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Atty. Robert Plotkin: [00:00:00] technology moves so significantly and quickly. We pretty regularly revisit the technology systems we have, and we're always looking to improve what we're using for our own internal efficiency and effectiveness for, Helping us catch errors, but also for streamlining how we interact with clients.

And because our clients are tech companies, they really appreciate. I would almost say require us to be using technology, to work with them.

​

MPS: Hey law firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered Podcast. Today we've got a super exciting episode. I'm your host MPS and we're joined by attorney Robert Plotkin. Super excited to have him on today. Learn a little bit more about his journey and also maybe get a bit of an inside scoop of technology and software and maybe we'll see what Robert wants to take us some AI and law and how that may [00:01:00] be Changing the legal landscape a little bit, but Robert, first and foremost, thanks on

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Michael

MPS: to have you.

today

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Thanks so much, Thanks for having me here.

MPS: Of course. Hey one of the things we like to do around here is break the ice a little bit. So what's maybe something that not everybody about you?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: my journey into patent law and obtaining patents for software started when I was a kid. I loved programming. My first computer I worked with was a TRS-80 back in the early 1980s. Programming in BASIC, so maybe people wouldn't know that. And My first computer at home was an Atari 800.

MPS: Nice. All right. So you had an early start to programming, huh?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah

MPS: what about programming caught your eye?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: you know, the first time I wrote a program that printed my name, I was just amazed at the ability to write instructions that could control a machine and make it do what I want it to do. Using words, you know, fast [00:02:00] forward basically 40 years to the launch of ChatGPT and it's so exciting to see the general public re-experience that kind of excitement of being able to use now natural language.

To not just ask questions, but give instructions and have tasks performed by a computer. That's what got me excited. Back then, you had to learn a programming language to do it. But that really started my love affair with computers that's continued ever since.

MPS: Yeah. I mean, look would love to branch into ChatGPT a little bit in this episode and maybe just AI and the legal landscape, but it's got me fired up. It's super exciting. I love all that you can do. and I think it could play a really crucial role for a lot of firms out there if they use it properly to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

And really just about every aspect of workflow in the firm. But I'm curious. So technology was kind of that, first point for you, which is awesome. And I think you were starting at a good time because the ride of technology has only grown and grown and [00:03:00] grown, but where did you make that turn into walk into law?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: You know, when I was in college, I studied computer science at MIT when I started there, I thought I'd be going into a career in software development, but then I started to find, I didn't think I was going to want to be spending my days in the depths of the details of coding. But I wanted to keep my hands in the technology world.

I always loved writing, making arguments that kind of thing. There were some people I knew who suggested law. It sounded really intriguing to me. And so I ended up going to law school. I knew I would be doing some sort of technology law. I didn't necessarily know it would be patents, but when I graduated from law school, software patents were just exploding at that time.

And so I got a job at a patent law firm. Handling software patents, and that's what I've stayed with ever since.

MPS: Got it. And I know we talked pre-show so I, know you started working for a couple of firms and then you started to branch out onto your own. So why don't you take us through [00:04:00] the high level or the high points of your entrepreneurial law firm owner?

journey to

Atty. Robert Plotkin: did work for 2 firms for about 3 years. I mean, actually, not all that long in the scheme of things, but I just had drive. You would say to do things on my own. I felt right or rightly or wrongly that I could do things better. And that I was capable of doing it successfully. Maybe when I look back at it, I think is a little crazy, but you know what?

It's worked out. It's worked out quite

MPS: Right.

Atty. Robert Plotkin: And in patent law, as in many fields, you know, clients are working primarily with a single lawyer, whether they're working with a solo practitioner or at a thousand person law firm. It's that one lawyer they're working with. So, You know, I've built up my reputation on being someone who provides really high quality, personalized attention and it's paid off.

I mean, now I'm in a small firm, me and a partner, 2 of us, and we're planning to grow a little bit, but I know no matter what size our firm is, [00:05:00] it's going to be that personalized attention. That's going to, be the value of have to offer.

MPS: do you guys given the interest level you have in technology have you always been a tech first law firm? Have you always incorporated technology into everything you guys do?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah. In fact, you know, I was a solo practitioner for many years, always use tech. But when we formed BlueShift IP back in 2017, we took that opportunity to build it as a tech first law firm to revisit all of the technology systems that we were each using. solo practitioners, and we kept some of the systems we were each using individually.

We replaced some of them and we really did build it from the ground up. But, you know, technology moves so significantly and quickly. We pretty regularly revisit the technology systems we have, and we're always looking to improve what we're using for our own internal efficiency and effectiveness for Helping us catch errors, but also for streamlining how we interact with [00:06:00] clients.

And because our clients are tech companies, they really appreciate. I would almost say require us to be using technology to work with them.

MPS: very interesting that you say that because a lot of firms, as you know, at least consumer based don't really work with tech companies. So it's more of a luxury. I think if a firm has technology built in, you're speaking to one of those firms that are kind of in that period right now, where.

Either they're new or they're in a bit of a rut and they're looking at technology and how it might be able to help the firm. I first want to ask, was there a crucial piece of technology for you guys were first getting off the ground that you're like, I, every firm cannot live without this piece of technology.

You got to start here.

Atty. Robert Plotkin: You know, a few. Everyone uses email, of course, but whatever method you use to communicate with clients, that's really crucial. You know, email is still really dominant among law firms. Some firms do use other sorts of messaging like Slack or systems of that kind. [00:07:00] But I guess the key thing internally is whatever you're going to use for file storage.

I mean, that's an organization. It's interesting that when you store things electronically, if you don't do that in a smart way, it can be harder to find things and on, on paper. And although you might not lose things like you went on paper, if you can't find them they're almost as if they're lost.

So you need some method of whatever your, file management or document management system is, you need to plan it out. And use it that way. So, those are the two things I would say. Document assembly for law firms is really key. It's a very old technology, you know, for creating documents, but so many law firms like ours, the, our bread and butter is creating documents and creating many forms of.

whether it's to clients or to a court or for us, the patent office being able to create and fill in documents, you know, automatically reliably is just [00:08:00] super important for efficiency and to keep the firm running. I guess those are the three.

MPS: Yeah, no, I mean, all essential, right? I mean, all play like a foundational role in, technology for a firm. And you're absolutely right on the file search when you don't have good organization of files it could be a pain trying to dig through and find stuff

and you're right, almost like if you wrote it down and forgot where it is, as if it's not there, we've experienced that before, so I

Atty. Robert Plotkin: I, and I'll say other one other thing, cause I'm still, I would say amazed when I, you Speak to lawyers who aren't using some sort of automated timekeeping system, you know, there's so much out there. Everything's available on your smartphone. If you happen to be a lawyer, that's out and about all the time.

You know, I happen to generally be at my desk. So I can use. Desktop software, but I never write down time manually. I'm always using software with timers to track my time, record my time. And then we can generate invoices automatically. I [00:09:00] still speak to lawyers who say that generating invoices is a real burden for them.

It's, time consuming. They lose time. There's really no reason for that to be the case anymore with all of the integrated timekeeping billing systems out there.

MPS: so many tools out there to be able to start using that. I agree with you. I mean, it just takes, a pause moment, right? Where they just have to pause and be willing to look and find one and just start to implement it. And although it, chews up a little bit of time, you know, investing in research, the moment you do it, you start to gain back some of that time from an invoicing front and from a time management perspective.

No, that's great. I think that's really helpful. And look I know when we were talking pre-show a big part of this show is kind of speaking to the business side of law too. And, so I, I'm curious in your journey as a law firm owner. They're usually called a journey for a reason because there's highs and there's lows.

What was along that path, maybe a low point, and what's something [00:10:00] you took out of that point?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: yeah. A key one was I would say after a few years as a solo, I started to strain under success, you know, the, I was growing I was taken on more and more clients. I was doing more and more work getting busier. And as a result, I started to take on more expenses. I was hiring people. I got an office, you know, so those fixed costs started to go up.

Time needed to supervise. And I realized at some point I am working more and more. I am billing more and more, but I'm earning less somehow. How did that happen? So it's a common problem, right? I would say you can fail from failure, meaning you don't get enough clients, you don't bill enough and you just fail because you're not pulling them, but you can fail from too much success, which is you can't manage the growth. And if you don't know how to manage the growth, you're going to fail from being too successful in that regard. And that's where you need to have some ability to learn how to manage the [00:11:00] business. And I'll, this is going to maybe be a theme for the remainder of this conversation for lawyers. You know, that doesn't mean you have to personally learn how to do it on your own.

You know, lawyers have a mindset that they need to be the problem solver. You can. Hire a manager. I've worked with a business coach for many years. In fact, the impetus for doing that was this situation about 5 years into my solo practice was, I don't know how to get out of this where I'm working more generating more revenue but having lower profit and I hired a business coach.

So, you know, lawyers out there. It's not failure to reach out to other people.

MPS: No you, I mean, wow, you just brought up several really big topics within that which is, You know, we don't often talk about the other side of the coin, right? And the other side of the coin being there's growing pains involved when you do grow. A lot of firms are figuring out do I even get to that point, but some firms don't consider, okay, when we do get to that point, do we have the Systems and structures in place to be [00:12:00] able to facilitate the growth.

So said you brought on a business coach, which I'm sure brought some practical implementation, which is great. And I think being able and willing to reach out is helpful. I'm curious. what led you to actually take that step of reaching out because you brought up a really good point in that lawyers really like to figure out how to do things on their own, which is not a bad thing, but it's usually very tough and it's a big chasm for them to cross to be able to reach out and ask for help.

So what did that for you? What led to you being willing to do that?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: said, it was me reaching the point of just like looking at the numbers, seeing that I did not, I knew I had skills as a lawyer. I thought I was a really good lawyer. My clients are really happy with me. But there was another aspect to what I was doing, which was the running of the business where I had reached the limits of my skill and ability.

I went to school as an engineer, computer scientist, and a lawyer. I never went to business school. None of those [00:13:00] places taught me how to run a business. And so I realized maybe it was some degree of humility or just the pressure of the situation that pushed me. To do it you know, I don't know why I do speak to some other lawyers who aren't able to make that mental leap.

And some of them end up going back to a big firm or to some other situation, you know, where they don't have to have that responsibility of managing the business side of things. So, I can't say what caused me to do it other than that. And it turned out to be a really good starting point for, you know, that was 15 years ago.

And I've been able to grow the business. Change the scope of it and the structure of it in various ways over time. And that was really helpful.

MPS: No, think you're spot on. I think you get to a point where, you know, reality hits, right? have a choice, right? You have the choice to either, you have a couple choices. You can reach out for help and try to figure out how to grow and grow profitably. You can decide to keep it small and keep it all and kind of wind things back a little bit.

Or, you know, for some lawyers it's. [00:14:00] Canceling it all and just going back and getting a job, right? So everyone has that choice to make from a practical sense. Like I said, I know you reached out to a business coach. What is one practical thing did as you started to grow and you hit that point?

Like, what was one of your first steps to try to solve that growth?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: I mean,

MPS: some, of that

Atty. Robert Plotkin: none of it's a rocket science. I think when I remember one of the first things my business coach had me do was just. Look at the revenue and look at the expenses and take a really, really close look at all of those things. Do some triage, right? Where are there? Where's their low hanging fruit on expenses that can be cut?

Where's their low hanging fruit for some big additional revenue that can be brought in? And then another thing we did, which was something that somewhat came to me naturally. Which was look at the systems you mentioned systems, you know, and I say somewhat came to me naturally because I am an engineer by training, you know, I like thinking about designing systems, but we started looking where are the ways in which we [00:15:00] can make things more efficient and how the business is being run.

Some of that was through technology. Some of it was through. Updating procedures, documenting procedures there was a lot of that. So it was a mixture of all of these different things. And I'll just say one more thing, which is that maybe in the past, and I say 30, 40, 50 years ago, lawyers were in a fairly fortunate position that they could charge enough that there wasn't a lot of competition.

The rates were high enough and they could solve these problems just by, I would say, spending more get a bigger office, hire more staff and things would kind of work out in terms of earning enough Profit to keep the business going. Everyone is under so much more competition now domestically internationally from outsourced legal services, from use of technology, lawyers are no longer in that luxury position, I would say to just solve these problems [00:16:00] by throwing money at them necessarily.

And you actually have to know how to run a business efficiently. Much like many other businesses do.

MPS: it's very refreshing to hear that because we oftentimes when we first meet with a firm, most lawyers don't necessarily see their practice as a business. And I'm curious for you, when you started your practice, did you always see it as a business from the start?

Or did you kind of, reform that mindset as you were in it?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah,

Yeah

I definitely reformed it over time. When I started, I saw it as Robert, the lawyer providing services to my clients, you know, and The change happened gradually. I actually remember my business coach. One of the first things he did was share a book with me. Maybe you've used it or heard it.

It's called what's called the E-Myth

MPS: Yeah, absolutely.

Atty. Robert Plotkin: And I think one of the reasons he shared it is he It tells a story of a business owner, and I think they use the someone who makes pies, you know, not a lawyer because it's a very common trajectory. [00:17:00] Someone who has a specialized skill. They're really good at doing something and they decide, let me do this as a business.

And I'm going to start selling my legal services, my pies, whatever it happens to be. And then they reach that point. That I reached, which is that they're grown to the limit. And so it was, I would think, I say refreshing in a way, normalizing, validating to see there's nothing wrong with me in a sense. I didn't do anything wrong.

This is just the normal process of growing a business. And when you reach that inflection point, it's true for any business. Here's the things you need to do. And so. That maybe was the beginning of starting to change my mindset to see what I was doing as a business. And I need to structure the business so that I working within that business, I'm one part of the business, but I am not personally the business.

MPS: That's a very refreshing mindset. Yes. And that's very good. And was it during that same period of time? Is that when that mindset

shift [00:18:00]

for you?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, for lawyers, there can be a bit of a challenge.

Maybe ego isn't the wrong word, but you have to find a way to let go

Of a certain attachment you might have to having sort of control over everything or seeing yourself as

The top of the business.

That's almost,

I think lawyers cling to that as a way of seeing themselves as valuable when actually in, practice, it's really limiting it limits you

From growing more and from growing the business actually even limits you from being able to have control over what you spend your time doing within the business, right?

If you don't start seeing it as a business that you're structuring, and then you have a role within it. You're going to, I would say, doom yourself to always having to do everything. And unless that's what you want to do, now I would say, like,

Metaphorically licking the stamps on the envelopes that go out the [00:19:00] door, right?

Or the digital equivalent of it. Now,

You have to start seeing it as a business. Then you can free yourself to doing within the business. What it is you want to do or best at doing,

Within that business.

MPS: You put that very eloquently. I mean, to your point, you really can't achieve, achieve. personal and financial freedom from your firm until you start to view it as a business because you'll forever be in every role and it's just difficult to achieve that freedom point because if you're wearing every hat that means you're likely putting in a significant amount of hours every week

And it's hard to ever escape that right and achieve the freedom point but tip my hat to you because it sounds like

You made that shift

And you made that move

Which is awesome.

one thing I was very curious about coming on today.

Usually I see people in two camps with this one. I see,

From an AI perspective, I see some that are like, ah, no, this is just another thing. It's a phase. It's not that big of a deal. And then I see some people that are like, no,

this is, [00:20:00] fantastic.

This can really be a lucrative tool. I'm really excited about this. Which one of those

camps do you fall into?

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah, I am in the, it is really valuable and real as long as you understand its strengths and its limitations and you spend time developing the skills to use it,

Effectively, efficiently and responsibly. It's like any other tool, you know, people forget that when the web started, people had the same debates about Google and Wikipedia.

Yeah. You know, there were lawyers who were saying, I'll never ever use Wikipedia because it's not a hundred percent there is a valid point within that, which is that when you go to Wikipedia, if, depending on the purpose you're using it for, you may need to verify its accuracy. But that doesn't mean you would never use it for any purpose.

And you can find lots of inaccurate, Or just irrelevant information [00:21:00] on Google. And of course, those lawyers who back in, you know, 9 4 said, I'm never going to use it either went out of business or they've changed their minds.

to

MPS: Hmm.

Atty. Robert Plotkin: And the same thing applies AI. It's a bit more extreme with AI because a tool like chat GPT, I would say, can produce output that is more.

Almost deceptive.

It may appear to be a more valuable or reliable than it is because it can be more directly responsive to what you asked it for. It looks as if it's a really knowledgeable person when it isn't always, but again, that doesn't mean just like Google or Wikipedia or a spell checker.

Which even a spell checker is not always accurate. Sometimes I have it correct. It's and put an apostrophe in there when it's wrong, right? But it doesn't mean I don't use them. You have know what they're good at, what they're not good at, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to get the best out of them.

And it's the same, actually the same with AI. It's a [00:22:00] somewhat different set of. Skills you need to learn, but if you can learn them, you can make really good use of it.

MPS: So there's a million and a half different use cases for AI right now. Right. But

You're talking to firms out there that are trying to understand it and try to understand where it can play a role in their firm. Where do you see AI fitting in, at least from an initial sense in a law firm?

Where,

do you see its highest and

best now Yeah now?

use right

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah i'll try to speak as generally as I can because we're a patent law firm, but i'll speak generally beyond that

It's very good now And when I say it most of us when we talk about ai now we are talking about ChatGPT like systems things based on large language models It's quite good at summarizing large documents Again, as long as you understand the summaries may not be a hundred percent accurate, but just like if you had an assistant,

You say to them, tell me what the gist of this 100 page [00:23:00] document is, and you know that the summary they give back to you its purpose is to spare you the time of reading the whole thing to give you a good general idea of what that document is about.

These systems are

Really good at that.

They're good at often rephrasing things in a different tone to be better suited for a different audience for a lawyer. That might be, you've written something that a lawyer would understand and you want to rewrite it in a way a client would understand.

It's really good for that. Those kinds of purposes, rephrasing.

There's some really good tools out there now for doing contracts. I mean, you know, what a bane of lawyers existence to review a really long 100 page contract to find out if there's a clause missing. It can do a good initial pass for that kind of thing.

Make spot thing, make suggestions.

For what might be missing, what you might want to add, what you [00:24:00] might want to remove from a contract searching again. It's not completely accurate, but in my field of patent searching,

There's a increasing number of really good tools out there for finding,

Search results.

In all of these cases, it does the initial job as long as you don't rely on it blindly.

It can be really valuable for all of those purposes.

MPS: that's a very good way to put it,

I think still got to double check, right? It's always important to double check. I don't know if we're at the point where it's quite there that you get a hundred percent rely on every little thing. I think we still have to double check. And,

Obviously the big question I hear

a lot, of time nowadays is,

Firms that choose not to adapt, or adopt AI in any way.

Do you find that to be,

Troublesome? And do you think that could be potentially,

Dangerous for those types of firms? Or do you think we're at a point still where it's not that big of a deal and if they never adopt AI,

they're gonna be

Atty. Robert Plotkin: I

MPS: be [00:25:00] fine?

fine

Atty. Robert Plotkin: think their time is gonna be limited.

And I,

It may vary depending on the field that the firm is in or who their clients are.

But,

Over time, there's going to be more and more pressure on lawyers because. There's usually two different directions that it comes from either a new technology enables individuals or companies to start essentially substituting for lawyers.

Think of LegalZoom right? are services that enable people to. Engage in self help, provide the equivalent of legal services to themselves without hiring a law firm. That's one direction.

The other direction is that law firms will be facing competition from other law firms that use AI internally.

So those two competitive pressures are going to build up you know, over time

more and

More and more. So there'll come a point at which, you know, those firms who don't adopt AI, I think are going to be at a

real,

real disadvantage. When will that happen? Is it going to be this year or 10 years or how is it going to [00:26:00] play out?

I don't know, but it

MPS: Yeah, couldn't agree with you more. think it's something that every firm should at least start the foundational blocks of implementing and learning starting to understand it so that way, as it continues to evolve, because that point will come, I believe.

They're ready and they're prepared and they've already got it started to rock and roll in their firm this has been really good.

Robert. has been very valuable and helpful

I always like to ask

What's got you fired up and excited today? It could be business it could be

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah

MPS: be both

personal

Atty. Robert Plotkin: It's AI,

And really for us, it's about obtaining patents for our clients on the new innovations they create within the world of AI,

Because we're patent attorneys,

Who obtained patents for software. We're working with clients who are improving on AI technology all the time. And so it's very exciting to work with those clients.

We're getting to see. New,

Improvements to technology well, before they hit the market.

And we're working with clients to obtain a patent [00:27:00] protection for those technologies. So

that's, super, super exciting for me. I'll just say that I've been working with AI and its impact on the patent system for a long time.

I wrote a book about that. In 2009, it was called the genie in the machine. It was about how AI was being used to automate the inventive process and the impact of automated inventing on patent system. Not that many people paid attention to that book back then. So

you little early

MPS: a little

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Yeah,

it was a were a you were It was about 5 years too early. But I was off by another 10 years probably in my prediction. So it's, edifying, it's validating, and it's really exciting now to be living this out right now and to be working with clients doing this.

MPS: And I'm sure you get, and I know we talked a little bit about this pre-show but I'm sure you get to see a lot of really cool technology and software come across your desk. And I can only imagine what's in the pipeline of getting ready to come out with as quick as stuff is moving.

I'm sure you've got some fun stuff in that pipeline.

Atty. Robert Plotkin: [00:28:00] Absolutely. And for lawyers out there, you know, we talk about adopting AI. Remember the AI you see now. is where it is now. It's improving all the time. And all those concerns that lawyers have about accuracy and everything else, technology companies are working very aggressively on addressing all those things.

So it's another reason to do what you said, start getting the groundwork in place now, because a lot of those concerns you have as a law, a lawyer may be addressed in a year. Or two. So you'll be ready to jump on it. And if you don't, your competitors are definitely going to jump on.

MPS: Well said. Very well said. Well, Robert this has been very good. I appreciate you, sharing this. I think there were plenty of lessons to pull from in this episode between you and the firm as a business, which happens to become or happens to be a trend in this show. We see a lot of that transformation of lawyers that go from practice to Viewing their practice as a [00:29:00] business.

And also the other side of, growth, which is growing and getting the growing pains and learning how to handle that. And of course, AI and how AI is changing the, not only just the legal landscape, but the landscape of the world as we know it to an extent which is. Very fascinating. It's exciting.

I'm sure for some, it's probably a little bit scary, but I think it's ultimately going to be used for a lot of good and a lot of progress and momentum in our culture. So I'm excited for that, but thank you for taking the time to invest with us today. This has

Atty. Robert Plotkin: for having

MPS: awesome.

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Great. Thanks so much

MPS: me

Atty. Robert Plotkin: me.

MPS: Of course. And in case anyone wants to reach out to you, what's the best

way

to Yeah ahold of you?

for them

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Reach out to me on LinkedIn.

I'm at LinkedIn.com/In/RobertPlotkin I post there,

All the time. And then

you can message me there, or you can go to our website at BlueShiftIP.com and reach out to us there.

MPS: Awesome. And to the law firm owners listening, thank you. Thank you for investing your time in being [00:30:00] here today. This was an awesome episode, lots to pull from. And if you have any questions or you just want to show Robert some love down in the comments, make sure to go ahead and do that. And then hit that subscribe or follow button and turn those bell notifications on depending on where you're listening or watching from.

But we appreciate you. Thank you for investing your time. And Robert, thank you again.

Atty. Robert Plotkin: Thank you.