#LegalTechLives with Colin Lachance, CEO of Compass/MLB Colin Lachance is an innovator with many insightful views on the state of law and technology today. Here’s our talk about the challenges facing the legal profession, a moose and why some people call him “Coin.”
In leading Compass/MLB, Colin is taking the helm of an online legal publishing company for a second time. From 2011 to 2015, he was CEO of Canada’s most used legal information resource (CanLII — a not-forprofit free law platform funded by all Canadian lawyers), and in that capacity was recognized as a Fastcase50 innovator in 2013, an ABA Journal Legal Rebel in 2014, and as among Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s Top 25 Most Influential of 2014. With degrees in business and law, including an LL.M. in law and tech awarded in 2013, he’s also held senior legal, policy, marketing and lobbying positions in the
telecommunications industry, a field in which he still does a little legal work on the side. Ava Chisling: What exactly is Compass/MLB? Colin Lachance: Last fall, when a small Canadian case law publisher announced its plan to close shop after 47 years, I saw a chance to bring a new type of innovation to Canadian legal research and tech. This company, Maritime Law Book (MLB), had national coverage of all court levels, a decades-deep topic database modeled on the West Key Number System, and relationships with courts to continue receiving new cases. We intend to use our resources and our technology to open the door to a wave of new players and new ideas. AC: You have been involved in legal content for a long time. Name two memorable judgments and why you remember them. CL: In a March 2012 decision, a particularly outspoken Ontario Superior Court judge went on a multi-paragraph rant about the archaic state of court technology and its impact on the parties and the court. The impact included a one-hour delay to permit the parties to find copies of the needed material during which, we are informed in the judgment, that the judge “walked across the plaza, picked up a latte at Starbucks” and fussed at some other matters. The second judgment dates to February 1664. In one of Canada’s first lawsuits, we learn the story of how my seventh-great-grandfather Antoine Pepin dit Lachance, was sued by a neighbour for “allegedly” hauling away a moose that the neighbour had shot. (Jugements et délibérations du Conseil souverain de la Nouvelle-France p.117.) The
Council hearing the case sent the matter away for the parties to resolve on their own. The moral of the story? Court is a terrible place to solve disputes and regulate your affairs.
photo: Dan Pinnington AC: What’s the biggest challenge facing the legal profession today? CL: The difficulty for many lawyers to accept a role other than quarterback. I’m not sure at what point in our formation we start to think that cases pivot on legal issues, with other interests or concerns being secondary or inconsequential. People rarely experience legal-only issues. It’s usually a personal or a business challenge with a legal dimension, and not the other way around.
AC: If we were having this discussion in 2027, what would courts look like? And law firms? CL: Many courts will look just as they did in the mid-1600s. And many law firms will look as they do today. What will differ is the court’s prominence as a desirable dispute resolution forum, and the law firm’s primacy as the organizational unit for legal professionals. Bypassing both has been on the upswing for several years and is only accelerating as lower-cost, high-satisfaction opportunities appear. AC: What do you think are the best and worst aspects of everyone being so interconnected? CL: While it’s true that being interconnected and “always-connected” create challenges for carving out needed time with family and friends, I wouldn’t want to go back to the discrete, analog world where work could only be done at one place, during one time period. AC: In a conversation we had recently, I discovered that when speaking your name into iPad dictation, instead of “Colin,” it prints “:” which still makes me laugh. What are some of the better things you’ve been called, regarding your name? While finishing my 2L studies, I began the process of applying for articling (clerkship) posts. After sending out 25 beautifully crafted cover letters catered to each firm, I turned my attention to studying for finals, and didn’t give them much thought until I realized, to my horror, that in 24 of those applications, I signed the letter “Coin” instead of “Colin.” I blame WordPerfect 5.1 and its failure to know what I meant to write.
In a panic to figure out how to salvage my not-yet-even embryonic career, and while fielding incoming rejection letters addressed to “Coin,” I wrote the firms asking for forgiveness for my error. Twenty-one years later and there are still people in my circles who take delight in addressing me as Coin. And, yes, I got a job. AC: And speaking of your name, “La Chance” means “luck” in French. What’s the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to you? CL: Aside from surviving the whole “Coin” thing? That’s easy. My family. Both the generations that came before me that made it possible for me to be the first to attend university, and the family that gives me reasons to smile, strive and thrive every day. My wife and I married before I went to law school, and we’ve been blessed four times over during those 23 years with three daughters and a son. AC: Thank you, Colin, for your support of ROSS over the years. We also greatly appreciate you following — and tweeting about — our successes.
Tagged in Legaltech, Law By Ava Chisling on April 11, 2017. Canonical link Exported from Medium on August 18, 2017.