BDO's Legal Tech TalkAI and Data Collection
About this episode
Recorded live at Legalweek in New York, Daniel Gold and Jared Crafton talk with Emily Bartkowicz, who leads litigation support at Akerman, at her fourth Legalweek. Emily describes the energy at the conference, why generative AI feels different from TAR, the data collection challenges AI might help with, how she experiments with ChatGPT before bringing tools to her attorneys, and how she plans to share what she learned.
Key takeaways
- Legalweek's value is the community and the in-person conversations, not only the exhibit hall.
- TAR still needs a human to train it. Generative AI responds to plain questions, which feels very different.
- Data collection is getting harder as sources multiply, and AI may help fill the gaps.
- Treat AI as a force multiplier and quality check, and keep people in control.
- Experiment personally first, then bring proven uses to attorneys.
Full transcript
Transcript from BDO's published episode, edited for transcription errors. Speaker labels added by Gold Standard Leadership.
Welcome to BDO's Legal Tech Talk podcast. We're joined by judges and legal professionals to discuss emerging trends, regulatory updates, and the latest headlines.
We'll provide tips to help your law firms and legal departments make the most out of legal technology.
Hi everyone. I'm Jared Crafton, BDO's Forensic Technology Practice Leader.
And I'm Daniel Gold, Forensics Principal and leader of the eDiscovery managed services practice. Let's get started with this episode's exciting topic.
Welcome back to another BDO Legal Tech Talk podcast live from New York legal week. And we are so pleased that here in the suite here, our real studio that we've got here over this week, we have another very special guest. Please introduce yourself to everybody.
Hi. Thank you. Yes. I'm Emily Bartkowicz. I'm a litigation support manager at Akerman based in South Florida.
That's awesome. Well, Emily, welcome. We are so delighted to have you here. Normally, we say welcome to the virtual recording studio, but this, this is much better. And just so you know, this is the first time that Jared and I have actually ever recorded any episode in person together. And what we decided is that we actually like to be virtual recording this much better instead of in person.
I'm a little freaked out right now, to be honest.
I don't know. It's kinda nice. Everyone's been remote for so long. It's nice to reconnect.
Alright. I'll wait till the end of the episode before I make a final decision. Okay.
Fair enough. Just so everybody knows. So Akerman, if you could tell us a little bit about the law firm. Is it a regional? Is it a national international law firm?
Yeah. So Akerman is a AmLaw one hundred firm. We have twenty six ish offices nationwide and yeah, I'm based in South Florida, in the Fort Lauderdale office. I've been there for almost twenty years. We service all all different types of clients. We handle all different types of matters and that's Akerman.
So tell us a little bit about what you do though, as the litigation support director.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I started my career actually as a paralegal at Akerman. And then four years ago, one of the attorneys that I worked with extensively, he and I spun up a eDiscovery services department within the firm. So we provide eDiscovery solutions for Akerman attorneys, their clients, and then some outside clients as well.
How many legal weeks for you now?
This is my fourth. I think so twenty twenty was my first legal week.
We have talked to some other people on the show and otherwise, who have been in eDiscovery for a very long time. Mhmm. But it's only been, like, their second or the fourth. Right?
So I'm curious. So what brought you to say, hey, you know, I need to start coming to these. I've been in the industry. Yeah.
But what is it about Legal Week that you said I need to be here?
Well, my partner that I work with, he really encourages getting out there, getting your feet wet, educating yourself as much as possible. And conferences like this are a great platform to do that. The number of people that you meet and the things that you learn that you wouldn't learn just from reading email newsletters and local coffees, it's invaluable.
Feels busy down there.
It is busy. It's overwhelming. I tell you, I have the best sleep my first night home after being here for a week because it's exhausting, but it's a good kind of exhausting.
I heard just tangentially talking to some folks on the elevator that this is, for real, the largest, most well attended legal week they've ever had in the area.
Because I was wondering that. Because it has that feel. It does. I mean, just walking the halls, it feels really, really busy.
It's not just really, really busy, but there is a sense of very positive energy. Mhmm. Are you feeling that? This positive energy that's around?
Of course. I love it. This community, this legal tech community in general is such a positive energy producer, but then to get everybody together in one room, it's something.
What What what are people talking about? What's the buzz, you know? Oh my goodness.
Well, I think we all know the biggest buzz is the elusive AI and what does that mean and what does that look like and where is it going and it's an exciting time. I was talking to somebody the other night and I was like, I wonder if this is how people felt when light bulbs first go onto the onto the, you know, stage or automobiles. Like, we're kind of like at the dawn of a whole new technical revolution as opposed to industrial.
Why is this different than TAR?
Well, TAR still requires the human to make the decisions whereas this generative stuff is offering to make this the decisions for you. It's pretty amazing.
What does that say about us, We gotta remember to rein it in and not let it take over.
Have you seen anything that has really caught your eye? Is there, you know, anything that you've heard about that you're really interested in seeing? You know, are you gonna go walk the exhibit halls?
So my role, I do a lot of consultative work on, like, the collection side, working with clients, identifying, like, their data sources and whatever. And so there's some like some kind of groundbreaking ideas out there to streamline data collection, which may not sound super sexy at first blush, but as you kinda dig into it more, I think that there's some disruptors out there that make it interesting for me.
Yeah. And from a data collection standpoint, what is the biggest challenge that you're seeing that you think that maybe Gen AI can assist with?
Oh, that's a good question. What can't it really assist with? I think that we're kind of on this cusp of determining what all it can do for us. I mean, I suppose it could be useful somehow in really identifying those data sources that maybe people forget about and applying it to someone's entire landscape of all of the sources that they may have. And, oh, yeah. We found this one for you that you forgot about. So who knows?
Isn't it interesting that that Gen AI can fill the gaps is what you're saying?
Right.
And where we may forget about it. It's almost like, hey, we've got, like, a QC.
Yeah. For sure. Yeah. For sure. It's interesting.
It's a force multiplier. Right? It's like having business partners. It's keeping you honest. It's, you know, it's QCing like Daniel said. It's just multiplying your team.
And I think that's fantastic.
Yeah. We don't use it quite yet in an official capacity, but I'll use even just a chat GPT or Copilot just to help edit my writing or helping me to create ideas or outlines for for things.
So So it was interesting.
I'm curious what do you think about this. So from, where we're going in the legal profession. Because I use the paid version of ChatGPT to see how it was different. And so I wrote some text on it and then I said, challenge me on my assumptions and question me as to where I'm going.
And it had an actual conversation with me, if such a thing could be said. It had a conversation with me and asked me questions that were pertinent, they were relevant, and they were on point. My question to you is, whether or not you think that's gonna be, we're gonna do deposition prep differently. We are going to do trial prep differently because it is there.
The technology is clearly there because it asked me questions that I'm like, that's a good thought provoking question. I hadn't thought about that. Let me give you the answer. Is this better?
And I continuously refined it. Do you think that's where we're going with this?
I hope so. I mean and you know, it's kinda interesting. Now that a lot of places are still hybrid or remote and there's not as much one on one, especially with like younger attorneys coming to the profession. They may not have as much face to face interaction and nurturing that they would have if they're all sitting in an office. So having a tool like that to say, hey, can almost kinda replace that piece of hand holding or whatever, teaching people how to dig out more information that maybe they don't get that kind of special coaching or whatever over Zoom, but Got GPT might help them in that sense.
Are you bringing it to the attorneys that you're working with at your firm as well, or is it right now just really you experimenting with it?
Right now, it's me experimenting on this side and not using it for my work, but using it for idea creation and whatnot. I think we're kind of following what seems to be the majority, which is cautious optimism, but capital c cautious at this point. But it'll be interesting to see as things develop, how we'll implement it.
Interesting. So you walk away with all of this great education. And as Jared heard me say, really look at education as being this gift. Right?
It's kind of selfish to, like, hold it all in. Right? And it's really good to be able to share it, not just with your law firm, but share it with the community. I know you're active in the community as well.
Mhmm. What is your plan to share what you have learned here to help other people thrive?
So actually, this year is especially exciting for me because there's a member of my team who's new to the legal world. She's new to the workforce. She's just getting her career started, and she's here with us. And I'm so excited for her to experience all of this to see what you can learn, see how you can, like, develop your career by attending events like this. And not to mention introducing her to all the awesome people that I've met over the years. So that's actually the piece I'm most excited about is just having the experience with somebody that's new and has so much to learn and watching them soak it all in.
That's amazing. Emily Bartkowicz, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for joining us on BDO's Legal Tech Talk podcast.
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Until next time, this has been another episode of BDO's Legal Tech Talk.
Daniel Gold is an attorney and a Principal at BDO USA, where he leads eDiscovery managed services. He hosts BDO's Legal Tech Talk, co-hosts the NeLI Pod and founded Gold Standard Leadership.
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Daniel Gold writes weekly on leadership, legal technology and eDiscovery.
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