"CLOC offered three "general sessions" which I would call keynotes over the three days. The first, which I already reported on, featured Zach Kass, a former OpenAI executive. He introduced the question of what the legal profession would and should offer as value beyond what AI can and will do. It's a question I and many others have tried to address. His hook: what will you do when everything can be automated? His thesis was there are some things that might be automated but which we as individuals and a society for a whole host of reasons don't choose to do so."
"The final keynote was offered by Judd Kessler, a professor at the Wharton School and an economist. He talked about what he called "hidden markets": those markets which, because of the scarcity of supply-side resources, don't necessarily follow standard supply and demand rules. You remember these rules: prices will rise until supply is greater than demand. As a result, says Kessler, by choice, we determine the winners in these markets based on something other than who is willing to pay the highest price."
"They ask hard questions, they attend the session religiously, and are by and large more mature than most conference goers. They are there for the conference, not the parties. There is much less a bro party spirit. That's not to say that they didn't have fun but the fun was incidental to the purpose they were there. It's definitely for the adults in the room."
CLOC and legal ops attendees approach the conference with seriousness, asking difficult questions and attending sessions consistently. The event is oriented toward professional purpose rather than socializing, with any fun treated as incidental. The conference’s keynotes set the tone and signal organizer priorities. Three general sessions function as keynotes across the days. One keynote frames a central issue: what value the legal profession should provide beyond what AI can automate, using the prompt of what people will do when automation becomes comprehensive. Another keynote presents “hidden markets,” where scarcity of supply-side resources disrupts standard supply-and-demand pricing and shifts how winners are determined.
Read at Above the Law
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