Ephemeral Data and AI

Thank you both. It's really great to be here, and I'm honored that you wanted to hear more from me. So thanks.

Totally. So, yes, I'm I'm Emily Bartkowicz. I'm the litigation support manager at Akerman. I'm based in South Florida. I basically grew up down here or spent the vast majority of my life in South Florida, went away to college and then came back and stepped into the legal world. I've actually only worked in the legal world since, you know, almost my first job in college. I worked in a law firm as a court runner and an office services clerk.

And so I pride myself on the fact that I, I have worked almost every position you could work in a law firm, or at least in every department you could work in, in a law firm, short of obviously being an attorney, because I did not go to law school.

Totally. Well, I think that one of the big things is that it really helps you to understand that that the legal world is amalgamation of so many different roles and people.

And for it to operate, you need the whole universe operating together.

And the idea that you respect everyone, regardless of what their title is or their position of power, we all need one another to make this thing work that is the legal world.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think it's hugely important. I think a big component of it is embracing technology as it involves.

But as far as establishing solid workflows, I think it's important to get that stuff documented, keep it documented, keep it fresh, and keep it accessible because when everybody understands the process as well as the end goal, you know, the machine operates a lot smoother. So I'm I'm really big on documenting processes. Sometimes, you know, you get into the mechanics of doing the work and it's hard to take that break and, like, write that process down. But it's so hugely important because if you need to pass the baton, whether it's because you're moving on to another position or simply something as simple as going on vacation for a week, you need to be able to share those processes effectively.

And I think, the documentation piece is, like, extremely huge and probably not implemented as much as it should be. I know, you know, in my own experience, we could use more documentation.

I think it's interesting. If you try to kind of implement ideas, like, on the fly without a whole lot of thought, I think more often than not, you find yourself having to revisit and change direction.

And so the idea of really I actually kinda had this conversation yesterday, really workshopping an idea within your group, workshopping the process and making sure that, like, alright, we're aligned on what we want the end goal to be. Let's walk through and get everyone's perspective on what the path to that end goal should look like and then finding something that makes sense with everyone involved and finding the most efficient way, you know, is hugely helpful when you just kind of dive in and then people start utilizing whatever you think your process is gonna be. You find the kinks and then you I think you waste time having to go back and try again and figure out a new way to do it better.

It's a mixed bag. So just where I sit, I sit kind of more on a creative side of things, not as technical. You know, we have, like, our project management team that are you know, they know the ins and outs of, like, the computer language and stuff like that. I aspire to be like that someday, but for now, I like to focus on the bigger concept. So where I personally might be working on workflows that help to develop outreach and adoption and user feedback, I have part of my team focuses on the technical. And then you have to kinda marry that stuff together to make the whole process work properly, in my in my opinion.

And when you do all that, how do you, get the attorneys to buy in, so to speak, as to, like, okay, you guys have created this workflow. One of the most difficult things, and we've all been in this space, you know, for twenty years, right, or or so. I've I've been in more. K. So I admitted that. So one of the things I'm curious is the attorney buy in is not only crucial, but it's often the most challenging. Because as a team, you can create the best workflow, have the best documentation.

But getting all the attorneys to buy in to say, hey.

We don't actually wanna do this in paper. Right? Or, hey. We don't actually wanna do keyword searching. We wanna try this methodology.

It is. I would say the very first thing to think about is you gotta have perseverance. Like, you really have to just be patient and understanding that not everybody is open to reversing course or changing directions.

But if you really believe that, you know, some new process or updating some workflow is really to the benefit of the attorneys' lives, their clients' bottom line, you know, the whole machine, I think that's super key. And I think that really honing that messaging and really telling the story of why you want them to consider doing something differently is extremely important. If you can relay that that story, that message of like, I'm not here to just create, you know, new strife in your life. I'm actually here to help you and make your life easier and make your clients' life easier. I think if you can get that point across, minds open.

We're doing it every day.

There's always something new we're trying to Great answer.

Work on, you know, to develop a better way to do things. Not it's not that we're looking to do something new, we're looking to do something better.

But honestly, even just, the space that I work in right now. So I started off I was a paralegal here at Akerman for about fourteen years and then I moved into the litigation support area that, was in conjunction with the firm launching their own in house eDiscovery services group. So we operate as like a service provider within the firm, and we're now kind of focusing on branching out into the greater legal market. But as far as getting people to understand and getting the buy in internally was a bit of a challenge at first. We had a few, you know, like, cheerleaders that really thought what we were doing was great, but the vast majority, I don't think that they fully understood what our mission was initially.

And so it was, you know, it was not a super long journey. We've only been around for five years and I would, I'm, I'm happy to say that I consider ourselves a success at this point, but even still, even within the first few months, you know, really explaining to people that we're not doing this for our own career advancement or our own accolades. We're doing this to improve the firm and offer better services to our clients. Once people caught on to that and accepted it, then things went, you know, things have been great ever since then.

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, there's there's some stuff that's currently in the works, you know, presently. But generally, the idea was that, you know, you reach a saturation point internally and you have to look at new ways to continue to grow.

And we're on this great trajectory, but we're going to hit a ceiling eventually if we just stay within, the firm. So, you know, initially we kind of saturated the litigation department within the firm and then started to branch out into other practice groups. And now, you know, it's, it's just a natural progression. If we want to continue to grow, we need to go out and beyond.

So it's been interesting because it's a process of finding out how the market will receive a law firm who's offering services. And it's been a really fun journey kind of figuring out how Akerman fits into the legal services, into the legal tech space and, you know, getting creative with ways to once again, hone that message and show that we are worth considering, even if you're not using Akerman for your legal services.

So I've always been like, since the very beginning of my existence, I've always been thinking about what can I do next? What's my next step? Where am I gonna go next? Where am I gonna, And so this is very natural for me to have the, and it's exciting.

And I'm so thankful that I'm in the position that I'm in where I get to look at that and say, not only what's my next move, but what's my organization's next move And to really drill down on that and think about it and kind of dream a little bit, dream big, and then, you know, bring myself back to reality and map out the steps to hit those dreams. It's thrilling. Like I absolutely love my job. I put in long hours, but I absolutely love it.

I start fresh every day with a smile on my face. I don't maybe don't always end with a smile, but I get it started that way every day because it's really exciting and it's been great having this opportunity to develop new skills, marketing skills, business development skills, sales skills. I mean, the word sales has always been like a four letter word in my mind. It terrifies me.

But at the end of the day, I have changed my perspective on on what sales means. I've always had such a huge respect for folks that work in a true, like, sales position. I think I don't think I could do that. I couldn't handle the rejection. I couldn't handle the you know, you have to be tenacious.

But, I understand if you change your perspective a little bit on that, it makes it more palatable, at least for myself.

But yeah, it's, it's extremely exciting and it's great to keep my, my mind fresh and my ideas new and Your passion, it's contagious.

Completely. You know, we all use the same tools. All the service providers all have the same tools at their disposal.

It's not about what tools you're offering. It's how you're offering them, how you're offering. And like you said, expertise, what's your level of expertise? What's your niche?

I think that that's a big thing is like this like niche area of expertise is a great idea to really focus on because you can be a what did they say? A master of what something about a master of none. You know what I'm talking about? I have a tendency to just go blank on things like that.

But, you know, that you can you can know a little bit of everything, but not be an expert on any one thing. And I think generally, just the industry, it would make sense for companies, for service providers, for for individuals, professionals to focus on one like, one or two things. You can't be, you know, we're all offering the same ten items. What's the one that I'm the best at and really, you know, embrace that and promote that. I think that is kind of the direction that to me that makes sense the sales idea should move towards.

I think that one of the things that we're able to offer that maybe a traditional service provider doesn't is that we are a law firm. So we have the ability to provide the legal advice aspect.

And that's definitely something that we've leaned into that, you know, another let's say we're talking to another law firm who maybe doesn't have ESI attorneys on staff. Well, we've got those. So, you know, we're not out to take over your business. We're out there to help supplement your business and to provide that element of expertise that your firm currently doesn't have, or your company currently doesn't have. We just want to supplement, you know, where we can.

Yeah. I think that at this point, you know, we're still kind of in early development as far as going out into the larger market. I think a couple areas that we have found that we really can provide value is in the areas of like small to medium size law firms. I think we provide a lot of help to them.

Higher the higher education space, we've had a lot of successful work in those areas with clients in those areas. And I think that we bring an interesting perspective just from our, you know, the experience that we've built up so far. So I think at this point, it's it we're still kind of developing, like, the different areas that we see we bring something fresh to. But those are the two that come to mind right now that I think, you know, we're really leaning into those those two areas.

There's probably a bunch, truthfully. But as far as something coming to mind, you know, right away, I think the idea of, like, traditional I mean, if we're getting into, you know, actual eDiscovery practice and stuff, looking away from, like, traditional linear document reviews and really opening up people's minds to the idea that there's potentially a better way to tackle huge amounts of data and, you know, that kind of thing. As far as, like, technologies available, I mean, I don't know. I think that the I think the market kind of works that out itself.

You know, tools come to market and if they get adopted generally, then they keep on keeping on. And if they don't, we see where, like, what happened to that tool? It doesn't exist anymore. So, you know, I think the market takes care of a lot of that in time.

Yeah. Of course. You know, it's really funny. So I'm I'm of a, an interesting societal demographic where I was born in the early eighties.

When I was in fourth grade, we got our first classroom computer, and I've been working on one ever since. But I also remember, you know, there was no Internet until I hit high school. And so I have a really interesting perspective where I get to operate. You know, I know what it's like to operate in an analog world.

I know what it's like to operate in a technology driven world, and I appreciate both of them. So I sit in this very interesting piece of society that has has embraced can can embrace both ends and is open to adopting new ideas. So, like, the Gen AI thing, it kind of sometimes it's a little nebulous in my mind. Like, how does this work?

How do you know? But I'm excited about it. I wanna understand it and really embrace it. So, you know, at this point, my focus is on, like, how do I understand writing a good prompt, you know, or or whatever, but I think and how is it gonna be implemented and stuff?

I think about that a lot. Like, how are we gonna implement GenAI in x or whatever? I don't know. I don't know.

It's like beyond my imagination at this point sometimes, but I'm, I'm here for it and I'm excited to see where it goes. I mean, several years ago, I can remember specifically, you know, basically battling, it was like the piece of paper versus the digital file.

I think that, you know, my firm has really embraced a paperless culture, which I think helps, you know, when it comes from the top down. I think that's what's really important is what is the what's the idea? What's the, you know, sense coming from the top, the very top down, within management? And if and if management is leading the charge towards a more digital world, then even those that are resistant, I think they feel the comfort like, oh, I may not like it personally or I may not understand it personally, but my leadership is telling me to go this direction.

And, you know, we follow the leader and we trust the leaders making the right decision. I think I think it's, you know, more like that. It it's hard to adopt to some kind of new tech. I mean, even the Gen AI thing, it's really weird.

Like, I've been using, you know, these generative AI search engine powered search engines and just shifting the way you ask a question in like traditional Google versus, you know, whatever their AI product is called. It took me, like, some time to figure it out and be like, okay, I'm I'm approaching this wrong. And once you kind of figure that out, okay, now now it makes more sense. Now it's a lot more comfortable.

I still have a long way to go to figure it, you know, figure stuff out, but it's becoming more familiar and more comfortable to use.

We're starting to get to look into, you know, using generative AI in the document review space. We're very early stages of testing things out.

But but for the majority of it, it's, you know, in my personal, like, using the OpenAI tools to ask questions to really I'm really fascinated by this whole idea of prompt engineering.

And, you know, I my kids, I have two boys that are in high school who are, you know, starting to think about what they wanna do with their lives long term. And I've told them both. I'm like, you gotta just get in there, play around with GenAI.

Prompt engineering is gonna be huge. And, you know, this doesn't even necessarily require four years in college. You could just do it and be successful. And, you know, if they're like, oh, we're done with school.

We don't wanna go to college or, you know, whatever the case may be. But, really just testing it out as much as I possibly can. You know, now I'm, like, trying to speak prompts, you know, using the audio tools on my phone to just ask questions. Like, I don't even open Google anymore.

Now I open, you know, the bar to, app or something and ask questions just to work on honing. Like, it's a total shift in thought, you know, utilizing Gen AI. And I figured the best way to learn it is just to do it. So, you know, in my personal life, I'm using it constantly.

Absolutely.

My favorite is image generation, and I, like, encourage people to test things out in image generation because, you know, you'd be like, you have an idea of a picture in your mind and you create a picture of a zebra at a cafe, blah, blah, blah, and you get these weird pictures, you know, like, that's not what I was envisioning at all. But then you realize it's not the AI. It's me. I didn't tell them.

Like, it can't reason. Right? Like, having a conversation with somebody, I can be like, imagine the zebra and, you know, you can rationalize this idea. The the AI cannot do that.

And it was once I really grasped that concept that helped me to develop, you know, explaining things. And I realized that even just in my conversations with people, especially with my husband, we seem to somehow miss the point sometimes.

And I've learned, like, how to better explain myself because I have to get really granular in my explanations when I want this robot to do something for me. So it is really cool. I think this is gonna be such an interesting case study on society in, like, fifty to a hundred years. You know?

I agree with you. The idea that it I would like the AI to understand me a little bit better because it can be frustrating when you're like, you know, you reach the out, you can only put in thirty different, you know, versions of your question. You got to start a whole new chat or whatever the whatever the, confines are. The idea that it's also gonna be able to anticipate is frankly, it's a little scary.

I mean, like, we could be talking right now and mention a product, and I guarantee you I'm gonna pick up my phone later. And lo and behold, there's gonna be an ad for it. You know? So that is when that first started happening, that was so bizarre.

And I feel like at least I personally have now just like, it is what it is. I understand how it works. And, you know, you see these funny videos of, like, wives walking past their husband's cell phones just randomly saying, like, diamonds, you know, so then when the husband conceivably picks up his phone, like, there's all these ads. And I think that, you know, AI will probably move in that direction, but I hope the gen AI will move in that direction, but I hope it doesn't become some, like, Orwellian situation where they've completely taken over.

You know, there's so many different areas that fall under eDiscovery.

And I think if somebody is like, I want to get involved, you know, I want to get involved in eDiscovery, I want to join that industry. Just that statement can be daunting because there's like so much. So I think really doing a lot of research and exploration into all the different pieces of eDiscovery and then finding one that really speaks to your passions, your strengths and pursuing that because, you know, I even think of like the service provider situation. There's so many service providers. How why would somebody call us to help them with their EDIS care? It's that idea of honing in on on something that, you know, you're passionate about and promoting that or further investigating that if you're on the journey to trying to find your place is really important.

I'm also a big fan of continuing education. So, you know, certification programs, whether it's like an industry certification or software certification or Google University or whatever, like, just always continue to learn, even if it's spending ten minutes a day reading blog posts. Like, it's the first thing I do when I open up my email in the morning as I look to see what newsletters came into my inbox and I pick one and I read that one and at least I start the day with some new piece of information coming in And I use that to, you know, to continue to build my skill set.

Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this.