Intro Music 

‍

Tyler Finn
How do you build a legal marketplace with more than 75,000 community members? Find the right investors to join you on the journey and help the business navigate the inevitable pivots that will come along with its growth. Today we are joined on the abstract by Hannah Konishek, co-founder and COO at Legal.io, the marketplace for legal talent and technology that in-house legal teams all over the place, including folks in the Fortune 500, rely on. Hannah started at Legal.io as an intern after graduating from UC San Francisco Law School and has grown with the company over the past decade, a journey that we're going to be talking about today. Before law school, Hannah worked as a consumer advocate for a tech company, which I think informs your very customer-centric, customer-focused approach. Thanks so much for joining me today for this episode here at the SpotDraft Summit in San Francisco.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. The conference has been fantastic.

‍

Tyler Finn 

Cool, okay. Going straight into legal tech out of law school is not a traditional path. How did legal tech get on your radar when you were at law school here in San Francisco?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, great question. So my journey really started basically like crash landing into like the heart of San Francisco, UC San Francisco, formerly UC Hastings. 

‍

Tyler Finn 

Yes. 

‍

Hannah Konitshek 

And I think the craziest thing is that when you're in law school, everybody is basically like, well, after law school, you either go into a firm, you do a clerkship, you go work for the government. And at the same time, you're basically in the heart of San Francisco and within a three-block

radius. You could be walking to the Twitter headquarters, the Uber headquarters, you name it, and you're within walking distance. And literally nobody was having that conversation inside of law school. You know what I mean? You have some of the most innovative legal teams doing some of the most challenging legal work arguably on the planet. They're pushing regulatory boundaries left and right. You have these teams trying to risk manage not just in the United States, but like globally. And nobody was really having that conversation. And then obviously, it's like the epicenter of SaaS, the epicenter of tech. And you have all these companies that are trying to build CLMs, e-billing systems, like you name it, they're trying to build it. And nobody was really having that conversation. And so I was fortunate to basically find a like-minded group of people that were also having that very similar conversation. And so kind of my first foray into legal tech was us deciding to host a hackathon.

‍

Tyler Finn 

Really?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

‍

Tyler Finn 

What were the teams composed of? Like, is this engineers and lawyers? Is it just lawyers? Like, what does that entail?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

It, honestly, so I think what was super crazy is we kind of came up with this idea over I think like a random lunch that we were all having And we were like, you know, let's see Let's try and get it off the ground see what happens and we totally thought that it was going to be like a Saturday In a classroom and it was probably going to be like the five of us with like maybe ten other people And it slowly just snowballed So we had like the DGC that we had randomly emailed at a big company, and he was like, oh, I would love to judge this, right? So you get kind of like that first sort of stakeholder that's bought in, and then at the time, and this is like a super San Francisco story, but one of the people planning the conference was actually friends with one of the people that was sort of high up at Airbnb at the time, and she was sort of telling them all about this thing we were trying to get off the ground, and they were like, oh, why don't you totally just use the headquarters? 

‍

Tyler Finn 

That's great. 

‍

Hannah Konitshek

And we were like, that is so fantastic. And they were like, yeah, we really love the mission, right, why don't you guys go ahead and use that? And so that, once you get a cool venue, once you get some stakeholders, right, that really got the ball rolling. And it just turned into this kind of massive event. We had like a car full of people that drove all the way up from like UCLA's law school to come compete. People literally like slept in like the headquarters in this like cafeteria we were using to basically hack all weekend. And yeah, I think what was really eye opening is that there was just this like incredible community of passionate people who were like, oh my God, we're like the other ten people that are thinking about this And so yeah, that was like my real real sort of like first foray into legal tech

‍

Tyler Finn 

Do you remember what project you worked on at the time or do you happen to remember like who won? What you know, what sort of ideas were you all experimenting with? 

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, I think, so that's a great question. I literally to this day do not remember who ended up winning I thisk everybody was just so excited to be there. It's like everybody got a participation trophy just for having found 50 other like-minded people. I worked on something, I guess it kind of aligns a little bit with SpotDraft, right? But it was basically document automation, which back in the day, I don't know, coming from a non-tech background and then being circa 2014, it felt like very revolutionary to be like, we're gonna automate this government form using like, I mean, I don't even know what we call it altogether. But yeah, stuff like that. And so it was very, very nascent, if you will. But yeah, just super exciting.

‍

Tyler Finn

I mean, that's student organized. And maybe things have changed a little bit, but do you feel like law schools are doing enough to educate students about the opportunities that are out there beyond government service that you're referencing or big law, that there really is this whole world of other opportunities that people could be going out and sort of going after?

‍

Hannah Konitshek 

Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think that they could definitely be doing more. And I think that mainly because I think there's just so many alternative career paths. You know, in Hastings, or UC San Francisco, to their credit, they have this really great program called Startup Garage, where they basically get people to come in and sort of be like, okay, so what do the deal terms actually look like when you have a startup company that's doing their Series A, their Series B? And so definitely trying to engage. But I don't really remember a lot of people getting like summer internships in-house, right? When like, I mean, that could be like some of the most fun sort of like eye-opening experiences you could have. Not to mention legal operations, right? I mean, outside of basically getting a bribe to go to like Westlaw or like LexisNexis training sessions for free lunch, nobody's talking about CLM. Nobody's talking about e-billing software. Nobody's talking about like time management software. But the minute you start any one of those jobs, it's like a crash course.

‍

Tyler Finn 

I mean, I didn't go to law school, and we're going to get to sort of like you getting started with Legal.io. in a second. But I do feel like, not just at UC San Francisco, I mean, it's a top-end law school, right? You do have the opportunity to go into big law if you want. I feel like at a lot of other law schools, there's all these other roles, like new reference legal operations or privacy program management, right, that are supporting legal or working alongside legal, and they don't always require a law degree. But if you have one, it could be really valuable, and it also could be a foot in the door to a more senior sort of counsel position or an AGC role or something that you would otherwise not be able to get. I feel like there's a missed opportunity there, I think,

just broadly speaking. Yeah. Yeah. 

‍

Hannah Konitshek

I think so too. And I think what's, I don't know, I think there's a very narrow focus for like what constitutes the practice of law. And what I mean by that is like inside of these organizations, right? If you're dealing with like a massive data breach or, you know, your company is lucky enough to be getting acquired. The first thing that happens is they come to you and they're like, well, where's all the customer agreements for due diligence who actually signed the privacy policy? Right? And that's like risk management for your organization. Or even like sort of strategic engagement around how do we get a massive customer? How do we get an acquisition over the finish line? And so yeah, I think it's really kind of like a rethinking of what it means to actually practice law post-law school, if that makes sense.

‍

Tyler Finn 

When you started with Legal.io, I mean, you were sort of like an intern or a helper, or helping them part-time. Tell us how you met the team and how you got started with them.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, it's a pretty good story. So, I mean, it is like, people are always like, yeah, how did you guys all originally meet? And it was basically me, co-founder Peter, and then also Tony Lai. And the most honest way to say it is we were basically just like collaborators. So I think I originally met them basically through the hackathon. And so they sort of found out that we were doing this hackathon. They had already kind of started a company, our company, in its previous iteration. And the focus was just build a community of attorneys, kind of focus on referrals, right? And so yeah, they sort of, down working with Stanford's Codex, which is like their Center for Legal Informatics, they were very, very involved there. And all of those people were like, oh my gosh, we have to send a team of people up to this legal hackathon, right? So yeah, I think it was basically just like a shared passion over this growing sub-sector. 

‍

Tyler Finn 

And I'm sure you were a doer, right? I mean as soon as you start doing and helping people you begin to get enmeshed in what they're building and like pretty soon They probably think like oh, we definitely couldn't build this without Hannah being a part of our team

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the beauties of Silicon Valley is that I think people are looking for to Just as you said the doers, right? Like people just kind of have this shared vision for like what the world could look like or your tiny piece of the world in the legal tech sector. And once you find people that are also like, oh yeah, like I also, I both see that and want to go do that. I don't know, there's like to an extent you kind of hold on for dear life, right? Because you find so few of those people that are like willing to take that gamble and willing to take that risk and willing to like wake up every day and oftentimes grind on a shared passion project. So yeah, I don't know. We all have very complementary skill sets, but once you find those people who are just down to try something big, I think you just gotta go with it.

‍

Tyler Finn 

A term that you used when we were prepping for this that you used to describe you and Peter, the CEO, and your fellow co-founder, is second-time founders, and I really like that term. What do you mean by that?

‍

Hannah Konitshek 

Yeah, that's a really good question. So as I kind of mentioned, right, we started originally working on this idea for kind of this professional network or this community of attorneys back circa 2013 was kind of the first generation of the company. And I think any good startup, you kind of go through like a winding sort of series of pivots. And so, you know, the current iteration of the company is basically this professional network. And then we also have like the staffing and sort of like talent placement arm. But that's kind of very far away from where we originally started. So where it originally started was this like community. And we would also basically process referrals. So if you were the Florida Bar Association, you're probably sending out thousands of referrals a month to different people inside of your network and building software there. And so, you know, the current iteration of the company and the old one, I think you learned so many lessons. And there's a lot of different adages in Silicon Valley about all of the battle stories or war stories that you get on the first one, essentially all the mistakes that you make and all the things that you learn, right? I think one of the most popular ones that we sort of ascribe to is first-time founders focus on products, second-time founders focus on distribution, right? Which is just to say, you know, first-time founders are like, oh, it has to be pixel perfect before we ship it and do all these things. Second-time founders are like, how do I get this into the hands of as many people as I possibly can. And so I think, yeah, the two sort of journeys of the company are the two sort of like, yeah, versions that we've had pre-Pivot. I think it really, yeah, we learned a lot of those lessons.

‍

Tyler Finn 

Do you feel like your risk tolerance has changed a lot over time? I mean, it's one thing to sort of go through the training of law school, but if you're talking about sort of your first iteration of yourself as a founder and your second iteration. I hear we want the product to be perfect versus we just need people to be using this and learning from that. I mean, talk to us a little bit about maybe how your risk tolerance has evolved.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question, right? So the way that I think about risk, right, and I guess it's like generally ascribes to like my sort of life philosophy, right? But But you only get to live once. And I think the biggest risk that you can take is not taking a big enough swing at something. So I think when you talk about risk, it's like, is it a bigger risk to ship something that might look kind of ugly on the first go, or is the bigger risk that no one even knows that you built it ugly or not to begin with? And I think that's one thing that I think a lot of founders have to learn a little bit the hard way, whether it's when you decide to actually ship a product or, for example, where you choose to focus your energy inside of the company. There's a lot of people that come up with good ideas. It might not be an idea with a big enough total addressable market to go out and raise venture financing. And so I think it's across the board, you kind of have to think about what swings am I going to take and are they big enough? And I think the biggest risk, again, is not taking a big enough swing at something.

‍

Tyler Finn 

I had like two questions here prepared. One of them is sort of around conviction around pivots, and the other is around experimentation. But I think maybe there's sort of like, I don't know, they should be combined into one question for you, essentially, which is, is conviction important? Is experimentation important? Neither of these things important? Like how do you think through that as you are either launching a new product offering, taking the business in a meaningfully different direction?

‍

Hannah Konitshek 

Yeah, I think conviction, I think, you know, it's always this push and pull between conviction and like sort of ascribing to a belief or like a philosophy you have about like where your product is going, but then also listening to the market. And so those things are always true, and you're always kind of like towing that line. Because I think the reality of being an entrepreneur is you're gonna wake up every single day, especially in the early days, and especially in the legal industry, everybody's gonna tell you the hundred reasons why it's not gonna work, or why you're never gonna sell to that big company, or why no attorney is ever gonna take a risk with XYZ. And so you have to have this underlying conviction about what you're building. And you don't always necessarily know the steps to how you're gonna get there, but I think one of the questions, and I've worked with the venture fund a little bit, so I've kind of been on both sides of the table. One of the questions that, or one of the pieces of advice I would always give founders is where do you see the world 10 years from now, and how is it different by your company existing? Because there's honestly a lot of different paths for how you get there, and I think you have to have conviction in the five, 10-year vision, and you have to be a little bit flexible in the details. Because honestly, you're going to roll out features, and ones that you thought were going to be super successful, it's going to be like crickets, and ones that you're like, oh, that was totally an afterthought, suddenly you're getting like pings in the Slack channel. Another visitor's used it, another visitor's used it. So yeah, I think it's always a push and pull. 

‍

Tyler Finn 

I'm not skeptical of that, but the world is changing really fast. We've heard a lot about that today. And 10 years is a long time horizon. 10 years is like super meaningfully different from what's going to happen in the next 24 months or 18 months. How do you think about that in the context of Legal.Io. How do you think about how you want to change the world? I mean, not in some huge sense, but in a sense. How do you want to change the world over the next decade?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, well, I'm actually announcing my rocket company launch. No, no, no. There's actually a quote by Jeff Bezos that I really like. Because obviously he was at the helm of Amazon for so many years. And he basically said, you can ask a question about how is the world going to look different three years from now, right? But he's like, we like to ask another question to Amazon. And the question is basically, what is not going to change in the next 10 years, right? Because you can sort of chart out a path based on things that you fundamentally know are gonna be true about how your industry buys, what people really want in their hearts and hearts. You can chart out a path based on that, but there are going to be obviously short-term headwinds. So I think a really good example, or how we think about it at our company, is that there is always going to be this innate desire to connect with your peers. There's always gonna be a need for people to find their next job. There's always gonna be a need for people to sort of find other resources, or whether it's a peer in their industry they can ask a question to, or a template. None of those things are going to fundamentally change, and we can chart a path based on that. I think the short-term headwinds, and this is where sometimes, especially if you don't have a lot of traction, it can be a little bit, people can sort of get stars in their eyes where they're like, what if we just pivot to AI? Or circa five years ago, it was like, well, what if we just launched a token, right? All these different things. But I think oftentimes you end up basing a strategy or founders can make the mistake of basing a strategy off of things that are short-term and are maybe possibly only gonna be true for a short period of time, not what they know to be true over the long term.

‍

Tyler Finn 

Let's talk about fundraising for a minute. I know you've got thoughts on this. Legal.io raised your Series A from Tiger Global, obviously a super well-known investment firm. How did you approach the fundraising process and try to get attention from the right investors, the investors that you wanted to get attention from?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, that's a really good question. So yeah, I think fundraising, right? I think it is honestly, I don't want to say it's a numbers game because it's not, right? You have to find people who are fundamentally aligned with your thesis. But you're going to get way more no's than you are yes's, right? I mean, the reality is that you're going to get 99% of the no's, right? Because you're only gonna have one lead investor and then a couple co-investors. And so our fundamental approach to it was we did a lot of different market research about all the big firms, right? Like firms that were big enough to be leading a series A of that size. And we were looking for investors that were very thesis aligned with where we see the market going. And so, our series A, I don't want to say we got lucky, because we were definitely reaching out to people that were fundamentally thesis aligned. But I think we only had probably 10 to 20 conversations before we were able to basically move forward with Tiger Global. And the reason for that is because the team was very, very fundamentally aligned with the thesis and the vision that we have. And so there was no, I don't know, like being on the other side of the table, doing a little bit of like the seed and like pre-seed investing that I did, if someone doesn't fundamentally buy the thesis, no amount of good metrics or good traction is gonna convince them otherwise, right? Because you have to fundamentally believe in that, right? Because metrics can go up and down, the market can change, but you need someone that fundamentally believes that the world is gonna look the same way that you do, if you have to be aligned on that over the long term.

‍

Tyler Finn 

Finding an investor is also sort of like, it's a partnership, I guess, of sorts, right? You're signing up to have potentially these folks join your board, get to help shape the direction of your company, maybe influence the culture of the business. What were the sort of questions that you were asking yourselves internally, almost as you were evaluating the different investors, maybe things that you were looking for there?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

I think the biggest thing, or like advice that I would give other founders, I mean I think obviously the net worth that they have, that's like super powerful. So I think you sort of see this, like we are not a YC company, but you sort of see that with YC, right? Is they sort of have the YC mafia,

and they tend to all be very aligned in the way that they went through the program, some of the beliefs they have about how you build companies, and then they all obviously buy from one another, right? So that's like a fantastic network to have. We went through Startups, which is basically Stanford's incubator accelerator, which was a fantastic experience. There's a little bit of that. But I think honestly, the portfolio of companies that they have, and to the extent that you can be asking each other questions, to the extent that you can be like, hey, can you introduce me to the general counsel of XYZ Portfolio Company, that's actually a really, really great thing to have in your arsenal. I think the second thing, too, is to really think, don't go into that relationship thinking too much about how you kind of wish the dynamic between you and your investor would work. It's really important to understand as founders, what are you looking to get out of the investors? So one of the things I always said on the other side of the table to founders like trying to raise, get bigger checks, is you're also interviewing the investor. Because if you have a company that has a lot of traction, if it's a vision that people believe in, there's gonna be competition for that, you know, to basically have allocation inside of your round, right? So whenever you're going into these meetings, I think a lot of people can sort of psych themselves out and they're sort of like, oh, I need to be like catering X about the pitch or I need to be like, you know, approaching them about why and I'm like, you also need to be asking them these questions, right? Like, can you make introductions to your portfolio companies? Things like that.

‍

Tyler Finn 

We've talked a little bit about pivots. Obviously, investors care about pivots and probably want to have some input around the business is going to go in a different direction. Having been through that, any advice that you would give to, say, business leaders generally about communicating with their investors during a time of change in the most productive way?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah. I think one of the things that people can oftentimes lose sight of, especially when they're sort of thinking about investors, right, almost like it's like the Wizard of Oz, right, like the man that you never see in the castle, right? Is investors are investing in your company because no one knows your thesis and your market better than you, right? That's why you're there. And so, honestly, I think we've been really lucky in that our investors have always taken, yeah, I mean, they basically take our advice on where we think we should take the company. You know, it's always a conversation, right? But I think they definitely believe that we understand our industry and our business better than anyone. And so I think it's radical transparency, right, I think, to an extent, and sort of just being honest about what's working and what's not working. Because I think people oftentimes, like, they're backing, yes, the company, but also the individual founders as well. And there's a level of trust, not just in, like, your vision for the future, but in your judgment. And so yeah, I think it's really like having those conversations, communicating transparently. And then I don't think we've ever run into a situation where our investors or any sort of strategic advisor didn't see the same things we were seeing, right? Like, and that's one of the things, I got this piece of advice from one of my mentors and they were like, people should never be surprised, right, so for example, if you're a startup and you're basically giving your quarterly or monthly updates to your investors, you should be telling them what's going well and what's not going well. Sure. Because if you're sort of glossing over the things where it's like, hey, we launched this and we really hoped it was going to get more traction, if you're coming nine months later and they're like, why are you pivoting? I thought it was fantastic, right? So yeah, I think it's a little bit of just like radical transparency so that no one is ever really surprised by those things. And I think also, you know, our investors also typically do have industry experience, right? A lot of them, especially like one of our board members, Mandang, you know, she was a DGC at a very large company for a long time. And so if you're honest with those people, they can oftentimes be like, well, hey, have you thought about it like this, right? Or have you reached out to this person? And so yeah, I think in terms of communicating with investors or just other stakeholders, it's actually allowing them to support you along the journey.

‍

Tyler Finn 

I put this question to our CEO and COO who I did an episode with here. We just raised a Series B, you raised a big Series A, I mean not super recently, but right. And the question is something to be effective. Fundraising is obviously important to the business. It helps you grow, you can put that capital to work, but fundraising isn't like an end in and of itself, right? Even though it's super exciting to go and share the announcement on LinkedIn, that sort of thing, right? I'm just curious how you think about that and how you sort of set the right tone with Peter and your other co-founders, right? And also with the rest of the company, right? Like, how do you square that and get that right?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, I think you said it perfectly when you said that capital is basically a tool, right? And that's, I think it's, you know, everybody wants the article in Forbes, everybody wants the article in TechCrunch, right? Everybody wants the feature in Strictly BC. All of those things are true and it feels very nice. I think one of the quotes I read that honestly is kind of like a duh moment and we should sort of know this but it was basically if every single time you saw a headline about company raises 20, 30 million, if instead the headline read, founders sold 30% of their business for $20 million, or whatever the terms were, because you never really know. 

‍

Tyler Finn 

It didn't go into their pocket directly.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yes, exactly, exactly. No secondary. I think it would be a very, very different conversation, right? Because yeah, I think people can get a little bit starry-eyed when they talk about capital. And don't get me wrong, capital is an incredible tool, obviously, and also there is a level of,

you know, to be able to go from the A to the B to the C, like the number of companies that go on to raise that, it goes down every single time, right? Like I think it's something like, and I would say don't quote me on this, but we're on a podcast, right? But you know, it's something that like only like 10%, I think, of companies that raise a seed round will go on to raise a series A. Or something to that effect. But it's like a small amount, right? So like, it is an accomplishment

to be able to get like market buy-in. But yeah, if it was really like, you know, you spend your entire life building this company, and if it was, yeah, you sold off 20% of that, or, you know, X company gave, you know, sold off 20% and gave away a board seat for X dollar amount.

I think we would think about fundraising a little bit differently.

‍

Tyler Finn 

Yeah. We're talking a lot about AI here at the summit. I know you're thinking a lot about this, of course. How is Legal.io thinking about the role that AI is going to play in your product offerings, the network that you have, the community that you've built?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, I think, so obviously we're in the business of talent matching, right? And I think, for me personally, one of the most rewarding parts of the job is when you find some of these attorneys who went to good schools, have incredible skill sets, but maybe they don't necessarily interview well, or maybe they ended up at kind of like, you know Like a mid-market company or something like that, right or they ended up in an industry that maybe isn't the industry. They're passionate about right and Interviewing that person and being like, oh you can totally do this job. You're fantastic. You have excellent business judgment I'm gonna go and I'm gonna basically like take this resume I'm gonna make sure it looks great and that all of those things actually come forward, and then I'm gonna go pitch you to some companies, and the moment where you get to make that phone call and you're like, you got the job, right? Like this SaaS company that everybody talks about, where you'll have the app on your phone, like you got the job and you get to go be a part of that mission, that is so deeply rewarding. And so I think how we think about AI is obviously we can only talk to and place a fraction of people, right? But there are like tens of thousands of those people, not just in the United States, but globally, right? And to the extent that you can start to use large language models to do things like actually pull in all of the data, whether it be like a cover letter or your resume and stuff like that, and actually start to make more intelligent matching between candidates and jobs at scale. I think that's just like an incredible unlock in addition to just being like, you know, deeply rewarding for people kind of finding work that they're passionate about.

‍

Tyler Finn 

I know you have a lot of enterprise clients, actually too, that you work with. The fact that you are doing so much talent matching across these different organizations probably gives you a pretty good lens into how different companies are thinking about AI. I guess, yeah, what are you seeing in the market, right? Are people nervous? Do people think this is risky? Are, is there, there more people out there who wanna seize the opportunity than maybe we might be giving legal teams credit for? I'm curious what you're seeing in the market.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, I think it's, I think, so, obviously our company, like, one of the things that they do is they start to pull a little bit of spend away from law firms to basically allocate to LSP's, it can be more cost effective. So I would say the conversation around AI that we end up having with our customers, oftentimes, is basically about how it's going to impact productivity, and where they start to allocate capital, right? I mean, I think it's a really interesting conversation. Like, we have a lot of large enterprise clients that are basically going through like annual panel reviews, right, and they're sort of getting those letters from the big firm that's like, hey, the partner's rate is going from 1,800 an hour to $2,000 an hour, you know, and you have these general counsel who at the same time, their budget is not going up, you know, they're sort of being like, okay, like, how are you gonna get more with less, right? That's always the conversation. And so I think a lot of it is just how it's going to allocate resource management. So for example, what does it look like to start putting pressure on outside firms to basically be using some of these tools, right? And that's not necessarily the in-house counsel team doing it, but I know that like Westlaw, for example, just launched a new AI tool, right? So to the extent that that can sort of do a lot of case research, for example, like stuff that would have taken a junior associate 10 hours that companies are just no longer willing to pay for or only willing to pay for two of the 10 hours. What does that actually look like? And so yeah, it's a little bit more that conversation in addition to, I think, all companies and all functions within companies are being asked to do more with less and they're also being asked now, how is AI going to help you do more with less? And especially in legal, when you're already kind of coming up against being seen purely as a cost center within these companies, I think a lot of GCs are thinking about how do we use it to, one, support more of the revenue generating teams. So, for example, something like SpotDraft, it's like, okay, well, if you can cut the average deal time down, right, so like if it hits your commercial counsel's desk and it doesn't take 10 days, but it takes five days, that's meaningful to the business, right? And so, yeah, I don't know what you guys have seen as well, but that is like a large part of the conversation that we've seen.

‍

Tyler Finn 

Yeah. I'm curious. Let's pull on this thread around like ALSPs more broadly, maybe. It strikes me that AI is going to be an accelerant. I think, I mean, we heard a panel today that Tom moderated. We heard that the types of roles that in-house teams are going to be hiring for are going to be potentially different. One of the GCs in the panel was talking about hiring more contract managers as opposed to attorneys, but supplementing them with AI and also being able to turn to ALSPs or from time to time to like super high-end law firm partners, right, for the more specialized talent or advice that he needed. So I mean I see this as an accelerant for ALSPs. I guess I'm curious what you think about that, like about the general market, and then also if you have a view on how this is gonna affect law firms.

And that's a can of worms, I know.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Definitely a can of worms, right? Yeah, so I think the way that I personally see the market shaking out, right, because people always ask us this question, they're like, are you guys a stand-in for Cooley? Are you a stand-in for Wilson-Sensini, right? And the answer is like, oftentimes, no, right? Like the super valuable, like bet the company litigation, mergers and acquisitions, like whatever the case may be, that is probably always going to live with these big firms. And that is what they're incredibly good at, right? But I think there's a lot of work that is going to these firms right now, simply because people don't know where else to send it. And I think a lot of that is going to be moved away from the firms, right? And I think it's gonna go two places. So I think it's probably going to be more ALSPs, right? So you're gonna have these resources that are oftentimes like a fraction of the price. And then I think people are also gonna be using tools, whether it's like SpotDraft or something else, to be allowing people who maybe don't have a JD, for example, to be like sort of self-navigating or like using these like very intelligent guided workflows to do more of this work at scale. Whereas previously you might have needed a privacy counsel to handle some of this work, now you can maybe pass it off to a privacy analyst or a privacy program manager. So yeah, I think that's how it's going to change a little bit, but there's always going to be a place for these big law firms, right? 

‍

Tyler Finn 

We talked about your 10-year time horizon, I guess, earlier. Before we get to some fun questions that I like to ask all my guests, I mean, what is your 12-month, 18-month, 24-month time horizon look like? Where do you hope Legal.io is going to go over the course of the next year or two?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, I think the next year or two. I mean, yeah, I think, so one of the quotes I really like, right? So Steve Jobs, he, he has a quote that's basically Apple's success, at least when he was at the helm, was the 99% of things they said no to, right? And so I think that's another thing that I see a mistake, I feel like I see a lot of founders make, is they started to get traction in one area. And they're sort of like, well, let's dive into four more things that are like slightly adjacent, right? And so we get that question about what does the next 18 to 24 months look like? And I think it's a lot of what it currently looks like, right? So we're fortunate to have 60% of FANG companies are currently clients. And the question that we're asking ourselves is not necessarily how do we roll out a new offering, how do we do XYZ? It's how do we use tools like AI? How do we expand our network to go from 75 or 100,000, how do we balloon that, so that we can do, we can provide more service to them in our existing offerings, but do it better.

‍

Tyler Finn 

All right, this is my sort of closing set of questions. I like to ask all my guests these. The first one is, what's your favorite part of your day to day?

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Favorite part of my day to day? It is honestly probably when I get to interact with the candidates and the talent that we've placed. It's kind of that example that I mentioned before. There's just nothing more rewarding than someone who was at a company that maybe they didn't feel super mission-oriented with or whatever the case may be, and you get to make that phone call and you get to be like, you know that app that you use on your phone every single day? You get to go be a part of this team, right? And I think on the flip side, also working with these teams, right? So getting the opportunity to kind of parachute in, right? And see what they're working on, because I mean, again, these companies are doing some of the most innovative work out there, right? Whether it's in cryptocurrencies or self-driving cars or like biotech, right? I mean, the work is just super, super inspiring and so I love just getting to interact with those people in my day to day.

‍

Tyler Finn 

I think this one is kind of fun. It's if you have a professional pet peeve.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Professional pet peeve, yeah, no, that's a good one. I think honestly, so I think the last 10 years, right? So I think everybody has like an entrepreneurial spirit, right? Like whatever that looks like. And I think one of my pet peeves is, you know, people sort of talking, they're not talking about like what next venture they're going to start, right? But I think it's when people kind of underestimate how hard and how long of a journey it's going to be, right? And that's probably also influenced by us kind of having been fortunate enough in many regards to work on this project for a variety of years. But yeah, it's like the founder of NVIDIA, right? He was on stage and they were sort of like, yeah, so would you do it again? And he was like, no. You know what I mean? He's like, I would think twice, right? And I don't know that I would make any other decision, but the advice that I give founders is if you want to go start a company, if you want to go take a big swing at something, make sure it's because you cannot do anything else. Make sure it's because you wake up every single day and you're like, I literally feel like I might die if this doesn't exist. Because it's going to take that level of passion and commitment to stick it out during all those really difficult moments. So I don't know if it's a pet peeve, but I feel like there's this glorification of entrepreneurship, and obviously you see the really high highs, but there's a lot of really low lows too as well And so I think it's um Yeah I just want to make sure people truly understand and they wake up and they're like Passionate about that problem because when you are I mean, there's nothing better in the world, right? But you truly have to have that level of like conviction and passion about it

‍

Tyler Finn 

If there are a book that you would recommend to our audience clearly you read a lot about technology But it doesn't have to be about tech. It could also be something fun as well. 

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Books that I recommend about tech, yeah, that's a good question. Honestly, I'm more of a blogger. I will say I read a lot of blogs. So I feel like one that I'm really into, Sam Altman, has a really, really fantastic blog. And he just talks a lot about… I mean what I like about that is oftentimes like what I like to read about is not necessarily Oh, this is how we think like this industry might change But I'd like to really see sort of like the thoughts behind the people leading the company So what did Steve Jobs think when he was building a company, right? Like what does Sam Altman think during the early days of open AI? And I think the crazy thing about that is you can see it because he has a blog that's been around for years. 

‍

Tyler Finn 

Do you actually go back and read the old entries? 

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Occasionally, or it's more like they surface in my feed and someone's like, oh my gosh, you realize he was talking about X, right? And I think there's just a lot of really interesting lenses on the world, and I like to really deeply understand not just what was built, but the people who built it.

‍

Tyler Finn 

My last question for you, traditional closing question for my guests. It's if you could look back on your days as a young lawyer, right? Like I mean maybe for you, like that inflection point right after law school, just getting started. Something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

I wish I knew that there's a lot of other like-minded individuals out there. So I think honestly, like one of, and we're here at the SpotDraft Conference, and it's been fantastic because you meet these people that are just so deeply passionate, and they're like, I was also in law school wondering why no one taught us how to use a contract management system, or taught us how to negotiate super basic clauses inside of a commercial agreement. And so, yeah, I think it's really just that you have to go find your sort of community, your tribe of people, and they are out there.

‍

Tyler Finn 

I love that. A different answer, something I haven't heard before to that question. That's great. Hannah, thank you so much for joining me for this great conversation.

‍

Hannah Konitshek

Yeah, thank you for having me.

‍

Tyler Finn 

And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of The Abstract, And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of The Abstract, Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of The Abstract, and we hope to see you next time!

‍