As you plan your CLEs for 2026, I encourage you to consider attending the American Bar Association’s TECHSHOW conference, which will be held in Chicago, March 25-28, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. TECHSHOW is a great legal technology conference, and this will be my 12th time attending the conference since 2008. TECHSHOW is always a great place to learn about the best ways to use technology in a law practice and to keep track of emerging technologies. Plus, the EXPO Hall is always a fantastic place to see the leading vendors in legal technology and talk one-on-one with the people who make the products and services that you already use or might use in the future.
This year, I will be presenting two sessions, both on the morning of Friday, March 27. First, I’ll present the session Practical Tips & Tools for Today’s Mobile Lawyer along with Stephen Embry (publisher of the TechLaw Crossroads blog and one of last year’s co-chairs) and Reid Trautz (Senior Director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Practice & Professionalism Center, and also a past chair of this conference). This is going to be a fabulous session with tons of tips and practical advice for making the most of an iPhone and iPad in your law practice.
Second, I’ll present the session Wired for Justice: Wearable and Augmented Tech for a Law Practice along with Sean Harrington, the Director of the AI and Legal Tech Studio at Arizona State University College of Law. In this session, we will talk about the present and the future of all sorts of wearable devices—the Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, and many other wearable devices—and how they can be a part of your law practice and will have an impact on lawyers. Given the recent rumor that Apple is working on a wearable AI pin, this session could not be more timely.
I am incredibly excited about both of these sessions, but I am just as excited about all of the other sessions this year. The problem I have every year at TECHSHOW is that when there are six different sessions offered at the same time, and I want to see more than one of them, how do I decide? I suppose it’s a good problem to have.
I know that the TECHSHOW conference is in excellent hands this year because one of the two co-chairs is Brett Burney, my co-host on the weekly In the News podcast. Brett knows so much about legal technology, and he also knows quite a bit about running a good legal technology conference since he previously chaired the 2015 TECHSHOW conference.
As if that were not enough, Brett and his co-chair, Patrick Wright, have done something unique for this year’s conference. Last year, when you walked from the hotel to the McCormick Place conference rooms being used by TECHSHOW, you had to walk past a lot of empty conference rooms. This year, those conference rooms will be dedicated to the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, also known as C2E2. It’s the Chicago version of Comic-Con. Thus, the attendees of TECHSHOW will be mingling with the approximately 100,000 people attending C2E2. That is going to be a lot of fun. For example, while there is no dress code at TECHSHOW, C2E2 has a whole page of information about Cosplay and Prop Rules, such as:
- Costumes: ALLOWED and encouraged
- Shields: ALLOWED, but not if they have any sharp edges
- Lightsabers: ALLOWED, unless they contain glass
- Martial arts training weapons: NOT ALLOWED
- Whips: ALLOWED, but must be kept coiled
I can only imagine the interesting sights that we will see as we walk back and forth to the conference throughout the day. Not to mention potentially seeing celebrity guests from tons of different movies and TV shows. Perhaps Brett and Patrick are not responsible for putting C2E2 right next to TECHSHOW this year, but they do get credit for giving TECHSHOW a comic book theme for this year’s conference, so it should all be one seamless, entertaining experience.
Early-bird discounted registration rates for TECHSHOW end on February 2, so act quickly if you want to get the best deal. [UPDATE 2/3/2025: That deadline was just extended to February 9.] After you register, look out for the sign-ups for the Taste of TECHSHOW dinners. Brett Burney and I are going to host one of those dinners again this year, and it is always a great way for us to interact with those of you who read iPhone J.D. and listen to the In the News podcast. You should know that in the past, all the spots for our dinner have been scooped up incredibly quickly, so be on the lookout for when the signups become available if you want to secure a spot. But even if you cannot join our dinner, there will be lots of opportunities for all of us to mingle during the conference.
If you are still on the fence about whether you want to attend, check out this post I wrote after last year’s conference. This year’s conference is sure to be even better—and, with C2E2 next door, will surely be the most memorable TECHSHOW ever.