WINNERS' CIRCLE

How One Bar Complaint Led to Lawmatics — and Two Best Places to Work Awards | Matt Spiegel

Matt Spiegel is helping law firms rethink growth, client relationships, and the business side of practicing law. As CEO and Co-Founder of Lawmatics, Matt leads a legal tech company built to help law firms manage leads, automate marketing, track performance, improve intake, and strengthen the client journey from first contact through future referrals. Lawmatics recently won a Best Places to Work award, recognizing the culture Matt and his team have built as the company continues to grow. In this episode, Russ and Matt discuss how Lawmatics became much more than a CRM for lawyers. Matt describes it as a growth platform for law firms, supporting lead management, marketing automation, reporting, analytics, and the relationship moments that happen before and after a client matter. Matt also shares the story that led him into legal tech. As a criminal defense attorney, he received a bar complaint from a client that came down to one issue: communication. That experience helped him see how common slow follow-up and poor client communication were in the legal industry, which led him to launch MyCase and later return to the market with Lawmatics. The conversation also explores Lawmatics' culture and why in-person collaboration matters to Matt. The company works in office Monday through Wednesday, which Matt believes creates the spontaneous conversations, customer insights, and team connections that are hard to replicate remotely. Russ and Matt also discuss the changing legal market, the rise of competitive legal marketing, Lawmatics' expansion into personal injury, and how the company is building AI into a broader platform rather than relying on AI as a standalone feature. Matt also shares advice for founders building niche B2B SaaS companies and for lawyers who want to grow their firms like modern businesses. Topics Covered: [00:01] Welcome and intro, Matt Spiegel, Lawmatics, and the Best Places to Work award [00:31] What Lawmatics does beyond CRM [01:11] Matt's background as a criminal defense lawyer [01:29] The client complaint that sparked his legal tech journey [02:00] Starting MyCase and building a practice management platform [02:38] Why Matt returned to legal tech with Lawmatics [03:45] Lawmatics' culture and Best Places to Work recognition [04:02] Scaling culture as the company grows [05:00] Why Lawmatics is in office Monday through Wednesday [06:20] How in-person work sparks customer and product insights [07:29] Why random conversations can create great ideas [08:49] Building a company around smart, interesting people [09:44] Getting lawyers to adopt new technology [10:22] Why the market was not ready for Lawmatics earlier [11:00] How legal marketing changed law firm operations [12:10] Why consumer-focused law firms are more competitive [12:42] Personal injury, MSOs, ABSs, and new legal market dynamics [14:01] Lawmatics' UI overhaul and AI-assisted features [14:26] How customer problems guide product development [15:19] Expanding deeper into personal injury workflows [16:00] Building an AI suite on top of a broader platform [17:01] Growth opportunities across practice areas and firm types [18:12] Legal marketing, pay-per-click, and client acquisition [19:06] Matt's advice for founders building niche B2B SaaS products [20:00] Why AI alone is not enough to build a durable company [20:14] Matt's advice for lawyers growing a law firm [21:23] Final thoughts on Lawmatics, culture, and legal tech growth

From Bar Complaint to Legal Tech: How Matt Spiegel Built Lawmatics and a Best Place to Work — Twice | Matt Spiegel

Matt Spiegel is helping law firms rethink growth, client relationships, and the business side of practicing law. As CEO and Co-Founder of Lawmatics, Matt leads a legal tech company built to help law firms manage leads, automate marketing, track performance, improve intake, and strengthen the client journey from first contact through future referrals. Lawmatics recently won a Best Places to Work award, recognizing the culture Matt and his team have built as the company continues to grow. In this episode, Russ and Matt discuss how Lawmatics became much more than a CRM for lawyers. Matt describes it as a growth platform for law firms, supporting lead management, marketing automation, reporting, analytics, and the relationship moments that happen before and after a client matter. Matt also shares the story that led him into legal tech. As a criminal defense attorney, he received a bar complaint from a client that came down to one issue: communication. That experience helped him see how common slow follow-up and poor client communication were in the legal industry, which led him to launch MyCase and later return to the market with Lawmatics. The conversation also explores Lawmatics' culture and why in-person collaboration matters to Matt. The company works in office Monday through Wednesday, which Matt believes creates the spontaneous conversations, customer insights, and team connections that are hard to replicate remotely. Russ and Matt also discuss the changing legal market, the rise of competitive legal marketing, Lawmatics' expansion into personal injury, and how the company is building AI into a broader platform rather than relying on AI as a standalone feature. Matt also shares advice for founders building niche B2B SaaS companies and for lawyers who want to grow their firms like modern businesses.

How Atlantic.Net Transformed 24/7 Cloud Support During a Live Data Center Migration | Chris Shyrock

Atlantic.Net has been running cloud infrastructure for 32 years and just completed one of the riskiest operational moves a hosting company can make—a full data center migration—with zero customer-impact events. Director of Support Services Chris Shyrock explains the rebuilt framework that made it possible, and why the hardest part of the transformation had nothing to do with the technology.

Saving Students $30 Million: How Kaplan's All Access Is Transforming University Test Prep | Kim Canning

Kim Canning is helping Kaplan expand access to career readiness, test prep, licensure prep, credentialing, and professional development resources through a new model built for universities and students. As VP of Strategic Partnerships at Kaplan, Kim works with colleges and universities to bring Kaplan's All Access License to learners at scale. Kaplan recently won a BIG Awards for Business honor for the program.

Incidents Are Inevitable. The Chaos Isn't. | Stephen Garcia on BreachRx and Governing Cyber Crisis Response

Stephen Garcia is helping BreachRx bring structure, governance, and accountability to one of the most chaotic moments any organization can face: a cyber incident. As CISO at BreachRx, he draws on years of experience from the customer side — across financial services, technology, gaming, and enterprise environments — to explain why most organizations have tools to detect and contain threats but lack the governance layer that kicks in once a technical event becomes an enterprise crisis. In this episode, Russ and Stephen explore cyber incident response management (CIRM), RexAI, Mobile Command, the CIRM warranty, and why incidents are inevitable but chaos is not.

From 68 to 93 CSAT: How SysAid Built an Agentic Customer Service Organization That Still Feels Human | Avi Kedmi

Avi Kedmi is helping SysAid rethink what customer service can look like in the age of AI. As CEO of SysAid, Avi leads a global IT service management company serving mid-sized clients in more than 100 countries. SysAid recently won an Excellence in Customer Service Award for its transformation of customer care using its own AI-driven tools, systems, and processes. In this episode, Russ and Avi explore how SysAid improved CSAT from 68 to 93, reduced detractors by 94 percent, cut escalations, reduced P1 incidents, shortened call times, and increased frontline resolution rates. They dive into what it means to become an agentic organization — why companies need more than chatbots, how a strong data foundation and broad API access unlock agentic use cases, and how to build trust around AI while keeping the human element at the center of customer service.

No Passwords, No Secrets: How Badge Is Building a Trust Layer for Humans, Machines, and AI | Dr. Tina Srivastava

Dr. Tina Srivastava, co-founder of Badge Inc., discusses how their zero-knowledge authentication platform is revolutionizing identity and access management for humans, machines, and AI agents in the age of agentic AI.

Three AI Excellence Awards and Scaling Enterprise AI with SymphonyAI's Eureka Platform | Theresa Bui

Theresa Bui from SymphonyAI discusses their three AI Excellence Awards wins, the Eureka platform, and how enterprises are deploying operational AI at scale across retail, financial services, manufacturing, and more.

How Optery Removes Employee Data from Data Brokers to Stop Social Engineering | Paul Mander

Paul Mander, Chief Commercial Officer at Optery for Business, discusses how personal data removal tools protect enterprises from social engineering attacks by removing employee data from data broker websites.

Katy Irving and Rory Mitchell on AI Avatars in Healthcare Research

Katy Irving and Rory Mitchell are helping HRW, Healthcare Research Worldwide, explore a new way to understand one of the most important moments in healthcare: the doctor patient consultation. HRW recently won an AI Excellence Award for its work using interactive AI avatars to simulate consultation conversations in pharmaceutical market research.