Every law firm/outside counsel and in-house should read this from Ford Motor’s Chief Policy Officer & General Counsel
“AI will bring a new balance of work between outside counsel and in-house legal departments. Ford’s legal team will be looking to reward external counsel who…
— Nir Golan (@lawheroezV2) August 10, 2026
A New Resource for People Who Want to Strengthen Democracy — from thriveedu.substack.com by Lucy Gray
The Democratic Action Library Launches This Week
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the state of democracy. The news moves quickly, public debate is often exhausting, and much of the advice about “getting involved” is too vague to be useful. People need practical places to begin.
This week, we are launching the Thrive Democracy Action Library, a collection of guides for people who want to participate more thoughtfully and effectively in democratic life. Everyone who registers for Thrive2: United for Democracy and Global Action will receive access to the library.
From the LegalTech Fund’s Q2 2026 Update:
Industry Foresight: Following the successful completion of Pathways Phase 1, we launched Pathways Phase 2: The Future of Law in partnership with Harvey and Law.com. Phase 2 brings together a curated cohort of legal industry leaders, innovators, academics, and operators to develop future scenarios and identify the critical legal, regulatory, business, capital, and technology inflection points that may shape the industry through 2040. The resulting framework will serve as a shared strategic tool to help the legal ecosystem navigate uncertainty and prepare for multiple possible futures.
Digital Accessibility Lawsuits in 2026: Five Trends Companies Should Know — from blog.usablenet.com
Here are five findings companies should understand, along with practical steps for reducing risk.
1. Digital accessibility lawsuits are on pace to reach 6,000
2. Where a company sells matters more than where it is headquartered
3. E-commerce remains the primary target
…and more
Nikii Shaver on legal AI strategy, agentic governance, and trusted judgement — from The Geek in Review Podcast
What does legal AI value look like once speed stops serving as the headline metric? In this episode of The Geek in Review, Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer speak with Nikki Shaver, co-founder and CEO of Legal Technology Jub and a member of the inaugural Financial Times Law 50. Shaver argues that law firms need to move beyond time saved toward efficacy: stronger output, stronger client outcomes, and more effective legal advice.
The conversation examines why the billable hour is far from finished yet no longer serves as the sole measure of legal value. Shaver compares hourly timekeeping to a taxi meter: useful for internal visibility, yet insufficient as the price signal for work transformed by AI. Workflow mapping, client discussions, and pricing discipline become central where an AI-enabled process compresses weeks of effort into hours.
Corporate legal departments are adopting AI at a faster pace, bringing new pressure to outside counsel. Some in-house teams see AI as a route to keep more work inside, while others see room for firms to take on work that previously sat outside budget limits. Shaver frames the strategic question around delivering more for clients, especially in practice areas where a firm holds differentiated expertise.
AI has not produced the promised empty calendar. Instead, lawyers report fuller schedules, longer documents, and a growing verification tax. Shaver flags the rise of 40-page forms, bloated redlines, and outputs that look polished yet lack sound reasoning. The episode makes a practical case for concise drafting, human review, and critical reasoning before any AI-generated material reaches a client or counterparty.
Agentic AI raises the stakes. Legal Technology Hub’s AI Agents in Law Map tracks hundreds of solutions, yet governance has not kept pace with new autonomy, connectors, and downstream system access. Shaver urges firms to establish traceability, unique identifiers, risk-based human oversight, enforceable policies, and a clear view of where data travels.
For firms aiming past baseline adoption, Shaver draws a line between routine personal use and strategic transformation. Daily use builds fluency, but competitive advantage grows from proprietary workflows, data foundations, client-facing collaboration spaces, and focused investment in the practices where a firm already excels. Her crystal-ball view is blunt: trusted judgment will become a scarce premium asset, AI-native firms will rise, and traditional firms will launch AI-native subsidiaries of their own.
Nonprofit, legal automation company design new AI tool to protect public benefits — from abajournal.com by Amanda Robert
An artificial intelligence tool from national nonprofit Frontline Justice and legal automation company Josef that aims to improve access to justice is rolling out across three states.
Frontline Q, an AI assistant that can help families navigate the complex Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is now available in Arizona, Texas and Alaska. Using a combination of federal, state and local regulations and with oversight from legal aid lawyers, it offers answers to questions about the program’s eligibility and appeal rules.
CLM is a Zombie, ALSPs are In Trouble and Outside Counsel Budgets Cut in Half: Episode 54, Wordsmith.ai CEO Ross McNairn — from legallydisrupted.com by Zach Abramowitz
The understated founder of one of the hottest legal AI startups on the market makes bold predictions
Though not necessarily related to legaltech, these items caught my eye as well:
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is reportedly ending its deal with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that helps law enforcement track vehicles using thousands of its license plate cameras placed across the United States.
A senior LAPD official told news outlets, first reported by ABC7 and the Los Angeles Times, that the police department would allow its three-year contract with Flock to expire when it ends on Saturday. The department cited “serious concerns” around civil liberties and privacy. Flock’s cameras are operated by the Atlanta, Georgia-based company and not the LAPD.
To survive this nightmarish job market, candidates are now “spraying and praying,” as one career coach described it — or paying resume services to blast out thousands of CVs per day to game the system and land a gig. However, according to experts in the tech industry who spoke with SFGATE, this is only creating a vicious cycle of inefficiency that hurts both workers and companies.
Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows — from washingtonpost.com by Lauren Kaori Gurley and Rachel Lerman
Amazon workers on federal aid nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025, while ride-hailing and food delivery drivers shot up on lists compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
LEGAL FUTURISMS: Consumer Legal Tech and the Soul of US Democracy
The “Dollar Legal” Thought Experiment
What if the salvation of our democratic enthusiasm doesn’t come from a political revolution, but a technological one? Enter the thought experiment of Dollar Legal.
Imagine a ubiquitous, consumer-facing legal tech platform—accessible from any smartphone—that commoditizes basic legal defense and assertion of rights. It is AI-driven legal agency for the masses, costing no more than a cup of coffee, or perhaps literally a single dollar.
Dollar Legal wouldn’t exist to litigate complex corporate mergers; it would exist to handle the agonizing friction of everyday survival. It instantly analyzes a notice to quit, drafts a legally sound response asserting warranty of habitability defenses, and files it electronically. It forces the bureaucratic machine to pause. It translates the raw, terrifying human experience of a legal threat into the cold rules and procedures that the justice system understands.
And the price, $1.00, at sufficient scale, would support the operation and maintenance of the service.
By deploying Dollar Legal, we fundamentally shift the balance of power. The democratization of legal leverage changes the calculus for bad actors who rely on the silent default judgments of the unrepresented.
Harvard Law Today: America Unfinished — from linkedin.com by various authors
In this issue:
Contrapposto — from sateeshnori.substack.com by Sateesh Nori
We are losing the war for Access to Justice. And we keep aiming our attacks on our own side.
.
“To Public Interest Lawyers of Any Kind:
Only when you have vanquished every eviction notice that shouldn’t have been filed… Only when you have defeated every predatory landlord, every wage thief, every debt collector armed with a default judgment… Only when you have lifted the burden from every tenant who faced Housing Court alone… Only when every family has shelter and every worker has been paid what they’re owed… Only when every immigrant has had someone in their corner and every person in crisis has had a lawyer who showed up… Only when every child aging out of foster care has had counsel, and every survivor of domestic violence has had an advocate who knew the system cold…
Only then — only when you have directed your energy toward the real adversaries: the justice gap, the underfunded courts, the 92% who never get a lawyer at all — only then can you attack another public interest lawyer for the tools they chose to fight with.”
Students say law school isn’t prepping them to use AI in practice, new survey shows — from abajournal.com by Julianne Hill; note this may be behind a paywall
Just 30% of third-year law students think that their school is preparing them for artificial intelligence in practice, leaving 70% of soon-to-be bar candidates to learn best practices for the emerging technology on their own.
That’s according to the results of the Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2026 Law Student Pulse Survey of 1,874 U.S. law students between April 6 and April 19.
Also see:
Grads of non-ABA-accredited law school can sit for Washington state bar exam — from abajournal.com by Julianne Hill; note this may be behind a paywall
As of Sept. 1, graduates of non-ABA-accredited law schools will be allowed to sit for the bar exam in Washington state after a policy change by the state’s bar association.
Law.com reported Thursday that the change had been formally adopted by the Washington State bar Association’s Board of Governors.
