AI Tools Podcast

Most access-to-justice conversations start with lawyers giving legal help away for free. Yvonne Nath, founder of Counsel Commons, is building something different: a marketplace where lawyers sell the AI skills and agents they've built, and where a $1,500 divorce is a real business line, not a loss leader. This episode makes the case that the biggest opportunity in legal AI isn't serving existing clients faster — it's reaching the millions who were never going to hire a lawyer at all.

027 Episode 027 Is it Safe to Go to the Rave? (56 min)

A thousand-page document production doesn't get read anymore — and nobody expects it to. Ron Drescher presses Akamai's Chief Privacy Officer Jim Casey on where verification actually goes once lawyers stop checking every page, and what happens the moment a "reversible" AI mistake becomes the advice a client acts on. This episode maps the real line between using AI as a cognitive tool and quietly handing it your judgment.

026 Episode 026 Volunteers and Hostages (58 min)

Most firms treat AI adoption as an all-or-nothing mandate. Chad Van Horn built his instead on volunteers. In this episode, the founding partner of Van Horn Law Group explains how an AI-powered petition review process cut his firm's amendments by 80 percent, why he refuses to force AI on anyone who doesn't want it, and why he still thinks the technology is making lawyers worse thinkers. Efficiency and judgment, it turns out, are not the same skill, and only one of them can be automated.

025 Episode 025 Do Lawyers Need New Rules for AI? Judge Elizabeth Gunn Says ... Maybe Not (46 min)

Judge Elizabeth L. Gunn doesn't use generative AI in her own chambers - and that's exactly what makes her the right person to ask where the technology actually belongs in a courtroom. In this conversation, the U.S. bankruptcy judge for the District of Columbia and host of Bad Boys of Bankruptcy walks through AI hallucinations she's sanctioned, how she evaluates AI-generated evidence, and why she doesn't think the profession needs a single new rule to handle any of it. Her answer is simple: the technology changed. The standard for lawyers didn't.

Field Note

Five Tips for Fighting Pro Se Litigants Who Use AI (17 min)

Everyone assumed the AI-in-litigation problem would come from lawyers cutting corners. Ron Drescher argues the bigger near-term risk is the opposing party who doesn't have a lawyer at all — and now has something close to one anyway. This episode lays out five practical tips for litigating against AI-assisted pro se parties, built around a $300,000 lesson from a case that should have been over.

Your hosts

About the show

Ron Drescher

Attorney & Host

After more than 40 years in the trenches of bankruptcy law, Ron Drescher has seen legal practice evolve from paper and fax machines to cloud software—and now to artificial intelligence.

He’s not a technologist. He’s a practicing lawyer who understands how law firms actually work—and where they break.

Through his podcast, AI Tools for Practicing Lawyers, Ron helps attorneys move beyond hype and confusion to practical, ethical use of AI in their day-to-day work. His focus is on what matters: tools that save time, improve client service, and fit within the realities of legal practice.

If you’re trying to figure out what AI actually means for your practice, Ron is the guide who speaks your language.

Heather Gardner

Co-Host & Founder, Propel Paralegal Services

Heather Gardner is the Founder and CEO of Propel Paralegal Services, a virtual legal support company providing experienced bankruptcy paralegal services to attorneys nationwide. She has spent her career working extensively with consumer bankruptcy practices, supporting debtor-focused Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases through every stage of the bankruptcy process.

An early adopter of AI in legal practice — from GPT to Spellbook — Heather uses AI extensively in content marketing, workflow development, and creating SOPs. She frequently speaks on practical ways attorneys can use AI tools for drafting, business operations, and everyday practice management.

40+

Years in Law

1000s

Cases Handled

Weekly

New Episodes