Meet Sam.
Sam Harden describes himself as a “lawyer who learned to code” and as someone who is “constantly building and experimenting with ways to apply technology to law.”
Sam’s also the kind of person you want to speak with when you need a sounding board or some help thinking through initiation or enhancement of legal sector knowledge management activities.
vLex asked Sam to join us for the next four months to work through some thorny challenges connected to unbundling our Iceberg intelligence transformation platform. We want to enable other organizations in the legal space to create solutions to their challenges with the capabilities, content and AI components that power vLex retail services around the globe. Sam will help us manage some existing Iceberg client projects, he’ll develop an expertise in using the platform, he’ll develop some prototype apps, and he’ll help create the documentation that will make it easier for our clients to assume greater control over Iceberg functionalities.
But first, Sam’s job is to help us dig deep into the information challenges and opportunities known to law firms, corporate legal departments, bar associations, legal aid and pro bono groups, publishers and legal tech companies. To that end, we’re asking Sam to provide dozens of no-cost, no-strings, no-promotion consulting sessions between mid-August and late-September to organizations that want an expert to guide them through the early stages of defining challenges and opportunities. Read on for details on how to get access to Sam.
He’s not here to sell. By his own (repeated) admission, he’s a terrible sales person. That’s fine with us. We’ve hired him for where he shines.
In prior and ongoing roles outside of vLex, Sam’s focus has been on exploring the end points between the problem and the solution, and figuring out what’s needed to build the bridge in between. Sometimes that means he’s building the bridge, sometimes he’s developing a model, and sometimes just the plans. He is endlessly curious, has no shortage of ideas, and is a natural and enthusiastic collaborator.
These are the skills we want to put to use in carrying out an initiative that goes beyond a landscape survey for information challenges and opportunities in the legal space. Yes, vLex wants to benefit from a deeper understanding of our own business opportunities that will be gained from asking organizations to explain their challenges, but we also think we should deliver something valuable in return for those insights. In this case, that value will be Sam’s feedback and guidance to the organization on how they might move forward in addressing their own challenges.
Schedule a call with Sam — No cost, no strings, no promotion
If you represent a law school, law firm, pro-bono or legal aid organization, corporate legal department, legal publisher or tech business, bar association, court government or other organization that would benefit from some complimentary consulting on your information challenges and opportunities, visit this Calendly link to schedule a 45 minute call with Sam.
What you will get:
1. Expert support on framing your challenge and guidance on identifying the pieces of the puzzle you hope to solve
2. Feedback on your existing efforts and avenues for improvement
3. Examples of organizations with similar challenges and insights on the approaches they’ve adopted
4. Concrete recommendations on actions for your organization to consider
What you will not get:
1. A vLex sales pitch
2. A solution or set of recommendations built around Iceberg
3. Unsolicited follow up from vLex
In sponsoring Sam’s time for these calls, vLex benefits from the aggregate insights Sam brings back from the interviews. This is not an attempt to build a customer or product funnel. For vLex, it’s an investment that will form the foundation of a “Iceberg client pre-qualification” process. Quite simply, after 30–40 of these meetings packed in a few short weeks, Sam is going to be better than ever at helping people describe their challenges and at identifying potential solutions. With these enhanced skills, Sam will help us develop a more effective Iceberg client pre-qualification process that can be rolled out to our sales teams next year.
If you are looking for information on Iceberg and what it can do for your organization get in touch with Colin Lachance (clachance@vlex.com), but if what you need now is someone to help you think through your legal organization’s information evolution from problem to possibilities, come talk to Sam.
No-strings expert advice to get you from ‘problem’ to ‘possibilities’ was originally published in vLex Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.