In 2017, a group of longtime and prominent members of the International Legal Technology Association, unhappy with the association’s direction, broke off and formed an alternative, the Association of Legal Technologists.
At the time, nQueue CEO Rick Hellers, who spearheaded the split, wrote on LinkedIn that he and others were concerned about ILTA’s overall direction and the “widening gap between the organization’s core values and the actions of its leadership.”
In February 2018, ALT held its first conference, called “ctrl ALT del,” a three-day program billed as a “design think forum for a new organization – one that aims to live up to the ideals and standards set by ILTA.” In particular, it aimed to foster collaboration among three core groups within the legal technology ecosystem: vendors, consultants and law firm IT and KM professionals.
By all accounts, that first conference was a success. The three target groups showed up in roughly equal proportions, for an attendance of around 140. News reports, blog posts and social media praised the conference’s design-thinking format, led by Margaret Hagan, director of the Legal Design Lab at Stanford Institute of Design. Both during and afterwards, the conference generated significant buzz.
One ALT founding member described that first conference to me as a “love fest.” If so, then ALT’s second conference, held last week in Scottsdale, Ariz., was the morning after. It was the moment when ALT’s membership woke up, looked around the room, and collectively asked themselves whether this had been a brief fling or would be a lasting relationship.
A Reckoning for ALT
This second ctrl ALT del felt like something bigger than simply a conference. It felt as if it was a reckoning point for the viability and future of ALT as an organization.
That tone was set from the opening moments,
