IGHS42 - AI Takes Center Stage at ILTACON, Julia Montgomery's take

Jim Merrifield (00:00.938)
Well, hello and welcome to the InfoGov Hot Seat. I'm your host Jim Merrifield and with me today is Julia Montgomery. Welcome, Julia.

Julia Montgomery (00:08.398)
Hi, thanks for having me.

Jim Merrifield (00:10.506)
Yeah, it's great to have you on the hot seat, to know you little better and what your experiences were at ILTACon last week. I can't believe it's, we're a week out and it's so close yet so far. We're already looking forward to next year. But let's get to know you a little better. Can you tell us a brief introduction of yourself and one fun fact as well?

Julia Montgomery (00:32.532)
Yeah, I'd be happy to. I'm Julia Montgomery and I'm a Legal Tech veteran, I like to say. Every year I go to Speak at ILTACon and I have a bio slide and I just kind of see the number keep creeping up for how many years I've been in the Legal Tech space and it's more than 20. I stopped adding, I just put a plus, like 20 plus. But my career in Legal Tech is, I think an interesting one, like a lot of other veterans.

I've had the opportunity to be in the space from different angles. So I spent a good bit of time working in law firms of different shapes and sizes in Washington, DC, and then crossed over to the dark side, as they like to say, and have been on the vendor side. And then I found a channel, a path, a wheelhouse, whatever you want to call it for myself, working on change management around legal tech with law firms around the world. So it's been pretty...

Pretty cool ride and obviously there's a lot of change in the space. never a dull moment. my fun fact. I forgot my fun fact. So I've never lost money at Blackjack.

Jim Merrifield (01:33.984)
Yeah, for sure. Can't forget it.

Jim Merrifield (01:45.558)
Okay, what was your best hand?

Julia Montgomery (01:46.322)
Yeah, okay. It was a table at the Mirage, the now dearly departed Mirage, and I just split and it was, it was all my, I just went all in on the end. And it was the end of the night and I thought why not? And it paid off big.

Jim Merrifield (02:04.65)
All in.

Jim Merrifield (02:09.514)
Awesome. Yeah, that's a nice fun fact. So you got a diverse background on the law firm side, the dark side of the vendor side, and then also a rock star blackjack player. that's awesome.

Julia Montgomery (02:21.99)
I I figure if this legal tech stuff doesn't pan out, right? I can always, you know, get on that blackjack tournament circuit or something.

Jim Merrifield (02:29.568)
Yeah, hey, it's good to have options.

Julia Montgomery (02:32.78)
That's right, a plan B.

Jim Merrifield (02:35.423)
Absolutely. So speaking of ILTACon I know you were there, attended sessions, you also spoke at a couple couple sessions as well. What were your key takeaways from ILTACon this year?

Julia Montgomery (02:48.37)
I mean, I feel like this is, you know, I am clearly a betting woman. And I guess if you ask anyone who was there, we had record attendance at ILTACon this year, which was exciting. Record attendance on the member side as well as the vendor side, which was pretty cool.

But if I was going to bet, and you asked this question of anyone who was there, I would bet that they would utter AI in response to your question. I mean, you really could not get away from the AI conversations, whether it was the sort of crop of new vendors that we haven't seen before in the vendor hall, all of whom were talking about AI, or seeing our stalwart vendors that we've known and loved for years now proclaiming that they too are AI companies.

that was kind of interesting to see. And then so many sessions about AI. And you know, when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of angles. There's certainly the information governance angle that a lot of firms are just starting to wrestle with, whether it's putting together policies or thinking about how do you ensure that if you introduce these tools that they don't serve up information that should be walled off or, you know, otherwise folks shouldn't be seeing.

And then I think sort of more toward my wheelhouse there, the rate of change around AI is pretty phenomenal. I had the opportunity to sit in a lunch and learn hosted by Brian Ferguson at InOutSource. And it was firms just, you know, talking about their experience with copilot and AI in general. And one of the themes that emerged in that conversation, it was a fantastic conversation, really very enlightening, but folks were just talking about the pace of change.

And, you know, Microsoft decides we're going to embed co -pilot in all of our, you know, all of our software. And suddenly there's really nothing you can do this things out of the gate. And how do you keep up with that? let alone stay ahead of it. So I think these are really interesting conversations. And I think when we look at a transformational technology, like AI in our industry, there are so many things to think about that it can feel a little overwhelming at times.

Julia Montgomery (05:02.536)
And so for me, being able to connect with other people who are feeling overwhelmed or people who are just getting a hand on one part or, haven't thought about this part yet was really good, right? Those were terrific conversations to have and really helped me think about some things that I hadn't had on my radar.

Jim Merrifield (05:21.458)
I absolutely heard about that session. That was the lunch and learn

Julia Montgomery (05:25.19)
It was, it was great.

Jim Merrifield (05:27.571)
Yeah, I caught up with my buddy Colin. Colin Cahill was up there right talking about co -pilot.

Julia Montgomery (05:33.34)
Yes.

Jim Merrifield (05:35.38)
Yeah, that's awesome. mean, who's not? Microsoft continues to make things tougher and tougher for all of us, right?

Julia Montgomery (05:36.903)
Yeah.

Julia Montgomery (05:44.472)
Yeah, I think, know, when you think about the pace of change and Microsoft is clearly all in on AI and co -pilot. But you think about some of our colleagues who are working in smaller shops, right, where they have an entire team of three or four people and they have their full -time day jobs. And now you're trying to keep up with a behemoth that's moving at a fundamentally different pace.

It's a lot and it's a real challenge and I think it will only there will only be more of that. You know, I don't think the pace of change is going to let up anytime soon when it comes to AI. Yeah.

Jim Merrifield (06:25.334)
agree, that's our lives, right? Living in the law firm legal market, we're always changing, we're always on to the next thing. And as you mentioned, AI was all over the place at ILTACon, everywhere. And it reminded me a lot like eDiscovery 20 years ago, walked in legal week, saw all these eDiscovery vendors, had no idea the names of those vendors. And then, fast forward 20 years later, you walk into the exhibit floor.

Julia Montgomery (06:33.65)
Right.

Julia Montgomery (06:37.35)
everywhere for sure.

Julia Montgomery (06:44.275)
Yes.

Jim Merrifield (06:54.326)
You see like 50 vendors, think there was like 20 plus or actually maybe 50. I can't remember the number. There's a lot of startups. I guess most of the AI companies are startups, right? But you wonder how many of them will be acquired next year, will be still around next year. So what are your thoughts on that? mean, just the amount of vendors in the space or I should say business partners.

in the space, is that exciting or is it kind of worrisome?

Julia Montgomery (07:27.998)
think it's to be expected, right? I think a couple of things. Number one is I think that we always see this, right? We've been in legal tech long enough to know that the next shiny thing comes along and suddenly everyone's an AI company or everyone's an AI expert. And the vendor hall is filled with business partners who have an AI story to tell. And then you come back next year and they're nowhere to be seen. And I think that...

There's this has been in the business for a while know that that's kind of the way it goes. And it really just is a good reminder, I think, to us to do our diligence. You know, I had the dumb luck of having a flight home from Italy on CrowdStrike Day and a Delta flight.

on CrowdStrike Day. And I was stranded in Italy for four days beyond when I was supposed to return home. you know, people are like, you know, don't throw me in the briar patch. Like how sad for you to be stranded in Italy. But it, you know, it was kind of a pain actually. But that's a whole other, that's another podcast. But there were lots of conversations that folks were having with me about CrowdStrike because they knew I kind of been caught up in it. And they were, there was a lot of finger pointing and a lot of

which all makes sense. But for me, it was just a good reminder of table stakes, basics, right? Ask your vendors, probing questions, make sure you vet them. Are they really experts at what they say they're experts at? If you're going cloud product, what are their change control practices? These are core questions to ask any vendor that you're partnering with, whether it's CrowdStrike.

or whether it's some brand new AI vendor that you've never heard of before, don't assume anything and really vet them before you move forward. Sometimes we forget, right? Or we just, you know, they've been around for a while and we assume, but never, never hurts to ask and ask again every couple of years.

Jim Merrifield (09:29.28)
think that's great advice. Great advice.

Jim Merrifield (09:41.846)
It only strengthens the relationship anyways. Yeah, so Julia, I know we talked a lot about Iltikon and about your background and things. Is there anything else you'd want to share with the audience before we let you go?

Julia Montgomery (09:44.474)
Exactly, right.

Julia Montgomery (09:55.378)
Yeah, I think for me, I had a real light bulb moment around the intersection of the change management work that I do and all these AI conversations that we're having. One of the things that I kept hearing from people was we're struggling with the AI stuff because we haven't really gotten our heads around what are the use cases or how do we get people to use it? People seem excited and then we put it on their machine and they're kind of like, and you know, I had some good conversations with folks that were

around the change management aspect of AI. AI is just another tool, right? And I could go out here into my husband's garage and there are all these amazing tools hanging on the wall. And I could grab one that looks super cool and come back in the house and then I could end up frustrated an hour later and maybe it wasn't the right tool for the job. Also, nobody taught me how to use it. And so I think that...

Again, there are so many facets to AI, certainly the risk aspects, the governance aspects, just the sheer technology parts, right? How do we make sure that it's working? But I think it's really important to keep in mind that this is just another tool. And so we have to make sure we're doing our diligence when we talk about use cases and return on investment and value add and helping lawyers and others in our law firms understand when it's the right tool for the job.

what it can be used for effectively and when it might not be the best option for you.

Jim Merrifield (11:24.864)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of wisdom in what you just said. And I love the analogy with the tools, right? So you gotta be able to use the tool or know how to use the tool to actually benefit from it. And you mentioned change. think I interviewed Tony McKenna a couple of weeks ago, know, prior to ILTA And I think his, in his title, he is the director of IT and change. I've never seen that, at least on the tech side.

Julia Montgomery (11:54.216)
Yeah.

Jim Merrifield (11:55.402)
So I think that's very interesting, especially in the law firm world and legal sector, that everything we do these days in legal tech is all about change and keeping pace with the pace of change.

Julia Montgomery (12:10.246)
It is. And you know, I've been speaking on the topic of change management at ILTACon for over a decade. And I know in the early days, it was just like me and the AV guys in the room and like maybe a tumbleweed would roll through. wasn't, know, folks didn't really latch on to this idea of change management as part of our work at that time. But this year,

It was thrilling to me to see that there were no less than six change management related sessions on the agenda at the conference. And I think it's really indicative that folks are starting to understand that, you you can roll out all this great technology, but these are just tools. And until we're able to tackle the people side, the change management side, we're not really going to be delivering as much value as we like.

Jim Merrifield (12:58.518)
I think that's only gonna continue. I think it's probably gonna get, we're probably gonna see more change management sessions, more process improvement sessions and things. So again, thanks so much, Julia, for sharing your insights on ILTACon with the audience and being on the hot seat. didn't ask you any crazy questions, right? They were all kind of straightforward. yeah, this time. Take two, you'll see that, know, part two, I don't know.

Julia Montgomery (13:21.061)
You took it easy on me, I think, yeah. This time.

I like it, I like it, I like a challenge. Let's do it.

Jim Merrifield (13:28.027)
All bets are off.

For sure. Awesome. Well, enjoy the rest of your summer and thank you so much for joining us today on the hot seat. If anyone would like to be a guest like Julia here, all you have to do is log on to our website, infogovhotseat.com submit your information and we'll get you on the calendar. So thank you so much and enjoy the rest of your day.

Julia Montgomery (13:51.806)
Thank you.