Zach Abramowitz is Legally Disrupted

Zach Abramowitz sits down with Josh Schmerling, partner at Zirkin & Schmerling and co-founder of LawPro.ai, to explore how building technology inside a law firm is reshaping personal injury practice. Josh shares how an internal tool for processing medical records evolved into a broader litigation platform, and what it means to commercialize a product while still running a high-volume plaintiff’s firm. The conversation dives into product-market fit, adoption dynamics, and how tech, combined with private equity, could fundamentally change the competitive landscape of PI law.
 
In this episode:

How an internal tool became a market-facing legal tech product

The advantages (and tensions) of building software inside a law firm

What drives real product-market fit in legal tech

Adoption trends across personal injury firms

The role of private equity in reshaping the PI ecosystem

Learn More:
Josh - https://www.lawpro.ai/team/josh-schmerling
Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/
 
Follow Along:
Josh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-schmerling-287489ab
Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz

What are in-house lawyers actually doing with AI right now? In this episode, Zach speaks with Jarryd Strydom, co-founder of Sandstone, about what he learned from a cross-country road trip meeting with corporate legal teams across the United States. They discuss how legal departments are experimenting with AI tools, the growing “build vs. buy” debate as lawyers explore vibe-coding their own workflows, and why legacy legal tech infrastructure may struggle in an AI-native world. 
 
In this episode:

What in-house lawyers across the U.S. are actually doing with AI today

The rise of “vibe coding” and the new build vs. buy debate for legal teams

Why traditional CLM systems often fail to capture real business context

How AI could finally unlock institutional legal knowledge inside companies

Why legal teams are being pushed to adopt AI as other departments move faster

How AI might reshape the structure of in-house legal teams

What junior lawyers should be thinking about in an AI-driven legal market

Learn More:
Jarryd - https://www.event.law.com/corpcounsel-gcc-east/speaker/2017419/jarryd-strydom
Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/
 
Follow Along:
Jarryd - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarrydstrydom
Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz

Just in time for Legal Week, Zach sits down Cosmonauts founder and legal tech insider Timo Karakashev for a wide-ranging conversation about where the legal AI market really stands. Timo shares what he’s seeing on the ground: growing demand for “premium” legal AI tools, dissatisfaction with generic enterprise AI solutions, and a market that’s still in the very early innings of adoption.
 
In this episode:

Why legal AI tools like Harvey and Legora feel “premium” compared to generic AI

The growing dissatisfaction with enterprise AI tools like Copilot

Why demand for intelligence in legal work far exceeds human supply

How legal AI adoption differs across regions, including Australia

The debate over whether AI will disrupt or strengthen the SaaS model

Why IP law has historically lagged in tech adoption and why that’s changing

How legal tech conferences are evolving to focus more on practitioners and operators

⁠Why innovation at the top of the market could eventually improve access to justice

Learn More:
Timo - https://www.crunchbase.com/person/timo-karakashev
Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/
 
Follow Along:
Timo - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timo-from-cosmonauts
Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz

What if AI doesn’t just replace software, but shifts the value of a tech company from the product to the people? That’s the real shift hiding in plain sight. As the models get better and cheaper, the product layer starts to collapse. And when that happens, the leverage doesn’t sit with whoever licensed the right platform. It sits with the lawyers who understand what’s happening underneath, the ones building their own workflows, configuring the models directly, and rethinking how legal work is produced in the first place. This isn’t about another AI tool. It’s about agency. It’s about moving from billing time to designing systems. And the gap forming right now between lawyers who experiment and lawyers who hesitate is going to matter a lot more than the next headline valuation.

In this episode:

We’re probably focused on the wrong layer

As the models improve, the product matters less

Leverage is shifting toward lawyers willing to build

This isn’t about adopting AI - it’s about agency

The gap forming right now is going to compound

References:
Legal Quants - https://www.legalquants.com/
 
Learn More:
Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/
 
Follow Along:
Jamie - https://hk.linkedin.com/in/jttso
Raymond - https://au.linkedin.com/in/raymond-sun-64576a122
Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz

What does it mean to be a valuable lawyer in the age of AI? In this episode, Zach sits down with litigator, technologist, and AI evangelist Damien Riehl to explore how legal expertise evolves, not disappears, in a world of generative models and automation. From his unique path as both a practicing attorney and self-taught coder to his widely discussed “All the Music” project, Damien argues that the future belongs to lawyers who understand systems, leverage technology, and rethink what clients actually pay for. This is a conversation about professional reinvention, leverage, and why AI may amplify - rather than replace - the best lawyers.

 

In this episode:

Why AI changes how lawyers deliver value, but not why they matter

The advantage of lawyers who can code (or at least think like engineers)

Damien’s “All the Music” project and what it reveals about IP systems

The difference between automation and augmentation in legal work

How litigators should think about AI tools today

Why understanding technology is becoming table stakes for legal credibility

What the next generation of high-value lawyers will look like

Learn More:
Damien - https://www.ted.com/speakers/damien_riehl
Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/
 
Follow Along:
Damien -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/damienriehl
Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz