Technology, Disruption, and the Practice of Law: Will the Profession Survive?
Channel: The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
Date: 2016-11-29

The law is arguably the least innovative profession in the country.  Huge sectors of the economy -- health care, banking, the arts -- face constant churn and upheaval.  Law schools steadily march along with a 150-year old approach to legal education, a 50-year old approach to law firm structure, and a stubborn fealty to the billable hour.  Huge portions of American society are served badly by the legal profession while the legal establishment does precious little to address the problem.  Technology has systematically brought great chance to almost every profession - even taxi driving - so the question is when, not if, the law will be roiled by true disruption.  Join two HLS graduates who are on the forefront of answering these questions for a provocative and challenging discussion.

Raj Goyle is co-CEO of Bodhala, a leading legal technology company based in New York City and Ann Arbor focused on data analytics and legal procurement. Co-founded with a fellow Harvard Law graduate, Bodhala helps large and small in-house legal departments, saving companies significant time and money through the creation of a competitive, transparent legal marketplace. Goyle, who received his undergraduate degree from Duke University, served two terms in the Kansas House of Representatives after working as a policy analyst and civil rights attorney. He serves on the boards of Hunger Free America, the American India Foundation, Everyartist.me, Issue One and chairs the State Innovation Exchange. Goyle lives in New York with his wife Monica Arora, a partner at Proskauer. They have two daughters.

Ari Shahdadi is currently Vice President of Business Development at BuzzFeed, working on both business strategy and partnerships, including BuzzFeed News' groundbreaking live coverage of Election Night 2016 on Twitter. Prior to BuzzFeed Ari was the General Counsel of Tumblr for 4 and a half years, where he managed the legal, public policy, trust & safety, and support functions while leading the charge on Tumblr's efforts in a number of areas, including its $1.1 billion sale to Yahoo and its critical role in the battle that led to the FCC adopting the Open Internet order to enact true net neutrality in the US. Before Tumblr, Ari was a corporate lawyer at Gunderson Dettmer, a patent litigator at Fish & Richardson (while getting his JD, cum laude, from HLS), a software engineer, and an artificial intelligence researcher at MIT (while getting his SB and MEng in Computer Science). He has been described variously as "too cynical" and a "ray of sunshine" depending on who you ask and on what day.