If there’s a single “it” convention proper now in authorized tech, it’s the TLTF Summit. Final week was the third annual prevalence of this invite-only occasion, and whereas organizers accepted 500 registrants – up from 150 the primary 12 months – it left one other 1,000 hopefuls sitting on a ready checklist.
I suppose I used to be proper when, after the primary 12 months, I predicted that when registrations opened for the second 12 months, “it’ll seemingly be the authorized tech equal of a Taylor Swift ticket.”
For many who did rating an invitation, it was properly price their time – and never only for the chance to go to Miami in December. Each attendee that I had the prospect to talk to described this occasion, with out reservation, as the very best authorized tech convention they’d been to. Not the very best authorized tech convention this 12 months, thoughts you, however the very best ever.
If “renewal price” is any indication, take into account that of the 150 who attended the primary 12 months, 108 have attended every subsequent 12 months. (Me amongst them.) Some further variety of these first-year attendees have attended at the least one further 12 months.
Authorized futurist Richard Susskind was featured in a hearth chat.
In truth, being a three-peat was a badge of honor on the convention – fairly actually – in that the title badges confirmed the years the particular person had attended.
After the primary TLTF Summit, I described it as the Davos of authorized tech, in that it introduced collectively leaders from throughout disciplines to have interaction in open and unfettered dialogue concerning the state and way forward for authorized innovation.
To encourage dialogue (and networking), the summit operates underneath the Chatham Home Rule, by which members are free to make use of the data they obtain, however not reveal the determine or affiliation of any speaker or participant.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was available to welcome attendees to the opening evening reception.
Additionally serving to to foster dialogue is the summit’s intimacy. With simply 150 members the primary 12 months and 300 final 12 months, some anxious that this 12 months’s leap to 500 would stifle that sense of intimacy. Fortunately, it didn’t.
In truth, this 12 months’s summit was the whole lot it had been in these prior two years, and perhaps extra. Amongst those that attended for the primary time this 12 months, the one remorse I heard was that they hadn’t attended the prior two.
Thought Leaders On the Forefront
By means of background, the TLTF Summit is produced by The LegalTech Fund, the primary enterprise capital agency to focus solely on authorized tech. The aim of the summit is to convey collectively “probably the most modern thought-leaders on the forefront of the authorized trade.”
It featured three days of programming alongside seven tracks: common, regulation agency, ALSP, GC/authorized ops, compliance, fintech and client. There have been 16 panels, seven roundtables, 4 training periods, and 4 fireplace chats.
Discussing how authorized AI startups compete in opposition to AI giants have been Nikki Shaver, CEO of Legaltech Hub; Pablo Arredondo, vp, CoCounsel, Thomson Reuters; Steve Gong, company counsel, head of knowledge science & operations, Google; and Julian Tsisin, director authorized and compliance expertise, Meta.
Interspersed by the three days was the Startup Showcase, the place pre-seed by Collection A corporations, chosen by a panel of judges, took to the stage and offered their pitches. Twenty-four corporations offered, out of 200 candidates. 5 have been chosen by attendees to current as finalists on the final day of the summit.
(The 5 that attendees voted to be finalists have been: Rasa, Boltive, Trustie, Skribe and Neur.on.)
Engagement and Serendipity
When you have learn this far, little doubt you’re questioning simply what it’s that makes this convention so particular. As somebody who has attended greater than my fair proportion of authorized tech conferences over time, I’ve come to know that the qualities that separate a fantastic convention from a mediocre or poor one are largely intangible and subsequently troublesome to outline. However let me attempt.
With out query, the defining trait of this summit is its ambiance of engagement, discovery and serendipity.
On the startup showcase stage, Karl Seelbach, founding father of Skribe.ai, delivers his pitch.
On the opening of final 12 months’s summit, organizer Zach Posner, cofounder and managing director of The LegalTech Fund, urged attendees to “skip a session, skip each single session,” and as an alternative, “Take a stroll with someone.” Conjuring an idea conceived by enterprise creator Jim Collins, Posner stated, “Our aim is to make ‘who luck’ occur.”
I have no idea whether or not he once more invoked “who luck” this 12 months, as I arrived late to his opening keynote, however regardless, it was obtainable in abundance. As famous, the convention operates underneath the Chatham Home Rule, and attendees are inspired to speak usually and overtly with each other – even higher if the speak is with a stranger.
To underscore this, attendees this 12 months got bingo playing cards with which they might win prizes by figuring out individuals who, for instance, owned a working farm or had been in authorized tech because the Nineteen Eighties. The hallways have been continually full of individuals sitting and standing in pairs or teams, engaged in animated dialog, and a big room was arrange as an all-day espresso store with tables and even stay music.
This isn’t networking within the conventional sense of exchanging enterprise playing cards and elevator pitches. As an alternative, it’s an intentional cultivation of serendipitous connections.
Distinctive Mixture of Members
In fact, encouraging dialog can be fruitless if there have been nobody attention-grabbing with whom to converse.
After the convention was over, one participant – a veteran of many authorized tech conferences – advised me that what most impressed him was how sensible the attendees have been. Which may sound pretentious, however it’s in all probability additionally factually correct. The individuals who attend this convention are the cream of the crop of those that are eager about and dealing on the way forward for authorized follow and authorized expertise.
Cartoonists captured the important thing factors of every session.
Driving that’s the summit’s distinctive mixture of attendees. The summit in some way manages to attract a mixture of folks not like what I see at some other authorized tech convention. There are veteran founders and big-name CEOs. There are fledgling startups and late-stage enterprises. There are regulation agency innovation leaders and company operations professionals. There are working towards legal professionals and authorized lecturers. There are folks from the general public sector and folks from “authorized tech adjoining” consultancies and repair suppliers.
Most importantly, at the least to my thoughts, there are buyers from main enterprise capital and monetary companies, who’re open and energetic members. That is not like at different conferences, the place, in the event that they attend in any respect, they have an inclination to lurk within the shadows, prospecting in stealth mode.
On the TLTF Summit, a late-stage enterprise CEO may discover herself in deep dialog with a pre-seed startup founder. A felony protection lawyer may very well be discussing synthetic intelligence with a enterprise capitalist. Or perhaps all 4 of these individuals are sitting collectively over a cocktail within the balmy twilight.
Gross sales-Free Zone
In nearly each dialog I had, I requested folks what they considered the summit. As I already reported above, to a one they stated that it was the very best authorized tech convention that they had attended. Each time they stated that, my subsequent query was, “Why?”
Two solutions got here again to me over and over.
One was what I’ve already described, which is the various mixture of attendees, all thought leaders of their respective fields.
The second was the liberty from gross sales. Remarkably on the summit, nobody was promoting something. There have been no exhibit cubicles. Elevators didn’t blast promoting. Distributors’ branding didn’t cowl each floor.
Meals have been served with an ocean view.
From what I heard, this was liberating for each distributors and others. Of the folks I spoke to who work for authorized tech corporations, most of whom have been high executives of these corporations, their shared chorus was how liberating it felt to be at a convention the place they didn’t need to be continually promoting. By the identical token, the legal professionals and different professionals I spoke to expressed how relieved they have been to not continually be the goal of gross sales pitches.
Nobody involves the summit to make gross sales (at the least circuitously). Individuals are there to study and share and collaborate and perhaps increase their views and horizons. And, actually, that easy truth created an air of lightness on the summit that was buoying.
However Offers Do Get Accomplished
To be clear, whereas nobody on the summit was there to promote merchandise, there have been offers getting finished. Investments have been getting mentioned. Acquisitions have been getting germinated. Jobs have been getting supplied. Issues occur at this convention, make no mistake about that, however they occur discretely.
In truth, Posner, in his keynote, gave some numbers about offers from the prior years’ summits – at the least the offers he is aware of of. On account of the 2022 and 2023 summits, there have been:
- 18 rounds of funding.
- 3 M&A occasions.
- 20 job modifications.
- 30 bizdev relationships.
Solely time will inform what emerges from this 12 months.
Between meals, snacks have been plentiful.
Different Standout Options
Whereas these are a number of the intangibles that make this summit nice, there have been additionally various tangible components:
- High-notch programming and audio system. Look, for the explanations I’ve already mentioned, should you by no means went to a single panel throughout the convention, you’re forgiven. However the panels offered loads of incentive to interrupt away from all these hallway conversations and study from specialists. Notably thought frightening have been the 4 fireplace chats that punctuated the summit, that includes conversations with U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Carta CEO Henry Ward, felony protection legal professionals Alan Dershowitz and Alex Spiro, and authorized futurist Richard Susskind.
- Image-perfect venue. 4 phrases: Ritz Carlton Key Biscayne. Want I say extra?
- Good and seemingly limitless meals. The convention served breakfast, lunch and dinner, all of which have been tasty and included vegetarian and gluten-free choices. In between meals have been numerous arrays of snacks and sweets. Most meals may very well be taken exterior or inside, and the second day’s breakfast was damaged up by curiosity teams.
- No authorized tech convention does swag just like the TLTF Summit. At a chosen hour, it threw open the doorways to a swag room – or what you might need thought was a gold rush – as an onslaught of attendees crammed swag luggage with hoodies and t-shirts and hats and socks and sandals and all kinds of different paraphernalia. It was a humiliation of riches that to some appeared excessive, whilst they rifled round for a measurement L hoodie.
Did I Simply Say ‘Chill’?
On the final day of the convention, a number of folks requested me what my massive takeaway was or what I noticed as the massive theme. Certain, everybody was speaking about gen AI, simply as they do at each different convention. However that wasn’t the takeaway.
The swag room was a humiliation of riches.
If I haven’t by now already made it clear, for me, the theme was the worth of networking, and of networking past your consolation zone – of letting serendipity occur, “who luck” occur. I met so many new folks this week, and so most of the conversations I had with these folks weren’t simply convention chitter-chatter, however substantive and considerate and even difficult interactions.
A singular function of this convention over others I’ve attended was that everybody appeared to be at liberty and relaxed and unburdened and open. Nobody was too massive or necessary to strategy, or too unapproachable as a result of they have been surrounded by their folks. Everybody was on equal footing, and everybody engaged as co-equal friends.
Folks usually seek advice from conferences as “reveals,” and perhaps that’s partly as a result of we’re all anticipated to carry out after we attend them, to be “on” and play our designated position.
Right here, the pretense appeared to soften away. I discovered myself a number of occasions describing the convention as “chill” – which is, belief me, not a phrase I usually use, and positively to not describe a authorized tech convention. Folks appeared to chill out and let down their guards and thereby open themselves to really partaking with each other.
I’m leaving the TLTF Summit energized, enthusiastic, and grateful for all of the “who luck” that occurred for me there. And, after all, I’m already trying ahead to subsequent 12 months’s summit – offered I can rating a type of coveted invitations.
