Director of Legal @ Malbek | Legal Tech Author and Commentator | Fastcase 50 2022 Honoree | Legal Tech Startup Advisor and Investor

I help legal professionals, legal teams, and technology organizations make sense of legal technology so they can work smarter, deliver stronger outcomes, and lead with confidence in a field that is often noisy, fragmented, and misunderstood.

As General Counsel of Malbek and a long-time educator, author, and advocate, I sit at the intersection of law, technology, and learning. My work centers on translation. I take complex, fast-moving technologies and turn them into clear concepts, practical strategies, and informed decisions that legal professionals can actually use. Whether guiding teams through digital transformation or shaping how legal products are built and adopted, my focus is always on clarity over hype.

Teaching is core to how I operate. I regularly speak to diverse audiences, from military organizations to law firms and in-house legal departments, as well as large professional groups, on AI’s impact on legal work and the responsible, effective use of technology. Across these settings, my goal is the same: to help people understand not just what tools do, but how they change legal work, roles, and judgment.

That same educational mission runs through my writing and publishing. I am the author of The Legal Tech Ecosystem, a foundational guide to understanding the industry and its players, a co-author of CLM for Dummies, and the editor of the Handbook of Legal Tech. I also write regularly, serve as a columnist for Today’s General Counsel, and contribute through podcasts, webinars, and industry forums. Each platform is another way to make legal tech more accessible, grounded, and actionable.

Across every role, my aim is to equip people with the knowledge and confidence to engage with innovation thoughtfully and critically. If you are trying to cut through the legal tech noise, educate your team, modernize how your legal function operates, or build tools that truly serve legal professionals, I help move you from uncertainty to understanding and from learning to execution.

Let’s build what comes next.

Colin Levy

You can't negotiate AI contract provisions if you don't understand how the technology actually works.

The guide walks through it in the context of AI-specific contractual clauses:

What to flag, redlining suggestions, and negotiation suggestions.

Let me know what you think!

I'm Colin S. Levy, General Counsel at Malbek and author of The Legal Tech Ecosystem.

#legaltech #contracts #law #business #learning

Colin S. Levy

General Counsel at Malbek | Author of The Legal Tech Ecosystem | I Help Legal Teams and Tech Companies Navigate AI, Legal Tech, and Digital Enablement

AI Clauses Guide

AI Agents and Your Data: Two Questions You Should Be Asking

As AI agents become more prevalent in legal workflows, I'm noticing a gap in the conversations happening around their adoption. We're discussing capabilities and use cases extensively, but glossing over the practical realities of data management and security.

Two areas deserve sharper focus:

1) Data Handling and Storage
When an AI agent processes your documents, drafts your contracts, or analyzes your matter files, where does that data actually go? How long is it retained? Is it used for model training? These aren't theoretical questions. They're foundational to understanding what you're agreeing to when you deploy these tools.

Most lawyers assume their data stays private and ephemeral. It doesn't always. Different providers take vastly different approaches to data retention, storage locations, and usage rights. Some retain your inputs for 30 days. Others longer. Some use customer data to improve their models unless you explicitly opt out. The terms matter, and they're rarely transparent.

2) Cybersecurity
AI agents typically require broader access than traditional software. They need to read files, access systems, sometimes act on your behalf. That expanded access creates expanded risk.

Are you treating AI agent deployments with the same security rigor you'd apply to any third-party vendor with system access? Validating their security certifications? Understanding their incident response protocols? Reviewing their encryption standards?

I'm optimistic about these tools. Their potential is real. But potential comes with responsibility. 

We need to ask hard questions about data practices and security standards before deployment, not after something goes wrong.

The legal profession has a particular obligation here. We're stewards of confidential client information. 

That duty doesn't evaporate because the technology is new or exciting.

I’m Colin, General Counsel at Malbek, and author of The Legal Tech Ecosystem. 

#legaltech #innovation #law #business #learning

General Counsel at Malbek | Educator Translating Legal Tech And AI Into Practice | Adjunct Professor | Author, The Legal Tech Ecosystem

Goodlawyer

Leading our passionate Lawyer Experience and Marketing teams.

Supporting our incredible Sales and Account Management teams. 

And on a mission to make being a Fractional Lawyer the most desirable way to practice. 

Because:

1. Lawyers should be able to design a career that fits their life, and 

2. Companies should have access to talented Lawyers that drive their business forward, on budget.

Chief Commercial Officer

Advising Goodlawyer's leadership team in support of its impactful mission to revolutionize legal services for business executives and in-house teams. 

Goodlawyer's unique Fractional GC™ and Fractional InHouse™ services deliver embedded legal expertise in a flexible, part-time format. This approach offers cost-effective, integrated support tailored to your company’s unique requirements. 

Goodlawyer's rigorous vetting means we only offer top-tier legal talent with an average of 10+ years of experience at prestigious firms and in-house roles.

Strategic Advisor

Chad Aboud Consulting

Inspiring leaders and entrepreneurs share how they uncovered their natural gifts and brought them into their career so that they are more successful and feel happier.

Host - What You're About Podcast

Giving Lawyers and Business Leaders the tools to be more successful and feel happier by unleashing more of themselves.

Because career success and fulfilment is more than pure technical knowledge. 

Our impact is maximized by uncovering our unique collection of natural skills. And then pairing up those skills with actions that power human connection. 

Bringing my experience as a former General Counsel and Law Firm Lawyer to build actionable game plans that don't feel like work.

Founder & Principal

AudienceView

Created and led the Legal function for an int'l portfolio of tech companies.

Responsible for:
•	Developing scalable LegalTech, systems and tools to empower the business 
•	Leading cross-functional projects
•	Integrating legal systems and requirements across the portfolio  
•	Making Legal impacts more accessible and usable for stakeholders
•	Building Privacy/Data Security governance and processes (GDPR, CCPA, PIPEDA)
•	Managing intellectual property portfolio and litigation 
•	Hiring, budgeting and setting goals for Legal Department

General Counsel

Indigo

Provided creative, solutions-oriented advice during a time of international expansion and transformation.

•	Negotiated contracts for SaaS and custom technology development, procurement, marketing services, merchandise purchases, live events, loyalty programs and construction projects
•	Led legal negotiation on a significant IP acquisition 
•	Advised on national marketing campaigns, public relations matters, intellectual property management and customer service matters
•	Developed and presented information sessions to business partners

Senior Corporate Counsel

Corporate Counsel

Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP

Advised senior management and boards of directors, negotiated  complex financing and merger transactions, communicated with regulatory authorities and stock exchanges, and trained junior lawyers.

Corporate & Securities Lawyer

Uncovering your natural gifts | TEDx Speaker | Host: What You're About podcast | Coach, Advisor, Speaker | EdTech Series Host | Fmr GC

At Goodlawyer, our mission is to be the most desirable way for Lawyers to practice. 

So that incredible companies get access to extremely talented Lawyers that drive their business forward, on budget.

We transform how legal services are delivered to business executives & in-house teams. Our flagship offerings Fractional GC™ and Fractional InHouse™ provide embedded legal expertise in a flexible, part-time way. 

Think cost-effective and tailored legal support to meet your company's unique needs. 

We rigorously vet our lawyers, ensuring top-tier talent with 10+ years in prestigious firms and in-house roles. 

If you could use flexible Legal talent to lift your Legal Team or Business, we're here.

Chad Aboud

This guy helped me survive 1L.

And 20 years later, I finally told him.

My first semester of law school did not go according to plan. The reading felt endless. I could not see the forest for the trees.

My grades reflected that.

Then I met Dimitar through our law school soccer team. 

Somewhere between classes and the pitch, he shared a different way to think about studying.

Not more hours.
Better perspective.

I took his advice. I got my time back. Studying became lighter. Clearer. 

The path through the forest started to emerge.

Without his care, and his interest in seeing me figure it out, my career may have unfolded very differently.

Last night at Avi’s Counselwell event, I had no idea he’d be there. 

Suddenly we were standing together two decades later, reminiscing about classrooms, soccer games, and conversations that mattered more than either of us probably realized at the time.

That is one of the things I love most about our industry.

The people. 
The long arc. 

The chance to say thank you.

Grateful to Avi and Wordsmith AI for bringing so many thoughtful folks into one room. Elaine and I left full.

Sending you good energy to reach out to someone who shaped your path.

You never know how much it will mean, my friends ✌🏼

No alternative text description for this image

8–15 years. Firm + In-house background.

$200-300k+/yr. Is this you?

I talk with hundreds of lawyers each year. 

And this keeps coming up. 

You’ve built an incredible career.

But you’re not sure the traditional path is the only path for you anymore.

Or your current role has run its race.

If this is you, keep reading.

At Goodlawyer, we’re expanding our curated network of seasoned lawyers.

And here's the best part for you:

It’s free to join.
Zero obligation.

You don’t need to leave your job today. 

No bridges being burned. 

You simply get access to:

1. Fractional In-house opportunities.

2. Leave coverages with the biggest brands.

3. Full-time roles you can't find on your own.

(Because yes we do recruiting too.)

Whatever path feels right. 

And here's the part I enjoy most:

We don’t blast resumes.

Because we deeply care about lawyer happiness.

How do we do that?

We front load everything. 

Taking time through conversations and our internal tools to identify the perfect opportunities for you. 

The overlap of your skills + passion. 

It's as easy as applying here: https://lnkd.in/g_pQN3ee

You don't need to be ready to leave your current role now.

It's just nice to know your options right?

Here’s to intentionally designing our lawyer lives, my friends✌🏽

📸 added benefit: great friends included

Her year might totally change.

Because we did not cancel.

Last week Toronto decided to throw a snowstorm and a rainstorm at us.

And it just happened to land on the same week as two events we were hosting.

A Lawyers meetup at The Walrus.
A Female GC High Tea at the Shangri-La.

When the snow turned near blizzard, Brett and I looked at each other and asked the question.

Do we pull the plug?

People had booked sitters.
Moved meetings.
Coordinated with partners.

They were excited.
We were excited. 

So we drove forward.
Into the storm. 

And I am so glad we did.

Because in the middle of all that weather, I had a conversation with one of the lawyers who had recently turned down an opportunity.

We talked through it that night.
Then again the next day.

Turns out, there’s a design that works for her.

Now she may step into a senior, year long role in a space she thrives.

That conversation does not happen on email.
It does not happen by accident.

It happens when people make the effort to be in the same room.

Sometimes the biggest shifts in our trajectory require a little extra human effort.

A little inconvenience.
A little weather.
A little belief.

Friendly reminder that we never know where the next conversation will take us.

Even in the middle of a storm. 

Wishing you an incredible Monday, my friends ✌🏼

📸: two incredible nights last week with so much more in store (yacht anyone? 🛥️ 🤔)

If you stripped away the title and org chart, would you still choose your job?

Two very successful GCs are rethinking that question today.

Two short calls landed in the same place.

They’ve had big careers.
BigLaw. Senior in house roles.
Great money. Real prestige.

So why consider leaving?

Because as one of them said,

“I actually like being a lawyer. Now I mostly manage people.”

There it is.

You climb for 15 years.
You get the title.

And then you quietly wonder why the job feels further from the work you enjoy.

I speak with hundreds of lawyers every year.

Here’s what many of them tell me.

They love the craft.
They love working with business teams.
They love driving change on the ground.

(And yes, they still want to make a great living.)

But they are so good that they get pulled into management.

Into politics.
Into meetings about meetings.

And here’s what I sometimes forget.

Because I live inside the Fractional GC world, I see lawyers every day designing careers around practicing, not managing.

So it’s easy to forget that there are hundreds more who feel stuck but haven’t considered another path.

If that’s you, there is another way.

Whether it ends up being the Goodlawyer network or not, send me a note. Happy to talk it through.

We just want more happy lawyers everywhere. 

Wishing you an incredible Thursday, my friends ✌🏼 

📸: One of our first dates post parent life. Realizing we needed to switch things up.

Even great lawyers undersell themselves in interviews.

And it’s easier to fix than you think.

I’ve prepped hundreds of lawyers for interviews.

This is one of my favourite tips.

Remember:

Most lawyers aren’t professional interviewees.

And the GC interviewing you isn’t a professional interviewer either.

They’re listening.

But they’re also thinking about their business.

And what to ask you next.

They can only absorb so much.

So focus on 2–3 things you’ve done that clearly map to the role.

Skip the caveats.

Skip the career rundown.

Keep each example specific.

And not more than 2–3 minutes long.

So there’s space to breathe.

Your goal isn’t to tell your life story.
Your goal is to make the fit obvious.

Try this:

Record yourself explaining your examples.

Then watch it back and ask:

Is it obvious this person will crush the role?

Curious for my GC friends, what do the best interviewees do in your interviews? 

📸 July 2022: Getting grilled by my #1 interviewer

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The Battle

Colin Levy

Chad Aboud

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Engagements

Likes

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