AI and Virtual Reality

Oh, well, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. My name is Melissa Heydrich. I am an attorney. I'm here this week as the director of social media and brand management for women in eDiscovery. We're supporting a great cause, women's heart health awareness.

I'm also a columnist for the American Bar Association's Law Practice Magazine. My column is Tech from the Trenches, which I share with Eric Mazzoni, who's just a wonderful guy. I also serve as of counsel for Kid Production, which is an oil and gas company based in Texas. I am the co owner with my husband of a quail farm and an exotic animal farm outside of Dallas. And new venture for me, I am the founder of a new company called mData.

Oh, thanks for having me.

This is my second legal week.

Two in a row.

They've both been so amazing. I've had so much fun. And this one's not over yet. Like, we're halfway through, so I think time will tell.

I'm here to learn. I'm here to learn from the sessions. I'm taking in a lot of good information about artificial intelligence. And I'm also here to meet with a few staffing experts about some needs I may have in the future.

Well, at my new venture, I'm really hoping to build things that are truly useful to the legal tech community. And to do that, I kinda need to have my finger on the pulse of everybody to understand what they want, what they need, like what those really tricky problems are. And legal week is really the best place to do that. It's such a great opportunity to connect with people who are looking to innovate.

I think communication is a big problem. We are looking for ways to connect with each other in a digital format that feels more like connecting with each other, like you and I are getting to do right now. Like, ways to get this kind of content to audiences who wanna connect with it in new ways and who wanna embrace all the cool new technology that's coming our way.

Let me flip that question around a little bit because I think the more interesting question for me is what problems are people not talking about yet? And what I'm not seeing on the floor is mixed reality, virtual reality, metaverse, web three. Like artificial intelligence is a key. It's crucial to moving all of those frameworks forward. And I think as we build a sustainable and ethical artificial intelligence framework for legal, we need to be thinking about how to apply that to new hardware solutions, new technologies, and new ways that consumers are trying to connect with each other.

I think that's where I wanna spend my time.

I think it's already happening.

Like, I will tell you, I met with my friend Emily, who's the director of charity for women in eDiscovery and virtual reality, to do a quick promo for our cause. So we're already creating data. We're already having meetings. Like and we're not just you know, I spat out a two d video. But we're also it's collecting our biometrics, our irises, our facial expressions. Like, this is data that needs attention now so that we can be prepared. It's kind of inevitable.

And, you know, I think of it in a business context as businesses are probably utilizing some of these technologies. It's a lot to think through from that context. And, you know, I think of attorneys that are probably dealing with these issues as businesses are bringing these technologies into their organizations, there's gonna be a lot of repercussions.

Jared, that's exactly right. And it's such another good example of what people are not talking about. Like, if you're a privacy pro, you know you need to be reading the privacy policies for every application that you use in your business. So you're exactly right.

Like, you need a policy in place. You need a good information governance policy, and you really need professionals and consultants who can think about mitigating the risks. Because moving forward is not really optional because, you know, legal is so flexible right now. Everything is pivoting, and it's not an option to not address the privacy concerns that come along with all these new cool technology solutions.

You're a hundred percent right.

You know, I think what happened, there's always a hype cycle to follow, and I think people got bored of virtual reality. Hardware needed a chance to catch up with what users wanted. And you have really big hardware players listening to their consumer base, testing constantly, using that data to improve the experience, and people forget that virtual reality is one facet of spatial computing. You have augmented reality, like pass through is a fantastic feature where you put on a headset or maybe a set of glasses, and you are seeing an overlay, if you will, to use an e-Discovery term, of some virtual content. Hardware is adjusting to address exactly the kind of concerns you just raised.

Well, I have a great venue because I get to play social media with so many chapters of women in eDiscovery all over the globe. I'm really looking to empower all of the chapters to help us raise awareness about women's heart health issues, which are the number one killer of women, heart disease. I don't know if you know this. I wanna empower everyone to like, we think about this for our dads, for our brothers.

We need to be thinking about our moms, our aunts, and our sisters, and raising awareness about what they can do to recognize signs of heart attacks and how choices and mindful living can really help them to overcome a lot of big risk factors. I'm also excited to share the journey of my new venture with anybody who wants to share it by visiting m data dot com, m m data dot com. Come check me out. It's early days, but if you want updates, you can sign up for them.

And I am determined to partners with some of the best minds in the eDiscovery industry to build really cool things together. So that's what I'm hoping to take home with me.

Oh, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you, guys.