FROM LEGALWEEK 2024 : A chat with Isha Marathe of ALM Media

14 February 2024  – As a writer and journalist and card-carrying member of the Foreign Press Association, I often like to see how my fellows cover news events and industries and conferences.

There are many who cover the e-discovery/information ecosystem but not as reporters or journalists. More in an “ambassadorial role” as one such member put it. It is not inquisitorial, being more just a messenger carrier if you will – carrying news and information concerning electronic discovery between and among the players: the courts, the lawyers, the providers, the clients. As one legal tech vendor told me “we are in safe hands with these guys”.

To be clear, they do have a role: they provide a valuable source of first-hand information about eDiscovery and the subjects which surround it, as well as a platform for providers and others to promote their expertise, their services and their people. But their role is more public relations and not reporting as most of us know the meaning of the word.

So it is left to journalists and reporters to suss out the eDiscovery market – the Good, the Bad, the Ugly – to provide a balanced view.

One such person is Isha Marathe, the Law & Technology Reporter for ALM Media. She and ALM have the advantage of seeing every aspect of the legal technology market so they have the opportunity to see the “Big Picture”.

In this interview she discusses where and how AI is being adopted by in-house counsel and law firms, the tension between “excitement” and “panic” over AI, the mistakes that legal technology vendors make selling their AI acumen, and more: