On today’s LawNext: we hand over the podcast to NotebookLM to discuss the state of law practice management technology.

If you haven’t heard of NotebookLM, it is a generative AI tool from Google that turns your documents into engaging audio discussions. Its output sounds a whole lot like, well, a podcast, with two hosts chatting it up about your documents.

To quote Google’s own description, “With one click, two AI hosts start up a lively “deep dive” discussion based on your sources. They summarize your material, make connections between topics, and banter back and forth.”

So I decided to give it a try.

Back in September, I wrote a four-part series on his LawSites blog called, “The Shrinking Ownership of Law Practice Management Technology.” It was a deep dive into how ownership of law practice management software for solo and small law firms has been consolidated under just six major ownership groups.

I loaded the four parts of that series into NotebookLM and asked it to generate its audio overview. What you’ll hear today is the discussion it generated, followed by my thoughts on what it produced. The NotebookLM audio is about 15 minutes long, and my comments come after that plays.

It is important to keep in mind that the audio generated by NotebookLM is not simply a summary. The two speakers do summarize key points from my articles, but they also add interpretations and perspectives that are nowhere to be found in the original source material.

Here are the articles on which the audio is based:

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Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.