This week, I am joined by Aaron Baer, partner of the law firm of Aird and Berlis LLL, for a conversation about ways to make the legal profession faster, better, and cheaper. Aaron practices corporate and commercial law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings and regulatory matters for private and public companies. He has a keen interest in legal technology and has played a leading role in his firm’s adoption of artificial intelligence, legal project management and data analytics, and, in 2018, he was seconded to Diligen, a leading AI contract review company based in Toronto.
Today, Aaron discusses the ways in which technology can help lawyers and their clients, his recommendations for practice management tools, his contact management tool, and those law firm processes which he feels could be improved. Our conversation concludes with the importance of running a financial independence projection, and the instructive power of talking about personal finance. Confident, articulate, and always striving to generate improvements, Aaron is filled with valuable information and ideas, and he shares so many of them here today.
Making the Legal Profession Faster, Better, and Cheaper with Aaron Baer
Download the full transcript here
Highlights:
- The three areas to address in improving the legal profession are technology, process, and people.
- The most important part of the improvement puzzle is culture and people.
- The legal profession has been very slow to adopt technology in its practice.
- For Aaron, financial independence comes down to whether he needs to keep working and whether he has the flexibility to do what he wants to do, such as working less, switching roles, etc.
- Destigmatizing some of the talk about money is so important.
Quotes:
“If you can find the right tool for the right problem, it’s really amazing how much value you can add and how much happier the client will be, and how much happier I get to be, which is fantastic.”
“But I think first is the process and secondly is saying, ‘Is there a technological solution within my price range that can help me accomplish my goal?’”
“Are we just going back to doing things the way we always did? That’s not in their best interest long term, but it’s definitely not in the client’s best interest.”
“So for me, it’s that ability to choose my own adventure at some point.”
“We’ve got to work on a growth mindset towards money, because this stuff is not intuitive.”
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