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The Tech Savvy Lawyer

The Tech Savvy Lawyer

By: Michael D.J. Eisenberg
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The Tech Savvy Lawyer interviews Judges, Lawyers, and other professionals discussing utilizing technology in the practice of law. It may springboard an idea and help you in your own pursuit of the business we call "practicing law". Please join us for interesting conversations enjoyable at any tech skill level!© ℗ 2020 Michael D.J. Eisenberg Politics & Government
Episodes
  • 🎙️Ep. #137 - Family Online Safety, COPPA 2.0, and AI Chatbots: What Every Lawyer Needs to Know 👩‍⚖️📱

    🎙️Ep. #137 - Family Online Safety, COPPA 2.0, and AI Chatbots: What Every Lawyer Needs to Know 👩‍⚖️📱
    May 26 2026
    My next guest is Andrew Zach, Senior Policy Counsel at the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), a Washington, DC–based nonprofit focused on making the online world safer for kids and families through policy, research, digital parenting resources, and industry best practices. Andrew and I dive into how lawyers in any practice area—family law, criminal, corporate, or solo—can build family-centered online safety into their tech stack, from law practice management systems and client portals to AI chatbots, social media, and messaging tools. We unpack COPPA and the coming "COPPA 2.0," emerging age assurance laws, parental responsibility online, and what bar associations should prioritize in CLE programming so lawyers can use technology responsibly while supporting parents and caregivers. Join Andrew and me as we discuss the following three questions and more! ⚖️💻 What are the top three practical steps every lawyer should take to bake in family‑centered online safety when designing client‑facing tech, websites, portals, intake forms, messaging, and social media?What are the top three technology tools or configurations law firms should implement to better protect children and teens who may be affected by legal technology, whether they are direct clients in a family matter or simply sharing devices with adult clients?If you were advising bar associations and practice‑area leaders, what would be the top three CLE or policy priorities to ensure lawyers responsibly use AI, client portals, and other digital tools while supporting parents and caregivers in keeping families safe online? In our conversation, we cover the following ⏱️ 00:00 – Welcoming Andrew and his current tech setup: MacBook Pro, external monitor, iPhones, and wired Bose headphones 🎧01:00 – What is FOSI and how it works across policy, digital parenting, and industry best practices to keep families safer online 🌐02:00 – COPPA basics: verifiable parental consent for under‑13 data, why COPPA is dated, and the patchwork of state privacy laws filling the federal gap 📜03:00 – California privacy leadership, international regimes (like Europe), and why the US needs a comprehensive data privacy law with limits on collection, use, storage, and sale of personal data 🧩04:00 – HIPAA, SOC 2, agentic AI chatbots on legal websites, and why notice, consent, and data minimization matter for law firms adopting AI‑driven intake and support tools 🤖05:00 – Data minimization as a safeguard when storage or breaches go wrong; retention and disclosure issues in worst‑case scenarios 📂05:30 – Handling sensitive images in legal practice (family photos, abuse evidence) and why state‑by‑state rules make it hard to manage online safety and data privacy consistently 🧾06:00 – Why a stronger federal law is needed, and what COPPA 2.0 (Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act) could change, including raising the age of digital consent and protecting teens from targeted advertising 🎯07:00 – Everyday scenarios: sharing kids' photos with family, private messaging vs social media, and why limiting audience and avoiding "questionable" content is critical 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦08:00 – Why "private" Facebook accounts with many friends still are not private enough for potentially risky images and what safer sharing looks like 🔒09:00 – Keeping audiences limited in litigation and family law contexts while complying with legal guidelines for highly sensitive evidence 📁10:00 – Defining age assurance vs age verification, and how tools like facial age estimation, IDs, and self‑declaration fit into online safety compliance 🧑‍💻11:00 – International and US examples: UK social media age checks, Australia's age assurance trials, and Texas cases on adult sites and app‑store‑level verification ⚖️12:00 – Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upholding age verification for adult sites versus the App Store Accountability Act's broader mandate and why it was enjoined 🏛️13:00 – Financial harm to parents from kids' unsupervised app purchases and concerns about access to "harmful content" through apps and social media 💳14:00 – Is there such a thing as "age insurance"? Exploring liability, coverage, and why Andrew is not aware of a product like that 🧾15:00 – Apple vs Facebook on data tracking: long terms of service, Apple's "Ask App Not to Track" pop‑up, and "arms race" messaging around personalization and privacy 📲16:00 – Communicating data practices clearly to users and kids; age‑appropriate disclosures and the role of legislation in requiring plain‑language privacy notices 🧠17:00 – "Kids' accounts" on platforms like Instagram, retrofitting protections vs safety by design, and what private‑by‑default, constrained communication can look like for teens 🧒18:00 – Culture of responsibility: six entities in online safety (industry, policymakers, law enforcement,...
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    33 mins
  • 🎙️ TSL Lab's Deep Dive into Our May 18, 2027, editorial, "AI Won't Replace Solo and Small Firm Lawyers. It Will Supercharge Them"!

    🎙️ TSL Lab's Deep Dive into Our May 18, 2027, editorial, "AI Won't Replace Solo and Small Firm Lawyers. It Will Supercharge Them"!
    May 22 2026
    Join us for an AI-powered deep dive into the ethical challenges facing legal professionals in the age of generative AI. Join us for an AI-powered deep dive into the ethical challenges facing legal professionals in the age of generative AI. 🤖 In this episode, our Google Notebook LLM bot panelists unpack our May 18th, 2026, editorial, "AI Won't Replace Solo and Small Firm Lawyers. It Will Supercharge Them," and explore how generative AI tools are reshaping daily legal work, supercharging solo and small firm practices, and raising serious questions about competence, confidentiality, and supervision. We walk through how AI "unbundles" legal tasks, why Jevons Paradox means more demand for lawyers (not less), and how solo professionals can safely treat AI as the junior associate they do not have to hire but still must supervise. You will come away with practical, ethics-conscious strategies to integrate AI into your workflow without sacrificing judgment, client trust, or your license. ⚖️ In our conversation, we cover the following 00:00:00 – Why "doom hype" around AI is targeting the legal profession and why the collapse-of-lawyers narrative falls apart in real life.00:01:00 – Introducing Michael D.J. Eisenberg's editorial "AI Won't Replace Solo and Small Firm Lawyers. It Will Supercharge Them."00:02:00 – Setting ground rules: educational discussion only and why this episode is not legal advice.00:02:30 – Rethinking what a "job" really is and the idea that legal work is a bundle of tasks, not one monolithic activity.00:03:00 – Comparing big-firm specialization to the tightly packed bundle of tasks handled by solo and small-firm lawyers.00:03:30 – Why AI can pull on individual threads in that bundle, but cannot run the whole practice for you.00:04:00 – The solo master-chef metaphor: AI as the kitchen machine doing prep work while the human focuses on taste and judgment. 🍲🤖00:05:00 – How AI can draft preliminary summaries or case law lists while the lawyer still owns strategy and verification.00:05:30 – The "mental verification" problem: when typing and thinking used to be the same act for lawyers.00:06:00 – What changes when AI writes the first draft and why verification must become a separate, deliberate step.00:06:30 – The risk of hallucinated filings and viral stories of fake cases generated by AI. 😬00:07:00 – Data points showing the profession is adapting, not dying: more lawyers, more bar-required jobs, rising law school interest.00:07:30 – Revisiting the e‑discovery panic and predictions that predictive coding would wipe out junior associates.00:08:00 – How cheaper e‑discovery led to an explosion of data and actually increased demand for legal work.00:08:30 – Introducing Jevons Paradox and why greater efficiency can increase, not decrease, total demand.00:09:00 – The widened-highway analogy: more lanes, more traffic, and how that maps onto AI in law. 🛣️00:10:00 – How AI lets small firms tackle big, complex matters and offer more predictable flat-fee pricing.00:11:00 – Expanding access to legal services for the middle class and why cheaper legal work grows the market.00:11:30 – Turning to ethics: ABA Model Rule 1.1 on competence and the duty to understand relevant technology.00:12:00 – The solo's burden: you are the IT department and the innovation committee, all at once. ☕💻00:12:30 – A practical definition of technological competence for solos and small firms.00:13:00 – Starting small with AI: summaries, first-draft emails, and extracting checklists from dense legislation.00:13:30 – AI as the "junior associate you don't have to hire but must supervise" under Rules 5.1 and 5.3.00:14:00 – Why you remain responsible for AI's output just as you would for a paralegal or junior lawyer.00:14:30 – The solo's question: Does it really make sense to write a formal AI policy for just one person?00:15:00 – How a short written AI policy creates hard boundaries before you are stressed and rushed.00:15:30 – Defining approved uses, high‑review tasks, and absolute "no-go" zones for AI in your practice.00:16:00 – Model Rule 1.6 on confidentiality and the special risk solo and small firms face with cloud tools.00:16:30 – Why pasting sensitive client facts into a generic consumer chatbot is an ethical minefield.00:17:00 – How consumer AI tools tokenize your text and use it to train future models.00:17:30 – The "megaphone in a public square" analogy for pasting confidential data into public AI tools. 📣00:18:00 – Moving from megaphones to soundproof vaults: using enterprise modes or legal-specific platforms.00:18:30 – Why a single data breach can be existential for a solo firm and why clients should care about tool choices.00:19:00 – Legislative inflation: constant growth in complex rules, norms, and regulations across jurisdictions.00:19:30 – How AI helps solos track regulatory change, generate client alerts, and update ...
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    27 mins
  • Ep. #136: How Law Firms Can Actually Use AI: Practical Intake, Document, and Workflow Automation with Hamid Kohan

    Ep. #136: How Law Firms Can Actually Use AI: Practical Intake, Document, and Workflow Automation with Hamid Kohan
    May 12 2026
    My next guest is Hamid Kohan, founder of LegalSoft and LawPractice.ai, and one of the most practical voices on applying AI inside real-world law firms.🧠 He joins me to break down how firms can move beyond the "we've done it this way for 40 years" mindset, modernize their tech stack, and start using AI today without taking on unnecessary risk. Join Hamid and me as we discuss the following three questions and more! What are the top three ways law firms can integrate AI using solutions like LegalSoft and LawPractice.ai into their intake, case management, and document workflows to improve efficiency and accuracy?From your work directly with law firms, what are the top three challenges lawyers face in adopting AI, and how can they overcome them to modernize their practice?Looking ahead, what are the top three emerging technologies beyond AI that attorneys should start exploring today to stay competitive in the legal industry? In our conversation, we cover the following 00:00 – Welcoming Hamid and overview of his tech-heavy environment00:30 – Why his team is 90% Mac while he stays on PC and Android01:10 – Running a pure cloud and SaaS setup with no true desktop environment02:00 – Treating devices as "Uber" to the web and why local power matters less02:30 – Hardware choices: HP PC, massive Samsung monitors, and 60+ browser tabs as a to‑do list03:30 – Working across 12 entities and using tabs to monitor departments and initiatives04:00 – Living in Google Chrome and managing resource usage for heavy browser workflows04:40 – Chrome extensions Hamid relies on: Adobe, malware protection, McAfee, offline document tools05:20 – Why he uses Chrome's built-in password manager05:40 – Android Samsung smartphone and keeping mobile simple06:00 – Question 1: top three ways to integrate AI into intake, case management, and document workflows06:20 – How legal is "stuck in the past" and why Hamid saw law firms as a scaling opportunity07:10 – From CRMs and workflows to KPIs: the pre‑AI foundation for scaling law firms07:40 – The "sky dropped" moment when AI hit the legal industry08:10 – Vendor noise, "Me Too AI," and why vertical, single‑purpose AI tools overwhelm firms08:50 – Why multi-solution AI platforms (like LawPractice.ai) will ultimately win09:20 – Why firms must start using AI now instead of waiting for perfection09:50 – Where lawyers should start with AI: document collection as a low‑risk entry point10:30 – Using AI to automate document requests via SMS, email, and calls11:00 – AI document summary that checks whether a client sent the correct document11:40 – Why AI collection and summaries are "risk-free" compared to AI drafting12:10 – Using AI for document chronologies and conservative workloads12:40 – Explaining LegalSoft: global virtual staffing for law firms across eight countries13:30 – How virtual legal staff can cut overhead by up to 75% for firms14:20 – Why Hamid launched LawPractice.ai to AI‑enable both law firms and LegalSoft's 4,000 professionals15:10 – Question 2: the top three challenges lawyers face when adopting AI15:30 – Challenge 1: finding the right AI tool in a crowded, noisy market16:00 – Challenge 2: underestimating implementation, training, and real‑world usage16:20 – Case example: an employment firm that changed its view of AI after proper training17:10 – Challenge 3: signing long-term AI contracts before proper testing17:30 – Why firms should insist on "try before you buy" pilot periods18:00 – Making AI usage mandatory to avoid adoption resistance inside the firm18:40 – Parallels with CRMs like Clio, Filevine, and CasePeer and partial user adoption19:20 – How poor CRM data entry disrupts the entire legal workflow20:00 – Question 3: "beyond AI" tech and why Hamid says it's "AI, AI, AI" for now20:30 – The real three "emerging tech" priorities: selecting, implementing, and integrating AI21:00 – Why locking into long-term tech contracts is risky in a fast-moving AI landscape21:30 – The trap of attractive multi‑year discounts and what firms should watch for22:00 – Where listeners can find Hamid and book a one‑on‑one through LegalSoft Resources Connect with Hamid Website: LegalSoft – legalsoft.com 🌐Website: LawPractice.ai – lawpractice.ai 🤖LinkedIn: Hamid Kohan (personal profile) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamid-kohan-0367276/ 🔗LinkedIn: LegalSoft company page - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamid-kohan-0367276/ 🔗 Mentioned in the episode How to Scale Your Stupid Law Firm – book page (example listing) https://www.abebooks.com/9781955242363/Scale-Stupid-Law-Firm-Kohan-1955242364/plp Hardware mentioned in the conversation Android Samsung smartphone – Samsung Galaxy phones overview https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/phones/all-phones/HP PC laptop/desktop (Hamid's primary computer) – HP consumer laptops & desktops starting point https://www.hp.com/us-en/home.htmlSamsung monitors...
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    25 mins
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