Legally Disrupted: An Interview with Microsoft's Jason Barnwell (Part 1)

Over the course of 2021, Axiom will feature conversations with leaders who are moving the legal industry forward and disrupting entrenched ways of thinking and working.

This series, “Legally Disrupted,” kicks off with Zach Abramowitz, lawyer turned legaltech entrepreneur and angel investor, interviewing Jason Barnwell, the Assistant General Counsel for Modern Corporate External and Legal Affairs (CELA) at Microsoft and a board member of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC).

Jason Barnwell is an attorney-engineer hybrid who graduated from M.I.T. before starting his legal career. Not every company can be Microsoft, but as Jason explains, his team at Microsoft aims to advance certain conversations not just internally but for the entire industry. He publishes essays regularly on Legal Evolution, is a fixture on #legaltech Twitter and moderates Microsoft’s Legal Operations Technical Sharing Community (LOTSC). Given his background and his active-thought leadership, it is no surprise that many legal departments in the Fortune 500 (and beyond) look to Jason and the team at Microsoft for signals about the future of the industry.

Zach recently caught up with Jason. Their conversation, which has been lightly edited for readability, has been broken up into two separate posts. In this first installment, they discuss Jason’s work at Microsoft, law firms versus ALSPs, and the importance of change agents being public-facing. The second installment will address legal technology, including the future of legal software and the role of venture capital versus academia in terms of nurturing industry modernity and innovation.