Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast
The Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast covers the startups that develop and sell legal tech products and services. Through interviews with legal tech startup founders, investors, customers and others with an interest in this startup sector, the podcast's host, Charlie Uniman, and his guests will discuss such topics as startup management and startup life, startup investing, marketing and sales, pricing and revenue models and the factors that affect how customers purchase legal tech. In short, the Legal Tech Startup Focus Podcast will focus on just what it takes for legal tech startups to succeed.
Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast
From Data to Decisions: How Lex Machina Transforms Litigation
What happens when you combine the rigor of legal research with the power of data analytics? In this illuminating conversation with Carla Rydholm, General Manager and Head of Product at Lex Machina, we explore how legal analytics is transforming litigation strategy.
Carla's unconventional journey from biology PhD to legal tech pioneer offers unique insights into how cross-disciplinary thinking drives innovation. She shares how Lex Machina evolved from a Stanford public interest project to an industry-leading analytics platform now part of LexisNexis, maintaining its original mission of bringing transparency to the law.
The heart of our discussion centers on how Lex Machina converts the complexity of court records into structured, actionable data. Attorneys face countless decision points throughout litigation, from estimating case timelines to deciding whether to fight unfavorable rulings. Carla explains how comprehensive litigation data enables lawyers to ground these decisions in empirical evidence rather than just gut feeling or limited personal experience.
We also tackle the evolving role of AI in legal practice. While many vendors make ambitious claims, Carla emphasizes the importance of responsible AI implementation that keeps attorneys firmly in control. Lex Machina's approach ensures their AI capabilities enhance rather than replace legal judgment, with technology serving as a trusted assistant rather than an autonomous agent.
For legal tech entrepreneurs, Carla offers invaluable advice on product development: ensure your technical team gains direct exposure to users. By bridging the gap between engineers and attorneys, companies create solutions that truly address legal professionals' needs rather than just showcasing impressive technology.
Ready to discover how data analytics could transform your approach to litigation strategy? Connect with Carla on LinkedIn or email her at carla.rydholm@lexisnexis.com to learn more about Lex Machina and the future of data-enabled legal practice.
Welcome everyone to this episode of the LegalTech Startup Focus podcast. I'm your podcast host, charlie Uniman. I'm delighted to welcome to this episode Carla Ridholm, who is the general manager and head of product at Lex Machina, which is one of the OG, the old guard of legal tech. Welcome, carla, and to begin with, let's talk about your somewhat unconventional journey into legal tech. You went to law school part of a conventional path, but you also got a PhD in biology.
Speaker 2:Tell us about that journey path, but you also got a PhD in biology. Tell us about that journey. Sure, well, I'll start where I am right now, charlie. As you mentioned, I've been with Lex Machina for quite a while and really stayed with Lex Machina now LexisNexis for that journey.
Speaker 2:Journey for me has been really an unfolding of my career and I can remember back to when I started and really committed to the team and being on this integrated team with engineers and algorithms experts who sought legal, like legal domain enthusiasts to join them in the fray, and so I really committed to the project and I've been along for the ride ever since as a startup where the project the original public interest project was focused on this mission to bring openness and transparency to the law, and that really motivated me during the startup years when we were getting our bearings and trying to convince the market that lawyers wanted data, that analytics, the law was a thing.
Speaker 2:And I do remember the first time I visited the office I interviewed with the founder, josh Walker, and he was a real visionary those Silicon Valley visionary CEOs he was that in spades and we talked about my dissertation for at least an hour, sort of mapping the idea of data and genomics and how would you set up a framework to really create data sets?
Speaker 2:And I had taken some IP in law school and was somewhat familiar at that time. Lex Machina had just spun out from being a public interest project from Stanford and were focused on IP and so I was familiar enough with the area of law and was really excited to work with the engineers and algorithms experts, those AI enthusiasts, and really bringing this idea, this blueprint that started with patent, to more and more areas of the law. So it was sort of made sense to me. I'd been working in policy so that intersection of science and law and was really interested in quantitative approaches to understanding innovation and then had been working with a professor who told me about this project. So when I first reached out I thought it was still a public interest project and then was told oh no, we've spun out.
Speaker 2:We're a startup. Why don't you come in and chat? I'd wanted to volunteer on their database.
Speaker 2:And so since then I have had a few different roles as the company evolved and took on expanding, bringing data and analytics to more areas of the law, and now I find myself as the general manager and head of product and I'm just really delighted to be here and I love working with our integrated team that really defined this field of analytics and being part of LexisNexis, we're doing a lot of those projects that were part of VC pitch decks back in the day, so it's worked out great it sounds as if it has.
Speaker 1:It's worked out great. It sounds as if it has. You know, I would imagine you've been involved with legal tech long enough to remember, as I not so fondly recall, that when I told people as a practicing lawyer some time ago that I was interested in legal tech, I would get funny looks Lawyers, technology, what's legal tech? And that persisted for quite a while, and nowadays I guess you get fewer funny looks, although I do think that lawyers by and large not all, and they're getting better at this don't really appreciate the treasure trove of data that they have as the exhaust from their practices, or the data that's otherwise available, even outside their practices, that, when used properly, can make practicing law better, better results for the clients, an easier job for the lawyer. Do you agree with me that we've come a long way and where do you see the remaining difficult points, especially as we get the discussion going into AI, the big buzzy word? Where do you see some of the more difficult aspects of persuading lawyers that their practices and their firm should be more data driven?
Speaker 2:Well, I think In some ways, it depends what jargon one is using, because if I say you're an attorney, wouldn't you want to know everything that's happened before? You don't want to miss anything, really appealing to that rigor that attorneys bring with them to the practice of law, this reliance, and they need to understand history. And so if you think about data sets as history you know, that really resonates, or this real world compliment to what you know from your own experience around all the cases you or your firm have been involved with and showing the data to a customer to explain, and this external source Also, in my experience, this is what will happen, this is what you can expect, and there are some stats I can share with you that also show this is how things may play out. And then so I think there's a mix when talking with attorneys and law firms about data analytics where, on the one hand, if you think about it as you don't want to miss anything, when you want to know everything you can, that's a pretty straightforward approach.
Speaker 2:But it can be another where a practitioner is busy, they have a lot going on and they're really under deadlines to clients in the courts, and if you look at a tool with an interface that is a little confusing or abstract or just like opaque, like that's not a good, like that doesn't match. You know attorneys, if they're going to use data and analytics, they need to understand what it is and it needs to be very intuitive, I think. So there there might be a challenge for legal tech in making sure that we create the tools that attorneys actually want to use. So maybe there's it's the two legal tech and then their target customers. If you're building solutions for the practice of law, to make sure that those are lined up and, yeah, just practitioners are busy, so making sure that you're speaking the same language, I think, is part of it.
Speaker 1:Well, you make a very good point, and one I hope that our listeners who, along with you, are leaders of legal tech, startups, vendors, scale-ups, and that is. You know I had used the term data-driven and you can be sure that many lawyers know what that means nowadays, but that may not be the language to use when you're trying to get the point across about. You know what the product does and how it can help a lawyer. As you put it so well. You have to tell a story and appealing in words that the practicing lawyer is more likely to better understand. Hey, don't you want to know everything? You, as a lawyer, have to understand the history of what went on in the case, the history of the string of cases that might be relevant, applicable. You put it well.
Speaker 1:It's really a matter of not using jargon, as I did with that term that I'll put in scare quotes data-driven, but instead talking as you did and I can't emphasize enough the point you made and spoken very well as a true product person.
Speaker 1:You've got to make the user experience and the user interface and again, even that's too jargony when you try to discuss things with many lawyers You've got to make it intuitive. You've got to make it beautiful, pretty delightful, even If you're going to expect it to be not only acquired by the firm as part of their tech stack Again I fall into jargon but also taken off the shelf and actually used. So I applaud you for having gotten me on the right track when it comes to how to talk about the products that legal tech people sell to the in-house and law firm people. We have to get into what Lex Machina does Again, many people are going to know, but tell me and our listeners broadly where it fits into the many facets of legal tech and more particularly, especially in light of the rather crowded field in which legal tech has become, what Lex Machina's secret sauce is.
Speaker 2:Well, lex Machina's analytics and Lex Machina is part of LexisNexis. So whenever I communicate this idea of having analytics and data, it's a natural complement to legal research, to legal workflow tools, and our users are attorneys at law firms and corporations and those attorneys have so many questions that they need to find answers to and many very challenging decisions that occur throughout the litigation process, through counseling clients, whether it's you know how long will litigation take Should we fight an unfavorable decision. You know just so many decisions along the way. So, having analytics and that's where Lex Machina and LexisNexis creates analytics from the case data, court documents and then really transforming that complexity of the litigation records it's right there, it's from the courts into structured data, and I like data-driven and data-enabled data empowered. You know there's different verbiage, but the idea is for legal professionals to have that real time analysis to really help inform their decision making, and we create data sets. So that's where the secret sauce, or just our approach, is that we really are collecting and our focus is civil cases, civil trial cases in state court and federal court, and we want to bring legal analogs to all areas of the law, but that is our focus right now is a civil civil cases and really going sort of beyond the docket insofar as creating data sets that use proprietary AI technology, that use the documents. So we invest in collecting documents for all the cases in our database and then we extract, organize it, you know, normalize the names, add high value data to really create analytics, to create what we take very seriously as a data set that will support that data-enabled lawyering approach. And so we do have a mission to bring that openness and transparency to the law. Still do have a mission to bring that openness and transparency to the law still sort of true, true to our origins as a public interest project.
Speaker 2:On the one hand, the data is there, it's in the court record in that, maybe the docket filings and the documents, and to pull it out, you know, I wish the courts were creating, you know, data sets for us so we could just go coordinate it.
Speaker 2:But I mean, it's this approach really to apply technology to really make that transformation into structured data, what's there in the court, in the court records. So our special sauce is one just around this rigor and having kind of that philosophical approach If we want to create data sets that are complete, accurate, updated and have the high value data. If I ask a practitioner, what would you want to know? They want to know about a judge, they want to know about the opposing party. They want to know in this jurisdiction has this defense ever succeeded? How long will it take to get this kind of motion ruling those sorts of questions? It's taking ourselves really seriously and getting a rigorous answer. You know creating denominators and then allowing practitioners to dig into when we have analytics, like looking at the underlying cases. So the idea is to provide the data so that it can be used and really providing this unique and complete view of litigation for our users.
Speaker 1:You know, you said something that really struck me. Lawyers, as you put it, are always in the course of their day-to-day practice. They're always making decisions. I was a corporate lawyer, didn't litigate, but nonetheless you're always forking at different decision points and I guess what I hear you say is, when a lawyer is making that decision, that lawyer wants to be informed about what the data can tell him or her to enable them to make the right decision or make the most likely correct decision the litigation, case law, opinions that have been written, all sorts of things that the decision is reached or is about to be reached. The lawyer can find in the data set because you've helped massage it the right answer, the right set of facts that will help that person, that lawyer, make the decision. Is that a good way of putting it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think exactly, Charlie, when I think about what's happened on the cases you've been on and then dig into them. If I want to know more about, oh, tell me about that big damage award that Charlie's firm won, being able to go from the high level big picture and Charlie fights, that firm takes things to trial and they win.
Speaker 2:And then wanting to understand that's very different than Charlie has never tried a case, past discovery and that firm seems to be looking for settlement. You know it's just like a very different signal. And then using that data to kind of follow your nose. You know attorneys want that rigor. So being able to look at a complete data set, get the big picture and then really pinpoint maybe something that is really specifically like your case is part of it, and we know that. Also, just having the high level, what's happened before, sort of this, anticipate what could happen if it's the for a judge, how often they've granted a certain kind of motion that you're about to file, and making sure the client understands this isn't a sure thing. It might, looking at the judge's record, be something that happens very rarely.
Speaker 2:But just really having that information to inform what the plan is and yeah, and attorneys are effectively, one could say, asked to game out you know what will happen.
Speaker 2:This is going to take three years. What does that journey look like? And then along the way, I'm not sure predict is quite right, but asked to really be very informed to have a sense of what will happen. So make sure they have the data to inform their decisions along the way and when there is something to counsel the client on really understanding the risks both within the court in terms of what could happen, and then sort of factoring that in. Well, you know, should we settle, this might take a certain amount of time to continue to get to the phase where we think we can win and maybe on the whole, the decision is to settle early, even if perhaps the client has a really strong case. It's really helping create as much information to kind of operate, given what the goals are and what a successful outcome looks like for your client. Or, if you're an in-house counsel, if you're managing some massive docket and really making decisions along the way as well and kind of managing the litigation that you're responsible for.
Speaker 1:And harking back to the bad old days. Some might say the good old days, but I consider them the bad old days where we didn't have the access as readily to the data, we didn't have machines. We'll come back to machines in a minute Working with the data. I don't mean to poo-poo the exercise of judgment and the use of one's gut exercise of judgment and the use of one's gut but if back in the bad old days someone had asked me as a corporate lawyer, what's market here, what's the standard for this type of provision, I would somewhat embarrassedly say, even after having asked a more junior lawyer to do some research. Well, I think it's this and here's why.
Speaker 1:But I never could appeal to all of the data now that some legal tech vendors are capturing about corporate transactions and what's market. And, more importantly, that poor associate might have had to have spent 12 hours, maybe even 12 hours, starting at 6 pm the night before trying to figure out an answer to what's market. Now, machines can pour through that with remarkable alacrity and they don't get tired, as so many people say, they don't get bored. So that's why I consider today the good old days. But machines are machines and I guess you have to convince the lawyer, as a product person, that the way you work with data and LexisNexis and LexMachina as part of LexisNexis, works with data. Here it's not going to to use the horrible word hallucinate, because it's rooting itself in trusted sources. How do you get the point across there? Is it as simple and straightforward as saying that?
Speaker 2:Well, so just very briefly, I'll tell you a recent story. I was on a flight back to the West Coast or the East Coast. It was a long flight and after some point the person sitting beside me leaned over and said do you work at LexisNexis, do you work on AI? It turned out they were, you know, couldn't help but see kind of the periphery that what I was working on my laptop and I probably had, you know, some internal deck up that had a logo, and they said, oh yeah, I'm a partner at a law firm. And they were so excited that had a logo. And they said, oh yeah, I'm a partner at a law firm. And they were so excited, just so excited to talk about AI and the practice of law.
Speaker 2:And it was really interesting because I think right now practitioners are thinking a lot about what might be possible and there's sort of something's clicked around this understanding that there's workflows, there's data sets, there's just this, not a barrage, but so much information out there where you mention all different ways to really get to an answer what is market for your particular client's product in a very specific case?
Speaker 2:But I mean, I think seeing how AI generative AI right now, can help parse what's available is really exciting to attorneys. And so with a company like LexisNexis that has this like real bedrock of content and know-how when it comes to serving lawyers, there is this responsibility to try and describe any uncertainty where, if this was AI generating, it's being very clear about what am I looking at and communicating, what the model's results are. So there's that sort of deliberate aspect and sort of this ethical duty that I think that the experience of being part of the practice of law in the industry for so long that LexisNexis brings practice of law in the industry, for so long that LexisNexis brings. And then for Lex Machina specifically, we have just had a recent release, charlie actually, where we have a new user experience wherein a customer pardon me can ask a question just in simple language and get a result. But those results the model is limited to looking at the lex machina database so in terms of the results.
Speaker 2:It's like this structured data and this sort of unique view in terms of how models are being used, um, and, and we really take just so seriously. We look at all the results it's released in public facing, facing and are really trying to understand if there's opportunity to improve and make sure we get as close as possible. The idea is you ask a question, you know what's the reversal rate of Judge Charlie, and then you can very easily be taken to where the appropriate filters and the tab that shows youexis and what's not going to take on. When it comes to offering up here's data for your consideration and just really making sure, I mean, I think we're in the. It's a pretty exciting time to see how AI and AI adoption is changing how we all work and that we're in that phase of AI.
Speaker 2:As an assistant, you know we're starting to think about like, oh yes, our digital colleagues. You know, but it's still kind of off in the future. So really the idea is that it's going to be human led and so just reminding everyone to take that market data, you know, if you get answers, that they're being delivered to you in a way that's really responsible and really keeps you as the human, you as the attorney at the center of it and isn't bypassing that very active Think about these results Do they check out? You know, like you mentioned, your gut, you know having anecdotes are important, how many years of experience and really to parse outputs you get. That's huge right now with AI. So I think there's a bit of a mix in my answer there, but your question kind of opened up a whole line of thought on my part.
Speaker 1:No, quite right. I heard you mention workflows and you know we corporate lawyers and I'm sure litigators too, you know come up with checklists and take ourselves and our colleagues step by step through a transaction, through a litigation, and we have a workflow. You can almost flow chart it. But now we're getting to a point and, trust me, I know that we have some ways to go. Everybody's jumping on board.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, I think, a little too enthusiastically and this is coming from a big tech proponent such as myself, and I'm talking, of course, about the phrase du jour, agentic AI. Is Lex Machina, together with its colleagues at LexisNexis, trying to figure out ways to allow the machines again with humans in the loop, to use that phrase allow machines to actually be given a task that in turn requires certain subtasks to be taken before the answer that the lawyer wants can be presented? Are they at LexisNexis and LexMagnet dipping their toes into this or have you jumped in the deep end already? Where do you see that going at your shop and more generally, on the litigation side of legal tech, agentic AI?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, and that's where, thinking through that point, where we're operating in an agent operated firm, we're speaking in um, quite far off in the future, where the, the attorneys, are kind of setting direction, and then there's these multiple agents that are really running certain processes and flows and that the, the deep thinkers, you know, the, the, the humans, are checking in, thinking deeply, getting insights, and it feels like a real flow in that role of AI is established. They're empowering their heads of knowledge management to try and identify the best workflows or you're really innovative, thinking of new ones, and it's just happening right now and so really following alongside, that's where lexus, nexus is in a great position to understand, given the current sort of AI as an assistant and really helping do the work you want to better and faster than that, if there are specific tasks that to anticipate. Well, these two things are going to happen. For it to feel connected so that the agentic flow is happening, that would be a very collaborative thing process for the technology firms to be to get it right. I mean, they'll they'll really have to work side by side and get buy-in from from the firms, from um, those from that really can speak. You know how their attorneys need the experience to flow because firms haven't figured it out. There are certain projects. It's super exciting when you see you know law firms hiring software developers and law firms really they know, in a few years things will be very different in there. It's very proactive, you know, sort of this like there's a new frontier and you know really kind of setting the course, but there's so many considerations, ethics and copyright and data privacy, and then even just training and getting adoption within the firm.
Speaker 2:So I think for that agentic experience, where it's established and less like kind of this tight back and forth that's how I feel when I'm interacting with a chatbot, and forth when one, that's how I feel when I'm interacting with a chatbot. It's exciting and it can take you interesting places, but you're very involved the whole time. For an AI experience to anticipate what you need, we're not there yet. So I guess my answer is a blend, charlie, but it's going to be interesting and it really early on asked if you know, I see sort of like resistance and I do think that there's a real proactive mindset, but also I mean pragmatism around that enthusiasm when it comes to well, are we even using the tools we're investing in and, you know, is this better than how we used to do this last year? You know there's a lot of, I think, reflection and really trying to make good decisions, but very proactive.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope that proactive approach to things does continue at law firms.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it has to it does continue at law firms. I'm sure it has to because, competitively, if a law firm big, small, solo is not considering what can be done with technology and that firms or that legal department's competitors are considering it and getting a leg up, they're going to be hurt competitively. I envision the day, whether it's in litigation, which is your bailiwick, or in the transactional side, where I used to work, where I could, again expecting to be in the loop and to be given an explanation by the AI as to what its thinking was and what its sources were. I expect that, as I said earlier, when I'm getting data put in front of me, to make a decision and then go on to the next step after that decision is made. I would love to be able to have that AI or machine when I'm a little tired, or I have been up all night, or I have a bad cold, or even when I'm at my best, to be able to also understand data and then make decisions and then make them take, go to the next step, get more data, make another decision and then give me the final answer or the next to final answer and show me what it did, that I don't have to, or my junior doesn't have to, take all of those intermediate steps alone or based on gut, and then, even better, have the AI, the machine, say to me well, that's interesting, charlie, that you raise that point, but are you aware, with this judge or in this jurisdiction, or with this other party on the other side, or this other firm on the other side, or this other firm on the other side, of the litigation?
Speaker 1:Are you aware that you also ought to have asked this question, and one that I perhaps not familiar with the data and maybe a little groggy from the night before wouldn't have thought of? When that day comes, you know, it's just going to be much better to practice law, and if you're not taking advantage of it and it's there and it comes to a point where it's reliable and your competitors are, who's to say that you're going to get the next piece of work? Or even if you didn't take advantage of the tech, you're not going to be sued from malpractice down the road if it all doesn't work out too well, well, and I like the vivid.
Speaker 2:You know it's late at night, you're tired, or you know the dawn is breaking and you need to make decisions, and then if essentially the technology can then have you question and really you know, know, when you're painting that picture, charlie, I just, I can just feel like that, my brain activating, and that is a big part of having having that, uh, support in terms of agents, that where we are deeply engaged with what's going on and very much involved. You know, beyond um, maybe even right now, if I'm spending some of my time doing kind of mundane things that are repetitive, that then if I'm really kind of keeping like a little less friction where I'm as an attorney and your training and that insight, you're kind of free to do them in a way. That's, it's a little different, you know, not really having the technology challenge you but to keep you kind of sharp. I like that story, that kind of vision.
Speaker 1:Well, I've lived that story too many times when I was practicing, and you know, there's this myth among lawyers that no matter how hard you've worked, how many days you've been without sleep, you're still at the top of your game. And perhaps for some people at different stages of their career, they can say that. But let's face it, we're all human and if we can have a backstop, that is in itself infallible by any stretch, but never gets tired and never gets bored and never gets distracted, why the hell not? That's the way I like to look at it. Not that's the way I like to look at it.
Speaker 1:I wrote up a few notes for Carla before we got on air, and one of the things I pointed out is that we have a lot of listeners who are themselves legal tech, startup leaders, scale-up leaders, vendors, and I wonder, carla, do you have any, having been in the game for a while and working now at a rather large organization, part of a larger organization? But remembering the days when you were, you know, before you got to the point where you were an attractive acquisition target for LexisNexis and then became part of that, what are some things that you wish you had known earlier on? Or even you know, on the basis of the last five years worth of experience when it comes to, you know, onboarding, when it comes to UI, ux, when it comes to selling, that you now know that you could convey to some of our listeners how valuable it is for the teams that are involved in the innovation to get exposure to the user.
Speaker 2:And so, on the one hand, law is very cool, especially right now, for technologists.
Speaker 2:You know, it's a great application for AI and generative AI, but it's another thing to really help match technology to you know what's the point, what's the goal, and so really I think it strengthens teams, it strengthens your product.
Speaker 2:If you show up with a prototype, especially right now, I mean getting an attorney's time and not having something to interact with, I think is that's just expected and bring your colleague along, you know, bring the technical colleague who helped do the work, write the code for them to see how the users are interacting with the tool can really go a long way.
Speaker 2:So that might not, might might've been a bit of a surprise twist on a sort of like a, a business wisdom, but just that we started with a small team and have stayed really, really integrated in terms of engineers and the former attorneys who now work at a tech company, you know, on our team and then making sure that as a group that we're really bringing back the perspective of the legal, really the use out in the wild. So that's maybe my insight and it really creates a strong team and a strong result for the user is maybe a tip to. We want the lawyers talking to the technologists and really finding out about opportunities for the firm and the company and there's a lot of cred to bringing the technology innovators and really helping kind of an open dialogue.
Speaker 1:So yeah, no, that's good.
Speaker 1:I think that many legal tech vendors are headed by former lawyers and the former lawyers often had an itch that had to be scratched and they want to go off with a few technical colleagues and build something and they do.
Speaker 1:But they often become so wrapped up in what they've built and so in love with the problem that they had and believe they've solved that, without serious about it and doing it over and over and over again and making sure that the other members of the startups or vendors team, along with the founder or the salespeople, hear what the user has to say. That can't be neglected and it should be done as early as possible in the various stages of building the product and iterating on the product. So I think that advice is very well put and very important and I'm very glad you brought it up. I think it's silly to say how do they get in touch with you, those that are interested in learning more about Lex Machina? I say it's silly because everyone's heard of LexisNexis and so many have heard of Lex Machina, but where are you found? Are you on LinkedIn? Can you be reached by email? What's a good way to reach you and members of your team?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and I urge anyone who wants to talk about Lex Machina and LexisNexis or about my career path to reach out or just ideas for legal tech solutions. I'm definitely open to it and I'm on LinkedIn, carla Ridholm, and you can also email me, carla Rridholm, at lexisnexiscom.
Speaker 1:And that's R-Y-D-H-O-L-M.
Speaker 2:You got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Okay, Wonderful yeah. And I'm glad you said what you said about your career path because I think a lot of people who may be listening come into legal tech and are part of the legal tech startup focus community and wonder you know, am I the right person to move into legal tech? I don't want to overwhelm you with inquiries, but I think people would be happy to chat with you because you had somewhat of an unconventional path, although you did have law school in the middle, there between the biology PhD and working for Lex Magna and learn how you know they might make the journey along the lines that you did.
Speaker 2:Oh, I appreciate it, charlie, and I think it could be that it's a less conventional path, as there are those of us who are really attracted. I was really, really interested in law school and I wanted to be an attorney, you know, as a kid but then found myself on a so-called alternative path, and then I still am a member of the California Bar, but I don't practice day to day. But for those who really are still excited about the law but maybe aren't practicing, I'm happy to chat, so thanks.
Speaker 1:Oh, wonderful, Thank you. Well, I do hope with conferences it's almost a sure thing, but I do hope that we get to meet one another face-to-face and I can't thank you enough for joining as a podcast guest. And thank you for being such a wonderful guest, Carla.
Speaker 2:Oh well, I appreciate it and thank you so much for hosting me.
Speaker 1:You're quite welcome. Take care now.
Speaker 2:Take care Bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the LegalTech Startup Focus podcast. If you're interested in LegalTech startups and enjoyed this podcast, please consider joining the free LegalTech Startup Focus community by going to wwwlegaltechstartupfocuscom and signing up. Again, thanks.