Legal Tech: Reduce Human Error and Future-Proof Your Practice with Chris Draper

digital security digital threat human error law firm legal firm legal tech trokt Jul 15, 2021

More and more law firms are digitizing their practices, partly due to the pandemic. With this change, it is important to have a system that protects our legal files in the digital realm. Many legal documents are unsafe against human error and even fraudulent attacks. Settling disputes using digital forensic analysis can take a long time and cost a lot of money.

Fortunately, Trokt provides its clients with an anchor of truth when it comes to digital files.

In this episode, we are joined by Trokt Managing Director, Chris Draper. Chris talks about their latest innovations in legal tech and we dive deeper into the need for technologies that remove human error to avoid disputes. Finally, he discusses Trokt's life-saving features when it comes to digital security.

If you want to know how to protect your practice and your clients from digital threats, then this episode is for you.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode

Understand the various risks of leaving your files vulnerable to human error and intervention.
Discover the increasing importance of digital security in the legal industry.
Learn how Trokt can help your firm and your clients.

Resources

This episode is sponsored by Smith.ai. Curious how you can use a receptionist service at your law firm? Download the Smith.ai free eBook: Are you Lawyering or Laboring? 7 Steps for Running a Highly Productive Law Firm with Virtual Receptionists.
This episode is sponsored by Get Staffed Up. Learn more at www.getstaffedup.com/VIP
Get yourself a Free Coaching Session and learn more about the 90 Day Law Firm Turnaround Coaching Program.
Connect with Chris: LinkedIn
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Closing a Matter with Trokt
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Grow your practice with LawFundAR.

Episode Highlights

How Chris Got into the Legal Industry

Chris’s background is in engineering, particularly in the rocket business.
His work in the rocket business and the legal industry both boiled down to human errors and relations.
His innovations are focused on eliminating as many human errors as possible.

Chris: “How can I make sure that I'm building it safer for us to remove those human errors that crop up all far too often and lead to avoidable disputes?”

Due to the pandemic, law firms are now focusing on digitizing their practice. As a result, they also make it difficult to verify the truth.
Trokt provides an anchor of truth that can help resolve disputes more accurately.

The Relevance of Trokt

To appreciate the value of Trokt, you need to adjust how you think of security and protection.
Tune in to the full episode to hear about a case in Virginia. Chris shares how difficult and expensive it is to spot and prove fraud and embezzlement.

Chris: “If we can reduce the time it takes to spot those fraudulent files, if we can actually identify instantly that this file is fraudulent, we can reduce those costs.”

Trokt takes important documents and saves a thumbprint of that file independently for future use.
It does not just apply in government, but also other high-regulation industries such as construction.
Their service is highly valuable in fields where the consequences of human errors are high.

Trokt from a Functional Perspective

Trokt is a suite of tools that is essentially a smart contracting solution and collaboration platform.
The Thumbprinter is for post-DocuSign and post validation. It makes sure that the file cannot be modified through both machine and human error or intervention again.
It is used when a document leaves your physical chain of custody. This feature can identify if a document is original.
There is still no legal technology that can solve every problem, especially when dealing with human errors and ethics.
Trokt, in particular, aims to solve the risks of breaking the digital chain of custody.

Limits of Trokt

Chris: “If you cannot trust an individual who is charged with the ethical responsibility of representing the best interests of both their client, but justice, you have a far bigger problem that no tech is able to solve. And no tech should even try and start because tech does not have a moral compass to deal with that piece.”

Trokt cannot make a general claim of truth, only a one-sided truth.
The software is not equivalent to copyright. It only proves that at a point in time, an original copy of a document existed.
It does not solve the problems in the digitalization of law in general.
They are, however, engaged in solving the gap in lawyers’ use of metadata and flexible storage.
Trokt is like an insurance policy that allows you to cost-effectively do digital forensic analysis.

Bringing Awareness to Digital Security

Because many lawyers now are digital natives, they cannot spot holes in digital security.
More than practitioners, courts are concerned with digital security. They fear that they will not be able to prove fakes.
Listen to the full episode to hear Chris's story about the validity of contracts and legal disputes!

Lawyers need to be ready to defend against threats against digital security because they are coming.

Chris: “Do we all need to be in the frying pan in order to make sure we should you know, turn down the heat of it?”

Value Proposition and Financials

With Trokt, any file would usually cost $1 to protect perpetually.
It protects the clients as well, against any human errors or interventions that the law firm may commit.
With the overhaul taking place in the legal space right now, the $1 cost is going to be extremely worth it.

Chris: “This is something where you can say to your client, I'm providing you a level of insurance, which is going to be worth $20,000. For $1.”

Chris and the ABA advocate for an elegant and simple human-focused process.

Chris: “It is vitally important that you have a tool that can lay an anchor of truth on to that item that's going to leave your control, and will someday come back to being that element that determines whether or not your job was done.”

Communicating With and Closing Out Clients

Trokt is an innovation that allows clients to be future-protected.
Clients are not tied down to Trokt, so they have the freedom to find the best resources for them.

Listen to the full episode to hear about a client disengagement that went wrong due to human error!

Moshe: “Most people are doing things digitally now where they might not have been doing that nine months ago, 12 months ago. And this is because this is going to rapidly become a real pressing issue.”

The process of closing out with clients can be done in one afternoon with the use of Trokt.
In a matter of minutes, you can secure documents from human error even as they leave your chain of custody.

Chris: "We are essentially those anchors of truth that you can take to court and know this is what happened throughout the process of us proving it in a digital, nimble, forward-protecting way."

About Chris

Chris Draper is the Managing Director of Trokt in Des Moines, Iowa. Here, they build technologies for equitably resolving and avoiding disputes. They remove the risk of human errors from complex collaborations.

Chris came to the legal industry as a technologist first. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley. He also holds a Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow. Currently, he serves as Chairman of the American Bar Association's Online Dispute Resolution Task Force. He is also a fellow of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution.

If you wish to get in touch with Chris, you may connect with him through LinkedIn.

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