Michael Ferguson

You can’t get through a ten minute conversation with Clio’s CEO and co-founder, Jack Newton , without discussing Clio’s mission – to transform the practice of law, for good. Jack needn’t even bring up the company’s mission. Talking to him alone, leaves you asking, “What makes you guys tick? What makes your team so enthusiastic and driven? What has made Clio such a driving force in legal innovation? You’re not legal professionals, after all.” Jack will tell you, it’s the mission. The mission is more than words. The mission, in every sense of the word, was palpable at last week’s Clio’s Cloud Conference in San Diego. LexBlog’s Editor-In-Chief, Bob Ambrogi , may have characterized this year’s Clio Con best – as a cult of innovation . “[T]he word cult can carry a negative connotation, suggesting blind adherence to a religion or orthodoxy. But it can also mean, according to Merriam-Webster, a great devotion to an idea or movement, such as the cult of physical fitness. Wikipedia says c...

Kevin speaks with Molly McDonough, former editor-in-chief and publisher of the ABA Journal, at the 2019 Clio Cloud Conference. Molly reflects on her career at the Journal, what’s next, and the role of blogs in legal journalism. 

Kevin speaking with Megan Zavieh, Legal Ethics & Defense Attorney at Zeviah Law , at the 2019 Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego. Megan represents others lawyers before the California State Bar who are facing ethic inquiries, and also runs a legal podcast called Lawyers Gone Ethical . 

Kevin speaking with Richard Marvel, a Solo Attorney and founder of FirmTRAK, at the 2019 Clio Cloud Conference. FirmTRAK was created by Richard to maximize firm efficiency through reporting and analytics. 

Kevin speaking with Nicole Clark, Founder and CEO of Trellis , at the 2019 Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego. Trellis is a legal research and analytics platform designed specifically for California practitioners.

Kevin speaking with Erin Levine, CEO and Founder of Hello Divorce , on making the divorce process both easier and more affordable through her company’s web-based application. Erine was also a guest presenter at this year’s Clio Cloud Conference, speaking on “The Win-Win Legal Services Model”.

Kevin speaking with Manav Monga, co-founder of Heymarket , a Launch // Code finalist for the $100,000 grand prize awarded by Clio. Manav previously co-founded Manymoon, a social productivity app acquired by SalesForce.com in 2011. 

Amir Reshef talks with Kevin on how he started dealcloser , where the company is today, and what he’s learned along the way.

Kevin speaking with Clio CEO Jack Newton on his vision for the company, the industry’s direction, and ClioCloud9. Jack reflects on the early days of Clio and how much he’s learned a long the way, saying “For me it’s almost a time of reflection, where I realize we’re now the grandfather of this new wave of technology as one of the first cloud based applications and first cloud based practice management product when we launched back in 2008.”

Crystal McDonough, Founder of McDonough Law LLC, speaks with Kevin at the seventh annual ClioCloud9 conference in San Diego about her experiences as an attorney while traveling the country in a “condo on wheels.”

Mark Britton, founder of Avvo and member of Clio’s board talks with Kevin about working with legal tech startups, and what life has been life since selling Avvo. 

Kevin speaks John Gilmartin, CEO of Kylant, on the growth of their legal accounting software, and what it’s like being an entrepreneur in Ireland. 

Kevin speaking with Scott Kelly, President of Community.lawyer, a Launch // Code finalist at this year’s #ClioCloud9 conference in San Diego. 

Kevin speaks with Stephanie Walker of Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB) on the company’s transition of transforming their legacy print business model to a digital first model. 

Kevin speaks with George Psiharis, Chief Operating Officer at Clio, at the #ClioCloud9 conference in San Diego. Kevin and George discuss the recently released 2019 Legal Trends Report, and where the company stands in the legal tech ecosystem with now over 200 app integrations.

Kevin speaks with Andrew Arruda, Founder and CEO of ROSS Intelligence. Together they discuss the difficulties facing startups, the growth of ROSS Intelligence, and the company’s latest Clio integration, at the seventh-annual #ClioCloud9 conference in San Diego.

Kevin with founder and lawyer of SpringLaw, Lisa Stam, one of the first bloggers on Canada employment on human rights. Lisa and Kevin discuss how blogging has helped shaped her career, and share their tips for how younger attorneys can leverage blogging as a business development tool, at the seventh-annual #ClioCloud9 conference. 

Kevin O’Keefe speaking with Stephen Embry, of TechLaw Crossroads, at the #ClioCloud9 Conference in San Diego,.  Stephen tracks the chaos of technology and innovation on one side and the law and practice of law on the other at his blog, TechLaw Crossroads . Stephen and Kevin discuss being an entrepreneur, cybersecurity, and legal blogging at the seventh-annual Clio conference.

Rather than pitch messages to reporters, mainstream media and bloggers alike, why couldn’t legal tech companies publish themselves – on a platform that the company owns and controls. Whether you call it a blog or a publishing “spot,” the company would publish their announcements, insight, commentary and news there. The minute an item is published it is picked up by RSS aggregators and email subscribers. Take LexBlog, likely the largest legal news and commentary site, with over 25,000 legal contributors, for example. LexBlog picks up the feed immediately and runs it at no cost to the legal tech company in LexBlog’s legal tech section, on LexBlog’s front page, as appropriate, and delivers the legal tech company’s “news” via LexBlog’s email distribution systems and social media channels. LexBlog, also for free, generates a profile page on LexBlog, including all “posted” news, for the company and principals posting the news. Take it a step further and LexBlog could create a syndicat...

Real Lawyers will be staging a road show at the Clio Cloud Conference in San Diego next Monday and Tuesday. Real Lawyers has staged road shows in close to 100 cities across the United States, Canada and Europe over the last fifteen years. We’ll be there live video interviewing legal tech entrepreneurs, legal bloggers who are connecting with people and advancing the law, speakers (the likes of whom are not seen at other legal conferences), and attendees. People’s stories – the highs, the lows, the advances they have made to serve others, and the impact this had on themselves and their families is the stuff that the life is made of. It’s these stories Real Lawyers is after – to shine a light on our guest and their work. Real Lawyers, as it always has, will: Conduct interviews on Facebook Live Run the interviews on YouTube, with a transcript following, on Real Lawyers Sharing the interviews across Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook With Real Lawyers being a member of the LexBlog n...

As of Tuesday, Dave Winer , aptly described by the Guardian as the inventor of the blog, has been publishing his own blog, Scripting News , for 25 years . Leading up to 25 years, Winer shared , “There were times I took as much as a couple of weeks off, but I usually blogged when I was traveling. I have observations, things I want to write down, basically all the time. I don’t see the blog as work, to me it’s more like a part of living.” I don’t see the blog as work, but more like part of living. The same concept applies to thousands of blogging lawyers. The lawyers don’t see their blog as work, their blog is more like part of being a lawyer. A blog, as widely defined on the web, is a “regularly updated website, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.“ Winer sees a key element of a blog being the unedited voice of a person. Blogs were originally called weblogs. The reason being that those maintaining a weblog w...

Seattle based Amazon has entered the legal services market for businesses from around the world. From Amazon’s Dharmesh Mehta head of Customer Trust and Partner Support (“CTPS”), in a post on the company’s Day One Blog: “[W]e’re excited to launch Amazon Intellectual Property Accelerator (“Accelerator”), a new program that helps brands more quickly obtain intellectual property (IP) rights and brand protection in Amazon’s stores. We created IP Accelerator specifically with small and medium businesses in mind, and IP Accelerator helps these entrepreneurs by making it easier and more cost effective to protect their ideas.” Amazon acknowledges that expert legal counsel is critical for the protection of brands — and to avoid mistakes in the trademark process, they’ll assemble their own network of law firms. “IP Accelerator solves this challenge by connecting businesses with a curated network of trusted IP law firms that provide high quality trademark registration services at competiti...

Legal bloggers can blog on Twitter in 280 characters – and blog effectively. When Twitter was launched, blog publishers often described it as micro-blogging. In fact, American Lawyer Media once asked me to do a program at LegalTech on micro-blogging using Twitter. Blogging, done at its best, is a conversation. You listen to your audience and the subjects in which you have a interest. By referencing what is being discussed on your blog you are engaging folks, building your influence and building relationships. By sharing what you are reading/hearing you become an trusted intelligence agent on the subject. An intelligence agent is just a step from being hired as a lawyer. The same can be done on Twitter – though with obviously less analysis and commentary. And with no permanent record by which greater influencer and authority is garnered. I use a news aggregator – Feedly – and Twitter to “listen” to publications (blogs included), people and subjects. I then share on Twitter what...

The New York Law Journal’s Susan DeSantis reports that it’s survival of the fittest as membership declines in bar associations. In New York, State Bar President, Hank Greenberg of Greenberg Traurig believes failing technology is the primary reason for his state’s steep membership declines. From DeSantis: “ Membership has been declining since 2012, and Greenberg thinks it’s because the state bar is relying on a website infrastructure that was built in 1998 and outdated since 2008. The failure to evolve digitally reached a tipping point in 2012, he said, dooming the state bar’s chances of attracting the coveted millennial cohort. And dues were raised Jan. 1, 2012. “ And Greenberg directly: “ There is no single explanation. But what I think is the primary reason for the decline starting in 2012, I would attribute it to the technological challenges affecting communications with our members and potential new members. “ At Greenberg‘s impetus, the bar plans to launch state-of-t...