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Live from TechShow: Aviva Cuyler of JD Supra

March 14, 2008

Our next guest in the ongoing “Live from TechShow” interview series is Aviva Cuyler, an individual whose name has been appearing frequently in the legal tech world as of late.

Founder and co-managing director of the legal resource website JD Supra (and a moderator of JD Scoop, it’s accompanying blog), Aviva is a former attorney with 11 years under her belt in business litigation and related fields.

We got a chance to catch up with Aviva earlier today for a few minutes between events, where she spoke briefly on her experience at TechShow, why she founded JD Supra and what technology can do for the legal industry in the future. All this and more, after the jump.

1. Rob La Gatta: Why are you at TechShow?

Aviva Cuyler: I’m at TechShow to let people know about JD Supra and what we’re doing, and also to connect with people I know who are in the ABA and who come to these events from other parts of the country.

2. Rob La Gatta:

Can you provide a little information as to how JD Supra got off the ground, and what prompted the idea for it in the first place?

Aviva Cuyler: I had spent about 12 years working in business litigation, primarily doing writing. I was working on pre-trial motions for a case that was keeping me up late many nights in a row, and I realized that other lawyers had briefed [on these] issues already, and there was no need for me to be starting at square one with every brief…if I only could have access to my colleagues’ work. So I got the idea to create a resource where lawyers could share their work with each other, and have it open for everybody.

4. Rob La Gatta: You have a blog that goes along with the JD Supra website. Do you see blogs as being an important marketing tool? Would you have gone ahead without a blog, or do you think it’s necessary?

Aviva Cuyler: In this day and age, I think it was necessary. It’s really essential to have a place to further the mission of the website, to promote good work in the law – “great work in the law and the people behind it”, that’s the tagline for the blog. We also wanted it to respond to questions and things that people are saying about the website.

5. Rob La Gatta: Where do you see this all going, with free legal information online? Do you think that eventually everything is going to be much more transparent for the general public, allowing them to feel more at ease with the law?

Aviva Cuyler: I do. And I think they will not only feel more at ease with the law, but have a much greater understanding about the daily work that lawyers do. Which I think in turn can help cut out some of the negative perceptions about lawyers.

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