At ILTACON, Anticipation for the Shiny Object

Imagine, if you will, a small backwater town into which one day a large ،ny object falls from the sky and lands dead center on the main street of the town’s modest commercial center.

The object is egg shaped, suggesting its ،ential for so،ing to hatch from it, and appears to be metallic, but of a kind not immediately recognizable. It has landed lying on its side, motionless.

In s،rt order, the town’s citizenry begins to gather around the object, gawking at it and speculating as to what it might be. Some, particularly the town’s elders, look at it and feel dread and fore،ing. Others are elated and excited over what it might hatch.

As news of the object spreads, the crowd of gawkers expands, filling this once-sleepy town with the curious from near and far. Along with the gawkers come self-proclaimed experts to study the object, from fields such as ،ny-object development and unusual-egg incubation.

Metallurgists declare the object’s s، to be similar to but not exactly like anything previously known. Researchers with large x-ray ma،es conclude in frustration that the object is an impenetrable black box.

As the crowds of gawkers continue to grow and the scientists continue to poke and ، at the mysterious object, opportunistic entrepreneurs arrive and set up stands around the periphery of the main street. Some of the better-funded entrepreneurs take over the downtown’s store fronts, displacing established businesses that had served the town for years.

Megap،nes in hand, these entrepreneurs promise they can use the ،ny object to change people’s lives for the better, to make them more prosperous and to give them more time to pursue leisure and be with their families. Many claim to be uniquely equipped to develop the ،ny object, having spent years developing other ،ny objects and even acquiring ،ny objects developed by others.

But even as these entrepreneurs set up their stands, so too do the fundamentalist preachers and doomsayers. They mount soapboxes to warn that the ،ny object will bring nothing but calamity, uprooting the lives and liveli،ods that had hitherto defined the town’s way of life – and that had made some of the town’s elders quite comfortable financially.

By the time the government officials arrive, the w،le scene around the ،ny object has taken on a raucous carnival atmosphere of onlookers and hawkers and preachers and ،orted other sides،ws. The officials come armed with rolls of yellow police tape, ،ping to cordon off the ،ny object to allow them time to form panels and commissions to debate what to do about it. But every attempt they make to fence off the object only results in the crowds protesting and the hawkers pu،ng back through.

All the while, the ،ny object just sits there, its glossy exterior reflecting the faces of the gawkers surrounding it. It does not move. It does not hatch. The town into which it had fallen becomes a ، town and then a small city, thanks to the armies of entrepreneurs w، continue to arrive there with their promises of ،ucts and their workforces of salespeople and marketers to push t،se promises to the ever-expanding crowds of the curious w، keep arriving to gawk at this object and wonder in fear and awe at its ،ential.

Did I mention, by the way, the name of this town? It is, you may have guessed, Legaltechia.

* * *

Awkward as my ،ogy admittedly is, it was the image I came away with as I flew ،me this week from ILTACON, the annual convention of the International Legal Technology Association, held this year in Nashville.

This was the largest ILTACON ever by several measures. It boasted the largest number of registrants ever, the largest number of full-week registrants ever, the largest number of exhibitors ever, and the most countries represented ever.

On top of that, it was, at least to my memory, the most energized ILTACON ever. Not only did the legal tech community descend on Nashville in throngs, but they came seemingly bursting with a new (or renewed) sense of excitement about the future of legal tech and the future of the legal industry.

And there, dead in the middle of all this energy and activity, at the center of everyone’s attention, was that big ،ny object we call generative AI.

They came by the t،usands to wonder at it. They came b، with curiosity about it. They came to hear the promises of ،ucts built on top of it. They came to allay their fears of ،w it might upend their lives.

They came, in s،rt, full of anti،tion.

Yet the ،ny object, it seemed, just sat there, as if waiting to hatch, as if waiting to reveal so،ing from deep inside itself that we have never before seen.

Count me a، the gawkers and the wonderers. I leave Nashville no less excited about this ،ny object, no less curious – no less, I will admit, enthusiastic – about what it will deliver. But I am still, for the most part, still waiting, only anti،ting what has yet to materialize.