Legalweek 2026 may have been the most unique Legalweek ever. Here’s why this is the image that best represents Legalweek 2026.
The Venue
As I noted in daily preview posts this week, this was the first Legalweek ever to not be held at the New York Hilton Midtown. It was the first one to be held at the North Javits Center. As a result, the venue and where it was located was a hot topic of conversation all week.
For the most part, the North Javits Center was a considerable improvement over the Hilton. That was particularly evident in the Exhibit Hall, where we were finally able to have all exhibitors in a single place instead of spread out over three floors like the Hilton. The hallways were so large they made 6,000+ attendees seem like a small number. In other words, it’s a proper convention hall.
There were several challenges, including:
- Meeting “rooms” were in semi-open places or behind curtains, making it difficult at times to have a quiet meeting. As you’ll see below, it may get worse next year.
- Big expansive windows allowed the sun to stream through, which was good and bad – it brightened the public areas on the fourth and fifth floors, but also tended to make those sitting in direct sunlight rather warm after a while.
- You could take escalators between floors, but had to walk a distance to get to each one – to get from the first floor up to the fifth floor via the series of escalators meant you literally had to walk the length of the North Javits Center to do so. There are more large elevators in the new facility which provide a good alternative for normal traffic (not so much, of course, for larger crowds exiting keynotes or other sessions).
Location of the Venue
As expected, the location of the venue presented considerable challenges. Most hotels were at least half a mile away, requiring a 12-to-15-minute walk (at least the weather was good for most of the days). Offsite locations for lunches and networking events were similarly distant – even for those located in Hudson Yards. Having a group lunch in just about any location required a 1 1/2-to-2-hour commitment, which can be tough when schedules are packed. This also added time when you wanted to move between evening happy hours and events (not to mention walking down some pretty sketchy streets at night).
Those location logistics may have impacted sessions before and after lunch. One example: the terrific “From Deflategate to Deepfakes: Data Discovery with Celebrities and Revised Rules” session (which was moderated by David Horrigan and had excellent expert panelists including Maura Grossman and Jerry Bui) – hot topic presented by experts who provided a lot of great information, yet the room was maybe 20% full.
Was there any silver lining? Here’s one: My Apple Watch has never been prouder of me. 🤣 I routinely closed all my exercise and move rings even before the evening events began – then added to step counts significantly going to those events. On Tuesday, I took 18,898 steps and walked 7.93 miles! I heard that others walked 20K+ steps some days! That’s why the image of rings you see above is the image that best represents Legalweek 2026, in my opinion.
Here’s a proposed solution to some of the location challenges: consider staying at hotels near subway stops on the 7 train line (which has a stop right at the Javits) and consider holding offsite networking events at locations near them too. That could make it considerably easier to get back to hotels and to those events next year. Some people were already staying at hotels near Times Square and Midtown – locations which have many more convenient event spots. I’m going to be pushing this idea all year – it could make a big difference.
Legal Technology Topics
In any other year, the topics being discussed at the conference in sessions and meetings would be the most important thing to talk about. This year, it’s third for two reasons: 1) the venue and location were so overwhelmingly a part of the discussion, and 2) the topics being discussed were (for the most part) SO predictable. AI was the topic of discussion everywhere and agentic AI was a major part of that discussion (even more than the 35 times the word “agentic” appeared on the annual word cloud I published before Legalweek). Other topics, like modern data challenges, were significantly under discussed (though there was a terrific two-part case law session on Monday). Would like to see more balance next year, but I’m not sure we will since nothing “moves the needle” like AI.
As for AI in eDiscovery solutions, I saw several demos and had several discussions with providers regarding their solutions and any new capabilities they have added (or are at least previewing). While certain features and capabilities are becoming “table stakes” (e.g., linking to cites in the documents to facilitate validation, many providers have moved to including AI capabilities standard in their products), each solution has taken a bit different approach to the features provided and each of the ones I saw and discussed has some capabilities that are unique to that solution. Customers will have many choices, and each may choose differently depending on what capabilities are most important to them.
Networking Events
As usual, there were a large number of networking events and a disproportionate number of them were on Tuesday night. I was already committed to four events six weeks before the conference (a big reason why I had so many steps on Tuesday given how far apart they were), then had to decline all other invites, as four events is insane enough! 🤯
My advice to organizations looking to schedule a networking event: consider doing so on Monday or Wednesday instead. While Tuesday is the day with the most attendees, the other days have less competition, which might get more people to attend who are here all week.
Next Year
Three notable developments for next year:
- Legalweek will be held from March 1 to 3 next year. Not sure why they have shortened it a day (perhaps the Javits didn’t have any four day slots available?), but that might make a little harder sell to re-up some exhibitors who had four days of exposure to prospects this year and will get one less day (at presumably the same or higher price).
- The hotel next to the Javits is under construction and may be available next year; if so, that may alleviate some of the location challenges (though I bet it will be quite expensive to stay there and it probably won’t hold everybody anyway, which is why my subway recommendation above still stands). At least some events could be closer.
- I was told by a couple of people that ALM plans to move the meeting rooms which were on the fourth and fifth floors this year down to the third floor next to the Exhibition Hall. That will make it easier to get around, but much tougher to conduct effective meetings given how loud it can be there. If that’s true, I’m not excited about that move at all.
Those are my observations about this year’s Legalweek. Look for crowdsourced observations from attendees next week!
So, what do you think? What is the image that best represents Legalweek 2026 in your opinion? 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 authors and speakers themselves, 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.