Legal Soundings

ILTACON 2026 was the biggest in the event's history — 5,600 attendees, three times the booth tonnage, billboards on every wall, and a Sheryl Crow concert. But behind the spectacle, the legal industry is wrestling with harder questions: who is actually buying AI, how do you price work that takes 10 minutes instead of an hour, and is any of this generating real value yet?In the Season 2 premiere of Legal Soundings, host Justin Farmer (Practice Group Leader, Enterprise Solutions, Harbor) debriefs with Cate Giordano (Staff Writer, Legal Tech Hub) and Joe Patrice (Senior Editor, Above the Law) on what they heard on the floor and where the second half of the year is headed.The conversation covers the shift away from the "one AI platform to rule them all" race, why buying power is swinging back toward individual lawyers, the law-school playbook vendors like Harvey are borrowing from Lexis and Westlaw, the Harvard finding that 0% of firms have a mature framework for measuring AI's business impact, the pricing debate (faster doesn't mean cheaper), token costs and the $10,000 billable hour, what corporate legal departments are really buying and why, the $2B+ in legal tech funding tracked this year, and a rapid-fire look at bubbles, model agnosticism, and e-discovery.In this episode:Joe's "wheat vs. chaff" takeaway: there's no winning the platform race — only building good products underneathWho was in the room: directors and managers over a third, CIOs 3%, attorneys just 1%The Lexis/Westlaw "points and pizza parties" model and who's running it nowWhy 0% of surveyed firms can measure AI's business impact (Harvard Legal Lab)Pricing: hourly vs. value-based vs. subscription vs. AFAs — and why everyone's take is self-servingWhy "pass the AI costs to us" from in-house counsel is "adorable"What corporate legal is actually buying: contract tools, not bet-the-company litigationILTACON as a marketing and capital-markets eventPredictions: frontier model bubble, model agnosticism, funding cooling, e-discovery heating upAbout Legal Soundings Legal Soundings is Harbor's podcast exploring how technology, leadership, and innovation are reshaping the business of law. Each episode features a rotating Harbor host and expert voices from across the legal ecosystem.Learn more about Harbor: https://harborglobal.com

Sales culture in law firms isn't about turning lawyers into sellers. It's about the structures, incentives, and shared accountability that make growth a team habit — and Benesch has built one of the best.In this episode, Zena Applebaum is joined by Kori Fahrner (Business Development Manager, Benesch) and Beth Cuzzone (VP, Global Growth Marketing, Intapp, and co-founder of LSSO — the Legal Sales and Service Organization) to unpack how Benesch became the first firm to win two LSSO awards back-to-back. The conversation moves from the Team Everest rainmaker program and its 327% revenue growth, to whether that success is replicable, to why technology should be a system of action rather than a system of record — and the human relationships that AI frees up, not replaces.What you'll hear:Why sales culture is about systems and incentives, not training lawyers to sellInside Team Everest: How a 19-partner program scaled past 35 and helped drive 327% revenue growthWhether Benesch's results are replicable, or down to cultureWhy recognition programs only work when tied to a broader cultureCRM as a "system of action," not a database — and AI as a coworkerThe one non-tech tool every BD team needs: real transparency and collaborationLightning round: the biggest myths, what firms still get wrong, and the voice of the clientGuests:Kori Fahrner, Business Development Manager, Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLPBeth Cuzzone, VP, Global Growth Marketing, Intapp; Co-Founder, LSSOHost: Zena Applebaum, Head of Marketing, HarborAbout Legal Soundings: Legal Soundings is Harbor's podcast exploring how technology, leadership, and innovation are reshaping the business of law. Each episode features a rotating Harbor host and expert voices from across the legal ecosystem.Learn more about Harbor: https://harborglobal.comSubscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next episode.

You can buy tools. You can’t buy maturity. That’s the throughline as two legal ops leaders at opposite ends of the scale spectrum compare notes on building a function that actually changes how a legal department works.In this episode, Kevin Clem is joined by Adam Becker (Director of Legal Operations, Cockroach Labs) and Donovan Bell (Head of Global Legal Operations, Intel) — both CLOC board members — to unpack what legal ops maturity really means. From standing up a function in weeks at a 500-person startup to keeping legal ops strategic (and not bureaucratic) across thousands of people and dozens of countries, the conversation gets honest about AI hype, retirement plans for old tools, and why legal ops is a contact sport.What you’ll hear:Why maturity is a behavior change, not a checklist or a maturity-model scoreThe unglamorous first move that makes the fastest impact (hint: it’s about knowledge, not software)“Barometer, not a barrier” — keeping legal ops strategic at global scaleWhy every new tool should ship with a retirement plan for an old oneHow to tell whether an AI initiative is real maturity or just more tech sprawlWhy “low-hanging fruit” is a myth — and what to chase insteadThe one thing legal departments still get wrong about legal opsGuests:Adam Becker, Director of Legal Operations, Cockroach LabsDonovan Bell, Head of Global Legal Operations, Intel CorporationHost: Kevin Clem, EVP, Client Engagement – Corporations, HarborAbout Legal Soundings: Legal Soundings is Harbor’s podcast exploring how technology, leadership, and innovation are reshaping the business of law. Each episode features a rotating Harbor host and expert voices from across the legal ecosystem.Learn more about Harbor: https://harborglobal.comSubscribe and turn on notifications so you don’t miss the next episode.

CRM has been a fixture in law firms for decades — yet attorney adoption has dropped from 29% to 18% over the past year. Is CRM broken, or are we measuring success the wrong way?In this episode, Zena Applebaum is joined by Laura Saklad (VP, Legal Industry, Intapp) and Sarah Happy (Director, Marketing Technology, Harbor) to unpack where CRM stands today and where agentic AI is taking it next. The conversation moves from why "attorney logins" is the wrong KPI, to what an agentic CRM workflow actually looks like, to the realities of headless CRM in a legal context — and the data, governance, and trust problems that technology alone won't solve.What you'll hear:Why CRM's biggest problem isn't software — it's dataWhat a real agentic CRM workflow looks like (and why lateral integration is a killer use case)Whether attorneys will ever trust auto-populated data (spoiler: they already do, in places)Headless CRM in legal — hype, reality, and why "headless horseman" isn't a great brandWhy governance is a people problem, not a technology problemThe one piece of advice every firm should hear before investing in CRM in 2026Guests:Laura Saklad, Vice President, Legal Industry, IntappSarah Happy, Director, Marketing Technology, HarborHost: Zena Applebaum, Head of Marketing, HarborAbout Legal Soundings: Legal Soundings is Harbor’s podcast exploring how technology, leadership, and innovation are reshaping the business of law. Each episode features a rotating Harbor host and expert voices from across the legal ecosystem. Learn more about Harbor: https://harborglobal.com

Legal operations finally won the seat at the table — but the table itself has changed. In this special CGI edition of Legal Soundings, host Lauren Chung is joined by CLOC President & CEO Oyango A. Snell and Organon's Stacy Lettie to unpack the 2026 CLOC/Harbor State of the Industry Report.The conversation moves past the old fight for legitimacy into the harder question: now that legal ops is part of the strategic core, how does it drive enterprise value? They dig into the productivity gap law departments are facing (rising demand, flat budgets, flat headcount), how AI has shifted from theoretical fear to practical force, the metrics GCs should be tracking but mostly aren't, and a candid look at what high-performing law departments will look like three years from now — including which work lawyers will simply stop touching.In this episode:Why "the fight for the seat at the table" is overThe productivity gap: rising demand against flat resourcesAI a year later — what's working vs. what's still aspirationalBenchmarking as a discipline, not an exerciseThe metric every GC should track (but most don't)What legal ops leaders should stop doing immediatelyLearn more at harborglobal.com.