Of all the intriguing statistics to come out of this week’s Clio Cloud Conference, one that may say the most about the show and the company behind it is 30 percent. That’s the percentage of attendees at this ever-growing show who aren’t even current Clio users or vendor partners. For a show based around a specific product, the idea that any more than 5 percent of the attendees would be non-users is bonkers.
In part, it’s a testament to Clio’s allure. The majority of those attendees are shopping around and took the trip to the Clio Cloud Conference to see what the product is all about. Holding this year’s show in San Diego — a short trip from a number of major legal hubs — couldn’t have hurt when it came to enticing the curious. But it wasn’t just the potential customers. Why are some of these Biglaw-centric observers-to-be hanging around a small law product show? The answer is that Clio’s influence has grown beyond just its product. The corporate speak would be “thought leadership,” but that terminology might be too sanitized for a show like this. It might be more fair to say that the show is about the philosophy of all legal technology and how its product fits into that instead of the other way around.
Not that there isn’t a lot of information available for loyal customers. From product panels to an exhibit hall packed with integration partners, the show provides no shortage of opportunities to learn more about how the Clio ecosystem can better a lawyer’s practice. The whole back area of the exhibit hall was devoted to Clio Labs, where users could interface with Clio tech folks about the ins and outs of the product. The Clio Smart Bar (not a Genius Bar because “Canadians are a bit more humble,” CEO Jack Newton quipped) allowed users to directly work with Clio support people. Newton mentioned that dedicated users are building personal relationships with the support staff by taking advantage of the opportunity to meet face-to-face with the support engineers they call. It’s not just a personal touch to support, but a way for Clio to generate valuable insight into what customers want and where their pain points are. Consider this the “Wisdom of Office Space” moment: “Well, then I gotta ask, then why can’t the customers just take the specifications directly to the software people, huh?” Empowering customers to go straight to the people building the product is huge.
But the whole structure of the Clio ecosystem lends itself to a broader view of the tech landscape and that’s why so much of the festivities speak beyond the four corners of the product. It’s a phenomenon that Mark Britton, the former Avvo chief who now sits as a Clio board member, told me gives him “conference envy” — finding a balance between catering to the hard-core, loyal user and remaining accessible and engaging to a broader audience isn’t an easy feat.
As an ecosystem, it’s not a stretch to say that Clio’s value proposition is in thought leadership. As Newton put it, lawyers aren’t so much technology laggards, but busy people. What Clio offers is the promise that it’s gone out and done the hard work of surveying the legal tech landscape and identifying quality partners and innovators. So it makes a lot of sense that the show functions with an eye toward the philosophy of legal technology writ large. It’s how you end up with a product show with keynote speakers like Glenn Greenwald and Shaka Senghor — folks who seem like outside-the-box choices until they finish their presentations and you realize they really do fit into the discussion about the intersection of law and technology. Chief Operating Officer George Psiharis explained that the speaker selection process is not formulaic, but influenced by a combination of the pressing topics of the era and an interest in bringing diversity and diversity of perspectives to the show: “We try to have fresh perspectives. Not necessarily be safe choices. It’s part of energizing the conference to see the speakers thematically tie in their work to the high-level messaging.”
Clio will return to San Diego next year, October 15-16. If you’re interested in an early bird special on passes, check it out here.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.