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Your Software Won't Win the Trial, with Sara Cordrey
Episode 1231st August 2026 • Elawvate: The Trial Lawyer Podcast • Benjamin Gideon & Rahul Ravipudi
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What if the most powerful AI in your practice still isn't the thing winning your cases? Sara Cordrey, CEO and co-founder of the legal AI platform Parambil, built with chief medical officer Dr. Ralph Horwitz, argues that technology is leverage—not a substitute for a lawyer's judgment or for the medical record itself. Drawing on her McKinsey work analyzing gaps in patient care, she explains how purpose-built AI helps trial lawyers rip through records, reorder how cases get worked up, and surface insights sooner—while never leaving the primary source behind. Host Ben Gideon digs into build-versus-buy, data security, and where legal AI is heading next.

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☑️ Sara Cordrey | LinkedIn

☑️ Parambil | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram

☑️ Ben Gideon | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

☑️ Gideon Asen on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram

☑️ Rahul Ravipudi | LinkedIn | Instagram

☑️ Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram

☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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Sponsored by SmartAdvocate, Hype Legal, Expert Institute, and Steno.

Transcripts

Speaker:

Welcome to Elawvate,

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the podcast where trial lawyers Ben

Gideon and Rahul Ravipudi talk about the

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real issues that come with

the fight for justice.

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So let's find inspiration in the

wins. Let's learn from the losses.

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But most of all,

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let's keep learning and getting better

and keep getting back in the ring.

Speaker:

Are you ready to elevate your own

trial practice, law firm, and life?

Speaker:

Let's get started. Produced

and Powered by LawPods.

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Hey, it's Ben.

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Raul and I started this podcast because

we love hanging out with fellow trial

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lawyers and sharing ideas

that can make us all better.

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And both of our firms also regularly

collaborate with other lawyers across the

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countries in cases where we can add value.

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If you're interested in collaboration or

even if you just have a case or an idea

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that you want to bounce

off us or brainstorm,

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Raul and I are going to be hosting

confidential case workshops the first

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Wednesday of each month.

So here's how it works.

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If you have a case or an idea that you

want to talk about or brainstorm with us,

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just send me an email to [email protected],

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E-L-A-W-V-A-T-E.net,

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or go online to elawvate.net and

submit a case workshop request.

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We will schedule you for a confidential

30-minute Zoom meeting where we can talk

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about your case to see if we can help.

If you feel like there would be good

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value in collaborating on the case

further, we can talk about that. If not,

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that's okay too.

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We enjoy helping other trial

lawyers because we know

someday you'd be willing to

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do the same for us if we

needed your help. So again,

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if you're interested in

workshopping your case with us,

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just send an email to [email protected]

or fill out a caseworkshop request at

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elawvate.net. And Rahul and I will

look forward to chatting with you soon.

Speaker:

Today's episode of the Elawvate Podcast

is brought to you by Steno. Rahul,

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you guys work with Steno.

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Steno is the best in

court reporting services,

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not just in court reporting services,

but even some of their technology tools.

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We're talking about AI a little bit on

this podcast and their transcript genius

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where they can summarize and take

interrogatories based on deposition

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transcripts is so useful. If you

haven't tried it, definitely try it.

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Now we're brought to you by HypeLegal.

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HypeLegal does digital marketing,

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web development for trial firms.

It's owned by our good friends,

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Micah and Tyler. They recently

redeveloped our firm's website,

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so you can check our

website out. If you like it,

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give them a call and they can

help you out too. And finally,

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we're brought to you by Expert Institute.

Rahul, you guys work with them, right?

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We both use Expert Institute because you

always need to be cutting edge in the

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experts that we use in our cases.

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Going to the repeat experts every single

time is going to make you a lesser

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lawyer and you always want to keep up and

the best way to do that is with Expert

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Institute.

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Welcome to the Elawvate

Podcast. I'm Ben Gideon.

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Rahul is off today prepping for trial.

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So I'm going to do this episode solo,

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but really not solo at all because I'm

really thrilled to have Sarah Cordrey

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join us today. Sarah, as I understand

it, is the founder, the CEO,

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and the moving force behind a

new AI product that I've grown

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to rely on and use

extensively in our practice.

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And I can personally vouch for it being

a real game changer for trial lawyers

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and particularly those of us who

do medical malpractice cases,

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I'm sure other types of complex

litigation. So first of all, Sarah,

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welcome and thank you for the product

you've developed. It's really,

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really been of enormous

value to us in our practice.

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Ben, thank you for having me.

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Excited to be on and honored that great

trial lawyers like you are finding value

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out of an engineer's product.

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Yeah, and I don't say

that lightly. I mean,

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we've used a lot of different products,

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including some I've panned on this

very show. We have very high standards,

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but the platform you've

created, it's called.

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One thing that's tricky

is how to say the name.

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So hopefully you can

clarify this for good.

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It's spelled P-A-R-A-M-B-I-L.

And in our office,

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some people call it Parambil and some

people call it Parambil. But what is it?

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So we know for sure. The.

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Crazy thing is it's

either. I call it Parambil,

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but I think the days of companies

trying to name everything themselves are

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over. We let our clients

name their AI agents.

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Some call our platform Par, some

call it Bill, some call it Fabio.

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So I think choose the name that

works for you at the end of the day.

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Damn it.

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I was hoping you were going to prove

me right and someone else in our office

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wrong about that. Where did the

name come from? I'm curious.

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So Dr. Ralph Horwitz, my co-founder

and chief medical officer,

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was very good friends with the

author of an Oprah's book club book,

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The Covenant of Water.

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It's by Abraham Verkees and is

a book that's about this long.

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It's the size of a Bible

for those who are listening.

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And I was reading it during the early

parts of building this company with my

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co-founders, and the setting

of that book is Parambil.

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And it's a place in India and

it's a tiny town when it starts.

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But by the end of the story, which

is really a medical story in itself,

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it's this bustling hub of energy

and excitement and activity.

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And so it felt like a natural name

for a company that went from a

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tiny, tiny bit of nothing to something

really powerful and full of energy.

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Oh, the name's even better now that I

know the backstory about it. That's cool.

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So tell us a little bit about

yourself. What's your background?

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How did you get into this industry

and have interest in trial, law,

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AI type platform?

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I'm originally from Miami, live in

New York now with husband and kids,

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so did the opposite of what

everyone else did during COVID.

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I stayed in the cold. By background,

I'm an engineer. And interestingly,

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I have spent the majority of my career

focused on similar problems that I

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solve now. I remember I was

in an Uber. I was maybe 21,

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22 years old, and I was working for

McKinsey and my code had just come back.

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The results were here. And I thought

I must have messed up the code.

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I must have made a mistake. I've been

building these algorithms for weeks, days,

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nights, and there's no way that

the results I'm seeing can be true.

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And what I was doing was I was working

with this group called Medical Unmet Need

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at McKinsey,

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and we would take these massive

population level data sets across the US

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and analyze care to understand where

patients weren't getting the care they

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should. And then we would

give that information to

pharma companies and they in

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theory would go send their reps and go

help talk about products and all these

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other commercial components.

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But the goal was find patients where

their care is deviating from the

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guidelines, which probably as a med mal

attorney sounds very familiar to you.

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And so when we were doing these analyses,

we would find these huge clusters,

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thousands of people who had clear

symptoms that they needed care,

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they needed an escalation,

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but they weren't actually getting

the care they needed. Again,

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despite going to a doctor's office

multiple times. And so as a young,

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naive person, I thought, how is

this happening? This can't be true.

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And we would talk to

doctors and we'd ask them,

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what's going on in these

offices? And at that time,

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my belief was they just don't have the

information they need. They don't have

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the full patient story. Fast-forward,

we keep working on this,

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and Ralph comes to me and says, Sarah,

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I think that the old machine learning we

used to use is a thing of the past and

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this new AI, this new generative AI

is going to unlock medical records.

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And with that,

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a really rich data set that will give us

insights on patient care that we could

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never have before. And so we started

off, we left McKinsey together,

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which was a little crazy

at the time. And we said,

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how can we bring this new data set to

better tell a patient's story in the

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doctor's office? Obviously, we're

talking today, so that didn't work.

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We quickly realized that the doctors

could ask the questions that they were

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missing at the time. They could order a

lab result, they could fix all the gaps,

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but Ralph had been an expert witness

and he started to talk about how in his

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experience when there's harm in the US,

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that harm is documented in the medical

record. And when you're in a courtroom,

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when you're the other side, you can't

just go request the lab results.

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You can't just go ask the questions

and fill in the gap. Those documents,

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that data become the basis for your

story for the facts of the case.

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And so that was three years ago now,

and we've been deep in the legal space,

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learning and building ever since.

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How did you make that transition to

decide to go into the legal space?

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And what was the first step of that? It.

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Was a lot of phone calls and a lot of

LinkedIn. Ralph came to me and said,

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"I remember when I was an expert witness,

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Ralph was head of

medicine at Yale Stanford.

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He was involved in big mass tort

cases, med mal cases, you name it.

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He did it early on in his career,

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and he was recounting these bankers

boxes full of medical records,

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full of literature from the

epidemiology side. And he said,

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I'm pretty sure this is still done

by hand." And of course, as a young,

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stubborn person, I said, "Well,

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let me go find out if that's still

true." So I personally called hundreds of

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personal injury firms across the US.

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I cold called them and tried to get

them to tell me a little bit about their

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problems and their pain

points. And from there,

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started to really get a

sense of the challenges that

these firms were facing. So

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it was a lot of listening in the early

days, and it still is a lot of listening.

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Yeah. I mean, you can tell

that from using the platform,

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a lot of thought has gone into the

way in which we analyze and approach

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cases because the AI seems to

mirror the way we think about

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a case. Can you just kind of give us a

primer for those who haven't used this

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platform or understand how

it works and what it does?

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Can you maybe give us the 10,000 foot

overview first before we drill down into

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some of the details?

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Definitely.

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And feel free to jump in as I explain

it because you probably know it better

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than me at this point, but the kind of

basic tool is a case intelligence tool.

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And the idea is a case comes in to Ben's

office and we're deciding whether or

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not to take the case.

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So the team dumps all the data they

have about the case into the system,

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whether that's medical

records, intake transcripts,

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anything they have that's documents.

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And the system helps build an initial

sense of is there a case or not?

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It looks at standard of

care, identifies deviations,

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different analyses depending on the type

of law that that case is being reviewed

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for. From there, if

someone takes on the case,

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it jumps into the pre-lit mode and you

start really working up and digging into

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the case. And their firms are able to

build the documents that they need,

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complaints. We've even heard of HIPAA

authorizations being drafted in there,

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and do the work to get that case moving.

And that case is continually updated,

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refreshed as new data comes in,

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and then moved all the way to the

settlement or outcome phase where they're

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closed out.

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So really it's a tool that

allows firms to operate to a

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higher level,

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and it arms them with the intelligence

they need to build case strategy and

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ultimately win in court.

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And just to put people's minds at ease,

what's the kind of security situation?

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Is the platform secure,

HIPAA compliant, so forth?

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The platform is HIPAA compliant.

It is also SOC2 compliant.

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Those certifications

are thrown around a lot.

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What that means is we have an

independent audit firm come in,

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review all of our

processes in our systems.

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They actually bring in an

outside cybersecurity company

that simulates a tax on

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our platform. And every

year on a consistent basis,

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we make sure that we're as

secure as is humanly possible.

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I think that's really important.

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But I think the other thing that matters

from a security perspective is what's

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your day-to-day?

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And we use AI agents to actually

simulate a tax on our system

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weekly and every time we make an

update to the code base so that we're

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constantly preparing for how do we

fortify our client's data as much as

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possible. That's a great question.

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Can you tell us a little bit more about

the company? You mentioned starting out,

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you and your colleague leaving McKinsey,

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which I'm sure was a leap because I

imagine that was a pretty secure and

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comfortable job. So you're taking a

leap of faith there to start something.

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How has that gone and where are you

in your company building journey now?

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Yeah, I feel a kinship to our

clients because we work with many

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entrepreneurs, people who've

started their own business,

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who've leapt into the world and

realized it's on you to create value.

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It's on you to make this business

important and make this worth something.

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And so I think our business has grown

alongside many other businesses,

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which is special. We've been at

this for over three years now.

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We've raised $8 million

in funding from top VCs.

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We have a massive network of top

litigation firms on our platform in the

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many hundreds at this point.

And you asked about the change.

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When we started, we were doing

a lot with medical records.

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That was our bread and butter,

and it still is, right?

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That's the heart of the case.

That's never not the focus,

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but the platform has expanded a

lot within the past three years.

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And now it's doing everything

from drafting documents

to what we'll be launching

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by the time this podcast comes out,

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which is those more CRM-like capabilities

where you're actually automatically

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pulling data, you're giving admins,

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firm-level views. So it's really gone

from a little piece of the puzzle,

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a medical expert within the case,

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to a full engine that is making

every law firm we work with an AI

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native law firm.

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I'm really interested in your thoughts

about where all of this is heading.

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I mean, it's evolved so

fast. Just a year ago,

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we couldn't have had this same

conversation. And even your platform,

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which we've now been on for, I

don't know, four, five months,

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and using it extensively has

improved dramatically over that time,

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and I imagine we'll

continue to do so. I mean,

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firms are accustomed to having

different systems such as you

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alluded to a CRM. We

use the Microsoft Suite,

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so we're using all of the

standard products there and

SharePoint to store some

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and use some documents along with

our CRM to do different things.

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And then we have Parambil to do more

of the detailed case analysis and

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litigation workflow there. But where

do you think all of this is heading?

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I mean, it does seem it would be more

efficient to have one platform that can do

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everything.

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At the end of the day, our job is to

create value for customers, right?

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To help you win, to help you do

things in a more efficient way.

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And you hit on something big,

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which is there's all these

different places where data lives,

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where information is stored,

where work gets done.

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And more and more the

ask from our clients is,

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can you pull all of that into one

central system so that our firm's living

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documents, our data,

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all this information becomes a

rich repository that we can build a

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generational law firm from?

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So I think where every player is racing

to right now is how do we become the

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operating system for a firm?

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And we do that by making

every hard problem that you

face today easier to solve

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within Paramble's ecosystem.

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Obviously,

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there's platforms like Harvey that have

become big within the corporate law

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setting, big law,

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and then there's stories about some law

firms that have exited that and they're

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investing money to build

their own internal systems,

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maybe built on other

platforms like Palantir.

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So there's kind of the go join in

with others with a platform that

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is being developed by an outside

vendor versus the building something

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internally that can be unique to the

firm itself and maybe give them their own

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sort of potential competitive advantage

if they can do something better than

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someone else. But dubious of that since

we're in the business of practicing law,

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not data science or computer

engineering or software engineering.

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But I don't know, where do

you see that battle heading,

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the kind of internal proprietary

systems versus adopting

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or your platform becoming kind

of the standard across the board?

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I used to be part of the, I

don't want to say problem,

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but I used to be part of the problem

when I was at McKinsey where you'd have

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consultants come in and

they'd say, Big Pharmaco,

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why don't you build this

proprietary software yourself?

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Doesn't that sound exciting?

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Doesn't that sound like a secret sauce

that you can tell all of your investors

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about?

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And what it usually resulted in was

a very expensive build followed by an

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ongoing maintenance that never ended.

Because to keep up with innovation,

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to keep the platform on the bleeding

edge requires a lot of work and a

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lot of time. I think it can be

done, right? Kirkman and Ellis,

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I think is what you're referring to.

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And I think they're

spending 500 million on it,

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so you certainly have budget

to do it. But the question is,

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are you winning trial because of your

software or because your skills as a trial

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lawyer? And this might be a controversial

take because I'm a builder of

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software. I think our software helps

these firms get bigger outcomes,

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see information that they

might not have seen as quickly,

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but you are the ones

that are winning, not us.

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And I think it's a bit hubristic to

imply that Parambil's the reasons Ben is

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getting that multimillion dollar

verdict. Sure, Parambil's helping,

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but you're the one that's

winning at the end of the day.

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Speaker:

In addition to Paramble, which is what

I've always called it, across our firm,

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we use ChatGPT.

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Everybody has an account for that

and they use it for certain things.

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I've actually developed a whole

Claude-based project system that I use

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extensively for other things.

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And sometimes I will run some

of my cases through Claude or

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I'll have Parambil develop a

detailed research memo using the

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proprietary nature of it,

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and then scrub it for client identifiers

and then run it through Claude or

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Chat. I'm just curious, I mean,

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obviously my sense is that all of these

platforms are using the same large

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language data sets. That

seems obvious to me,

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but is there still a use case for

using different platforms for different

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things? And if so, how do you

break that down for folks?

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Yeah, that's a great

question. And you're spot on.

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We use whatever foundation models

are the best for the task at hand.

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So we work closely with Anthropic's

team, OpenAI's team, Google's team,

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and we're constantly evaluating and

benchmarking these models and figuring out

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what's the right spot to put

each model within our workflow.

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And let me just say, Claude is

amazing. I use it all the time.

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We have a lot of respect for that

company and the work that they put out.

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I would say what's different is

Claude is a general purpose tool.

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We are very tailored to the types of

work that you and other personal injury

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attorneys do.

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And so that purpose-built component

and forward-looking component helps us

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iterate very quickly towards

the work that you need done.

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So chances are if it wasn't

in Parambil two weeks ago,

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it will be in two weeks.

We're moving quickly on those use cases.

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And the way I would think about it too

is let's say you're going into trial.

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Do you want a part-time attorney on

the case or do you want someone who is

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spending day and night focused on the

same problems and winning that case?

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Frankly, if Anthropic were to turn to

this space and try to do the same thing,

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they'd probably do an incredible

job. They're just not. We are.

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And so we're purpose-built,

we're forward-looking,

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and we're building more and more.

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So chances are if you're doing it in

Claude today and talk to one of our

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engineers, it will be in our

platform soon. How do you think, Ben,

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about these Claude workflows

as a business owner?

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Does that scale across your

organization or do you run into hiccups?

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It's a great question. I

mean, I use Claude personally,

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but we have not ruled it out across the

board to the rest of our office yet.

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Everybody else is on chat

and we use that more for

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routine tasks, administrative

tasks, back office functions,

Speaker:

not for analyzing records

or uploading client data.

Speaker:

It's been great for that.

I mean, for example,

Speaker:

there could be if we're doing

intake calls, as we do many,

Speaker:

many intakes with people who have

potential medical malpractice cases,

Speaker:

we're not going to enroll in a parable

case for somebody who just happens to be

Speaker:

on the phone.

Speaker:

But our intake person can

input data from the call into

Speaker:

chat without any client-specific data,

but just kind of what are the issues?

Speaker:

They had a hip replacement, they had

bleeding, they had complications,

Speaker:

and quickly get guideline standards,

Speaker:

things that can help them

during that phone call,

Speaker:

ask what are the questions I need to ask

during a 10-minute call to drill down

Speaker:

and clarify whether this might be a case

or not. So we use it more like that,

Speaker:

and it's really helpful, I think,

Speaker:

in extending the reach of people who

don't have highly technical backgrounds in

Speaker:

terms of medicine or maybe aren't

as experienced and know what to ask.

Speaker:

Very much accelerates the learning

curve of people doing medical cases,

Speaker:

which is it can take a long time to

become serviceable and being able to

Speaker:

issue spot and analyze

cases. But we haven't rolled

Claude out across the board.

Speaker:

We had been marketing for a chief

AI officer with the idea that we

Speaker:

were going to build out our own kind

of AI structure for workflow and

Speaker:

operations. And we're still

very much interested in that.

Speaker:

We interviewed a really great

candidate and offered her the position,

Speaker:

and then she got a better

offer at a different company.

Speaker:

And so we kind of had to go back to ground

zero on that. That's why I asked you

Speaker:

about the build your own versus

rely on third-party vendors.

Speaker:

I've had somewhat of a change of heart

just because the progress I've seen on

Speaker:

your side has been so great that a lot

of the problems we identified that hadn't

Speaker:

been addressed are now being solved

by other people in rapid fashion.

Speaker:

And obviously you're investing a

lot of time and money to do that.

Speaker:

Why should we duplicate that

when it's not necessary?

Speaker:

What are you hearing from the lawyers

who are using your platform in terms of

Speaker:

what people love about it and what are

the next things people are looking for

Speaker:

they wish it could do

that it can't do today?

Speaker:

Flipping your question order.

By the time this is out,

Speaker:

there are two big things that I think

your firm and others will love. The first,

Speaker:

and clearly I'm not a marketing

person, I'm an engineer.

Speaker:

So if you want to rename these.

Speaker:

By the way, your marketing person,

I think his name is Jordy, right?

Speaker:

The guy I originally dealt with.

I really enjoyed working with him.

Speaker:

He was great, very personable,

not a hard sales guy,

Speaker:

just really nice relational person.

Speaker:

And I've dealt with so many of these

hardcore salespeople from different firms

Speaker:

trying to push products on you. I

really appreciate that. He was great.

Speaker:

I'm glad to hear. As I was walking

out of the office yesterday,

Speaker:

my account executives were discussing

whether ACOG guidelines were a little too

Speaker:

conservative.

Speaker:

Not your.

Speaker:

Typical sales guys. A.

Speaker:

Little water cooler conversation about

the ACOG guidelines. That's nice.

Speaker:

But the two things that I

think you'll find exciting.

Speaker:

So number one is called Power Query. And

it is the idea that you can go in, Ben,

Speaker:

as your firm leader, and ask any

question you want across all cases.

Speaker:

And you can use this to

better steer your ship.

Speaker:

You can also use it to

find potential new cases.

Speaker:

You can scan all your med mal cases and

see if any qualify for a mass tort case.

Speaker:

You can scan all of your data and make

sure that complaints are being completed

Speaker:

in a timely fashion. And frankly,

Speaker:

I can't imagine what else people will do

because we launched these products and

Speaker:

the uses explode. So

that's one, Power Query.

Speaker:

And then two speaks to this admin

component that you were talking about.

Speaker:

So we are integrating with calendars,

with transcription services,

Speaker:

with anything you need,

Speaker:

and we are building workflows

that let you run every part of

Speaker:

your case through with the brain of Ben

Gideon guiding it basically. So you can

Speaker:

go in and you can take a MedMal workflow

and you can tailor it maybe based on

Speaker:

what you've built in Claude and pull

in the skills, pull in the templates,

Speaker:

pull in the documents you want

drafted on demand, pull in the tasks,

Speaker:

and facilitate the way work

gets done for your team.

Speaker:

And also in some ways kind of watch it

all happen and make sure it's happening

Speaker:

to the quality and level you would expect.

Speaker:

That's amazing. Now, what

is that going to be called?

Speaker:

Is there a name for that function?

Speaker:

People are calling it AICRM, but

if you help me come up with a name.

Speaker:

That's a terrible name. It's got to have

something more catchy than that. Yeah.

Speaker:

I'll come up with one. I tend

to be really good at that,

Speaker:

although the name of this podcast

doesn't seem to reflect that,

Speaker:

but that's Raul's. We blame him for that.

Yeah. I mean,

Speaker:

what you just described is exactly what

we are trying to accomplish with the med

Speaker:

mal review section of our Claude workflow,

Speaker:

which is to take the collective

knowledge of people that have decades of

Speaker:

experience doing this

and allow their brains,

Speaker:

the way they think about the

case, to translate to the newer,

Speaker:

younger lawyers and potentially

paralegals so that they're getting the

Speaker:

benefit of our knowledge and be able

to leverage that across the firm.

Speaker:

So that would be amazing to have that

and really to make it personalized

Speaker:

because I mean, we're all, I'm

sure, very arrogant. But I mean,

Speaker:

I've spent a lot of time doing this work

and I would like to think I've learned

Speaker:

quite a bit over the years that has

unique value and that it would be great to

Speaker:

preserve that and be able to hand that

off to others and have them benefit from

Speaker:

it.

So I'm excited to hear about that.

Speaker:

You probably got to that point because

you heard from lawyers out there who

Speaker:

wanted to accomplish that goal, right?

Speaker:

Exactly. Lots of listening.

Speaker:

And I think what's also important is

because we've gone back and forth with

Speaker:

continuously learning system. Our

system doesn't train on any client data,

Speaker:

it doesn't train on any client

interaction. We do not do that.

Speaker:

And we've thought about whether opting

into training would help or hurt a law

Speaker:

firm. And at the end of the day,

Speaker:

you do not want your firm brain

learning from the mistakes or the bad

Speaker:

habits of maybe your newest employees

or the employee that does something a

Speaker:

little bit crazy.

Speaker:

And so part of how we've been designing

this is how do you allow the people with

Speaker:

all the training,

Speaker:

the people guiding the ship to put in

their learnings without propagating bad

Speaker:

habits, as they might say.

Speaker:

Right. I mean,

Speaker:

one of the things as a firm owner

and leader that I constantly worry

Speaker:

about is that in the old days,

Speaker:

we would review paper records and

flag them with Post-it notes and

Speaker:

highlighters.

Speaker:

And then at some point that transitioned

to paperless and we would do the same

Speaker:

thing in PDF form. And we still

do and bookmark our records.

Speaker:

But that process kind of gives you,

Speaker:

it structures your brain to have a

physical understanding of a record

Speaker:

and what the different

components are and what should be

Speaker:

there,

Speaker:

what maybe you can readily identify

as missing that you should expect to

Speaker:

find, how things are organized.

And just like any system,

Speaker:

a record in a way reflects

an organizational structure

and a thought process of

Speaker:

whoever's developing that and the people

that have input into it, the doctors,

Speaker:

nurses, et cetera. It's

more than just paper,

Speaker:

it's a reflection of a system and work

process and thought process. I mean,

Speaker:

even just the selection of what to

go in, what's in and what's not,

Speaker:

or if you have dropdown menus,

Speaker:

what are the options on the menu to

choose from or what populates a field

Speaker:

automatically versus all these and what

data is tracked in a flow sheet and what

Speaker:

data is not tracked in a flow sheet?

Speaker:

And all those things play into your

understanding of how medical care is

Speaker:

delivered in a case.

Speaker:

My worry is that jumping right to

a product like Paramble for newer

Speaker:

lawyers who don't know that,

Speaker:

they don't have the understanding of

what underlies that. But it's also,

Speaker:

I mean,

Speaker:

do you need to train somebody

to do complex division in

their head if they have

Speaker:

a calculator? Is that a good use of

anybody's time? No, it probably isn't.

Speaker:

So just balancing that. I mean,

Speaker:

we can be much more efficient now

and accelerate people's learning,

Speaker:

but where is the balance between

training and real understanding

Speaker:

versus just maybe getting to an answer,

Speaker:

but not understanding how you got there

or why? And does that create extra risk?

Speaker:

And I'm just curious,

Speaker:

you obviously know all of this because

you started out doing the processing of

Speaker:

the medical data in a different

world, kind of like we did,

Speaker:

and then have evolved to this world.

Speaker:

So where do you see the balance there

of real understanding on the human

Speaker:

level and how to interact with the

AI if the AI's understanding is now

Speaker:

exceeding that of some of the

people that are new to this work?

Speaker:

This question takes me back to fifth

grade when you're learning about primary

Speaker:

versus secondary sources.

Speaker:

I think what happens with technologists

is technologists get over eager and they

Speaker:

go and take everybody into

the new world very quickly.

Speaker:

And I remember it was probably

three or four months ago,

Speaker:

we were talking to a great

firm in Connecticut and

they were walking me through

Speaker:

their process. And I felt like I had

been hit over the head with the obvious,

Speaker:

which was as much as AI is

going to help all these pieces,

Speaker:

you're never going to leave

behind the medical record.

Speaker:

You shouldn't leave behind the medical

record. That is your primary source.

Speaker:

That is the fact.

Speaker:

There is nothing like the primary

unabridged version of that data source.

Speaker:

And that actually prompted

us to go back and say,

Speaker:

"We've been spending all this time

thinking about how to ask questions to the

Speaker:

record. What if we just

organize the record in a way

that lets someone go to the

Speaker:

key pieces of the case faster,

Speaker:

but gets them back in that primary

document?" And so to your question,

Speaker:

I think there's a little bit of a

slingshot where you go really far in one

Speaker:

direction, but then you

pull back and you say,

Speaker:

"What are the different pieces that are

needed for this case?" And the medical

Speaker:

record is one that you cannot replace

and you cannot ignore under any

Speaker:

circumstance.

Speaker:

That's one thing I really like about

your platform is they're things like you

Speaker:

can just look at all the vital signs and

we could do that before they're on page

Speaker:

55 and then page 1022.

Speaker:

So you go through an 8,000 page record

and you can flag all of the blood

Speaker:

pressure findings. But with Parable,

Speaker:

you can just say there's a simple flow

sheet that shows you all of the blood

Speaker:

pressure findings at every

point throughout the chart,

Speaker:

and it can even give you a graph to

show those and you can easily spot

Speaker:

deviations or abnormalities.

Speaker:

And you can do that with a lot of the

different lab findings, vital signs.

Speaker:

It just gets you to that answer very

quickly and organizes in a way that's

Speaker:

really useful.

Speaker:

I think you can always click on the

hyperlink and go back to see it to

Speaker:

confirm that that's actually the accurate

reading that's depicted in the record

Speaker:

if you want to confirm it. I've stopped

doing that as often because I mean,

Speaker:

it's always accurate.

Speaker:

And there are things that are sometimes

not accurate that you want to check,

Speaker:

and that tends to be more of a

conclusion or an editorial comment

Speaker:

on something that's in the record.

But generally the actual data,

Speaker:

like the vital sign was

125 over 76 or something,

Speaker:

that's going to be accurate

if it's listed there.

Speaker:

I'm curious about radiology

and fetal monitoring.

Speaker:

So if you have a birth injury case,

Speaker:

you can elect to choose a

birth injury case in Parambil.

Speaker:

So it will do an analysis of all the

electronic fetal heart monitoring for the

Speaker:

baby.

Speaker:

But my understanding of what it's

doing is just reflecting what the chart

Speaker:

indicates the findings were.

Speaker:

So if there was a documented deceleration

or acceleration or category one,

Speaker:

category two, whatever it may be,

Speaker:

it will reflect that. It will give you

the specific timestamp from the record

Speaker:

and then what the findings were

on the fetal monitoring strip.

Speaker:

But what it's not doing is reading the

squiggles on the page and interpreting

Speaker:

that the way a maternal fetal medicine

doctor would. Similarly with radiology,

Speaker:

I think it can tell you what the

findings are based on a report,

Speaker:

but it's not reading the imaging

the way a radiologist would.

Speaker:

And it might be a lot to ask of course,

Speaker:

but it would be extremely useful at

some point for the technology to be able

Speaker:

to read and interpret

x-rays, MRI studies, CTs,

Speaker:

electronic fetal monitoring.

Speaker:

And I do think that technology

is available at some level,

Speaker:

though probably very expensive

at the medical level,

Speaker:

but do you see there coming a point in

the near future where the platform could

Speaker:

do that?

Speaker:

Yeah, great question. So

one, fetal monitoring strips,

Speaker:

and then two on the radiology side

imaging and having a perspective there.

Speaker:

So on the first one,

Speaker:

the birth injury template has evolved

to actually read those squiggly lines.

Speaker:

The challenge with fetal monitoring -.

Speaker:

Well,

Speaker:

that's funny because I asked Parable the

other day because I had it do that and

Speaker:

I'm working on a birth injury

case with it. And I said,

Speaker:

"Are you interpreting the squiggly lines

or are you just telling me what's in

Speaker:

the chart?" And it said, "I'm not

interpreting the squiggly lines.

Speaker:

I'm just telling you what the nurses or

somebody else documented in the chart.".

Speaker:

Sometimes these agents are a

little too scared of legal battles,

Speaker:

but what's basically happening on our

end is there's a separate processing

Speaker:

pipeline for these fetal monitoring

strips that goes through and extracts that

Speaker:

information and then analyzes it based

off of ACOG guidelines to try to get a

Speaker:

sense of what do you think is a true

deceleration versus acceleration.

Speaker:

And then within the notes

section of the platform,

Speaker:

it's actually trying to match up what

was happening from the record with what

Speaker:

was happening in those

fetal monitoring strips.

Speaker:

Because there's plenty of funky

readings on a fetal monitoring strip.

Speaker:

Someone gets up and goes to the

bathroom, someone is readjusted.

Speaker:

And so trying to tie it up to where

was an intervention truly needed?

Speaker:

And so in the notes, that's where

the model's trying to do it.

Speaker:

We have a different agent

than the Ask AI system,

Speaker:

and maybe we need to tell it

that that's what's happening,

Speaker:

but that is what's

happening behind the scenes.

Speaker:

Okay. And if you go to the fetal

monitoring strip tab and look at that,

Speaker:

that's where you're going to find that?

Speaker:

Exactly. It's pulling all the

data out and then analyzing it.

Speaker:

And then you asked about images.

Speaker:

So we recently started processing

images within the platform,

Speaker:

and that created a host of confusion,

Speaker:

a whole world of confusion because

people thought we were handling imaging,

Speaker:

but it really incentivized the

engineers to solve imaging.

Speaker:

And so they're working on DICOM files and

how to process something that is many,

Speaker:

many, many thousands of images in one,

Speaker:

and that should be launched

within the next month or two. Wow.

Speaker:

That would be very useful. I mean,

Speaker:

even just to get a second opinion or

to have a sense for what might be in an

Speaker:

image, because as lawyers,

Speaker:

we're not really skilled as you

can imagine it reading. Now,

Speaker:

sometimes it's obvious, but

a lot of times it isn't.

Speaker:

And frankly,

Speaker:

you can show fetal monitoring strips

to two experts and get two different

Speaker:

responses.

Speaker:

So there's a level of art and science to

this too that we don't claim to solve.

Speaker:

Well, that's great.

Speaker:

What are other things that you guys are

working on now that we might have to

Speaker:

look forward to in the future?

Speaker:

Lots of cool things. Let me

think of what's shareable.

Speaker:

A couple things that you might find

helpful. Co-counsel relationships,

Speaker:

facilitating work when you have multiple

firms together is something that we

Speaker:

just launched. So firms are linking up.

Speaker:

Something in the physical world that

we're doing is a community event in

Speaker:

November that is Paramble customers only.

Speaker:

And the goal is to innovate.

Speaker:

It's to talk to other incredible attorneys

and understand how they're using AI,

Speaker:

what's working,

Speaker:

what are all the things that you could

be doing with AI that you might not even

Speaker:

realize are possible, like HIPAA

authorizations or a bill of particulars,

Speaker:

and then to inform the Parambil roadmap.

Speaker:

So we will have engineers sitting with

our customers as always to listen to them

Speaker:

and understand what they need at a firm

level so that we can make sure that

Speaker:

Parambil is continually evolving as

the technology evolves and as the

Speaker:

needs evolve.

Some of AI is now table stakes,

Speaker:

but we're always pushing on how can

we be better? How can we do more?

Speaker:

How can we create more magical experiences

for the great people we work with?

Speaker:

We do a lot of medical cases obviously,

Speaker:

and we use Parable for

every one of those cases.

Speaker:

It strikes me that it would also have

value for other kinds of catastrophic

Speaker:

injury cases on the damages side for sure,

Speaker:

because you're analyzing the records

and trying to build the damages case to

Speaker:

some extent, medical

records or other things.

Speaker:

Is there a plan to expand

the functionality and

learning out to other types

Speaker:

of plaintiff's cases?

Speaker:

Great question. Yes.

Speaker:

Part of our workflows and our templates

let firms customize the results to what

Speaker:

they need. So we already have

personal injury, motor vehicle cases,

Speaker:

we have trucking templates, we have

mass torts. Any mass tort you can name,

Speaker:

we probably have a template for it.

Speaker:

So the goal is really to

be this flexible system.

Speaker:

I think maybe a mistake on our part is

sometimes we harp too much on the medical

Speaker:

records themselves without focusing

on all that the platform can do.

Speaker:

But that's just because

again, it's where we started.

Speaker:

It's part of the case and we're never

going to stop trying to make that piece

Speaker:

better, but we are servicing

many, many case types now.

Speaker:

And as the case goes forward,

Speaker:

you start to develop the record

with depositions and discovery.

Speaker:

Are you finding people are adding those

documents to the case file and what

Speaker:

are the benefits of doing

that? What can you do with it?

Speaker:

Because we've done less of that.

Speaker:

We use it more to kind of build the

structure of what the legal theories are

Speaker:

in the case. Also,

Speaker:

part of it is it hasn't been around that

long and we haven't used it for that

Speaker:

long. And most of our cases are at

the early phases where we've used it.

Speaker:

So they're all now moving through the

litigation process. What are people doing?

Speaker:

Are you seeing people upload their

discovery documents, depositions,

Speaker:

and then what are the things that can

be done to manipulate or utilize those

Speaker:

through the platform?

Speaker:

The way AI is helping attorneys rip

through data is changing the way attorneys

Speaker:

practice law, even from

a sequence perspective.

Speaker:

We have an attorney down in Florida who

has stopped taking in-person depositions

Speaker:

because she has Parambil up for every

deposition and is asking questions,

Speaker:

going back and forth and creating much

stronger results because she's using the

Speaker:

platform in tandem.

Speaker:

We also have firms that are dumping

in audit logs and they're actually

Speaker:

requesting them earlier now from a

case perspective because now they have

Speaker:

something that can power through them

and find them the insights. Before,

Speaker:

it was a trade-off of,

Speaker:

do I have a paralegal spend two weeks

going through a giant Excel or do I focus

Speaker:

on something else that I need for trial?

Speaker:

And so we see the types of data being

pulled up earlier into a case because they

Speaker:

can result in more. And you asked

about other types of data. I mean,

Speaker:

our average case now has over a thousand

documents because people are dumping in

Speaker:

everything. I had a salesperson run into

my office the other day and say, Sarah,

Speaker:

I need to tell you about the

coolest thing I just did.

Speaker:

And he had a case with a customer

where the person devolved in care and

Speaker:

ultimately needed a hyperbaric

chamber to resolve the injury,

Speaker:

but the hospital's hyperbaric

chamber was down. So the salesperson,

Speaker:

Sal and the attorney were sitting there

and they started dumping in all the

Speaker:

hospital's policies and

procedures, the guidelines.

Speaker:

They're starting to try to figure out

what do you do when a hyperbaric chamber

Speaker:

is down? What is the policy

here? How should you act?

Speaker:

How should you treat this injury?

Speaker:

And by the end of 30 minutes of them

asking questions and staring at it,

Speaker:

they built up a really strong case.

And that's maybe not the most obvious

Speaker:

use case of Paramble, understanding

the hyperbaric chamber outage policies,

Speaker:

but we are seeing things like

this analyzed on a daily basis.

Speaker:

My Facebook feed tells me I can buy a

personal hyperbaric chamber for my home

Speaker:

for only $60,000.

Speaker:

I don't know what it is about me that

makes them think that I'm in the market

Speaker:

for one of those, but maybe I need one.

Speaker:

The challenge with this type of

law, you get a lot of targeted ads.

Speaker:

Yeah. So what you just described

in putting a lot of data in and

Speaker:

an audit trail, for instance,

Speaker:

I had been putting my audit trails

into Claude and having you do that,

Speaker:

but that you're saying that Parambil

would process audit trails and do the

Speaker:

analysis on that's been

educated on how to do that.

Speaker:

We see them with trucking cases

too, right? Trucking cases,

Speaker:

you have all of these activity logs for

messages and interactions that in some

Speaker:

ways look like an audit log and

are just as hard to run through,

Speaker:

but the AI can help not just

review it, but to your point,

Speaker:

understand how that data fits into the

whole case constellation and strategy

Speaker:

too.

Speaker:

Before we end,

Speaker:

can you just give our listeners sense

for how the pricing structure works for

Speaker:

the platform? If people are interested,

Speaker:

how should they go about

inquiring and what does it cost?

Speaker:

So we do the first case

for free. We show you,

Speaker:

not tell you what this looks like.

Speaker:

And then we have firms on our platform

as small as solo shops to as big as

Speaker:

hundreds of attorneys, and we have

pricing that works for every firm.

Speaker:

Ultimately, it's charged back to

the case for most of our clients,

Speaker:

and we give invoices that reflect that

cost so that firms can use the best

Speaker:

tech for their clients. That's

the goal at the end of the day.

Speaker:

So it's nothing crazy.

Speaker:

It costs less than one hour of billable

time and can be the difference between a

Speaker:

$2 million verdict and

a $70 million verdict.

Speaker:

I really do like the way you guys have

developed the pricing structure because

Speaker:

as you point out,

Speaker:

it can be a case cost because it's priced

separately for each individual case.

Speaker:

There is a different price point for

a case review that doesn't have the

Speaker:

full-blown, at least we've been

using that full-blown thing,

Speaker:

but for cases where there's a higher

probability you're going to reject it and

Speaker:

you don't want to be

spending money unnecessarily.

Speaker:

And then once you buy a case,

you can continue to work on it,

Speaker:

it seems like for the life of the case

without incurring additional costs.

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So it's worked quite well for us.

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I keep waiting for the pricing to go up

because I don't understand how you guys

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are making a living over there,

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but for right now it's working pretty

well for all of us who are using it.

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So appreciate that.

Well, Sarah,

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it's so great to have you and thank

you again for developing this wonderful

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product.

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It's really helped us in our practice

and it's helped a lot of our clients get

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to better results.

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And hopefully I'm sure that's the

case for lawyers all over the country.

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And folks, if you are interested

and want to learn more,

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contact Parable and I'm sure they'll

give you the demo and show you what it's

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all about.

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Thank you for being part of the

Paramble community and inviting us on.

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And it sounds like we probably need to

do an in-person training to show you guys

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all of the new things that are launching.

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I think that's one of the

biggest frustrations we hear

from our customers is it

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gets better every week, but now I

need to keep up with all the changes.

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So we're actively thinking about how to

make sure we're offering enough training

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and support through all this change.

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I mean,

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you guys send out weekly emails with the

updates and changes and improvements to

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the system,

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and we actually have designated one

person internally as kind of our parable

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guru, and her job is to read those,

to attend trainings occasionally,

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and then to report back on

what the new things are.

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But actually it would be helpful

to have another firm-wide training.

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So maybe I'll reach out and see

if we can arrange for that. Well,

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thanks so much for joining.

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Thanks for having me.

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Did we rise to the challenge

today? If so, tell a friend.

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If not, tell us what would make

the podcast more valuable to you.

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Thanks for spending your valuable

time with us today. And remember,

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when we elevate people

and we elevate practices,

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we elevate the profession

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