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Tyler Finn  

How do you embrace the founder's mindset, innovating early and leading differently today on The Abstract, I am joined by Monica Zent. Monica is a serial entrepreneur, investor pioneer in the legal tech space, and one of the earliest voices out there advocating for innovation and AI in legal, Monica has founded several companies that you may have worked with or heard of, Zentlaw and many others that have really helped shape the way that we think about what modern legal Ops is and what legal advisory work looks like. She's currently serving as a principal at the law Innovation Agency, where she's championing enterprise-wide legal innovation strategies, because we're going to talk about today Your journey has never followed a sort of traditional playbook. Instead, it's really been defined by curiosity reinvention and a willingness to make and take bold bets on the future. Monica, thanks so much for joining me for this episode of the abstract.

Monica Zent

Thank you, Tyler. I really appreciate it. It's awesome to be here.

Tyler Finn 

Okay, so as I mentioned, you founded several companies. You've really been at the forefront of what we would broadly describe as legal innovation. How did you first decide that you wanted to start something on your own? When did you decide, like this is the moment to embrace being an entrepreneur.

Monica Zent  

Oh gosh, this goes way back early in my life. I mean, I've been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember, acting on ideas, having ideas, moving on them, and trying to create something. I mean, I'm a builder at heart, so it's been something literally always how I've been wired. I mean, from my early teens to kind of creating side hustles, summer jobs, weekend jobs, holiday break jobs, working my way through college, having side hustles during college, side hustles during law school. After law school, I had multiple companies while I was working full time, finishing up at night and studying for the bar. So it's literally just how I live and breathe, and it's hard to remember a time when I wasn't, quite frankly,

Tyler Finn  

Tell us a little bit about like, the idea for Zentlaw and when you launched it, did you feel like you were really like, going against the grain, as it were, to make that business become a reality, or change the mindset around how legal services were delivered?

Monica Zent  

Yes, very much. So yeah, it was a distinct use case that came out of that. I had already created a couple of companies and sold those. As my earlier startups had hired lawyers as well. On my own, I had worked in a large law firm. Kind of was able to see on the inside how things were operating. Really didn't like the billable hour model. Really felt that there was another way to do this. Again, the entrepreneur in me came up with that idea of, let's figure out another way, and let's look at some other kinds of models. And so I started learning about and studying up on the secondment model. I learned it was a concept that was derived from the military setting. I ended up applying that. I also looked into subscription models. I wondered, why subscriptions, which are so common in other areas of our life, whether it was for cable or phone or internet. You know, Internet didn't really exist that much at the time. It was new. But really looking at why, why can't we use subscription concepts for services and so, and I actually, way back then, I had written a paper about the concept of managed legal services, the way you have HMOs and healthcare and sort of that, at the time was becoming a big thing. And I wrote about, you know, would we have an analogous model in legal? And this, again, was written, I mean, almost 25 years ago, and so long time ago, way before this idea has become evolved to what it is now. And yeah, so I launched it. I started out on my own and started to just get it going and talk to clients. I remember talking with colleagues of mine who worked at firms, some colleagues that I knew that were in house. Yes, people thought it was weird. They didn't understand it. What are you doing? Just, just do something else. This doesn't make sense. And you know, so it was one of those things where, yes, it was a leap of faith, it was a leap of belief in myself, but also leap of faith in terms of believing in this model and being able to look around corners when others can't really see around the same corner. I think that's something that has been a common theme and a lot of my entrepreneurial pursuits, and can tend to be a common theme with most founders, is kind of being able to see that vision or look around the corners when others aren't really able to see that, and being able to move move forward through a fog, in spite of that,

Tyler Finn  

I think seeing around corners, maybe especially in relation to risk, is something that a lot of lawyers are really good at, right, taking the leap, though, and like going all in on yourself is not something that either law school or the practice of law really like, necessarily ingrains in you. How do you think about that mindset, right? And like, do you think it's a mindset that you've learned over time? Why do you think you've been able to embrace it? Talk to us a little more about that. I'm really curious.

Monica Zent  

Yeah, thank you. You know, it's funny. I actually just wrote about this in a couple of recent issues ago of my venture legal newsletter on LinkedIn, and covered this concept that I've kind of coined, called the founder paradox. And I believe that a lot of founders will have this sort of yin yang quality to them, where there is this ability to maybe, perhaps, like in this example, right, make some calculated risks, look around corners. Kind of be able to sort of see out ahead, if you look a few moves about ahead on the chessboard, but at the same time, being able to also take a leap of faith, jump off the cliff while you're building the parachute while you're flying down. Right? That common analogy, but it's true when you're a founder, being able to sort of be comfortable with risk and ambiguity and be able to move through it. And so I believe that a lot of founders have the sort of yin yang quality, and I certainly have seen that in myself and but I also, and as I kind of touched on in my writing, and I'll expand on the theme and future writings as well, about the founder paradox, but the I do believe it's very accessible for a lot of people, and I believe it's probably more accessible than most people think. I think that a lot of folks can become founders too, that they will perhaps recognize these qualities in themselves and and being more conscious of it might even help them nurture some of those qualities. On either side of that yin yang, they may not have certain qualities, but they again, being conscious of it, can nurture that some of us, I think, are hardwired certain ways, where those qualities are a bit more innate. But then I do believe there's a nurture component and and I believe that with AI and a lot of what's happening right now in our culture, the concept of becoming a founder is a lot more accessible to people and so, and I like to inspire people as well. So I hope that that piece did that, but that's what I would say on that topic.

Tyler Finn  

I agree. I mean, you know, I mean, there's two sort of theories, right? I mean, like, one, AI may lead to, like, a consolidated certain parts of the market, right? But on the other hand, you have all these tools at your fingertips, and you're able to do so much more on your own, especially maybe as we enter a sort of like agentic landscape, I don't know that the cost, like the startup cost, is gonna fall pretty dramatically off of a cliff. Take us back to the early days of zentloft. Like, what were those days like, beginning to build the business. And was there an inflection point where you started to think to yourself, like, okay, maybe this is really, actually going to work?

Monica Zent 

Yes, there was. But, yeah, the early days were really rough, as you can imagine. It was a lot of educating the marketplace, just out there, pounding the pavement, literally, to get to sort of see, see this opportunity, see what I saw, see that this is there's a better way of doing things, and there's an alternative out there that's reliable, cost effective and worth trying. And so, yeah, the early days were rough, especially when you're launching a business in a sector that you know, you're a little early to market, or the market isn't quite there yet. And so I won't sugarcoat it, it was very rough at times. And but then, yeah, you hit this inflection point. I mean, I you tend to kind of not give up that easily. So kind of, I knew that there was this opportunity there. And so you hit the inflection point. And there was, it was an inflection point a couple years in where just really started to kind of be able to build on the client base, and one client led to another client to another client, and so forth. And then it really starts to validate the model, but also really started to build upon itself and and, yeah, I mean, a couple of years in nowadays, that would be too long, but back then, it was not uncommon, because, again, this was sort of a newer model for traditionally. Wasn't, you know, very receptive to change.

Tyler Finn 

What did that push back look like? I'm actually, I'm curious, because I think it might be interesting for us to reflect on what pushback looked like back then. And maybe we're like, oh my god. Like, that's, you know, par for the course. Everybody uses this nowadays, right?

Monica Zent  

Yeah, great question. I mean, push back, yeah. I mean, what did it look like then? I mean, it looks like probably what you see nowadays in terms of pushback. I mean, from the resistance the status quo, it's very hard to get people to unstick from the status quo. So back then, it was really this. Why is it better? Why should I try this? Why should I take this leap of faith? How do I now test this again? You know, it's a change from the status quo, so really trying to kind of deal with some of those objections. So a lot of sort of the objections around that, and kind of dealing with that in in the discovery process, or the exploratory conversation process, sometimes, kind of the outright just ghosting, not like getting back, you know, wanting to have a meeting, or any of that, so that that type of thing typical, right? And, and then, of course, other situations of of trying something, and then being able to sort of say, Hey, how can we kind of expand on this? Or Yeah, and working with the client in terms of how to make something work for their their needs. And so that also helped, in some ways, the business model to evolve a little bit too, because a lot of times, I think, with any company, any technology or services, business or combo of both, taking feedback from your clients, taking feedback from your customers, and looking at, how can I more of or evolve or adjust this slightly to be able to meet your needs? And that feedback is always really important. So learning as well from client feedback is super important.

Tyler Finn  

I mean, legal is slightly more risk averse, inherently right? How do you maintain the sort of conviction that you're going to be able to, like, sort of change hearts and minds and and really, like, convince folks to accept doing things in a different way than than they've historically done that they're very comfortable with.

Monica Zent  

Yeah, well, I think it's a there are different ways to approach that. I mean one. I mean, first of all, like, as with any industry, and I believe legal and even tech companies, legal tech companies that I advise or mentor or invest in, I talk about this that you can't really get people to change how they work, necessarily. It's really important to sort of slot into their existing workflow. So you have to sort of figure out a way that whatever service or product you're delivering, it's porting into the way that they are already accustomed to working so, at least with ZentLaw, anecdotally, the services industry, they were already accustomed to working with outside counsel. They were already accustomed to bringing resources to the table to help them. What they were not accustomed to was the different model in which they could do that, and a different delivery model, and a delivered different pricing models and so forth. So it was educating them on, you can get the same kind of output. You can get the same resourcing, but through a different different channel and different method, and why that could be better and more effective. It's the same thing. Similarly, with technology or legal tech, being able to sort of help educate that customer on, you can get the same output. You can get to the same destination, perhaps maybe a little faster, or maybe a little more effectively, or maybe with a few more data points or resources that you might need, whatever the tech is delivering, but asking them to fundamentally change how they work can be a bit challenging, but, but again, some of that has to, has to be integrated. And so there's, it's a, it's a balance, I would say, right? I mean, for instance, even the idea around electronic signatures, I remember, I mean, some of us remember when that was it was not a thing, and it was this big deal in the legal industry around electronic signatures. Are they enforceable? Should we use them? Can we use the software as to save even SAS, going to SAS? You know, all this talk about SAS and, you know, can we go to SAS? And so a lot of us that have lived through these evolutions in legal industry, these were discussions that people were having. And for some of us that are technologists, it's kind of ridiculous, because we're like, well, it shouldn't, I mean, be an issue, but it was an issue. It was a real issue. And there were people writing white papers on it and everything. And so I think again, going back to these tools aren't necessarily changing how people work. They were still going to be able to do the work, but just doing faster or more reliably or more conveniently, right? SAS makes things more convenient. It made work people. It unshackled people from their offices electronic signatures. It kind of removed the conventional process of having to send physical documents back and forth and and all that. So again, it was not changing necessarily how they worked, but making it or enhancing it in such a way that it could be more effective or efficient. And I believe that's kind of some of the key messaging around some of the legal tech today is looking at, how can you enhance the work that's being done?

Tyler Finn 

Super interesting.

I want to explore the sort of like journey that you've been on as a founder, because I've gotten to talk to some folks. But you know, I mean, a lot of people that we've had on have had slightly more traditional careers, can you, you know, take us through Right? Like how you handle when things don't go to plan, right, or when you encounter setbacks or sort of like inevitable periods of slow growth, and you've got people working for you, right? You've got your vision that you want to realize you may have investors, right? I mean, there's a whole host of stakeholders that you're accountable to or trying to think about or trying to manage. Like, how have you as a founder been able to write, sort of, like, find the wherewithal to lead through those really difficult moments?

Monica Zent  

Yeah, thank you. It's a great question. And, I mean, it's definitely something that's part of the founder journey. So that's part of life, right? They're part of startups. They're part of business. They are part of life. That is the bottom line. And I would say first and foremost, is getting really comfortable as a founder, business leader with the fact that they are going to happen, and really totally bracing yourself mentally, psychologically, for the fact that that's going to happen. And so what are you going to do when that happens? So I think that's the first step. The second step is really powering through I mean, setbacks cannot set you back. They have to be you have to power through them. You have to figure out a way to work through them, either work around them, come up with an alternative path. Maybe it's a pivot, maybe it's something else that needs to be done. Maybe it's streamlining operations, maybe it's cutting costs, maybe it's looking at another market to enter. There are a lot of different ways to solve some of these setbacks, depending on what the setback is, but I would say being nimble, being agile and being able to move through a setback. And again, I believe these are sort of founder, founder, innate founder traits. I know that I have them, and many people do have them. And sometimes people don't realize they have them until they're tested as well. And so once they're sort of tested in life or in business, then they realize that they actually had these traits all along, or they cultivated them through that experience. But yes, I mean, I would say setbacks are never fun, they're never easy, but they are part of life. They're inevitable, and they're going to happen in any business. So it's really looking at, how can you maneuver around them? And then also, there are times where sometimes you can sort of foresee a setback coming. You can sort of look around those corners and and get a sense of what might be coming out, coming down on the horizon, or what might be happening there might be ripples in the in the pond, that will give you kind of breadcrumbs around what those setbacks might be. And so being able to look at those clues and act upon them, or take action early or preempt whatever is going on that can also be effective.

Tyler Finn 

I also think founders are better than most at dealing with uncertainty or ambiguity. It's something that I've tried to in my own life, right, become a lot more comfortable with, or my own career become more comfortable with over time. I'm curious if there are habits or ways that you approach, like keeping yourself grounded when there's a lot of uncertainty about what might happen, maybe you don't have those ripples.

Monica Zent  

Yeah, I know well, and you're right. You know, in the legal industry, or like most professions, right, there is a lot of certainty, and people expect that degree of certainty. They are often drawn to the professions, in fact, whether it's law or medicine or science or sometimes even Engineering, being able to be drawn to some of these professions because of the fact that there are certain degrees of certainty, and certain things can be binary, and so being able to sort of have that buttoned up, and there's definitely a strong component of my personality Where I like things orderly, buttoned up, very organized. So there's a strong component of my personality, but then there's also another component of my personality where I'm very comfortable with the unknown and ambiguity and neighboring my way through it. And again, I think that's sort of the founder paradox that I've written about, this idea of this yin and yang, being able to be comfortable in both seeking out. For me, it's seeking out order and logic and organization in my life and in systems and in things that I'm doing or working on, but also being comfortable with the uncertainty and ambiguity. And perhaps it's the yin and yang itself, or the balance, that keeps me grounded. I would say I think some of that balance, like a lot of things in nature is inherently healthy. And so believe that perhaps that balance in my own thought process and how I approach the world, perhaps is what keeps me grounded, and then just being a grounded, steady person is important. And I believe that I am, and most founders probably are. But again, you know, we can also be passionate and headstrong and all of that. So there's, there's that component too.

Tyler Finn  

Did you ever feel at any stage pressure to, like, go back to or to have a more traditional legal career? Yeah, I'm just curious about that.

Monica Zent  

Yeah, probably early on. I mean, I would say probably the most stark example was early on when I was in law school, because I had again, then had sort of some entrepreneurial pursuits already, and then I in law school, and then hadn't pursued some of my larger entrepreneurial endeavors until while I was in law school, and then beyond. But yeah, I do remember distinctly in law school, a lot of folks were just there, very much on a traditional path, and this is a long time ago. So back then, there were really only a couple of paths. I mean, it was just you go clerk for a judge, you work at a large firm, and that's what you do, and then from there, you move on. And even in house practice, way back when I was in law school, wasn't viewed as like a destination until much, much later on. So it was a very different mindset back then. And people in school that I was with had a very kind of strict design on what they were going to be doing. I did not. I finished law school the first year of flying colors. Scored really high on my in my classes, and so I went to the dean and said, Look, I'd like to move to Los Angeles. I want to get into the music and entertainment industry. I want to work in I want to work in that space and explore what's there for me. And because I have high grades, and Dean was like, Okay, we'll let you do independent studies. So I was already on my own path by the second year of law school, wanting to kind of do something a little different. And I remember friends in school at the time were like, What are you doing? And this makes no sense, why would you do this? And I was just like, well, I want to do something different, so So I did that. So I've been usually following my own path and creating my own path, in spite of what others may be doing at the time. But yeah, it was, it was unusual. It was a leap of faith. It was a bit scary at the time, and many of my classmates were absolutely not doing that at all. And so yeah, I mean this, it is something I've encountered from time to time throughout my life and career.

Tyler Finn 

Are there things that law schools, you think can do to encourage more diversity in sort of like outcomes, like career outcomes that might be more aligned to what folks actually want to be doing with their time, or maybe more aligned to like who people are and the problems they like to solve and and I guess, along with that, you know, you've really helped usher in, or you've helped you've been able to watch legal ops really grow up too right, which I think is one great outlet for people who you know may have legal training and may be very good at talking to lawyers, but but also want to be more operationally minded and program building, etc, yeah, talk to us a little bit about advice You give to people around pursuing slightly different career paths within the law

Monica Zent  

Yeah, exactly. Well, in law schools, I do believe, yes. I mean, I kind of created or forced my own unique approach to how I wanted to do this. And I did not want to just sit in a classroom all day at the same law school campus. I wanted to go. I wanted to work full time, get experience in an industry I wanted to break into and continue to go to school, which I did, and I did at night, on independent study, and then I took some other courses through kind of a sister school. And so I was able to design this path. And had I not had that opportunity, at least by convincing the dean to allow me to do that, I might not have done it but or found another way, but I do believe law schools can look at defining a few different paths, and now there's so much more accessible than there was when I was in law school. I mean in terms of just the technology and virtual learning. I mean, we didn't have any of that. So I believe there's a lot of opportunities to create some different pathways for people that want to be able to learn the law and perhaps even go that path of I mean, I did pass the bar and all that and practice too. So if people want to go that route, if they want to go into legal ops, they want to go into legal Tech, I do believe that there are a lot of different opportunities for law schools to create some pathways for learning and ensuring that people are still, they're maintaining the integrity of the program while still giving people some alternate paths. And then to your second question about alternate career paths? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think the law is a wonderful subject area to study. I think it's a great kind of something to have in your back pocket, if you will. But it can augment so many different career paths. So exactly, if someone is operationally minded, or they're more drawn to business and process and operations, then having a legal ops pathway or even a degree or certification program could be really good. I believe eventually we might even have something that's legal tech, like a legal tech certification type of program. It may be a non-degree program, but something like that, of course, being able to integrate some of these other disciplines in the law school curriculum, and being able to sort of produce people that are coming into the legal profession that have some familiarity with, of course, the legal tech, as well as legal tech and AI, but also legal operations. And so being able to kind of bridge their entry into the market. And then lastly, I would say experience. I mean for me innately, because also perhaps I had early jobs and many work experiences. Even leading up to law school, I was more inclined to develop experience. I wanted to get work experience. I want to be doing things. And part of that's the entrepreneur, and maybe other part is just wanting to be practical, and so I do believe law schools could work on how they can integrate those opportunities to get real life experience for their students, so that way, when they enter the market, they're ready to go.

Tyler Finn

You're also an investor in a variety of legal tech companies. I mean, I've seen a trend of GCS. I've had a few of them on the podcast who've gone off and started their own tech companies or their own businesses. What do you think of what do you think of that? And then I've got a few more questions for you on sort of like, how you think about investing and mentoring other founders? Yeah,

Monica Zent  

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was a legal tech founder as well. Founded some early legal tech companies. I've been around legal tech for a really long time. It's a space that I've always been very bullish on and excited about and involved with. So yes, I mean, mentoring legal tech founders, investing in legal tech founders. I've been a legal tech investor for almost 14 years, so have been around since very early days of legal tech as we know it today. And it's an area that excites me. It's interesting. Obviously, I'm very involved with it. I write and speak on this topic a lot, but yeah, I mean in terms of being an investor, or, like other folks that you mentioned on your on your show that have been general counsels and then gone off and started companies, yeah, I mean, I think that's great. That's, that's, that's wonderful to be able to draw from the domain expertise and be able to create something that solves a real problem that perhaps they've been encountered or experienced. I think that's a great, a great, great formula, basically, for success.

Tyler Finn

What are some of the other signals that you look for if you're thinking about investing in a founder or or in an idea?

Monica Zent  

Yeah, well, a couple things. I mean, first of all, the idea, because ideas, it could be a dime a dozen. So it's really like, what makes but also what makes it actionable? Is it actually solving a real problem? Is it solving a real problem today, many of us who have been founders, and we've had our share of different types of mistakes, I know, for me, some of the early legal tech companies, a couple of them were a little too early to the market, or one in particular, and so sometimes it's going back and looking at, okay, is this a problem that needs to be solved? Is it doesn't need to be solved today? Is it a problem at scale? In other words, it's a problem that's just going to solve for just a very small sub segment, or very small group of people. But is, or is it something that's going to solve and is worth solving at scale to sort of make a difference from in terms of market opportunity and an investment opportunity, of course, on the founder side, I look for sort of that founder archetype, or many times, in my case, sort of the founder paradox, type of qualities. I sort of look for those types of things. I think they're important. It doesn't necessarily mean if you're missing everything, if you're not a good founder, not at all. As I said, I believe there can be a lot of nurture and some of those traits as well. But there are certain things that I sort of look for and a founder that I'd like to see that hit the mark on some of those areas. And then, of course, that, combined with domain expertise, is always helpful or expertise of whatever their background is in terms of what they're contributing. So let's say if they're the CTO, then do they have the relevant background and AI and and so forth, for example. So looking at that, the relevant skill set, background, domain, expertise, founder traits, as well as the idea itself.

Tyler Finn  

What are some of the problems that you think are most interesting to solve in legal right now? Or what do you see out there that you're like? That's a really, really compelling idea. I'm glad that someone's pursuing it, or maybe you're pursuing it yourself,

Monica Zent 

maybe, yeah, there are some really interesting ones out there. I've been really interested in kind of the whole compliance realm for a little while this year, and looking at just managing that beast. Compliance is a beast in most organizations, and it's one of these things that it's kind of a not very fun back office. You know, somebody's doing this kind of work, and nobody's really able to put a lot of systems or process around it. So we've seen that on the legal ops front, but being able to look at it from a tech standpoint and make it accessible real time, leveraging AI and kind of helping to manage these compliance functions. And there are a lot of different compliance functions across different parts of an organization, of an organization. So that compliance realm and tech that sort of addresses that is really interesting to me. Technology that addresses area things around data and data privacy are really interesting to me as well. I believe privacy security and all of that is deeply intertwined with legal, of course, as we know, and also with clients, and they're all kind of interrelated, interconnected with AI. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of AI and everything, but there's also sort of the privacy and security components, so that there's some interesting opportunities there around data and data being used in AI, and what can be done around that. Those are interesting areas that I'm kind of looking at too. And then lastly, I would say the predictive capabilities of AI also really excite me. So things that are drawing on the predictive capabilities of AI in a lot of different environments. I mean, of course, in legal Tech, we have, we have litigation, and so looking at kind of tapping into or unleashing predictive capabilities in that setting, looking at other predictive capabilities in other areas, to get in front of risk and de risk certain things that could be happening in a corporate organization or public entity, those are interesting to me as well.

Tyler Finn  

Let's talk a little bit about AI. I have a follow up there. I'm curious, and I think I put a similar question maybe to David Cowan at one point. I don't love the question, like, is AI over hyped or under hyped, but I do think it's interesting to think about, is the impact going to be on legal and otherwise a lot greater than we might anticipate or be able to envision today, you know, whatever, three years, five years down the road, or, I don't know, is it? Is it not going to realize it's it's sort of potential, or what we think it might be? Which of those camps Do you, do you fit in to? And and and why?

Monica Zent 

Well, yeah, I fit into the it's absolutely going to have a massive effect when I can I am a huge proponent of AI. I love the technology. I'm a technologist myself. I was playing around with early versions of AI and machine learning and natural language processing in the earlier companies that I created in legal tech, and so it's been a space that I've been around for a long time, and I enjoy it a lot. I strongly believe that we are going to see AI be an absolutely ubiquitous part of day to day law practice and how consumers, as well as sophisticated business clients interact with legal services. I built a legal services model that was ahead of its time at the time, along with my contemporaries in the ALSP space, and I'm looking at now, okay, legal services 2.0 and that's obviously heavily AI driven. So to me, I do believe that there we're going to see opportunities where AI can fully deliver upon certain things that we were using human capital to do before I also believe that the lawyers, there's still absolutely a place for lawyers, and that lawyers will work hand in hand and side by side with AI and super agents and so forth. So, yes, I believe it's going to become absolutely part of the fabric of business life, as well as legal practice and law legal work, and it will be something that people will become accustomed to in the same way that they're accustomed to using the internet or … schools things like that.

Tyler Finn 

If you were to advise, and you may be doing this right now, GCS, legal, operations, leaders, etc, on, you know, how do we create a culture that embraces AI, where are places that we should be looking at it today in our you know, day to day work. I mean, how do you answer those sorts of questions, right? When someone comes to you and says, Monica, I really want my team to start leveraging this, but where do I get started?

Monica Zent 

Yeah, great question. Tyler and we do some of this through law Innovation Agency, which I'm affiliated with as well. This is sort of the digital transformation agency, kind of bringing AI and this consultancy to law firms, in terms of law firms, legal departments, public entity, government, legal teams. And so really talking with them about this, and we're having these discussions real time, as you can imagine. But yeah, I mean, absolutely, I would say the first component. And it goes back to some of these early legal ops principles too, that I've talked about, and many of my colleagues in legal ops have talked about as well for many years is sort of that people process technology piece, but it does really start with the people. And it starts with the people in terms of, I would say, beginning with education and training, really educating folks on what AI can do for them, where it can be supportive, what what makes sense in their particular organization and workflow, and educating them on how to think about AI again. I mean, I think a lot of folks have been afraid of AI completely taking their jobs and whatnot and yeah, I mean, we're going to see some of that in larger economy. I believe at the macro level, we're going to definitely see AI take away certain levels of work at lower ends, just because that's what's going to happen. It's no different than, for instance, ATM machines replacing a certain degree of bank activity in banks, right? You know? Or it's no different than certain other technologies that have, that have come onto the scene, and a lot of other consumer environments, replacing certain jobs that people actually used to do. So I believe we're going to see some of that in law, but I also believe that there is still a tremendous opportunity for lawyers, paralegals, contracts, managers and legal ops professionals to interact with the technology and to again, be these human experts working alongside these human or these kind of AI agents, if you will. And that's going to be something that they're going to be doing, and the AI is essentially going to be almost like a coworker in many ways. And so being able to understand that, understand that it's not a threat, it's sort of like your coworker, you're helpful, kind of resource that you're using, and and also understanding the pitfalls around what to use technology and how it can help. But yeah, there's a lot of education to start and then training.

Tyler Finn 

Monica, this has been a really interesting conversation. I like to ask all of my guests the same sort of set of closing questions, because think it's fun to compare across across conversations. My first one for you is what your favorite part of your day-to-day work is. These days,

Monica Zent 

Ok, I would say favorite part of my work. I mean, it's probably something similar to what has always been my favorite part of my work, perhaps as an entrepreneur, which is that every day is a little different. I really like that. I like the I like the variety. I like that every day is a little bit different, and I really enjoy that. It's It's fun, it's interesting. It keeps me mentally engaged. And I really appreciate kind of that aspect of my day-to-day life. And then, of course, the other piece is meeting great and interesting people like yourself, really getting people. I really enjoy meeting meeting people, and I get to come across and interact with so many different interesting people on a weekly basis, and I really enjoyed that as well.

Tyler Finn 

Flattery does work on podcast hosts, but you know, you can do it at the start of the recording and then,

no, this is a friendly show. Um, Do you have a professional pet peeve?

Monica Zent 

Professional pet peeve? Well, let's see. I don't know. I mean, I'm pretty easygoing in some ways. I would say, I mean, lawyers, you know, we tend not to like typos and all that, you know, and writing errors. But that's, that's a lawyer thing. I would say, definitely professional pet peeve. I don't know. I mean, it might just, I'm a communicator by nature. So, I like communication. I like the response. I like to engage. I would say perhaps ghosting is sort of a pet peeve of mine, and in a professional setting, it's not like it happens a lot, but I always, personally, I always try to respond to messages, even if they're DMS, people that I don't know if they've taken a minute to message me. I'll always try to respond where I can, even if it's something like if I'm not going to have any interaction with them, or it doesn't make sense for paths to cross. I always try to kind of provide the courtesy of that. So yes, and I know everyone is busy, we're all busy, possible to get to messages, but yeah, I think that getting the chance to respond is always really important, or connect in some way. And I try to make opportunity and time to do that. So, I don't I don't know if there's any other professional pet peeves I have.

Tyler Finn

That’s a good one that's actually not one that I've heard before. I don't think on on this. You know, for as long as I've been asking that question. Is there a book that you would recommend to our listeners? And I mean, this can be something fun that you're reading right now, or it could be, you know, a book that's been really important to you in your career, yeah, a book you'd recommend.

Monica Zent 

Oh gosh, I don't know I like. There's a lot of different books that I enjoy. And I've been into sort of audio books for some time as well, so kind of into those trying to think what would be a good one. There's so many good ones. I mean, I'm trying to think what I just finished, Bill Gates biography. I'm sorry, yeah, that was kind of interesting. I read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight about the founding of Nike. And again, like a lot of these founder type stories, I've always enjoyed the journey, the struggles, the ups and downs, some of that came out of in Bill Gates's biography, too. So I really enjoy these sort of stories of how some of these companies were created and what's going on and in terms of what was happening at the time, and whether they have, you know, and how they deal with the setbacks, and how they get through it. And so I always, I find those, those human experience. Story is really interesting and fun.

Tyler Finn 

Shoe dog's a good one. I really enjoyed that as well. Yeah. Last question for you, Monica, my traditional closing question for guests, it's if you could look back on your days as a young lawyer just getting started. One thing that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then.

Monica Zent 

That's a great question. I would say, perhaps knowing that's going to be okay, that you're not going to follow a traditional path, but that's it's going to be okay, it's going to work out, and it's just continuing to move forward with your vision. So that, because there was a lot of sort of thought in my mind at the time about what I was doing and should I do that? Should I not? What am I doing? So I would say that, I guess the other piece of it is, yeah, you know, sort of any founder founder wisdom when you're building a team or you're building businesses, to really look at casting those roles right? Making sure that you get right people in the right roles, and that really makes a difference. And sometimes when you're an early founder or young founder, you don't really know this. You're kind of doing, again, building the parachute as you fly down the cliff. You you're kind of learning some of these things as you go and and people are probably the most complex machines out there, right? I mean in terms of understanding how people operate and how they think and how they work and what they're capable of. So I always believe that many businesses, even if you're in tech, there's a heavy component of people that you need to really understand, and so some of that is learning along the way. And I would say, Yeah, piece of founder wisdom might be really think hard about the people that you hire, the people you bring on. Or if you're co-founding a company, think hard you're co-founding with. Do you sync with that person? Do you have complimentary skills to get along? Well, they somebody you like to enjoy working with them. So really thinking about the people on your team. Or if you're co-founding with somebody thinking about that too.

Tyler Finn 

Well, Monica, this has been a really engaging conversation. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the abstract.

Monica Zent  

Thank you, Tyler, it was awesome. I really enjoyed talking with you, and I really appreciate you taking time to visit with me on this show.

Tyler Finn  

Absolutely and to all of our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we hope to see you next time you.

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