 Hi, I'm Naza Greenwood, a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, and I'm heading up the law.mit.edu research initiative, where we are going to be coming out the gate strong with the MIT Google Forum and A&M Blockchain Conference a week from tomorrow in October 30 and 31. And I wanted to ask Shana Hoffman from IBM Watson for Law Team to join me on this to just start to, so you can have a chance to meet one of the main speakers and one of the great organizers that we've been working with and kind of get a preview of, you know, what we'll be talking about and the other organizers that are joining us to make this a reality. So Shana, thanks for joining. Thanks for all the great work you and your colleague Brian Goon have done at IBM Watson for Law. And I was just wondering if you could take a few moments to kick off by just introducing yourself and then we'll get into the sessions that you're going to be leading. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm really excited. And my name is Shana Hoffman and I co-lead the Watson legal practice at IBM. And we're a newer practice for IBM. As you know, AI is a new area. About eight years ago, we saw Watson for the first time play Jeopardy and Win. And so I was watching just like many of you here and I was sitting with my daughter who's a preteen and she looked at me and she's like, oh, that's really cool. And I said, you know what, I'm going to go work for IBM and I'm going to go build robots. And she kind of rolled her eyes and walked off. Within four months, I had moved over to IBM. And my first day on the job, I looked at one of our VP's and said, I'm here to build Watson legal. And he said, what is that? And I started to explain to him kind of the vision of the practice that we have today. And my co-leader, Brian, was right there thinking the same thing. So we, you know, got our heads together. And a couple of years ago, started to look at the market thinking, what is it that, you know, that attorneys are really looking for? I mean, we kind of had our ideas. We went in with some particular use cases. And after over 100 workshops that we did with corporate counsel, with, you know, committee, different types of attorneys, judiciary. We had a lot of government agencies like the Department of Justice that we met with. And we would spend three to four hours just really looking at what use cases in AI and now in blockchain make the most sense for attorneys and what kind of moved the needle to help them. And we were kind of disappointed at the talk use case that came out. We thought it'd be something sexy and fun. And everybody always went into the workshop saying, build us a robot attorney. And we, of course, went left because that's super cool. We love to build one. But what ended up happening was our first few use cases that tended to move the needle the most and kind of fix those pain points in the side for most attorneys were business of law use cases. And so we have come up with a whole division at IBM. And our practice actually handles and manages many of the pain points that come from the business of law like fixing invoices and billing and all that fun stuff. So it's been a fun ride here at IBM. We started out with AI that got into blockchain. And now, of course, we're working with you on trying to really get the message out to the world that AI and blockchain can really help attorneys a lot. And in my prior life before coming to IBM, I practiced in an area called eDiscovery for a decade and a half and managed cases worldwide when it came to a lot of data and everything from manufacturing documents to servers on, let's say, dirtfors in China that we had to go get information from. We were kind of all over the world and really collected that information. And then we would come in as the neutral third party that the judge would ask us, you know, first off, do you have all the data? We usually had to say no. But then second, you know, testifying and providing that expertise in what that data truly, you know, where it was and also said. So that was my practice before, you know, getting into AI and blockchain. Wow. And what a great background that is. People frequently would point to eDiscovery as the initial killer act for AI and for really automated processes in general or data-driven processes, let us say, as a way to consider that a lot can be refactored for digital age. And now we have an opportunity to really look at the process and ask what other parts of the public. That's mitigation of this, contracts, transactions, wills and trusts, you know, claimants, immigration, real estate, all of this information intensive activities that really are alive. Boy, imagine the fund will have, as one after another, they start to evolve and transform. And that's an opportunity we have to begin to look in a deliberate way together at MIT at this forum. The reason we chose that word is it's supposed to denote that old, ancient Roman forum where people come together and deliberate and discuss. And in the fullness of time, in a sense, determine in the bigger body politic a path forward, not that everybody completely agrees or anything like that, but there's a certain public sphere concept that we hope MIT will be a good partner to be able to provide. When you're in law school, we don't really have a core stake in the game of this particular profession, but obviously it can perhaps be some kind of neutral Switzerland of types to convene this type of forum. And that's what we're fixing to do. Now, something that you didn't mention before we kind of close up, I'd like to just draw you out on a little bit, which is when you were pioneering e-discovery, you also were doing a very constructive, real polling, a constructive role with respect to bringing in gender balance in this area of law. And that's something that we're looking to help for you to continue to imbue into how we convene at this MIT forum. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, I would love to. So one of the things that when I was practicing e-discovery, I was, I hate to say this, but kind of the token woman on many panels in the early 2000s. And I would go to the conferences and it was me and my 10,000 most favorite men. And we would get done with the conferences and I'd kind of look around going, not that I was missing women, but I kind of was to the extent of wanting to have a little bit more, I guess, I want to say, I guess more different types of people within the conferences and seeing different genders, seeing the different races and just really a very inclusive type of conference. So I started a group called Women in e-discovery back in 2007. I did not know that so many women would be so excited. We started off with our first meeting in Washington, D.C. with 50 women. By the end of the summer, we had over 800 women. By the next year, we had 2,000 women. And now we have over 5,000 women who get together all over the world. And we meet and really just educate each other on our different specialty areas. And of course, the newest area is being AI and blockchain. As we started to talk about putting together this conference, I was really excited about getting the women leaders in AI and blockchain together. So we have a monitoring and a panel of three of the most amazing women I've ever met. And the first one is Susan Joseph. I had met Susan earlier this year. She has an amazing blockchain background. She's the founder of She-Tech Power and also a former general counsel. She's going to talk about the impact of blockchain technology on developing countries, NGOs, and also the UN Sustainable Development Goals. And so she's got a lot of varied experience worldwide in blockchain and is definitely seen as one of the experts. We also have Michelle Gitlitz. She's with Blank Rome. And she'll discuss AI and blockchain corporate litigation and white collar criminal defense and investigations. So very cool background to dig into some neat things when it comes in, comes to the criminal side of all this. Laura Jell with Baker-Hosteller will discuss AI and blockchain in cybersecurity. So I have a little bit of that cybersecurity background too. So I'm interested to see where she takes us with those discussions. Her background is actually pretty fascinating. She was a former general counsel and she also worked on the Anthem response to a cyber attack that affected over 80 million individuals. So she is a really, really good background. So we're very happy that her CIO had recommended her for this spot. So very excited. Cool. Thank you for... So I just noticed something. I was pulling up the schedule. Can you see this? I don't know what I did here, but it looks like I got... Like I've got Girvinder on there accidentally. So Girvinder, although his wife is coming, he is not himself a woman. I'm going to fix that. We are inclusive. So if he wants to be on the panel, we can always definitely enjoy this. We always say there's no time like the present. Okay. I guess... Okay. Let me just turn it off. Wait, who is the other one again? Oh, do you have Laura? I think I saw Michelle on there. Laura Jones? J-E-H. There we go. Boom. You found her. Okay, good. Okay. Sorry about that. All right. Here. I have a today to disappoint it. Okey-dokey. So that is exciting. I can't wait to go to that panel. If I told like I didn't force... Actually, here's something interesting. I was telling people at MIT, maybe I should have like one woman, one man, just like rule and then different categories for other gender designations. But just for people that say, I'm a man and I'm a woman, one to one, one to one, one to one for this conference. And what I heard back at you is, Daza, not like I didn't know this, but you don't know the first thing about how to do this, which is why I'm asking for your help. I'm so grateful for it. They said that's not... That doesn't get at the underlying deep dynamic and the deep needs for Germany to go. I just want to say you've got all the runway and backing you need to help to make sure that this next generation of technology infusion in law and legal processes of technology can be closer to the inclusive approach that you brought in e-discovery is that that's really what's going to allow us to have a sound basis. I mean, we're speaking with app and app and it doesn't make sense when it's that far, when we're that far up, which is not the social physics of it, as we play in our lab, are skewed, I believe. And so let's not make those mistakes again. You hear what you're saying? Ladies, come on in and help. It's been a lot to talk about this too. It is the perfect place for women to come and really have very good, secure jobs. And so, I will tell you, every woman who has joined us in AI and blockchain and kind of broken through their own personal glass ceiling, I don't believe there is a glass ceiling. I think so often we make our own glass ceilings. So if they break us through their personal glass ceilings and just try something new, they will love this practice area. So often I'm told, no, I can't do it. From people talking about themselves, oh, no, I can't do it. That's your own personal barrier. Yes, you can. Absolutely, because it's like, well, how do you know you can't do something that has barely been invented? Exactly. I mean, come and co-create the future and then show others how to do it. That's the opportunity we have right now. And that's what we're going to get to talking about on October 30th and 31st. And how do you sign up at mitlegalforum.org? And speaking of which, you might have noticed that there was like, we're still working out kind of tweaking the technology a little bit. I take personal responsibility for those of you that hear this and wonder, am I going to the forum? Am I not going? Am I online? Am I in person? Thank you, Dr. Hofstein there, and a small army of administrative ninjas and paralegals that Bob Craig has made available to me and MIT. We're going to sort out any remaining confusion with those people that have signed up on Eventbrite or signed up on Google Forms and signed up on various ways and kind of get some good, clear communication out to everybody. As soon as basically, here's Keith and Rich. As soon as the long term helps MIT sort out my, just like the jangle of different spreadsheets and different inputs that I have. But it really does take a village. And so, to those of you that are wondering that, I'm going to go back into that control panel, you just got a little glimpse of, and sort out the communications tomorrow. And then what we can look forward to after that is on Monday, right now, come back in either in person. If you're coming in person online with a general public webcast, we'll also be taking some questions and have some back and forth. And listen to Shana and listen to Brian from IBM News and the Law and let them talk you through what the rudiments are for how to understand this technology and match it to the business requirements of one and have a back and forth dialogue. Join the discussion. Get involved. Get educated. And jump in to the MIT Legal Forum. Absolutely. Great. So thank you very much, Shana. I can't wait to host you on campus real soon now. Thank you very much. I can't wait.