Legal Talk Network On the Road covers the latest conferences, bar meetings, industry events, and trade shows. Recorded live from the conference room floor, our hosts interview bar presidents, committee and section chairs, and other leaders to offer an exclusive look at the biggest events in legal, as well as what is on the horizon for those who practice law.
Across a week of conversations in Missoula, one theme kept resurfacing no matter who was in the chair: AI is forcing every bar leader in the country to rethink risk, mentorship, and what it means to serve solo and small firm attorneys who are already stretched thin. Chris Newbold, COO of ALPS Insurance, opens this compilation with a thank you to the bar leaders who made the retreat what it was. From there, the episode pulls together moments from across the series focused on solo and small firm practice: Rachel Okun on why relationships built through bar leadership matter more than marketing, Kevin Maxim on the collision between attorney-client privilege and AI, Mark Bassingthwaighte on why succession planning has become a quiet crisis for solos, and Susan Carns Curtiss on the anonymous posts revealing how many newer attorneys are struggling to find mentorship. John Mudd, Alison Gee, Angela Armstrong, and Susan Bradford Tarley round out the conversation with their own takes on wellness, hallucinated case law, and the legal deserts still waiting to be served. Together, these voices paint a picture of a profession adapting in real time, uncertain but not without hope.
Proving once again that ALPS Insurance puts the "treat" in retreat, they gathered leaders in law from across the country this summer. These sit-down conversations reveal flavors of leadership and legal trends from a variety of perspectives. Cool takes, one scoop at a time, recorded live at the 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat in Missoula, MT.
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21 Sept 2026
Adapting to AI and Technology: Strategies for Law Firm Resilience – 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat
After 28 years as ALPS Insurance's Risk Manager, Mark Bassingthwaighte says cybersecurity now worries him more than legal malpractice, and he's tired of hearing solo and small firm lawyers insist they're too small to be a target. Bassingthwaighte, who's worked with more than 1,200 law firms and delivered over 700 CLE seminars, traces a quieter crisis behind the numbers: he estimates some form of attorney impairment, burnout, depression, addiction, or dementia, plays a role in as many as half to 70% of malpractice claims, including one case where an attorney was found hiding client files in the trunk of his car. He also breaks down how generative AI is supercharging phishing attacks at a scale small firms have never had to defend against, and pushes back on the fear that AI itself will replace lawyers, arguing it will only take out the ones who refuse to adapt. Bassingthwaighte closes on a message he repeats often to lawyers facing a claim: you're not judged by the mistake you made, you're judged by what you do about it.
Proving once again that ALPS Insurance puts the "treat" in retreat, they gathered leaders in law from across the country this summer. These sit-down conversations reveal flavors of leadership and legal trends from a variety of perspectives. Cool takes, one scoop at a time, recorded live at the 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat in Missoula, MT.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
21 Sept 2026
Community, Burnout, and Knowing Who to Call – 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat
In 2016, Susan Carns Curtiss added 46 women attorneys she knew to a Facebook group with no real plan behind it, and it's since grown into Girl Attorney, a network of more than 40,000 women lawyers trading practice advice, mentorship, and support across the country. A plaintiff's personal injury and wrongful death trial lawyer in Oklahoma City, Curtiss describes watching newer attorneys increasingly post anonymously about burnout and a lack of mentorship, even as most of the community is thriving, and shares her own recent experience nearly drowning in a growing litigation docket before a longtime colleague stepped in to help her offload cases. She credits two decades of showing up in her local bar and trial lawyer community for having someone to call when she needed it, and pushes back gently on the idea that women's push for work-life balance is a new trend rather than a fight that's been underway for years. Curtiss closes with a call not to look away from what she sees as a broader breakdown in the rule of law, and to find the others who are choosing to stand up rather than turn away.
Proving once again that ALPS Insurance puts the "treat" in retreat, they gathered leaders in law from across the country this summer. These sit-down conversations reveal flavors of leadership and legal trends from a variety of perspectives. Cool takes, one scoop at a time, recorded live at the 2026 ALPS Bar Leaders Retreat in Missoula, MT.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Who has been a guest on On the Road with Legal Talk Network
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Ari Bulmash
Jordan Turk
Jim Garrett
Alex Braun
Lauren Murphy
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
3,077,840
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
8 ratings
Spotify
4.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 85 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
98
Social presence
0
YouTube
93
Engagement
90
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Questions about On the Road with Legal Talk Network
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Dan Lear host the show. Published by Legal Talk Network.
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The show publishes weekly, based on its RSS feed.
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