After Legalweek 2025, I reached out to people I met with for their conference observations. Part one was yesterday, here is part two of crowdsourced Legalweek 2025 observations!
FYI, I’m publishing their crowdsourced Legalweek 2025 observations in mostly the order they provided them to me and splitting them over three posts. Note: some observations are split into multiple paragraphs, so only the last paragraph will show attribution.
As always, there was a focus at Legal Week 2025 about future technological frontiers, but there was also an undercurrent about practicality. Attendees were engaged around functional and realistic implementations of A.I. based technologies in their organizations. Rob Lowe had the right advice, business professionals need to be sensible and “live to fight another day” to maintain their relevancy. Marla Crawford, General Counsel, Cimplifi
This was my first time at Legal Week so there were several interesting take-aways. First, AI was everywhere (not too surprising), but most vendors were talking it about as a product or a tag line and attendees seemed to be focused on use cases and what it enables. Vendors need to do less tech talking and more how it is being applied and the value outcomes of it. The amount of interest in attendees wanting to understand how to best to do remote data collections was significant. What was even more telling was the feeling that they would rather pay per device rather than per collection. Per collection pricing seems like it would be less until you start with multiple collections. It adds up fast.
I heard a lot of talk about risk in sessions and during side conversations – avoiding risk, mitigating risk and understanding risk – in the day-to-day job, as it pertains to AI, everything. It’s as if companies need to have a Chief Risk Officer, which would be a logical fit for GCs, AGCs, etc. It’s not as sexy a topic as AI, but I heard a few speakers talk about the how understanding where your data is and who has access to it, and then understanding where the risk is when you try to manage that risk is/will be critical. The beauty of Legal Week was the ability to host customers in more intimate settings. I hope moving to the Javits Center doesn’t limit the ability to have these informative, private meetings. John Vincenzo, CMO, Exterro
As AI-driven legal tech outpaces case law and procedural rules, practitioners face more uncertainty around use cases, defensibility, and disclosure. Now, more than ever, the legal community needs practical guidelines and risk frameworks to adopt these tools responsibly. Strategic vendor partners — humans helping humans — are key to navigating this shift, aligning innovation with outcome, compliance, and ROI. Daniel Bonner, Director of Client Solutions, Level Legal
Attendance felt up, but more than that, people were genuinely present—focused, curious, and ready to connect. The move to the Javits Center has its upsides, sure, but it also strips away the ease of impromptu meetings, coffee catchups, or quick hotel resets. The current setup offers built-in breathing room; Javits feels more like an all-in commitment. If the goal is to keep everyone onsite (and costs higher), it’ll change the rhythm—and not necessarily for the better. I’m open to change, but time will tell. 😊 Marketing Professional at an eDiscovery Provider
You couldn’t walk very far without seeing or hearing something about AI. What felt different this year was the stories we were able to share about how AI is positively impacting our clients’ businesses as they partner with us in every case – no matter how large or complex. Beyond the AI excitement, I particularly enjoyed the judge’s panel where they got into some of the real challenges our clients are facing, like hyperlinked files and modern data, and shared their observations and recommendations from the bench. We talk about these topics with our clients daily — so it was good to get the perspective from the bench. Kristin Zmrhal, VP of Product Strategy, DISCO
LegalWeek made it clear that AI is dominating the conversation across the legal tech landscape. The marketing focus on generative AI was unmistakable, signaling both intense competition and strong appetite for growth in this space. New AI-powered applications are emerging rapidly, and the e-discovery market appears to be attracting significant attention and investment. Overall, the energy around AI innovation was palpable. Martha K. Louks, Director of Technology Services, McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Generative AI had a proper place front-and-center at LegalWeek25. Last year many of the offerings were new or experimental. This year we found solid offerings of which many legal teams have already taken solid advantage. There is a widespread (if not uniform) understanding of the guardrails that need to be in place to use GenAI for eDiscovery defensibly and safely. Law firms and corporate law departments are using GenAI ediscovery applications to assist with first-pass review, and the all-important metric Time to First Insight.
Filtering out the advanced uses of GenAi, litigators are still focused on the legal issues, time, and cost associated with privilege review and privilege logs, mass collections of short messages, and the technical challenges of associating communications with contemporaneous hyperlinked content. The move to the Javits Center has me worried. I don’t yet understand how New York lawyers and legal tech people will just “stop by” for a session or two or an appointment. I don’t understand yet where 5000+ people will hotel. I don’t see in Javits Center floor plans how to accommodate the thousands of executive meetings that take place in small-ish hotel rooms outfitted with round tables and demo screens. But change we must! Chuck Kellner, Strategic Discovery Advisor, Everlaw
The Morae team has been attending LegalWeek for years, but this was our first time sponsoring. We did this to feature and demo our MorAI family of Generative AI solutions, launched in 2024. Our experience at our first LegalWeek as sponsors was exceptional, notably with a “sold out” demo room every day, even into the late afternoon on Thursday when most others were busily packing up. Next year’s move to the Javits Center seems exciting as it speaks to the growth and direction of the conference, but we will certainly miss the long-time, cozy “class reunion” feel of the Hilton. Hope Swancy Haslam, Managing Director, Morae
Legal professionals know they need to apply AI to boost productivity and improve work product and are uncertain of the best path forward. Vetting AI tools for effectiveness, security, privacy, and adoption by end users is overwhelming. Matt Mahon, VP, Business Development, Level Legal
Legalweek remains the epicenter of connection and momentum in our space. While the move to Javits will mark the end of an era for those of us who’ve built tradition around the Hilton, the energy this year showed the community is ready to evolve. Our team spent the week in back-to-back conversations, offsite strategy meetings, and hosted an incredible evening with new and existing clients — the kind of gathering that reminds you why in-person still matters. Matthew Rasmussen, Founder & CEO, ModeOne Technologies
There were so many people who provided crowdsourced Legalweek 2025 observations that I couldn’t fit it all into one post! I’ll post the final set of comments I received tomorrow! Thanks to all who crowdsourced Legalweek 2025 observations for me – you saved me writing three posts this week! 😀
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So, what do you think? Did you attend Legalweek 2025? If so, feel free to comment with your own observations below! And please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.