Toronto → San Francisco → San Diego.
A busy stretch, but one that left me feeling energized about where legal AI is heading.
Over the last couple of weeks, I had the chance to speak with hundreds of in-house legal leaders and Spellbook customers across three different events.
In San Francisco, Scott Stevenson gave a fantastic keynote on “Human Hallucinations,” discussing the very real mistakes and inconsistencies that show up in contracts, including SEC-filed documents, and how AI can help. It was a refreshing reminder that the goal of legal AI is not to replace perfect human work, but to help legal teams produce better work, while catching issues earlier.
A highlight in San Diego was sitting down for a fireside chat with
Giovanni Insana, CLO of Petco, and hearing his incredible story and perspective on leading a modern legal function. To no one’s surprise, Petco coordinated puppies for the event, which was certainly a highlight in its own right.
We also hosted a dinner with a fantastic group of innovative in-house leaders after the
Association of Corporate Counsel event. It was one of those nights where the conversation was candid and, most importantly, a lot of fun. I think we spent most of the dinner laughing.
One thing that stood out across all of these conversations: in-house legal teams are getting much clearer about what they want from AI.
They are not looking for another long implementation project. They are tired of getting stuck in configuration loops that last months, or even years.
They are also not just looking for access to a powerful model. They are looking for an application-layer partner that understands their specific workflows, fits into their existing stack, and solves real contracting pain with fast time to value.
That is exactly the problem we are focused on at Spellbook.
Huge shoutout to the Spellbook team, especially
Trinity Cleary and
Shaunesy Dyer, for all the work that went into making these events happen.
On to the next one.