How did you end up in your current job, and what drives you?

After practising law, then entrepreneurship in the legal sector for 15 years, I set up InCounsel to help lawyers do law differently and use technology to do law better. I live and breathe LegalTech and love the industry – having the chance to make things and be creative within it gets me going each day.

Describe a typical day in your life as a legal tech founder.

I work at home with three young kids, so there’s a bit of a theme here: up super early to work on newsletters, important work or exercise. Kids patrol from 7am to 9am, then it’s a mix of work, crisis management (kids), play (kids) until 4.30pm. Then it’s kids patrol again until 8pm, plan the day ahead, then 💤 by 9pm (ideally earlier!).

You are about to go back in time to give your younger self a single piece of advice. What do you say to younger David? And when?

Don’t prioritise school / uni / career over exploring the world/real world experience – I’ve been blessed to have travelled the world in my more recent adult life, to have done more of that in my early 20s would’ve been awesome. Oh, and start my own business waaay earlier!

It’s 30 October 2030. What will lawyers and legal tech founders say when they look back at the legal industry today? What moments and trends will they still be talking about?

1. here will be a point in the next decade when lawyers actually rely on certain standardised contacts being reviewed by AI, without any human check. That AI, in those specific cases, replaces the lawyers that used to review them. It’s fashionable to say that AI won’t replace lawyers, but in some cases it will (and should).
2. A reputable, BigLaw firm somewhere in the world (hopefully in Australia 🤞🏻) will fully transition to value pricing, burn their timesheets and liberate the legal business model and the lawyers within it.
3. And we’ll of course be talking about the 2020/21 pandemic: the remote work effect, forced adoption of certain technologies, and the economic hit to the LegalTech startup and wider legal sector (the latter yet to play out in Australia, and hopefully won’t).

In 3 sentences: what is ALTA, who was ALTA created for, and why should they care?

ALTA is an organisation that supports Aussie founders, makers and fans of LegalTech. It matters because technology is enabling much of the business model transformation we’re seeing in law. Peak bodies like ALTA play a significant role in creating the change we wish to see.

What is your role at ALTA?

I’m a founding member and forever fan 🙂

Where can we stay up to date with what you’re doing?

Check out InCounsel Weekly newsletter for bite-sized insights for in-house lawyers and creative legal minds; take a squiz at Law Hackers Weekly for a weekly dose of #LawTech; get inspired by The Good List – a list of Aussie businesses making the world a better place 😍