GTTW: This Is How AI Will Change Law in Ghana Forever

Michelle Ofori: Maybe I should do a LinkedIn masterclass. But I don't think you can be on LinkedIn for maybe six months and not get a job. I don't think so. I have trial day with other accounts like my bennies and he worked every time. He worked every time. You can always get a job through LinkedIn. Um, you may not know the name of the company but every football transfer, player transfer that happens in the world. I had probably seen the deal happen because all the sports lawyers, the agents use our platform, uh, to get the transfers done on deadline days. I'm probably one of the busiest people in London at the time. I think people will see that every year. The Ghana School of Law called people to and because we are people who try to show off, our pictures circulate more. So you would assume that there are a lot of noise. No, accountants don't show off so their pictures don't circulate. So there are not enough lawyers.

Caleb Lamte: Welcome to Building Buys where we tell relevant stories about Ghana's digital ecosystem to fuel innovation and drive growth in our digital ecosystem. Um, this show is brought to you um, by Insights Lab with production support and the video being shot as the Haptel Academy Studios distribution, um, is done by TechLabari and TechLeaders Africa. So you can follow any of these channels to know what's happening with Building Bytes once again. We Also show on MX M24 on Thursdays from 8pm to 9pm and Sundays from 7pm to 8pm so whenever you miss an episode you can follow us on MX24 on all. On all channels or mediums. So, um, today we are having a special guest. Um, not our usual like tech folk, but I'm sure we'll get to know on as we come into the conversation. My name is Caleb Lamte. I'm your host and I'm with Yairo

Yairo: Ofori and Poga Coffee.

Caleb Lamte: And uh, in today's episode we will be having Michelle, uh, in cancer, um, a senior product manager at a global law firm and legal technology strategist, a founder of Legal Tech Lounge. And today we'll be sharing about how um, tech is moving in. I mean it's taking shape in the legal ecosystem whether Ghana or in the globe. So before we dive into the conversation, you want to just hear from Michelle and tell us a bit about himself. So welcome Michelle.

Michelle Ofori: Hi Caleb and hi everyone on the, on the port. Uh, thank you for having me. Um, yeah, you mentioned my name already. My name is Michelle and I am a senior products manager in a global law firm. Um, um, I work within the innovation and AI team. Um, I look after three regions, um, uk, Ireland and the Middle East. Um, but people who understand global setups knows that the work takes you everywhere around the world. So that's what I do mainly. Um, on the other side, what we've been trying to do is legal tech lounge. I'm also the founder of Legal Tech Lounge. I'm sure within the episode we'll talk more about what we've been doing in the last three or four years. Um, sometimes I consult for legal tech businesses and law firms also in Africa. Awesome.

Caleb Lamte: Awesome. So, um, it's interesting, I once watched um, Lagora, one of the legal tech AI tech companies talk about how they work with like innovation teams. If not for that, I didn't know that tech, I mean the tech in Liga is usually classified as like innovation. But how did you get into that role? Sorry.

Michelle Ofori: Oh that's, that's a long journey. But I'll try and summarize it. So I'm not a traditional person within the legal ecosystem. I think how it started is that I went to the usual Bachelor of Laws to study the llb. Um, I have a Master's in law as well. I did a Master's in International law but in between I've mainly been working in tech. So I've been in the industry for about eight to nine years now. Um, how it started, started obviously from uni because I realized that was in Ghana. Yeah, that's in Ghana. I did uni in Central University. I did my Master's in Law in the UK at University of Lincoln. Um, but everything started back in Central University. I think in second year or third year. Um, I recognized early on that I was not in the right place. Um, because the whole environment was too structured about how you study about what's going to happen at the end of llb you're going to go to Ghana School of Law and everything. So I clogged out. So when I clogged out second year, third year, I started looking for what to do. Um, so I self taught myself how to code. Well that's how everything started with YouTube videos and everything. So that's where the journey started. But the transition into legal tech, um, for law or legal audience listening, there is something we call Moot Court, which is just like um, a trial or something students use to learn how to litigate in court and all of that. You can also equate it to science and masteries like that. So it's a competition called Moot Court. And I used to represent my university for that competition. In as much as I didn't like the law, I'm a big, like, I talk a lot. So I was representing my school in those competitions and in those research processes because some of the competitions were African based, global based. Um, there's one big one called Jessup, which is done around the world and we were supposed to put together like a large set of documents and I had to like annotate citations.

Caleb Lamte: So maybe, um, for those legal power watching. So I don't know whether they understand annotates, but.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. So annotating or simply is referencing.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Speaker D: Oh.

Yairo: So I think anybody who did. Who wrote a, ah, paper.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. Dissertation or.

Yairo: Yeah, you should, you should know there

Caleb Lamte: an annotation in terms of um, AI data learning.

Michelle Ofori: Right, right. Yeah. Fair. Yeah. I'll try to break the legal.

Yairo: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: So I think that process in second or third year, uh, made me realize because everybody was doing manually and I was asking, we are going to spend almost a month to do this. I was like, no, I'm not going to do this. So I started looking for a way to simplify that. Yeah. So I, I went into Microsoft to wear it. So the, the challenge. And I think we'll spend more time if I have to talk about it. So let me try summarizing. The challenge we have is that people don't know how powerful Microsoft Word is even within the legal industry. So I use Microsoft Word today like the best you can use. I got that work done within an hour and it was going to take us months to finish that. So it was that process that made me started looking into something called legal technology. And I came across a book, um, called Tomorrow's Lawyers, written by Richard Susskind. And it's a very circle thing where I ended up working with Richard Susskind in the UK at the Ministry of Justice. And I had to tell him I go into the industry because of him, where we meet every time in board meetings. So that book, after I did that work is where I actually started reading about legal technology, the industries in it, what you can be after law school and all of that. So that's where everything started. Then after that I did my national service at the Attorney General's Department in Ghana. I was not a fan of obviously the legal work happening there. So on the side I was working with Dennis Law, um, for the legal audience listening, they know Dennis Law is probably the biggest law tech product in Ghana. I was probably maybe the second or third high. It now has so many people I can't count the number of employees because so I was the first product manager on the product. So that experience in the environment, my boss is probably one of the best people you can ever work with. We built so many products. I think by the time I left there we had about seven product.

Caleb Lamte: And this was when in terms of

Michelle Ofori: here, this is 2018.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah, 2018. So at the time I left there, we had built so many products and some of them made it to the market, some of them got resistance like you know how market is here. So that's how everything started. But I don't know if you want me to go into the UK one because that's quite long about how I navigated.

Caleb Lamte: Maybe we, we can, we can, we can break it down as, as we go on. So um, first of all, I mean your lawyer gets, you get interested in like figuring out tech can help you get a particular work done. Then you end up being a product manager. Before getting to that role, did you ever know that there was something called like a product manager? How did you figure that out?

Michelle Ofori: No, the short answer is no. Um, there's a joke in my, my first company I work with that I created the title for myself. Yeah. Because I was brought in to just get the job done.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: So the, the founder of that business was my lecturer in uni.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: And I, I think I skipped something. I didn't say it. So when I discovered law tech and everything in uni, there was a challenge that law students in my uni alone was facing back in Central University Mutual. We were the first batch of law students on that campus. And the big challenge was that we're not getting access to cases so they always have to travel from Darwinia to Lagoon to come and get. So I built a website for them. I copied all the folders that they come here to come and copy and I said they should download it. So my lecturer saw that back in union, he brought me after units come and work with them. So that's like when I go into the environment. The title, I created it for myself. I was thrown into to do everything to help them. The reason why I think I was a product manager was that I was not a big fan of the technical part.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: And I also didn't think I was a non technical person because I could understand everything because I taught myself how to code. And I also had a legal background. So I was always the person people in the company come to to understand all the legal jargons and I was always the person like taking the information down to the technical team. So eventually I became a product manager, uh, and I started taking the title upon myself. And people in the industry like you guys know, I don't think there is any university that teaches people products management. I think is most recently that people are trying to like courses and all of that. But back in the day there wasn't anything like teaching products management.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah. It's interesting that um, one of the things or the qualities that made you get into Dennis Law is equality is too h now because recently I was following you and there was a whole thing about lawyers finding. Finding a place to do their pillage and you manage to build something for them again. I mean probably like seven years again after doing it the first time. I'm sure you did some in the middle of those times. What keeps you like doing all these things even though you're even out of the ecosystem to some extent?

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. I think the easiest word I can use is maybe exposure is not the right word. But I just want people to know that they can do something else other than studying the law. M. So they can have the legal knowledge, but they can do so many other things. So if you Google legal tech in Africa, I'll probably come in top five. Not Ghana.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah, in Africa.

Yairo: Yes.

Michelle Ofori: The reason is that I have done so much work and put it out there and I've also exposed people how much there is like money in the ecosystem. So I, I'm on the tl, I'm on Twitter, but I don't talk. I'm not in the argument people do. But sometimes the things that lawyers scream about, I always have the solution in my head. Okay, so the one you are referring to, it could have been fixed within a second.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: So I didn't think that it should take forever.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: But the last thing I'll add is don't get me wrong, that problem, I'm not the one supposed to fix it. There is a regulator called the General Legal Council. There is Ghana Bar association, which is where all lawyers get their uh, sort of group from. Who can the people who work within the legal ecosystem can solve the problem. But what I'm trying to draw our generation attention to, or um, like the upcoming lawyers, is that some of the problems. So if you noticed, people are looking for places to do pupilage. Yeah, law firms have pupilage slots. So why don't the, the students who are looking for the slots build a simple marketplace here and just connect themselves. It didn't have to take anything to get that, uh, done. So I see A lot. Yeah, but I don't solve all the problems. I just pick the ones that I can, I can do or do to support.

Caleb Lamte: Awesome.

Speaker D: But then would you say that people actually embracing innovation like in the, among the lawyers and like the legal practitioners.

Michelle Ofori: So, uh, I think the short answer is no. Um, the reason is that the legal industrial lawyers are the most conservative human beings on earth.

Yairo: Just I, I wanted to do this disclosure because before we start, but we couldn't. But I think the law industry is not conservative, but I think they're trying to not make a lot of people into law. Somebody told me it's demand and supply.

Caleb Lamte: No, I mean compared to the number of people who wish to enter, probably.

Yairo: I mean every year there's a lot of them and m. A lot of

Speaker D: them like coming out and please

Michelle Ofori: disclaimer. I didn't say that he said,

Yairo: I mentioned that somebody says demand and supply. They're trying to keep the supply very lows so that you know, the demand, if the demand is high, you know, they could charge more.

Caleb Lamte: Kind of A number of like law schools have been launched across like various campuses. And so I mean there are more people who want to get in.

Michelle Ofori: Unfortunately, I don't have the statistics. I'll come back to your innovation embracement but just quickly to what he said. Unfortunately have the statistics offhead, but we still don't have enough lawyers in Ghana.

Speaker D: Um, and this surprises me, honestly.

Michelle Ofori: I don't want to misquote, so I'll just keep it blank. But I think one to it's a thousand in Ghana. The ratio of lawyer to citizen I think is one to something. A very large number. Right. So we need more lawyers, but we are regulated or uh, the Ghana School of Law is regulated with an act that was enacted during Kwame Nkrumah's time and it hasn't changed. And I am sure for those who are listening, who follow their political climate, which I'm not trying to be political here, is that this current government is trying to change that law to open it up so that all the unis in Ghana can do what Ghana School of Law is doing and have more, more people. Lastly, we don't have enough lawyers. They are more comparing lawyers to accountants. Both of them are professional services. I'm sure you know there are thousands of accountants in Ghana. So I think people will see that every year the Ghana School of Law call people to. And because we are people who try to show off our pictures, circulate more, you would assume, assume that there are a lot of lawyers but no accountants and don't show up so their pictures don't circulate. So there are not enough lawyers as to whether they are gatekeeping. Uh, I have.

Yairo: I think we can't say that. I mean, I mean any. I'm not even. It's not even about the exams that's overly difficult. So maybe. I think I. I had some requirements I can't mention here. That's, you know, some are like you, some you need recommendations and all those stuff. Um, it makes the barrier very high.

Michelle Ofori: I think that is worldwide.

Yairo: Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's just Ghana. I think the whole law profession, like a bunch of aristocrats that wants to keep it like that.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. It dates back very like way like when the common law, you know, we were colonized by the Brits. So like the profession is for noble people. And that sort of tradition has been there way before. Before. I was gonna say something way before I was born. So that tradition must be protected, is being protected. So that. That is happening. But uh, even from the ecosystem in the UK that I work with is highly regulated. I wouldn't lie to you. It's not easy to become a lawyer anywhere in the world. The only challenge we have here is that we do not have spaces. So our regulation tend to sound to people that we don't want people to be lawyers. But if we have the spaces and it's been regulated, then we would embrace. Okay, I'm not good enough. That's why I didn't make it. I'll tell you a story at another time about how I didn't make it to Ghana School of law. But your point about embracing innovation. I think we are very conservative. Um, so innovation takes a very long time. Um, I can use where like I work in a global law firm. So we have structured global firms now that we have innovation departments. What we do is we build a technology that lawyers use. So the software is the products that they used to work. Which is not in Ghana, by the way, is in big firms, we build them and we then tend to become engagement managers. Again, to go and tell people, beg people to use that too. Um, there's a question or there's an argument about billable hours.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Which they don't want to. Which is what is very controversial because if you tend to use the technology to work, you reduce the number of hours that you build.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: So would we or would lawyers want to now restructure their pricing models for them to embrace innovation? That's a conversation organization that even in the most advanced ecosystems. We've never been able to answer. Um, but in Ghana is very, very difficult because as I speak to you today, we only have five legal tech companies in the country in Ghana. And our work, we've done a legal tech launch in the last three years have now doubled our number to 10.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: And those people came through a hackathon that we've done okay early this year in April. Three of them are now startups.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: So this is why we are doing. I am leading that to do that because I think that back to. Anyway I've heard from here. So law as a whole, uh, most of African countries were colonized by Britain. Most of us follow common law now. If we are able to build products that are uh, common law related, we can export the product to other jurisdictions. So Nigeria is a common law jurisdiction. If you have a product that is good enough, it can be used. In Nigeria you wouldn't have to do much to change it for them to use. So one of the reasons why I am leading what we are doing legal tech launch is that Fintech as ah, all of you are tech people, the Nigerians are, they are gone, they are gone. We cannot, we won't be able to catch up. We can do our best but I think legal tech is so ripe for us in Ghana uh, because Nigerians are uh, not even doing anything we have done with legal tech launch. So if in a decade and because you guys are doing community work, Paystar, Flutterwave, all these guys came out of community work. They met each other in community work. So if you keep bringing this community to the together, you're going to have so many startups and we can have unicorns. The Ligora you mentioned is a unicorn. Within 14 months. The first day Max, the founder of Ligora started Leora, I met him for coffee.

Caleb Lamte: Uh, yeah, ah, he mentions that story

Michelle Ofori: and he showed me the product and in 14 months is a unicorn.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: So there isn't much. So the little you do, you get the money, you get a valuation and all of that is, I think now it's about 35 billion market globally. Lastly, before I let you come in, is that uh, then I think the reason why people should pay attention to legal tech is that uh, before everybody starts a tech business you need legal.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: So you have to register the company, that registration process is legal. And if we have a tech product that's a legal tech product, the registrar general's department in Ghana, if they have a good software and they are using which I don't know what they use is a legal tech product. So the entire tech ecosystem rests on the shoulders of legal. So if Ghana uh, can bring proper legal tech products everybody will be running to us in the next few years or whenever you can you can think about. So that's why we are doing the work.

Caleb Lamte: Uh yeah this, this is exciting. I think maybe in some of our uh call for startups in for Demo Fridays and other programs we could probably even call like specific industries because it's exciting to like get the, the basis behind such an industry and why it's important in the, in the tech space. Maybe. Yeah yeah yeah. Sharing more on the, on the industry than maybe we would have mentioned. So I, I was going to ask a personal story but let me get into the industry now. Um let's are not getting peopleage people are figuring out what do you think are some of the ways they can break out in some of this, this tech space especially with their law background. I'm going to come back to you.

Michelle Ofori: You're going to let me give away a business idea.

Caleb Lamte: Could I see maybe you can manage

Speaker D: it better Because I believe one thing that has brought you to this point is the fact that when you see how cumbersome or like complex things are uh, and how you can easily make it simple or something like the example you gave something that would have been done in months, you try to come up with a solution that's happened in you could solve it in one hour. So how can people like as Caleb was asking find themselves in such situations too?

Michelle Ofori: Yeah, I'm going to just give this out uh because it's a uh, something we are working on a legal technology. So the challenge we have in Ghana is that there are not enough law firms to accommodate lawyers. Okay so there are fewer uh law firms. Now lawyers cannot only work in law firms. They can also work in legal departments in like HTEL will have legal yeah compliance for so many others. But do these big corporates have the budget to take in lawyers? I don't think so.

Caleb Lamte: Definitely.

Yairo: Right.

Michelle Ofori: So there's still a bigger pool of people in this country lawyers who are probably not paid well or they are just even going to work because they just need to show up. So I think what we are trying to do is that the market globally is changing because of legal AI. Now you so currently before you practice in a jurisdiction you need a license to practice in a jurisdiction. That's why lawyers are called to the buying specific jurisdiction. But we now have a situation where legal AI companies do not need your License anymore. Yeah, like Legora, like he mentioned, I can go on and on and mention other companies but I wouldn't want to put in on this port. But you can be in Ghana, have the strong legal knowledge and get a remote job in the US or in the uk. I know people in this country who have just an LLB who have remote jobs working for legal tech companies in the us, in San Francisco, every YC company that comes out, Kiss Test. Every YC company that. And this is why I'm saying I'm giving a business idea so easily. But I'm sure you guys on the port will know this. All of them need legal support but they are not willing to pay the big bill that the lawyers are charging them. So if you are pitching to YC companies and all the startups coming up, they can um, provide legal support. Those guys, when they have a legal issue, they are going to go to a law firm. Yeah, but they are very basic stuff that they don't need a law firm to do for them. So there's a big market globally. I always tell people studying the law in Ghana, that is enough. You shouldn't think about just Ghana alone. You also don't need to travel or be in another country to get that job. So if you are listening or you're not coming up and you have an LLB and you are still in Ghana School of Law, you're not going to come out. You can just Google legal AI jobs.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Um, I think there's another website called legal technologyhub.com there are loads of jobs there. What people will put people off is location on jobs. But I, I trust me, all the jobs I have been into, I was not in that location. M but I got the jobs.

Caleb Lamte: So it's exciting. I mean bringing things like YC and all that. Like there are a number of examples but for you, uh, making it more relatable for maybe the lawyers or LLB or people interested in law. How did you get into this global fame? What helped you get.

Michelle Ofori: Can I share this?

Caleb Lamte: You can polish it if you want to.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. So I um, think after my masters in the uk, obviously I went to the UK to study international law. You guys are going to air this on tv, right? Probably. My dad will see this.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah. If he watches.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. So I'm sure. I hope he doesn't. So we hope he does.

Yairo: He wants more people to watch.

Michelle Ofori: But when I was studying, so I went to do my master's in international law because my dad is big on. You have to get your Law license have to be an international and all of that. But I knew I was not going to do anything after that.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: So after I worked for Law in Sport, um, you may not know the name of the company but every football transfer, player transfer that happens in the world, I had probably seen the deal happen because all the sports lawyers, the agents use our platform uh, to get the transfers done um, on deadline days. I'm probably one of the busiest people in London at the time because all these contracts and everything that they need to reference for from FIFA statute and all of that. So I did that work for about maybe a year or so too and that exposed me to a large network of lawyers in London. And then I left there to. I'm just telling you how I go into the global firm. I left there to the Ministry of Justice in the uk. I worked under the, an agency in the ministry called Law Tech UK and I was more like a program manager for a new program that was incubating low tech startups. I met over 200 founders in two years. It was, it was hectic uh, because the government have provided funding to support. So that large network made me had a pool of options.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: On where to go next. And I had not worked in a law firm before. Wow. Um, so if you notice my trajectory I've been mentioning has always been in a sense tech environment, startups and all of that. So I, I, I said I want to know what happens in a law fair. I've been there over a year now and it's entirely different when you're outside. So um, maybe I can just say that I didn't apply for the job. I just met my head of innovation and she was like okay, they know what I'm doing and they're opening up a road and HR and all those things happening. I ended up there.

Speaker D: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Uh, so it's, it's been a long journey.

Caleb Lamte: Awesome. One of the things I see in there is a lot of like curiosity and I might be wrong. I might be wrong. Let's forgive me, I don't think we are one of the most curious people beyond their ah, profession because obviously the professor is a noble one. It's prestigious and all that. I mean there's, there's nothing out there you probably might be looking for. Unless maybe money. But in your case it seems there's a bit of like curiosity in there. Like to know more of that. Um, I don't know whether it predates you getting into law or in lord or a certain mindset that was formed I also expose you to such. Yeah. Curiosity and having.

Michelle Ofori: Maybe it's just personal. I'm probably born with it. So I, I don't think it's anything that was, was taught in law school. My dad is a businessman so probably pick one or two things from him. But I honestly don't think it came from studying the law. Also be very cautious when you say lawyers are not curious.

Caleb Lamte: No, that's what I'm saying. I could be wrong. I mean

Michelle Ofori: you may be wrong.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: It's not the opinion because when I share this a lot of it's going to be a low. But they are very curious. But they are curious. In legal work, um, you find a lawyer deep researching about China legal. They don't have anything to do in China but they are looking for a case to come and do something in court. So they are looking into China or Indonesia. That's where their curiosity lies. But whether their curiosity goes beyond the legal knowledge, I wouldn't be able to, to tell them.

Caleb Lamte: Okay. But um, so thinking like a product builder, thinking like um, a lawyer or lawmaker, um, what, what are some of the differences? Because I'm sure someone be figuring out like which skills are transferable and which are not. Any thoughts on that?

Michelle Ofori: So one of the back, I think it links a little bit about the conservative nature. So I think lawyers are very, they, they, they maybe should I say risk averse. They try to look out for stuff before they do things. But on the product side you take a lot of risk. Um, you want to ship things quicker. That's why you all know we have our proof of concept, PoC MVP and whatever you can call it, GTM products and all of that. So the lawyers are very, they, they are very cautious with stuff. And on the product side you, you want to get stuff done right. Naturally that's how lawyers are built or that's how they are trained. Whether they are transferable skills from the legal sector, uh, to where I am in the tech sector, uh, I think it's an analytical skill that I brought in there because before you can even come out of your basic or llb you have to be a very good analytical person because of how we analyze cases in responding to our questions. So lawyers are always asking a lot of questions before they write. They said some issues and they try to answer them. So those were the transferable skills I brought to product. Unfortunately I don't think they are transferable skills from product.

Caleb Lamte: So what, what does it look like working in a global law firm? How is it like.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah, Every day, Every day is not the same. Um, your job description changed just a week after you join. Um, because I work in innovation and AI, everybody comes to me with tech problems. So innovation and AI is different from the IT team.

Yairo: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: And I'm sure you guys will know or may know that IT in most senses are uh, infrastructure.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: With hardware and all of that. Uh, but innovation and AI, we are purely software. Uh, every day is not the same because I think in my team we have over 32 products.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Yes. Um, because it's a very large law firm we have over 32 products that we manage. Those are the ones that we product we bought from vendors and we have about seven custom built products and I obviously I line manage um, a team so I don't do everything by myself. But the way the environment works is that you are constantly trying to engage users. And my firm has about 27 practice groups.

Yairo: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Uh, from dispute to corporate to banking to whatever you can imagine. And all of them you have their product sitting with you. So on a daily basis is either you are trying to help somebody pull in an RFP or request for proposal proposal uh, to put to a client to know that okay, we are going to use this tool for your work or the lawyers doing the work are struggling to use the tool because they don't care about the technology that much. So you have to find a way to engage them and another time you are trying to bring in new tools. So you. I'm always out there on the market looking for what, what is best. You're also sometimes renegotiating contracts because they were, they were more expensive legal AI. I'll tell you a funny story that some of the products that we have probably, we may not need them anymore because ChatGPT or this clad rappers uh, have probably cleared why they built the two. So you are always really looking at do we need these two again in the next year and all of that. So mostly that's how my, my, my deal uh, my, my role looks like some more. Not sometimes, most of the time do I travel and um, because we have offices so I travel um to have in person clients meetings because some of the clients and I'll just chip this in that that is the bigger uh, difference between that market and the Ghanaian market. Because clients over there are now saying if you don't use a technology or this software in my legal work, I'm not going to give the work to you. M. So they are rather demanding. Unlike here. No clients is not. It doesn't care so that is why there's a bigger budget over there to bring in tech people to the firm to come and work on those things. So sometimes the lawyers will take you to the client's offices. M. I cannot mention client's name, but I've been to quite very. Some of the tools that we all use have been to the office places. And you're now trying to tell them how we are going to do the legal work and all of that. So it's fun to be honest. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Caleb Lamte: So what are some of the lessons you've learned in managing like products in a global law firm?

Michelle Ofori: You put me in trouble. You have to mention any client.

Caleb Lamte: One of the things about building B is I usually want to create like a blueprint for people getting the space, knowing the space to follow some extent. Because unlike other markets where you have like known stories about builders, about things they can we. Can we even learn from them. But now we want to pick our own stories. That's why some of these tough questions comes in.

Michelle Ofori: So when you say lessons, we need to break it down. Are you saying lessons I have learned, I can pass it to somebody who wants to get to where I've got to or lessons in the film space?

Caleb Lamte: Look, getting into the space.

Michelle Ofori: Okay.

Caleb Lamte: Working in the space. How someone who is coming in.

Yairo: I think both. Yeah.

Caleb Lamte: But the less troublesome one.

Michelle Ofori: So the one to help you get to where I have got to is what you have constantly mentioned the curiosity. Yes. And I mentioned earlier a few minutes ago that, uh, your job description changed a week after. If you are not curious enough, you can't work in an innovation innovation team in a global law firm. I'm really sorry. Because, um, lawyers are very smart. Yeah. So if you are not ahead of the the curve to understand what's happening with the two or a product, you'll be gone. Um. The day Charge Apt launched agent. I had to build an agent before I go to work in the morning. Because if I do not know how agents works, there's a man who is an old man, the partner who's coming to see. And it happened two days after agents came out. It was like, oh, I've already built a contract agent and it's not working. So imagine I didn't know how agents work.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Uh, so I, I have to stay on top of the cave. That's one. The second one, which is a skill that I think every Ghanaian has, that's how I put it, is project management. I think every Ghanaian is a project manager because of how we live in our houses, if you're a big sister, you project manage the family. If you're a big brother, you do it, you do it subconsciously. But I think every Ghanaian is. But what you do not do is take a proper education or skill to understand the terminologies. Uh, yes. So I think project management is something that if you want to get up the ladder, you should, you should learn. For product management, I wouldn't recommend people to go and learn products management because it's changing, I think for people who follow the conversation. People say products managers are not needed anymore. Um, just because now you can prototype easily.

Caleb Lamte: Easily.

Michelle Ofori: So. But I have learned prototyping. So me, I'm not going to go out of work, but I'm saying that I'm not going to recommend you to go and study products management so that you go and learn a whole proto. You go and do prototyping with the designer and at the end of the day he'll bring you a figma. But I can just use FIGMA to prompt and get my prototype. So I wouldn't tell you to do product management. The last one is, um, collaboration, I think. But I, I learned it along the line. I think in as much as we are, uh, project management over here, we do not collaborate enough. It happens in so many instances where people. And maybe there's something wrong with how we are training our education system. You always want to get your, your work done.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: And say I am done. Yeah. So I think you need to learn gradually within your, your group work or if you're a lawyer in a firm or anything. And all my friends are lawyers, by the way. And so that when I listen to them talk, they are always talking about, I have finished my own, so it's up to you. Ah. So I will highlight these skills broadly. Um, I haven't mentioned LinkedIn in this conversation, but I think LinkedIn is the most powerful product on it.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: That's what I think.

Speaker D: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. I think LinkedIn is the most powerful product on earth. I don't know how people use it, but I think it's the most used products on my phone, uh, on my laptop. I've opened LinkedIn more than everything. Like w. I was just on LinkedIn.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Because content is shared by everyone on LinkedIn. Not the. I am happy I joined this job. If you know how to keyword properly on LinkedIn, you'll find the most recent content on anything legal tech. Because by the time someone will put together a course or put together content properly for you to go and Learn. Yeah, we are gone. But these guys are sharing constantly. The name I mentioned earlier, Richard Saskin, which I fortunately work with him. He posts almost every two hours.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Uh, and this guy was a technology adviser to the Chief justice in the UK from 99 to, I think 2013 or so. Uh, so he has seen everything technology can do in the justice system. So before you would even think he has written about it. So if you're on LinkedIn and you, you use it, you are so rich in content in the legal tech industry. That's one aspect. The other aspect is the job aspect, which I think maybe the algorithm do not favor free, uh, LinkedIn users. But if you're a premium user, I don't think people should. Maybe it's just me, maybe I should do a LinkedIn master class. But I don't think you can be on LinkedIn for maybe six months and not get a job. I don't think so. I have trialed it with other accounts like my business,

Caleb Lamte: and it worked. Everything.

Michelle Ofori: And it worked every time. You can always get a job through LinkedIn. So I think all the skills I have listed, if you add LinkedIn at the, the bottom of it, I think you, you'll be super fine.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah. Without a premium account,

Michelle Ofori: unfortunately they are making money is a business. And you guys know there's a LinkedIn Academy. LinkedIn learning, ah, is so powerful.

Yairo: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Uh, awesome.

Caleb Lamte: Awesome. So, I mean, we, we've moved around the globe a bit. Let's come back home. Legal tech hangout.

Speaker D: Let's talk about that.

Caleb Lamte: I mean, you mentioned the potential, um, you saw in the legal text piece that brought you there. But our point was that, uh, when do you realize that this thing should be like a Ghanaian thing? This is a chance to Uber.

Michelle Ofori: I think this was 2022 or 2023. Um, how a Kanga started. So at the time I was working at the Ministry of Justice in the uk, so I was a real ecosystem person over there. And every day I'm here, I'm listening. The money, this one is raising funding. This is that. I'm like, no, I don't think they are doing anything extraordinary. Like, Ghanaians are smart. So why, what's going on here? So I said, nah, we need to also build a legal tech industry in Ghana. So I usually come home for holidays and that, uh, year I tweeted that I'm coming home and I want to hang out. The word was hangout with people who are interested in law and technology. I have a very small, big lawyer Twitter account. It's about 10k. But people follow me. I'm not, I'm not a celebrity. So when I tweeted, within an hour or two, there were almost 500 people who were interested. I'm like, what is going on here? It was a poll.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: So for people to hit. Yes, yes, yes. I was like, okay. So I made a few calls, called my friend Paul, who I have been doing legal tech launch with and recently Samuel has also been instrumental within. I told him that yo, people are interested in this thing. So let's do it. This was one week before coming to Accra. Then we called people we know and Jumbo Spaces. Very big thank you to Brandmester. Uh, we knew him at the time. We called him as I come. Come and do it here. So we plan to do the hangout for 30 people and I set up a, uh, ticketing website page. By the way, I have a big problem about that because it's a Ghanaian company. So if they hear this, they know what I know, I know.

Caleb Lamte: I think we've, we've had a similar experience. So, um, I mean, we use a foreign one, Luma, we all know. And we said, okay, this time let's give a shot to our Ghanaian one. And yeah, it was sad. We couldn't accept it, believe that this was happening. We have to like really go back to Luma. But yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah, okay.

Yairo: I think in the ticketing space there's a lot of opportunities.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah. Yes.

Yairo: I think I was discussing, um, to. With one of the guidance. You sometimes go to events and when you're done, you can't even find the. The pictures.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Yairo: For the events. Like, I think that's like a very. It's something that could just be sent to people that register. Just.

Michelle Ofori: You guys are. Well, you had your own experience. I won't go on about that company. It. So we, we struggled but we, we fixed the problem. We. We wanted 30 people. Eventually had over 70 people buy, um, the tickets in three days.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Then, uh, three days to the event we had an extra. So we had over 130 people who were coming to a space that could host about 30 people at Jumbo Spaces. It was quite chaotic. So we did it. And um, obviously big thank you to the sponsors at the time. I can't mention all of the. I might miss it. So those guys, we call them, within few days you guys were doing this support us and everybody said, come, come and let's do it together. So we did it at Jumbo Spaces. Why we were doing it that day for me was for people to come and network. Yeah, we were not there that day to share lottery content because at the time nobody or people knew very little about lawtech. So it was more of a networking and drinks thing. So that day the speakers there then shared a lot that they knew based on how ah, we structured the panels. So then it got more people excited. So we then grew that day's community. I think now comes about 2,500 members uh, in 13 countries in Africa. So from that day we then sat down, we're like okay, let's actually plan a proper event for LawTech. So uh, for people who are closer to me, I think that everything we do in Ghana should be exported. So I don't think any tech product should be just a Ghanaian tech product. So from day one we said we were going to do an African law tech hangout. So then I spoke to people I knew in other African countries that hey guys, we did this, we tried this last year, it was successful. So come to Accra in November. Fortunately I had very good friends flew from Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, uh, UK to come for free. Well uh, they all came and they spoke at last year's event. But the real mission for last year was different from the first one because at uh, last year people knew what lawtech was about so we had to hard like meaningful conversations. Where can people learn? Where can people start? Where can people get jobs? Where was investment looking like? Yeah, uh, and everything. So I think it was last year. We have pay stock on it was very successful. But the end of last year we made a big commitment and I, I just want to share here again is that we need to make Ghana the hub of legal technologies. Technology in Africa. We don't have the resource, we don't have the investment. But that needs to happen because if we make that happen everybody in the legal ecosystem will have jobs. Yeah, my last check I had we have almost 14000 lawyers in Ghana. If we make Ghana the hub of legal technology, I think law firms will struggle to even get people to work there. Because Ligora that you mentioned, if you go on their website now, you'll be amazed at hiring they are doing that. I can mention so many companies. So last year our mission there was that everybody should now know that we are about to build low tech companies from Africa or Ghana. So after the event they went back to the drawing board and say okay, people complained that the companies that were there or they were not enough. So let's do a hackathon. So then we did a Law tech or legal tech hackathon at Google's office in April. And fortunately, or maybe I'll just say like impressively people turned up with some brilliant ideas. Like this is me always on ideas, I'm like wow, they built like impressive products. So two or three of them will be demoing at um, the hangout this year. So then we try to help them and some of them go in cop pretending and all of that. So that is where we've come from. And this year we are doing again on Thursday. Um, we are expecting about 500 people. Last year had about 400 people there. So you're expecting 500 this year. So the journey has been what I saw where I work and I was like okay, we can also do it here, but we can really bring investment here and all of that. The challenge is that there is no enough support or resource, resource behind us. Which is, which is normal. Because if we had a resource to fly people down to Accra, I would have brought VCs down to Accra. Yeah, because every time when VCC my stuff I put on link I was like yo guys, let's go, let's go to Accra. What's happening there? Will you buy my ticket? If I'm able to buy 10 VCs ticket I'm sure all these guys who raise precede by next month.

Caleb Lamte: Month definitely.

Michelle Ofori: So we just need people to back what we are doing. Cuz it's just community driven and some of us just want, I, I just want to see people see that they can do something outside. Just going to the courts and all of that and there'll be so many jobs for people. But lastly, everything that I have said, it started from a newsletter that I used to write.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Speaker D: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: So the newsletter was called lawyers who beat AI. So this is 2019. I used to write every month lawyers uh, who beat AI. Unfortunately when Elon Musk bought Twitter he shut down that platform Review.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: For people who know Review. Review was a big newsletter platform. We woke up one morning, Uncle Mask said it doesn't make sense for Twitter to purchase Review. So everyone lost their subscribers.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: Uh, so I lost over 10000 subscribers. I woke up and I saw the news but I moved to substack and I couldn't write anymore. The point I'm trying to make was that before we started legal tech launch I was just casually writing about every topic I come across and all of that. So. But now I can't even write stuff.

Caleb Lamte: Uh, this, this interesting. So I don't know, maybe it definitely didn't plan to be like, like a tech influencer in the legal space, but you happen to be in that position and um, I'm sure you've mentioned a number of successes for the legal tech lounge and the community and all that. I mean that also stands for like what we are doing at building bites for community sake, like support startups, give them the exposure, share their real story. So, um, like, well done to that on the community end.

Michelle Ofori: Congratulations.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah, congratulations. Big, big one. And. But on the personal one too, aside like supporting community, you take a lot of efforts into building things locally to support. If you can share some of the first things you've done just across your mind, like some of the things you've done, I mean they look at whether ganetic ecosystem things you built in there because I know like, yeah, our initiatives you've. You spearheaded, maybe some might not know. We really like doing that because recently we hosted one of the guys who planted like Figma across Ghana and these were like unique guys who thought in fact Figma reached out to them in their beta space. Before Figma became a public company Today there are a lot of like design companies. Maybe in your case you can share a few.

Michelle Ofori: I, I think the. So the, my personal initiative will be the legal tech launch. I have spoken, spoken about. But there are stuff that I have been behind that you may not know that I was behind those. So back in the day in uni, maybe that's where the tech started from. I was a social media manager for brands.

Caleb Lamte: Okay, okay.

Michelle Ofori: Um, the guys who do science and masque are all my friends. Oh, I see the digital people, Aaron and all of that. They all my friends. So way back in the day we're just handling brands and Samsung Total and all of that. So that was what I was doing. I was behind a lot of big accounts on Twitter that was on the side but on the tech properly. So I've mentioned Dennis Law.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Which is probably the largest research product in Ghana that every lawyer used. I did quite significant work at the company. There's another product called Justice Locator. Um, it never kicked off because of the ecosystem. Um, you struggle to get. No. So Justice Locator, uh, it was a mobile app. The challenge we saw with our products was that in Ghana, Google Map is not as accurate as we want it to be. And the Google Maps surprisingly do not have courts in Ghana on the map. So we went around the country to pin every court.

Caleb Lamte: Wow.

Michelle Ofori: So that if you drive as a lawyer to Borgatanga, you are now not going to look for somebody to find Google Maps. Should have done that.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Other countries it would have been you. And so that work was done with justice locators, uh, so that lawyers can easily find a court and something in the legal industry we call course list. So course list is basically the agenda for, for the court for the week. So all the cases that are going to be heard in the Supreme Court on Friday, the registrar puts it on the notice board that next week these are the cases. Unfortunately, if you don't drive to the court to go and see the notice board or you don't know the registrar and call him, but if he goes home on the weekend, you are not going to get him. You wouldn't know what is happening happening next week. So we solved that problem with the app that we collate all the course list from the courts in the country so that lawyers will just use their apps to know what's happening. Another thing we're trying to solve which couldn't work was how judges decide or something happens and today they cannot sit. So you can drive all the way to Cape coast and the judge will say, um, I'm not sitting today. While the register could have just used a notification to uh, update you that, that so we solved that problem. But I'm curious for what are some

Yairo: of the reasons they decide not to say it?

Michelle Ofori: Um, I think the one that will save me from trouble. I like, I like that will save me from trouble because it happens quite often. The rest I can't, I can't see. But the one I can see is medical reason. A judge can wake up in the morning and say I'm not well, that's

Yairo: why I don't like this profession.

Michelle Ofori: So if that was way too, I've

Caleb Lamte: heard a lot about, I had one,

Yairo: he said he was on his way to somewhere.

Caleb Lamte: He was in the Twitter one.

Yairo: Yeah. And he jumped, he had to jump on a motorbike when he got there and he said it's not happening anymore. Like

Caleb Lamte: he parked his car somewhere to jump on the motorbike.

Michelle Ofori: Not happening. The medical reason is the judge is not well. The other part, which is administrative is that from my research on that product, I was a product, the lead product manager on it. I noticed that the registrars are very, very much aware of the situations. So the challenge is not really with the judge, the judges communicate with the registrars, but whether the court registrar is being like proactive, proactive to inform people is where the challenge is. So I, I, I don't, I don't I wouldn't put a blame on the judges.

Yairo: My point is it happens way too often.

Michelle Ofori: Um, I mean I'm not, I know why it happens but the one that will say, the one that will save me from the trouble is the medical reason. So yeah, let me just say medical reason all.

Yairo: Uh.

Speaker D: Right.

Caleb Lamte: So I uh, mean on some of those challenges, what are some of the gaps I see in the market? I think some, some curiosity, some building, some community could solve some of those things.

Michelle Ofori: Um, before I go into that I think there's one product that I didn't mention. So after the justice locator there's a, there's a product in the market right now called Mary. Right?

Caleb Lamte: Yeah, I think I've seen somewhere.

Michelle Ofori: And Mary writes I mentioned that because of the Daddy Lumba situation that is going on and all of that. That so my right. Is basically a product to verify marriages. So and I, I was a lead product manager on that products probably like three, four years ago. Um but now it's with the company and they are doing brilliancy on it. So basically in Ghana you need to have a marriage in a license building before the marriages legal. If you marry in a church that is not licensed, your marriage is illegal.

Caleb Lamte: There's a name, they give it to the building or something like they have a term they use for it.

Michelle Ofori: I uh. Probably. Yeah. So the person is a registered uh, or marriage license officer.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: So the mere fact that someone is a pastor doesn't mean that they can officiate your marriage. So if the pastor is not licensed at uh the time of officiating your marriage, your marriage which was done 10 years ago is invalid. Yeah. So we solved that problem. That product is probably one of the most impactful in the marriage industry in Ghana now. And I saw a. Like when the Daddy Lumba thing came up recently and everybody. Cuz at the time when we're solving the problem I never contemplated that we. The day will come where Daddy Lumba case it will become that useful. Yeah, that's the Christian or the ordinance part. Then there is a Muhammadan which is a Muslim one that is even more complicated. If you go into how your marriage in Islam should be legal. It's very complicated. So probably that. That would be one of the maybe social product I've done that. I'll say okay, it's, it's being used. There's a lot to be done. But it's, it's fair now. So you ask the question.

Caleb Lamte: Just. I'm um, also just wondering whether there are a Lot of Mahmudian marriages that are invalid. But we'll answer that after the conversation. But some of the gaps, I mean

Michelle Ofori: when you say gaps like you're trying

Caleb Lamte: to challenges opportunities, you're seeing that, that

Michelle Ofori: one you let me give business.

Caleb Lamte: Oh, that means more on the, on the general, uh, side space. I mean not too specific to your solution. Any solution I contemplate.

Michelle Ofori: Okay. Okay. So, uh, I'll start from the student side.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: So I think that the entire legal education must be remodeled. So you cannot leave the bachelor of laws without having some legal technology training. So that's a bigger gap because that's where the problem is. Now starting from, you cannot leave Bachelor of laws without knowing how to use Microsoft Word. That is the most useful product to every single lawyer. Unfortunately, Google Docs doesn't work for lawyers. So there should be a remodeling of the llb.

Caleb Lamte: The tools, the tools you can get in it. I've heard that case a lot.

Michelle Ofori: So Google Docs is for you guys. You the tech guys. So it's not for lawyers because Microsoft Word allows plugins. Recently Google has been doing Google add ons. But m, all the plugins that you can use in Microsoft do not exist on Google Docs. And there are thousands of like plugins that lawyers, well in global law firms use that are not in Google Docs.

Yairo: I was just asking who still uses Microsoft.

Caleb Lamte: That's the interesting thing I realized, um, because special fields have some special to they appreciate. If you're not in that field, you look down on it like uh, a finance professional. Excel is a magic. It's a wonder. No, she can never do that.

Yairo: Like, I mean they're plugging.

Caleb Lamte: She's can never.

Yairo: I don't know. I just like the uh, you know, simplicity because I said guys.

Michelle Ofori: So you are, you are UX person. Yes, good. I am like that.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: But I had to learn quickly. When I worked in a lot law firm, I had to drop that idea because in Microsoft Word like you can have like a Lego, a Legora, uh, plugin that will not exist in Google Docs. Ligora is getting my contract done within seconds. Google Doc cannot get that done. You can get um, a pricing calculator as a plugin in Microsoft Word. Google will never get that done. So, so, and unfortunately maybe now it is. But unfortunately, back in the day we were always using a cracked version of Microsoft.

Caleb Lamte: I knew, right?

Michelle Ofori: But now if people pay and use the most modern Microsoft Word, trust me, the UX is great.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. So I, I would say that so Back to the point, remodeling of our llb. Since we are looking at uh, trying to open up the law school system, we should add legal technology training there. Another gap is that when you get into a law firm I think that you cannot, if I am hiring or leading any hiring process in a law firm and you don't have some legal technology skill, you're not going to get a job. That would be me. But obviously I can't be everywhere. But I think that there should be investment in law firms in our country, in the people to understand the use of technology tools because if they use them it makes your life easier. But I think people have just turned a blind eye to it. They are no longer interested in it or it's not there yet. So that's a bigger ah gap. There are two more I want to mention. One is the judiciary which is a judicial service. I watch the vetting of his Lordship, um, yeah recently the veteran and he said AI and paneling. So where there was a, an issue on the vetting where they were asking why uh, like judges not being in panel for some of the cases and he was explaining the administration that happened and I think he's, he sounded very progressive that he's gonna like involve technology. People go to do AI and paneling. I, I don't know what he meant by that but let me be honest. But if he is forward thinking like that, that's good. The reason is that there are so many softwares that I have used or available on the market that can predict how judges write. So if you pick a large set of documentation from the Ghana Supreme Court and there are these existing judges and you present a new case to those large sets of documents, they can't change their minds. But there's a high probability that judge will say the same thing again. Um, we are not saying the judges are going to be replaced but those judges needs to be equipped with these tools so that they know that these guys standing in front of us are using these tools. So there's a need for a huge investments in our judiciary. I don't know how that's going to be done. Whether political or not, I don't know. And the last part is for my grandmother in the village who are um, probably the people with no education and they are struggling to get access to justice. That's my biggest concern because if we do not invest in technology in a way to help those poor people then I think we should all stop because those people are not going to get money to pay for A lawyer on any day. And there are so many technology tools that we can use to help them. I'll give you one example just to end that, uh, in the uk, in the us, parking, parking is a bigger deal.

Yairo: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: Uh, if you park at the wrong place, you're going to get tickets and all of that. That there's a basic legal tech too. When you get tickets, you can dispute the tickets on your phone, on the website. I don't want to mention the name of the company, but that whole process, you'd have probably needed a lawyer. And uh, the most poorest person in these countries can just use the website to dispute it. You get a problem in our streets. There are so many things that we can use to help people, people to get access to justice. So as uh, we have a legal aid commission under the Ministry of Justice in Ghana. If we resource these people and bring right technology people there, I think we can easily, easily get the job done. There are so many grants that come into this country that the poor or invest in some social courses and they always forget about technology or aspect access to justice. And that's a very big problem to me. So I think those will be the gaps I'll mention.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah, I think um, this conversation could be kept like longer and longer, but I will have to um, cut it short at a point. Yeah. Um, you know, there are certain conversations and I've noticed it, like I know a good, I know a good episode when we have one. Like it's so educative and it doesn't come out like pushing out on anyone. But it's a whole learning curve even for us as the host. So maybe in conclusion, just for maybe part one of our episode, I don't know when you'll be around again, but I'll look for another time to record. Um, how do you see like AI, automation technology changing the state of like African law, especially for the common. How do you call it?

Michelle Ofori: The common law.

Caleb Lamte: The common law which Ghana and many other African countries practice.

Michelle Ofori: I think, um, the short answer to that is the newsletter I used to write that Lawyers who Beat AI.

Caleb Lamte: Haven't you been able to discover it in any way?

Michelle Ofori: Like, what do you mean?

Caleb Lamte: Like find it out. Even though maybe Mask has smashed it,

Michelle Ofori: but maybe somewhere I did that investigation Mask, he totally shuts down the company.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: If you search on his profile, you R E V U E R E V U E that's the name gets review.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: If you search mass profile, he shuts down the business, says this is very unnecessary. So he did, but I, I put that behind me.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: But lawyers will be AI answers your question about the whole AI thing is that ah, so this is not. I think and it's going to happen.

Caleb Lamte: Okay.

Michelle Ofori: And this is a common with AI lawyers who think that they are okay or they are my. I'm really sorry. I'm really really sorry. I've seen what is being done at the global law firms. We don't use lawyers to do the most basic stuff anymore. There are so many tools. The, the whole thing you see in our jurisdiction where when lawyers are going to court, there's somebody following them. Please. It doesn't happen anymore. Lawyers come in Ghana. There's a platform called E Justice at the High Court in Accra. I don't think it's in all the courts in the country because of resource and all of that. But in the proper jurisdiction lawyers are communicating on software and platforms. Right. So AI is something that I think that in five years. Five years is even long cuz two, three years if you're a lawyer and you cannot use chat GPT. Don't get me wrong, I know lawyers in this country who don't even have an account on char GPT.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah, definitely.

Michelle Ofori: Um, yeah. There are so many of them. Them. So if you do not know how to use these AI tools you, you will be out of work. The only advantage we have over those jurisdictions is that our clients are not demanding us.

Caleb Lamte: Yeah.

Michelle Ofori: But unfortunately this generation is going to be the clients in 10 years. Yeah, that's true. And you are going to demand it. So when you start demanding it and your lawyer does not even understand how Ligora works and you do imagine you give your case to a lawyer.

Caleb Lamte: I'll probably be interested before getting to him.

Michelle Ofori: Yeah. So AI would uh, definitely replace the lawyers who do not know how to use it in probably five years.

Speaker D: I like how wholesome that conclusion is.

Caleb Lamte: I know, right? Yeah. So, um. Closing for Part one. Thank you so much everyone for joining us. It's been an awesome session. Thanks to my Michelle. Um, yeah, I think this is a whole learning curve. I just, I thought first was going to be like less interested in tech. I didn't know that tech people interest, not interested in law have to learn it and we've, we've gotten that knowledge. We are so appreciative of that. So like comment, share. Um, follow us, let us know what your thoughts are and we are glad to bring you some of the best guests um, you, you ever want to have. Yeah. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks Bye.

Michelle Ofori: Thank you, guys.

Yairo: Bye.