From Boston: Jack Newton on VLex, AI for Small Firms and Clio’s Culture

We were on the ground in Boston for ClioCon 2025, recording new episodes of the Real Lawyers podcast and talking with the people shaping where legal work is headed. In this conversation, Kevin sits down with Clio CEO Jack Newton to dig into the VLex deal, how AI can actually help small firms publish where they work and the human side of building Clio.

More interviews and takeaways from ClioCon are coming soon.

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Episode outline

• 00:00 — Kicking off live from Boston and a look back at ClioCon’s humble start
• 02:24 — Balancing founder travel with family and being home for dinner
• 04:43 — The big idea: combining VLex and Clio so research and drafting meet real matters
• 07:04 — Behind the keynote: teams shipping for months to make launch day real
• 09:25 — Moving beyond pay-to-play marketing with workflow-native publishing
• 11:47 — Community, consistency and the ClioCon morning run tradition
• 14:13 — Culture in practice: approachable leadership and fast feedback loops
• 16:36 — Closing the loop between product, support and customer trust
• 19:01 — A customer story that reframed impact
• 21:23 — Why transparency earns permission to keep building