Are you an Innovator?
Who Are We?
A thought leadership arm of JosephRaczynski.com, we consult, speak with, invest in, and write about the best and most innovative global companies and personalities.
Conversations cover the latest trends in technology and go in-depth on the philosophical implications of these new technologies. In addition, we invest in and consult with companies of all sizes about emerging technology including Agentic AI, Blockchain, cybersecurity, NFTs, cryptocurrency and general business digital transformation.
Podcast: Tech Snippets Today (70+)
Articles (300+)
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Are you ready for the Metaverse? Probably not, but please bear with me, because the legal implications will be enormous. Open your creative mind first, and at the very end apply your critical thinking legal intellect. Here we go. Originally published on Thomson Reuters Institute. Imagine, if you will, a…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Andy Wishart, CPO Agiloft
From the producer… This week, Joe takes a break from legal futurology and tries his hand at being a pub singer. We’re here for it. And so (much to his horror) is Andy Wishart – Chief Product Officer at Agiloft and all round technology guru. Joe and Andy discuss the…
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Digital Nomads – Future of Work Discussion
This is a deep dive on the future of work around the world and the technology trends that impact them.
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3 Geeks and A Law Blog – The Geek in Review Ep. 128 – Joseph Raczynski – The Red and Blue Pill Matrix of AI and Emerging Legal Tech
This was a ton of fun! I had the chance to record this “holding Joe’s feet to the fire” 😉 conversation about the future of legal industry and where we all may be going with dynamic duo of Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert. Thanks to both of them for the opportunity to go…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Stan Litow, Professor Duke and Columbia University
From the producer… The achievements of this episode’s guest have been celebrated by the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The New York Times, Forbes and Wired. Joe is talking to the founder of P-TECH, and author of Breaking Barriers, Stan Litow. They begin by discussing Stan’s…
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The impact of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs on the legal industry with Joseph Raczynski
It was a ton of fun recording this podcast with the omniscient and ever engaging Joseph Gartner at the ABA Center for Innovation – (full transparency, I sit on the Council). With Joey’s new role as Director and Counsel, we chatted all things #blockchain, #cryptocurrencies, and #NFTs and their impact on the legal industry. It is fantastic to be…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Stevie Ghiassi, Co-founder Legaler and Legaler Aid
Question: What do the Iranian national football team, NFTs, Hotel Rwanda and tennis great, Andy Murray have in common? Answer: Stevie Ghiassi, Co-founder of Legaler and Legaler Aid. And my guest this week! In this episode, Stevie chats with me about his unlikely journey from running a chain of souvenir…
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Bye-bye, banks! Hello DeFi… Our bankless society has officially begun
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a multi-billion-dollar movement that may end up changing the way we all bank Imagine a time where banks are not needed. Think about all the financial instruments we use today — currency, loans, insurance, bonds, credit cards, stocks, futures, options, interest bearing accounts — being converted…
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Amazon law and innovation take center stage at Legal Geek’s Uncertain Decade summit
What do you enjoy about your Amazon experience? Likely everything. The company’s success is derived from a few simple words of company CEO Jeff Bezos’ ethos: “Delight your customers.” Yet, when you think about innovation, what does that look like inside a law firm? To be honest, it’s probably very…
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The Law Firm of the Future
Interview with Joseph Raczynski, written by Michelle Worrall Tilton Kanas City Metropolitan Bar Association Attorneys look to precedent to solve today’s legal problems. “Steeped in tradition” is how we often describe the legal profession. As result, it’s no surprise that there is inherent tension between emerging technology and the legal…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Andrew Fletcher, Director at Thomson Reuters Labs
Lots of fun this week on The Hearing Podcast with my colleague Andrew Fletcher, Director at the Thomson Reuters Labs. If you enjoy uncovering what the future (and the now) of the legal industry might look like, take a listen. We toss aside the fluff, and meet at the cross…
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CodeX FutureLaw 2021: Computational contracts create a Big Bang in legal
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski The bleeding edge of the legal industry is now building interfaces at the intersection of code and law through computational contracts. These computational contracts (sometime called smart contracts), according to Stanford University, are a universal Contract Definition Language that will allow terms and conditions…
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Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Asset ownership via blockchain rockets into legal
In a two-part series, we will look at Non-Fungible Tokens, explaining what they are and how they will impact numerous industries; and how decentralized finance (DeFi) is critical to understanding NFT’s importance within the legal industry. Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski Welcome to the early days…
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Understanding the lessons of the pandemic and human nature at Legal Geek
Originally published on Thomson Reuters, Legal Institute. By Joseph Raczynski The pandemic was “the great equalizer” for the legal industry, combining the good from before with the great from the now. A recent half-day virtual event, Legal Geek Presents Thomson Reuters Takeover, underscored this idea and offered a glimpse into the…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Federico Ast – Cofounder & CEO – Kleros
From the producer: Here at The Hearing HQ we’ve really missed travelling. So being whisked (virtually) to Buenos Aires for this week’s episode was a real treat! Meet Joe’s guest, Federico Ast, the CEO and founder of Kleros. He’s deeply intelligent, thoughtful and one hell of an aggravator in the…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Karim Sabbidine – Associate at Thompson Hine
From the producer: On The Hearing, we’ve talked to people at the top of their game about their experiences of lockdown. We’ve gained advice from experts on how businesses can best weather these unprecedented times. And this week Joe chats to Karim Sabbidine, an associate at Thompson Hine, about what…
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Facebook’s Cryptocurrency Needs to Prove Itself, Expert Says
Published on Lifewire Written by Michelai Graham – Interview with Joseph Raczynski Facebook is scaling back its ambitious plans to move into the cryptocurrency sector while users on the platform aren’t showing much confidence in the site’s new addition. The media giant will likely launch its smaller scale Libra cryptocurrency…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Doug Pepe – Partner – Joseph Hage Aaronson LLC
From the producer: You may have watched as Mark Zuckerberg explained the internet to Congress in a way that felt a bit unnecessary. Well, this episode is sort of the opposite of that. Joe Raczynski is joined by legal and mathematical macroeconomics genius Doug Pepe, to take us through blockchain,…
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ILTA’s 2020 Annual Legal Technology Survey
It’s out! In a year unlike any of the 30 previous annual surveys, the 2020 International Legal Technology Association’s (ILTA’s) Annual Survey breaks down the technology transformation afoot resulting from the ongoing pandemic. With insightful data-driven industry trends, this year’s ILTA survey highlights the rapid pivots, swerves, and shifts happening in the…
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The Hearing: Episode 65 – Special *US Election* Episode
In this special US election installment of the Hearing Podcast, Sanaz Asgharzadeh, former big law firm attorney now heading her own practice, Atlas Law Firm, speak with me about the election. With the caveat that at the time of recording a victor had not yet been chosen, and with the…
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Teaching Law With Technology Prize 2020
While the judges deliberated, I gave professors, students, lawyers, and technologists in the UK a glimpse of the technological innovations coming in the near and longer terms and sense of what this could mean for legal advisers. Blog: https://blogs.thomsonreuters.com/legal-uk/2020/10/12/linda-chaddertons-legally-bound-wins-the-teaching-law-with-technology-prize-2020/
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Podcast: The Hearing – Ron Levine – General Counsel – Herrick, Feinstein LLP
In this week’s episode, we showcase a conversation with Ron Levine, General Counsel at Herrick, Feinstein LLP. Ron, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, speaks as a thoughtful realist, proponent for good, and a practitioner of what he preaches. He bears witness as a 40-year litigator, discussing…
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ILTA-ON goes on: Biggest legal tech conference of the year presses onward
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski In a year like no other, the most prominent legal technology conference recently wrapped their weeklong virtual event as the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) morphed its annual ILTACON event into ILTA>ON. After initially vacillating on a hybrid in-person and virtual…
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LegalTech Report Card and Predictions 2020 to 2060 – ILTA Conference 2020
I had the privilege of being selected to report on how ILTA (International Legal Technology Association) did on their predictions from 2013 up to today, during their 2020 ILTA-ON Conference. Even more fun, predicting what technology and LegalTech will look like from 2020-2025, and then going out to 2060. Remember…
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Podcast: The Hearing – David Brown – Legal Director at Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund
In this episode I am joined by David Brown, Legal Director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF). TLDEF is a transgender-led organisation fighting for transgender rights through litigation and other legal avenues. Working with numerous law firms, David and his team bring lawsuits to demonstrate how statutes…
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Part 2: APIs: The cardiovascular system of the legal platform
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski Previously, we discussed how platforms create an ecosystem or environment that allow people and businesses to interact and accomplish tasks and ultimately create a network that can connect and benefit the entire community. Within this environment, of course, interoperability flourishes – pushing…
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Part 1: What the heck is a legal platform and why does it matter now?
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski In the past, I’ve spoke about a possible tsunami of change within the legal industry. It is something I have been carefully watching for several years, but now I think the switch may about to be thrown. During a recent…
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Part 4: Legal Geek’s Uncertain Decade – The future of legal technology & digital transformation
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski By 2030 we will see significant lawyer work being done by machines. As exponential growth of technology consumes to world, the legal industry is especially appetizing. As a result, legal services will be fundamentally different than today in terms of both job…
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The current status of the (virtual) courts
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute By Joseph Raczynski Likely the single most salient after-effect of the current pandemic on the legal landscape is its impact on the courts. Previously, the variance of their technological proficiency ranged from fundamentally unchanged over the last 100 years, to jurisdictions that embraced…
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Part 3: Legal Geek’s Uncertain Decade: How does the US and the UK match-up in legal?
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute By Joseph Raczynski In the next decade legal knowledge will be a skill, not a practice. The assumption is that knowledge is table stakes, and technology is now the enabler buoyed by flourishing legal tech startups. These industrious neophytes are marshaling services previously…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Chris Mohr – VP for Intellectual Property and GC at SIIA
This week we talk privacy, piracy, and intellectual property. Before the lockdown, I sat down with Chris Mohr, VP for Intellectual Property and GC at Software and Information Industry Association. Working at the heart of the US federal government in Washington DC, Chris tells us about life as a lobbyist…
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How technology is ridging the financial inequality gap for the unbanked
Originally published on AnswersOn. By Gina Jurva – Joseph Raczynski The Covid-19 pandemic is exposing long-standing societal inequalities that range from access to healthcare to access to childcare and place our society is under a microscope. One of the biggest challenges is getting stimulus funds to those who need it most, especially…
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2020 cloud update—acceleration to platform
Originally published on Legal Insights Europe. By Joseph Raczynski Cloud adoption has increased steadily over the last several years since we last forecast an Increasingly Cloudy outlook for law firms in 2017. The most recent industry data, ILTA’s 2019 Technology Survey finds that 72 percent of those surveyed across the law firm landscape will…
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Part 2: Legal Geek’s Uncertain Decade: Can ALSPs provide what their clients want & need?
Originally published on AnswersOn. By Joseph Raczynski General counsel (GCs) across the United States and the United Kingdom have varied approaches to the current market conditions, according to recent surveys. Interestingly, at the center of the debate is how alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) are utilized and perceived compared to…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Gail Gove – General Counsel – Reuters
I spoke with Gail Gove, General Counsel at Reuters who takes us behind the scenes of the case that grabbed the world’s attention in 2018: the incredible story of Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned in Myanmar while investigating reports of mass murder. Gail and…
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Part 1: Legal Geek’s Uncertain Decade: Debating the future of the legal industry
Originally published in AnswersOn. By Joseph Raczynski It’s the questions on the mind of every legal professional: What will legal life look like after the COVID-19 pandemic passes? What will this “new normal” actually be? And more specifically, if courts close and clients are shuttered, what will half the world’s…
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Will COVID-19 Make Cash Obsolete?
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Gina Jurva – Joseph Raczynski Is the COVID-19 pandemic more quickly moving the world to a cashless society? One where almost all financial transactions are not conducted with physical banknotes or coins, but rather through the transfer of digital information via a…
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Work From Home Checklist
Last week I created a checklist for those organizations that have not had people, at scale, work from home. There are two lists. The first list helps someone who has not worked from home previously checkoff that they have all the necessary resources from A-Z to do everything they would…
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LegalWeek 2020: Leveraging AI to Combat Financial Crimes
Originally published in the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski NEW YORK — With increasing data flow among global financial institutions expanding, compounded by newly minted hybrid financial organizations in FinTech, managing these highly regulated transactions is progressively more complicated. A panel at last week’s LegalWeek 2020 explored the anti-money laundering (AML)…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Meredith Williams-Range – Chief Knowledge and Client Value Officer at Shearman & Sterling
In this week’s episode, I am joined by the preeminent thought leader in legal tech, and Chief Knowledge and Client Value Officer at Shearman & Sterling, Meredith Williams-Range. Taking us on a journey from her small-town, rural upbringing just outside of Memphis (where you’ll find the absolute best BBQ) to…
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World Bank Presentation on Access to Justice Through Technology
Recently I had the opportunity to present at the World Bank on “Access to Justice”. My focus for this talk was on how people around the world can be lifted from poverty with new tools enabled by mobile phones. Through the use of blockchain and AI, people can learn how…
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Podcast: The Hearing – Sandie Okro – SVP & GC, The World Bank
This week’s distinguished guest is Sandie Okoro, the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the World Bank. I sat down with Sandie who talks about how, from an early age, she learned that when someone limits your ambition it can become something to fight for and drive you…
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Justice for all? The impact of AI & blockchain on legal accessibility
Originally published on AnswersOn By Joseph Raczynski I have been incredibly fortunate to have traveled extensively, which has impacted my global vision. Visiting almost 40 countries, I have witnessed firsthand the enormous discrepancies in wealth, opportunities, and lifestyles that exist around the world today. I’ve seen the lavish gilded rooms,…
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The 4th Annual Government Day: The Reality and Skepticism of Innovation and Blockchain
Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute By Joseph Raczynski WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Government sector strives to ramp up its efforts to more widely integrate cutting edge technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things (IoT), it is running into a myriad of challenges. Not the least…
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Legal technology conference (r)evolution—the launch of Legal Geek North America
Originally published in Legal Insights Europe. By Joseph Raczynski Like the legal industry itself, legal technology conferences are transforming and Legal Geek is leading the change. These industry events are finally beginning to mirror the, more, customer centric start-up community perspective. Taking a step back, a decade ago the most renown…
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Cybersecurity at the centre – competing globally with different rules
Originally published on Legal Insights Europe. By Joseph Raczynski The topic of global cybersecurity will challenge each one of us. It is an unstable concoction of cultural norms and legal property rights patiently awaiting attention before it bursts. The overarching question is ‘how can legal organizations and overall society manage rising…
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An initiative for global prosperity: tech savvy start-ups compete to solve world problems
Originally published on AnswersOn. By Joseph Raczynski The Global Maker Challenge is an online open-innovation platform that offers an opportunity for “makers” and innovators to connect and collaborate, across the globe, and try to solve real-world problems affecting people’s lives. ABU DHABI & DUBAI, UAE — Recently the Mohammed…
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Consensus 2019: Blockchain’s Biggest US Conference Sees Increased Legal Oversight Coming
Originally published on The Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski NEW YORK — The fifth annual Consensus — the preeminent cryptocurrency and blockchain conference powered by CoinDesk — wrapped a rousing three-day event in mid-May that produced several legal-leaning themes in the ever-mingling world of technology and the law. On the anti-money laundering (AML) front, Sigal…
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What is the current state of legal technology around the world?
Originally published on Legal Insights Europe by Joseph Raczynski Technology discussions once reserved solely for select Chief Information Officers (CIO), Chief Technology Officers (CTO), and technologists—are now commonplace for executive committees, partners, and associates at law firms. This transformative shift over the last four years is remarkable to witness. With…
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Kleros.io (a Thomson Reuters Incubatee) Publishes Handbook of Decentralized Justice
Kleros.io is a blockchain startup which Thomson Reuters incubates in the Legal Technology space. They recently published a book about dispute resolution using blockchain technology. I had the good fortune to work with Federico Ast, Founder & CEO on a chapter for the book. Please feel free to download a…