltech News.
Brandon Greenblatt is the CEO and founder of Remote Legal. He is a former practicing attorney, having worked for Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson in New York City. Seeing the inefficiencies of the legal system led him to establish Remote Legal’s mission to leverage smart technology to help attorneys streamline workflows and conduct more effective depositions. He earned his Juris Doctorate from the Cardozo School of Law and Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University. Brandon is actively involved in the Cardozo Alumni Association and enjoys educating young attorneys about modern best practices to keep the profession moving forward.
Brett Burney is the VP of eDiscovery Consulting for Nextpoint Law Group and a widely recognized authority on the complex ediscovery issues litigators currently face. In addition to consulting with corporations and law firms on their data management and legal technology issues, Brett is a journalist, podcaster, speaker, and author. Before founding his ediscovery consulting practice, Brett supported lawyers at an AmLaw 200 firm, where he worked with litigation teams in building electronic document databases, counseling on ediscovery issues, and managing the technical responsibilities of presenting evidence at trial.
