In this episode of The Geek in Review, Greg Lambert hosts a solo conversation with Triona Buckley, Chief Product Officer at Actionstep, about generative AI’s growing influence on mid-market law firms. Buckley challenges a common assumption about legal AI: faster task completion does not always remove friction. An associate might produce a draft within seconds, only to transfer the burden upstream to a senior lawyer responsible for reviewing sources, reconstructing reasoning, and correcting mistakes.
Buckley argues law firms should shift their attention from speed to systems. Standalone drafting and research tools address individual tasks, while system-level AI connects work across an entire legal matter. Embedded within everyday workflows, AI helps lawyers locate information, reduce administrative work, and preserve more time for client advice and professional judgment. The goal is a smoother operating model, rather than a collection of isolated tools producing faster documents.
The conversation also examines institutional knowledge, especially within firms lacking large knowledge management or innovation teams. Buckley describes an approach where AI captures decisions, context, and reasoning as lawyers work. This creates a continuously expanding record of how the firm handles matters, advises clients, and applies professional judgment. Governance still plays a central role, including clear audit trails showing whether a person or an AI agent performed each action.
Greg and Triona then explore AI as an individual tutor for junior lawyers. Remote and hybrid work have weakened the traditional apprenticeship model built around observation and informal office conversations. Drawing upon decades of firm experience, an AI tutor might question an associate’s assumptions, prompt additional research, and reinforce the firm’s preferred methods. Such systems offer structured practice while preserving the essential mentoring relationship between senior and junior lawyers.
Another major theme is the hidden cost of delayed time entry. Actionstep’s Trace passive time capture technology monitors work across practice management, email, and document applications, then presents lawyers with matter-linked, billing-ready entries. More accurate records help firms recover otherwise forgotten time while producing better data for pricing, staffing, client estimates, and profitability analysis. Those insights grow more important as clients push firms toward fixed fees and output-based pricing.
Buckley believes mid-market law firms hold several advantages during the AI transition. They often operate with fewer systems, maintain closer client relationships, and move through organizational change faster than larger enterprises. Success will still require disciplined implementation, trusted internal champions, connected data, and sustained attention to client service. Her message is optimistic but direct: firms with strong relationships, clean data, and a clear economic strategy will be better prepared for agentic AI and the changing business of law.
Actionstep’s U.S. Midsize Law Firm Priorities Report
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[Special Thanks to Legal Technology Hub for their sponsoring this episode.]
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript:
Stephanie Wilkins (00:00)
The Gen AI conversation has been advancing faster than a lot of people can keep up lately, but some new developments have brought older concepts like prompting back into the spotlight thanks to a trending new topic, token cost. Token cost moved into the spotlight recently as tools like Claude gained traction in legal, because most plans come with token limits, as well as the ability to request limit increases, which has resulted in tales of astronomical bills for some users. Recently, Legora also announced that it’s moving its Agent Pro offering
Consumption based pricing, which means it’s billing by what the agent does rather than by a flat seat license. And what agents do is consume tokens. Eventually, other providers are sure to follow suit. What many don’t fully understand is just how quickly token usage can add up. A few extra follow-up questions, a document pasted in twice, a chat continuing long after it should have been reset. If that sounds familiar, token consumption compounds faster than you might expect, and you may be looking at a higher token usage than you think.
And you might not even realize it until you’ve hit your usage limit or worse, seen the bill. This is a blind spot we’ve been unpacking in one of our latest article series on Legal Tech Hub: how to get more out of tools like Claude without burning time, decreasing accuracy, or racking up unnecessary bills. We’ve covered topics like what tokens actually are and why they function as a hidden meter running behind every chat. When to reset a conversation versus continue in the same chat.
And what everyday prompting habits, from repasting whole documents to burying five questions in one prompt, might be driving up both cost and inaccuracy without you knowing it? Head over to legaltechnologyhub.com to read the full series and learn more about how to get the most out of your token limits and your usage of tools like Claude.
Greg Lambert (01:45)
Welcome to the Geek and Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Greg Lambert, and Marlene is out west climbing a mountain or maybe enjoying a cocktail somewhere right now. So everyone is stuck with me this week. today we are exploring why AI isn’t actually eliminating bottlenecks in law firms, but rather just moving that bottleneck upstream and how mid-market firms
Can leverage their institutional knowledge to win the AI transition. So I’d like to welcome Triona Triona Buckley, the chief product officer at Action Step, with more than two decades in the legal and legal tech industries. Triona has spent years working inside law firms here in the US, in Ireland, and the UK, and now leads the product vision at Action Step.
the leading cloud-based law firm management platform for mid-sized firms supporting over fifty five hundred law firms globally. And Triona is joining us I think from the future because I think it’s already tomorrow there in beautiful Auckland, New Zealand. So Triona, welcome to the Geek and Review.
Triona Buckley (02:55)
Thanks, Greg. Great to be here.
Greg Lambert (02:58)
All right, I I threw this one in at the last minute ’cause I realized we weren’t giving you a chance to really talk about action steps. So you mind giving us just kind of the the elevator pitch on on action step and what you do there?
Triona Buckley (03:11)
Sure.
Action Step is a law firm’s operations platform. So it combines practice management and legal accounting in one platform. So really, I suppose, designed to connect all the work of everyone that works at law firms. We are a global business, so we have a global team, a global customer base, very much focused on the mid market. So that’s our sweet spot, it’s where most of our customers sit, and so we’re really trying to support the unique challenges and our
opportunities that mid-market firms have. Yeah, and I’ve I’m CPO at Action Step, I’ve been with Action Step for many years and work very closely with our customers on a day-to-day basis to make sure that our product is is answering their needs.
Greg Lambert (03:55)
Awesome. Thank thank you very much for taking the time to give us a little background on that.
Greg Lambert (03:58)
So Trina, your your core argument regarding generative AI isn’t that it’s necessarily eliminating the friction in law firms, but it’s it’s kind of taking that friction and and shifting that bottleneck upstream. So, you know, for example, if if a junior associate you know takes a few seconds to draft a document, now all of a sudden the the senior partner is is having to be inundated with these and then kind of
reverse engineer how how it was put together. So in your view, how do you how how do firms structurally fix this workflow so that that AI doesn’t actually in introduce more problems than it fixes and and what do you mean when you say something like we need to shift from speed to systems?
Triona Buckley (04:50)
So what I mean about really shifting from speed to systems is is thinking less about, you know
one task, you know, and delivering one task using one AI tool. And more about, you know, thinking about the whole workflow. You know, how how are you going to use AI across the workflow and across your tasks in a way that feels much more intuitive to the way that you naturally work. So, you know, what we’ve seen is that law firms adopted and continue to use some fantastic tools around documents and research and and those sorts of things. And those are great to
Tools and obviously they came to market first because it was around generative AI and that sort of thing. you know, we now have the opportunity with more agentic AI available to to really connect that into a more natural workflow and into the places that you work anyway. so really it’s about taking, you know, the like I say, individual tasks and connecting them together into the the overall workflow. And I think the way the way that law firms can do that and and think can have apply that system thinking
is really think about the broader and bottlenecks. You know, we started with drafting, but yes, yeah, we’re we’re we’re it shifts it shifts the onus, I suppose, upstream to make sure that those drafts were well done and researched and thoughtful and blah blah blah and you know and and and and cited correctly.
And so those are the more expensive resources being used to do some of some of that work. But really, you know, oftentimes the friction in overall workflows is less to do with those tasks and more to do with, you know, sort of operational friction, administrative work, you know, finding information, not knowing where to look to find the information, you know, and having to dig into all these different silos of information to find what you need. So really addressing those sorts of things, you know, help.
the sort of day-to-day of your fee earners just feel smoother and less fewer things in their way. So that’s really what I you know what I think about when I think about kind of system level AI. It’s really smoothing out the whole the whole the whole workflow so that fee earners get to do what they do best which is really apply judgment to their client work and they get to do it in a way that you know they have room to think etc because that you know administrative friction has been removed I suppose by a
AI, automation, systems, whatever it might be.
Greg Lambert (07:05)
Okay. So w we talked recently, I th I think it was the last episode on
called executable knowledge and and private graphs. And you’ve noted that while AI can draft a contract, you know, AI sometimes is is biased and you know what clients are really paying for during the the high stakes milestones that is is for that lawyer’s kind of unbiased judgment. There and we we talk a lot about judgment here for the for the lawyers. So
On the the mid-market firms that that you work with, how is it that they’re actually capturing the expertise that’s kind of locked in that that partner’s head and put it into so that it’s it’s that systems process that kind of guarantees things like
The context is right, the controls are there, the governance is there to to help support that judgment. How do you how do you pull it all together?
Triona Buckley (08:05)
Yeah, well
Interestingly, what we see at larger law firms is that, you know, they tend to have huge knowledge teams and innovation teams who are sort of their job to a certain extent is to, you know, collate all of that knowledge and bring it together and and extract that sort of thing from people’s heads. I mean, mid-market firms don’t have the luxury usually of of having those sorts of resources. And so if it’s not been captured throughout your day, it’s probably not going to happen. It’s probably not going to be, you know, a a concerted concerted effort, I suppose, for you know, everyone at the firm.
To sort of download what they’ve done that day and the reasons why they might have done things, etc. And so what we what we can see with with and more so with AI, but even with you know automation is if you’re if you’re capturing if you’re capturing you know what people are doing as they move through their day and you know prompting the right questions, asking them why they might have done things just as they as they actually go about their their normal work, it’s much more likely that you’re going to be able to you know to add to that instant.
institutional knowledge and really add that context of that layer of context around what they’re doing and why and so what from an action stamp point of view what we’re really trying to ensure in anything that we bring to market from an AI point of view is that it’s not it’s not interruptive it’s very much you know really just kind of following along as they move through their day and and sort of you know capturing everything. What’s really important there is there’s a governance layer to that obviously you know you have to know who has done what whether that’s an agent or human.
And so, you know, making sure that you’re actually, you know, capturing that that that level of detail on on on what’s been done and when and why and all of that is really, really important from a governance point of view, because you have to be able to look back and see and we all we all we all we all we’ve all seen you know the reasons why if you don’t have that it can be a problem.
But actually there’s also just a you know like it beyond the sort of governance and the safety point of view, it’s really more around you know adding to your institutional knowledge, you know. and I suppose you you want to, you know, if we’re you know, the things that might have been learnt, I suppose, in conversation, you know, need to be also captured within within the system. And so that’s a AI is a great, great use case for that, you know, because it can act like you’re you’re sort of your your sparring partner in understanding where you’re coming from.
Greg Lambert (10:17)
Yeah. I’m I’m curious on how you kind of set that up and monitor it with because I n I know you mentioned that you wanna you wanna do this in a way that doesn’t interrupt the workflow of of the attorneys. So, you know, just kind of peeling back the onion a l a little bit. How how how did you work to set something like that up and and kind of determine what’s w how how it is that you don’t interrupt the workflow?
Triona Buckley (10:47)
Yeah, look, I think a lot of it is again back to sort of, you know, having most things happening in one platform, you know, so that you’re you’re you’re not having to sort of, you know, change how you do things in different places and therefore piece together all of that kind of audit trail. So having that sort of centralized place for all of that information to live is is is thing number one. And so and we see the most mid-sized law firms tend to prefer to have fewer tools rather than more. Some of that is you know budgetary point of view.
of it is just there you know a preference for a firm that size that what that allows actually is that you can have you know with all of that connected data you have you can put like ai on top of that and it it has all of the context you know and so it it doesn’t have to read five different tools you know it actually has the information it needs at its fingertips and so that that’s a big piece of it is just the fact that it’s actually already kind of connected and when in one place it doesn’t have to be one platform
A lot of it is just more to do with how things are interconnected. So that that’s sort of the the underlying, I think, philosophy really for us around how we’ve been thinking about AI and how we see AI being successfully adopted by our customers is again back to that kind of system thinking. You know, how do I how do I make sure that everything I do is is is being captured, but it’s it’s not sort of you know proliferated across too many tools.
Greg Lambert (12:08)
Yeah. Well let me get away from the from the the partner level and let me let me ask you about some of the training, especially on the the associates. and I and I think you know I I was reading articles today that that kind of played on this fear that you know that the AI is is going to just cut all of the junior associate class, you know, compound that with the fact that
a lot of clients don’t wanna pay for that. They see it as as training. I always laugh. I I love the fact that the clients love taking the the experienced lawyer later and bringing them in house, but they don’t wanna train them them
Triona Buckley (12:47)
Yeah.
Greg Lambert (12:52)
As a junior associates, but you you mentioned that we need to move away from relying on training by osmosis, and I think a lot of us understand that. what you mean by that. So, how should firms re-architect their training module or models to so that AI acts more as an accelerator?
that teaches critical thinking rather than just a machine that that just does some some work for them. I was I I like to call this using the AI to help you AI. but how how do you see the AI being used in the training sessions?
Triona Buckley (13:30)
Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the things that I saw at law firms when I worked there was this, you know, model of, you know, summer associates and more junior associates like in office with partners or in office with senior associates. And like there’s a lot of value in that osmo like training by osmosis, as you said. some of the sort of more nuanced learning happens there. But you know, the the reality is that, you know, s some of that has already gone away, you know, through COVID and everything else, and people not necessarily being
Being
co-located. you know, that hasn’t been as possible in the last number of years. And while firms have you know really invested in their training programs and their more formalized sort of structured training systems, I one of the things that they hasn’t quite caught up yet is this yeah, is using AI to be the trainer, you know. So if we think about connecting what we talked about a moment ago in terms of institutional knowledge, there’s decades and decades of you know client work and you
know, you know, advisory work captured, you know, within the systems of a law firm, how do you put that to work? Not just for your client work, but actually for training your, your, your juniors. And so, you know, and it goes back a little bit to what we spoke about as well in relation to creating drafts. you know, if you actually have AI that is acting like the trainer, is asking your associates questions, is using the institutional knowledge to prompt them to ask deeper questions, to understand this.
More to make sure they’re checking what they should be checking. You know, it it really is an opportunity, I suppose, for it to feel like that sort of in-office, you know, more nuanced sort of training without that lift being on, you know, the partners to do that. Because, you know, as we all know, that’s a very inconsistent model. It’s very much reliant on, you know, how good that one, you know, partner or senior person is in terms of training. Whereas AI can really standardize that, you know, it can take all of the good parts of all of that sort of learning biosmosis, but add in a level of structure.
And and sort of rigor that that wasn’t there before us. So I’ve just you know we’ve I’ve started to see a few of the more innovative firms really see that as an opportunity, particularly at the mid market, where again you don’t necessarily have the resources to have a dedicated you know training program and that sort of thing. so so yeah, that that’s really the opportunity that I see is just sort of you know adding adding the nuance and the rigor, but really the institutional knowledge comes to life. This is how we do things with this firm, but not even just at a sort of a
you know, a workflow level more of the sort of like, you know, we tend to advise this way with our clients, you know, and like really, really very much more I suppose nuanced, you know, which is really the secret source I suppose of why clients choose a particular firm over another. Yeah.
Greg Lambert (16:03)
Yeah.
I’ve I’ve been using and and I know I know that Mark Andreessen didn’t come up with this, but he had he had said something earlier earlier this year about the number one thing that moves someone from the fiftieth percentile to the ninety ninth percentile the fastest is individual tutoring. and he said over you know the
long history of of humans that you know the the royal families did this, that the the the wealthy families did it, but it you know, the it took a lot of money to to do to do this individual tutoring and he’s saying now we have these tools that can be set up to be tutors. Is that is that how you’re seeing it is to train the train the AI to be the trainer or the tutor?
Triona Buckley (16:52)
Absolutely.
One hundred percent, yes. And and again, this isn’t to replace, you know, training programs or to replace that really important, you know, senior junior interaction. It’s about augmenting it and just making sure you’re standardizing it to a certain extent so everyone’s getting what they need. But I do really think that it’ll ex that it accelerates you know, the the pathway for for junior lawyers to actually get to a level of knowledge and and and and that more quickly and consistently, like I say. So yes, absolutely. It’s like using AI as your tutor.
not exclusively augmenting your training programs and and all of that. But but yeah, I think it’s a huge opportunity. And I think for mid-market firms in particular, a way that they can really use AI to help give their teams an edge, you know, and compete at whatever other level they they want to compete at with larger firms, whatever it might be.
Greg Lambert (17:39)
Yeah, yeah. I I I know a lot of trainers that that would love to have the help on this because they’re overwhelmed. In fact my my trainer was was telling me ’cause we were trying trying to think about how we were setting up the training program.
And she was it was kinda tongue in cheek and she was like, Well I’m you know, I’ve already got a full time job doing training and now you’re now we’re bringing in AI, so I’ve gotta do all that what I was doing and now I’ve gotta do AI too. So I think any type of leverage that we can get to to help the AI help us would be appreciated.
Triona Buckley (18:12)
Yes. Well that’s it. And then that’s
another that’s another bottleneck, I suppose, that we’re we’re seeing at firms is that yes, everybody has their day job, you know, and everybody is looking at how do they how do how do they sort of have this AI dividend brought into the mix. You know, how do we make AI actually create some ROI for us and make things more efficient? And in the meantime we’re double jobbing trying to figure out how to do privacy.
Greg Lambert (18:33)
Yeah. I was gonna say I’m still waiting on
that dividend.
Triona Buckley (18:36)
Yeah. Poor
poor IT teams trying to figure out, you know, what tools and when and for who and et cetera. Yeah, it’s it’s tricky.
Greg Lambert (18:44)
I I know when I interview attorneys that one if I ask them what are their top what are what are the top tasks that they do during a day that they would love to be automated.
typically those two are email and time entry. and so I wanna want to dive in on the the time entry, which you know there’s a lot of what was called the data debt that that is involved in the manual time entry tracking. and
Recently, Action Step acquired a startup called Tr Traced and brought in its founder, Aiden Bub, and integrated a new passive time capture module called Trace. so you’ve mentioned that when lawyers wait to enter time, and I think a lot of us know this, that you know, there’s that recency bias which causes them to you know write off time even before they’ve written the time down. so why
Why
is it so critical for you to for lawyers to capture time in the present tense as as as quick I guess as quickly as possible? And and how do you how do you use this AI module to help you kind of decouple the the time from the from the strictly hourly rates?
Triona Buckley (20:02)
Yeah, there’s there’s two aspects to it. Yeah, number one, I think, yeah, the the the panic, you know, at the end of the the week or the month where you get your push from rebelling team to to enter all your time. my goodness, what did I do? There’s that. And obviously, you know, most most fear earners have figured out systems and, you know, ways of of of helping with that in in you know, whether it’s their own individual kind of systems. and then the other piece is that yeah, you just you know, you you you automatically as a human write down the value of what you’re doing sometimes, you know, and so
Greg Lambert (20:12)
Yeah.
Triona Buckley (20:31)
you you just you you you think it’s fifteen minutes and it was actually an hour or whatever it might be. You know, you’re losing minutes all of the time and so
Frankly, sometimes it takes more time to enter the time of what you did, you know, and trying to recall what you did, it’s not almost not worth your time to create the time entry. And so there’s you know, there’s a few different aspects to it there, but what we know. So, but what we’ve seen is that actually again, if you’re as you work through your day, you’re getting regular you know reminders or prompts, or you know, you know, almost you know, bill ready you know, time entries presented to you, then all you have to do is go, Yes, I did that tick. you know, we’re we’re seeing huge.
Huge gains for our fee owners who are using Trace in Action Step. And you know, there if if you’re even capturing an extra, you know, 30 minutes a day, which is work you already did. We’re not telling you to do any more work, we’re just saying capture more of that work so that it’s because it’s billable work. you know, if you’re even just capturing 30 minutes more a day, that’s obviously a huge gain that all adds up every week, etc. So so that’s really what Trace is all about. It’s just in you know, it monitors both the work that you’re
you’re
doing in action step in our application, but also the work that you’re doing in in Word and email and et cetera, et cetera. And so it’s and and really presenting it all in a way that is, you know, bill already very easy for you to say yes. It’s obviously connect, you know, it connects it connects the work through to the matters using AI and using the context of of where you’re working. So
Really exciting one. I think there’s a huge ROI gain for law firms on that. You know, it’s sort of the most obvious one our customers have really gravitated to. so yeah, excited to get it into. We have we we already have our first version of that in market and being used by customers. We have our our next version actually coming out next next month, which crosss across more tools. so yeah, really, really good ROI for our customers on that.
Greg Lambert (22:15)
Well, I imagine even beyond just the, you know, tracking time, having a more accurate assessment of how long it actually takes to do something. you know, having those data points and and being consistent, rather than relying on somebody trying to remember at the end of the month who’s there’s you know is it’s gotta be a huge value add too.
Triona Buckley (22:35)
That’s it.
Yeah, down downstream the huge value adds in terms of yeah, like you know, accuracy of of client quoting, for example, you know, and and and on and that whole area, you know, and so there’s there’s you know, so pricing, you know, how you think about those things, you know, just just you know utilization across teams, you know, there’s so many different things that this plays into. and really lifting that information up to management so that they can see, you know, where people are spending them the the the most time and how can we help. Again, it helps to identify some of those bottlenecks that you
Mm-hmm.
Greg Lambert (23:07)
Yeah, yeah. I c I can I can imagine the the partner, the billing partner looking over there and going, my god, it took that long to do this. So one
Triona Buckley (23:14)
Ha ha ha.
Greg Lambert (23:18)
We talked briefly about the fact that the, you know, there’s a lot of tools that are being used. and it’s interesting because Action Step actually did a mid-market priority report, and it was just kind of showing the amount of tools they get used. and I think it was like 83% of firms still use like three or more tools just to manage a particular matter. and
a a third of of those use six or more tools. So and and being in a in a large firm, I I mean we’ve s we’ve seen tools sprawl where it’s like, it’d be you know it’d be great if we added this one thing or this will make make things easier. And the next thing you know you you’ve just got this huge stack of of technology with each one doing its own little piece. So
Triona Buckley (23:48)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Greg Lambert (24:07)
Why why do you believe that mid-market firms are actually better positioned to to apply the the AI transition than say an an AMLOD, you know, 100, 200 firm? and and so, you know, how how are you seeing them being better positioned?
Triona Buckley (24:27)
I think there are three reasons why mid market firms are are better positioned than most. number one, they they tend to have fewer tools, so they’re probably more in that that middle camp of you know, kind of three ish tools, maybe that they’re they’re working with, which actually isn’t a lot, you know, being having some well integrated tools is is good. and so they have fewer tools to to work with, and so it’s actually it’s easier for them to sort of get their their their house in order and get sort of AI.
ready, you know, because their data’s living in fewer tools, frankly. And part of that is because you know that they don’t necessarily have the budget to buy all of these other two other tools. And part of it is that they’re, you know, they’re they’re able to you know the they they there are products out there that support them, you know, that that give them that sort of you know cleaner, cleaner environment. So there’s that piece of it. I think you know number one, just that their their tooling is set up well for you know for for AI to work well for them. Number two
It is just a function of size, you know. the you know, you have a professional layer in mid-market firms who are experienced, who typically are quite close to the bottlenecks and the needs of that firm. but because they’re slightly, you know, they’re not these huge big enterprise firms, they’re they’re easier ships to turn. And so change management is something that can happen somewhat more easily if you do have that professional layer. And I’m really talking about firms who sort of invested in having, you know, you know, strong management resources that can help we can help that to happen.
And then the third thing is that, you know, generally clients choose mid-market firms because they have, you know, they they the closest they get to senior, senior resources, you know, the closest they can have to the partners, the advisory relationship that they have there, which the you know, you don’t necessarily get, you know, in other segments of the market. And so mid-market firms already have, you know, good relationship managers, you know, so their fear earners are good relationship managers, their partners are very focused on the growth of the firm and making sure that custom you know, clients are are well.
taken care of and all of that. And that that’s one of the things that is going to shine most in a world of AI. You know, it’ll be less about the sort of the the quality of the of the you know the documents and that sort of thing and more about you know those sort of really nuanced personal you know advisory relationships you know which mid market firms have already had to hone those skills you know over many years. And it’s one of the reasons why you know
talent comes to those firms because they want to have more of that client engagement, you know. So so those are the sort of the three reasons why I think mid-market firms are in really, really good position when it comes to AI. They can their data’s well set up, they’ve got the client relationships already, which are gonna be their value point going forward. and they, you know, they’re they’re easy they find things, you know, easier to adopt and easier to change.
Greg Lambert (27:03)
Yeah, I wanna I want to pull on the the the change management thread that you mentioned there in the the middle of that. and I imagine that having fewer tools or tool you know tools that that kind of crosses across multiple steps.
makes it a little easier on the change management front. how how do you work with your with your c customers to kind of understand that change management aspect of it? ‘Cause I I think a lot of us don’t realize how important that is.
Triona Buckley (27:35)
You are absolutely right. So many firms do not realise how important that is. and we try and advise firms who come to us to really think about these projects as, you know, think about them in a matter of sort of, you know, months, not weeks. You know, like these are th you know, you have to plan for this. You have to make sure that you have you know, you’re you have an awareness, I suppose, of how your systems currently work, your actual, you know, how your people work. you know, and that you’re you’re planning around that and like less focus on feature functionality.
And more about you know your own processes today and and and how you want it to work in the future, that sort of thing. So, I mean, a lot of the change management piece is around, as you know, yeah, you know, being clear about what actually needs to change, where those bottlenecks are, but also having the right team in place that are going to actually drive it forward, they’re going to be champions, who are going to make sure it’s successful. So, a lot of the times when we’re engaging with you know firms who are coming to us for the first time, we’re asking them those kinds of questions, you know, like who’s who’s going to be involved in this in this process.
project. you know, what are the things that matter to your firm? You know, where do you see your firm, you know, next year, the year after? What sort of growth are you experiencing? What sort of clients you do with so really more like asking about their business so that they’re already starting to think about those sorts of things in the context of technology and less sort of you know comparison tables of features and functionality, like I say. So that’s really important. We also work with a really really experienced cohort of advisory partners who you
Know work with firms to help them to adopt new technology, like their entire jobs are around change management and technology and adoption and that sort of thing. So you know, while our team is very much because most of them have worked in law firms, they’re very much of that mindset. the actual implementation work is is is is done by our our partner group, you know, in direct collaboration with our customers. so that works really well. It means we don’t have any implementation bottlenecks at Action Step. You know, we have we have kind of an
Endless supply of you know of of of well-vetted partners that customers can choose from. So that works that works well. And it’s a very different, like we’re a software company, you know, and so it’s a very different mindset. You need to have business process people involved in that. but like I say, I think having those conversations from the very start, we know is really important. We have a lot of firms who will come to us, have those initial conversations, realize they need to go and do a bit more homework, and then come back to us, you know, kind of three months later. So yeah.
Greg Lambert (29:52)
Yeah. Yeah.
Triona Buckley (29:56)
That’s that’s probably how it works best.
Greg Lambert (29:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, the you know, kinda kinda keeping your eye on where you know the the s strategic focus of of the firm. because you know especially when you’re bringing in a a a substantial bit of software that that can kind of change the day in and day out for people that the you know it’s not just turn it on and say here you go. There’s there’s a lot that you need to think about as you’re as you’re
So it sounds like you’ve got a good handle on on that implementation. Well done.
Triona Buckley (30:27)
I like to think so. I mean look, these things are always they’re they’re huge projects, you know, they are huge projects, like you say. You know, it’s it is it’s a big undertaking. and I suppose for that expectation to be set is also important, you know, like let’s be let’s be clear, you know, this is going to take, you know, a lot of effort, a lot of thinking, but you’re gonna come out the side in a really, really good position, you know, and sort of you know, working through that th those, you know, th those periods of of of of pain. you know, it’s it’s an isn’t
Inevitable, you know, but but again, as long as as long as you’re having those conversations early and that’s understood, it’s not an issue. It just shouldn’t be a surprise.
Greg Lambert (31:04)
Yeah.
well, you know, the one thing law firms are known for is is really accepting change. So it’s or or or maybe not. Maybe maybe we’re not known for that.
Triona Buckley (31:13)
People.
But
you know, there’s a bit of a talk track about law firms sort of being, you know, like you know, slow to change and and and you know that sort of thing slow to adopt. but I actually I I respect the thoughtfulness that you know generally the legal industry has to, you know, to to to these things. I also think if you look at the history of law firms, like to be fair, there’s there’s few enough industries that have actually survived and thrived as well as as as law firms have, you know, so through all sorts of booms and busts and whatever else. So I don’t
Yeah.
Greg Lambert (31:43)
Yeah, yeah. Well, one thing we do thrive through uncertainty. So that’s so well, Triona, let me let me ask you before we get to our crystal ball question, we’ve been asking our guests for the past year or so, just because there’s so much going on in in in the industry, whether whether it’s legal tech or just AI in general, you know, there’s just
Triona Buckley (31:47)
Ha ha ha.
Greg Lambert (32:09)
So much to try and keep up with. So we’ve been asking, you know, what are what are some, you know, one or two of the you know, must read or must watch or must listen to resources that you l use to kind of help you kind of keep up with with what’s going on in in the market right now.
Triona Buckley (32:30)
I have to admit that while I am a obviously this podcast, but while I am a I I am I while I I listen to most things, I think the voices that I listen to the most are are are not necessarily the you know the podcasts or the articles or that sort of thing. It’s it’s actually, you know, folks are in the industry working with law firms every day. I mean obviously yourself and Marlene are in practice, so that’s you know different. You have that very specific
Greg Lambert (32:35)
Obviously.
Triona Buckley (32:57)
perspective but but yeah you know that I mentioned that partner community and so I would say actually that partner community I probably listen to the most and obviously directly to customers and really try and form our own view based on based on them because one of the things that I I see happening in the industry is a lot of me too me too, you know, just a lot of kind of jumping on bandwagons. And so actually kind of going directly to the horse you know, and and and sort of hearing what they have to say is is
it’s in my mind more powerful. so yeah that tends to be where I where I lean for sort for some real market reads. Like these are partners who are working with you know dozens of dozens of customers, law firms, you know, every single every single month you know who who really do understand things from the inside out. So that’s that’s where I lean.
Greg Lambert (33:43)
Yeah, it’s it’s definitely still important to to build your own community. So it’s I I think I think a lot of us have relied upon that, especially the last two or three years. So well now it’s it’s time for a crystal ball question. So pull out your crystal ball. It’s really kind of cheating because you’re already in tomorrow, so you you you probably already know some of the future.
Triona Buckley (33:48)
Yes, most important.
Ha ha ha
Greg Lambert (34:07)
But look looking ahead you know a a few months to a few years, as you know, a agentic AI and harnesses and you know, all of the stuff that that we’re being hit with lately affects and becomes embedded into the business of law. You know, what what are some things that you think especially in the mid market law firm model?
that they should be prepared for, that that that they may not be ready for yet.
Triona Buckley (34:37)
a few things. I mean, I think I mean some of the things we’ve touched on. So I think you’re gonna see firms that you know have invested in you know client nurturing, client relationships, that sort of thing. I think they are gonna be the ones who who thrive. And so if firms are not doing that already, that should be the thing that they are prioritizing over and above anything else, frankly. you know, the second thing I mentioned, I think the firms that have their their data house in order are gonna do better, you know, in in an in terms of AI enablement. but in general, I think I
have a very positive perspective on where law firms will end up being. I think again, you know, law firms have been through a lot of cycles. They always end up you know surviving, thriving, you know, changing, evolving, you know, coming out stronger forward, sort of thing. And so I so you know I think I I think just for them to think forward to that point, you know, and what that looks like for them and and and work towards that. The the pieces that I don’t see as much conversation around at at mid-sized firms, I think is probably happening
With enterprise firms, but not necessarily mid-size, is around how their commercial model is going to change, you know, how their whole their pricing, their
you know, like the types of clients’ engagement and client engagements that they have is going to change. We’re already hearing from some law firms that clients are saying to them, you know, I don’t wanna I don’t want to pay for your juniors, I only want to pay for your seniors, that sort of thing. So I think, you know, you’re just gonna see a lot more which is has already been happening, but you’re gonna see a lot more, you know, project level pricing, you know, those sorts of fixed fee type of pricing, which is less less about attaching, you know, rates to people and more about the output. you know, so I
And I I I think that’s an area that I think mid-sized law firms really need to need to focus on and plan for and understand how that’s going to impact their their kind of economic model as firms. it’s one of the reasons why, you know, we we talked about time tracking earlier, but you know, you know, and sort of understanding the dynamics of you know, where you spend your time and how that plays into profitability. it’s one of the reasons why I think that’s a that’s like something that we’re investing in and that we can help law firms with to plan for in future.
Greg Lambert (36:35)
Yeah, yeah, great, great answers. So Triona Buckley, think I wanna thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me today and sharing your your vision of where where we’re heading. It’s this has been fun.
Triona Buckley (36:49)
Thanks, Greg. Really appreciate it.
Greg Lambert (36:51)
All right. And thanks to all of you who are listening to the Geek and Review. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a colleague. we’d love to hear from you on LinkedIn and Substack. And Triona, where’s the best place for our listeners to learn more about you and Trace and Action Step?
Triona Buckley (37:09)
Actionstep dot com. Very simple. Yes.
Greg Lambert (37:11)
Easy. I like it. And
as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeSecca. So thank you, everybody.