Some people in the technology space think that product managers are all the same, and that you can hire a product manager from outside legal tech, put them in the legal tech space, and they’ll do fine. While that is one potential outcome, I’ve personally witnessed product managers from outside legal tech twist in the wind and waste entire discovery interviews asking basic questions that served no purpose except to familiarize themselves with fundamental concepts they should have already known going into the interview. Their lack of confidence and mastery of the material was evident, hurt their credibility, and frustrated everybody involved.

As a former practicing attorney and MBA with ten years of experience in legal operations and over five years in product management at one of the world’s largest providers of legal technology, I can build rapport and identify client needs much faster than most. I’ve participated in all kinds of discovery interviews, account management check-ins, UI discussions and other product-related discussions with hundreds of clients and potential clients. Corporate legal operations folk see me as one of them because I have been one of them and, in many ways, I still am.

Here are some of the experiences that allow me to empathize and speak the in-group language of end-users of legal tech:

• Over eight years experience as a former practicing attorney

• Worked as a legal operations data analyst and end-user of e-billing, document management, and other legal tech in the corporate law department of a $156B organization

• As a legal tech procurement consultant, I helped over 25 clients define requirements and vet technology that worked for them

• As a product manager and thought leader for one of the world’s largest legal tech companies, I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours speaking to legal operations and GCs about both pain points and success areas that have worked for them

I have a long list of loyal contacts in legal operations who I regularly keep in touch with, and can tap that network to help you get the information you need to build more appealing products. If you need help identifying pain points and building better legal tech products, think of me.