ABA Techshow
Techshow attendees dig deeper into AI uses and capabilities
More than 100 vendors are at ABA Techshow’s expo hall at McCormick Place in Chicago. (Photo by John O’Brien/ABA Journal)
For a lot of attendees of this year’s ABA Techshow, the goal isn’t just to learn about generative artificial intelligence but to delve deeper into what these tools are doing now.
“Everyone says they have AI, so it’s a lot of noise out there,” says Michael Cornelison, the chief innovation officer at Duggan Bertsch in Chicago. “With my background, I’ve seen it all, so I’m just trying to get my feet wet with some of the newer technologies.”
Cornelison got the opportunity to do just that at Techshow, a four-day conference at Chicago’s McCormick Place that features useful and practical technologies in the legal industry. In addition to nearly 60 panels and presentations, he and the other 2,000-plus expected attendees have access to an expo hall staffed by more than 100 legal technology vendors.
“Part of what I have been doing is trying to improve [our firm’s] technology base, improve their security, and see what tools should we bring to bear for our firm, and how do we enable our firm to grow using some of these strategies?” says Cornelison, who stepped into his role in the fall.
Sarah Glassmeyer, the director of data curation at LegalTech Hub, a global directory of legal technology solutions, tools and services, also came to Techshow to gather intel.
“You have to talk to the vendors to find out what they do,” says Glassmeyer, adding that she prefers in-person conversations over scrolling through company websites. “I’m really just here to cruise the exhibit hall, see what vendors are able to do and what product updates are happening.”
Glassmeyer, who used to work for the ABA Center for Innovation, is no stranger to Techshow. While “AI is the big thing” now, she notes that she’s interested in talking with vendors who “aren’t putting forward AI-forward things.”
She also appreciates meeting her fellow Techshow attendees, many of whom are what she describes as “techy lawyers” from small and midsize firms.
“These are lawyers who are multitasking, being the IT person for the firm in addition to a lawyer,” Glassmeyer says.
Fran Nay works on special projects for the Law Offices of Nay & Friedenberg, an estate planning and elder law firm her husband founded in Portland, Oregon, more than 40 years ago.
Follow along with the ABA Journal’s coverage of the ABA Techshow 2026 here.
Because of Nay’s background in technology—she used to help hospitals select their computer systems—she came to Techshow with a few colleagues to look for a new practice management system and learn about other AI capabilities for the firm.
Nay is especially interested in seeing what Smokeball, Clio and Caret Legal can do, but she is also open to working with “smaller, more nimble companies,” she says.
“We’ve been testing [AI] for about six months, so we have a fairly good idea of what it can’t do,” Nay says. “And that’s sort of where we’re starting.”
Legal technology creators like Tigran Avakyan also are attending this year’s Techshow to hear how their peers are addressing some of the problems facing the legal profession.
Avakyan is the CEO and co-founder of Los Angeles-based Mattera, which provides workers’ compensation and other boutique law firms with a legal assistant built directly into their inbox.
“I’m here basically to learn because this is my first time in the legal space, and there are some interesting ideas,” says Avakyan, a software engineer by background who also hopes to talk with practitioners to identify any other gaps in legal services offerings that need to be filled.
“It’s a little bit of reconnaissance, just to make sure I’m on the right track, and if not, I’ll pivot,” he says.
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