Q&A with Practising Law Institute CMO David Smith

Work & Co

For a brand with nearly a century of history behind it, how do you honor that legacy while making sure the organization stays relevant for the next generation of members? Any tips for other brands who may be balancing a similar set of priorities?

David Smith

At the most basic level, we honor the legacy by staying true to the mission and being explicit about our purpose: to inspire legal professionals, share best-in-class knowledge, and help drive legal excellence. This alignment becomes the filter for what we invest in and how we serve our Members.

To stay relevant for the next generation, we look to initiatives like our work with law schools to understand and anticipate what’s needed, including AI training. PLI is committed to supporting legal professionals at every stage of their careers with the right training and research.

But no matter the audience for a brand, I think one principle carries through everything: involve the customer early and often in what you’re building—and really listen. We share concepts and prototypes, run user testing, and use that feedback to shape everything from features to messaging. That “voice of the customer” approach produces stronger products—it also increases our confidence that what we ship is truly ready for the market and aligned with how practitioners actually work.

Work & Co

The legal space is among the many industries being reshaped by AI. For PLI, how important is it to be at the leading edge of that shift and what does upskilling look like in this moment?

David Smith

PLI has always served as a “first responder” to major shifts in the law profession, helping practitioners understand what’s changing and what to do next. AI is a perfect example, transforming work in real time—from answering questions to completing tasks. That shift changes what legal professionals need to understand: not just the technology, but the workflows, controls, governance, and ethics around it.

Upskilling right now means meeting people where they are and offering multiple entry points, from foundational literacy to applied, scenario-based learning. We offer extensive AI programming across our platforms from podcasts to publications to conversations with experts, and look for ways to keep current as the landscape evolves. Examples include a quarterly “Ask Me Anything” update, Hot Topic Briefings on issues such as AI red teaming, AI data centers, and AI notetakers, programs that help our Members navigate regulation, risk, and compliance issues with AI, and more. 

Work & Co

With more AI-powered tools in development at PLI, how are you thinking about how human expertise and technology work best together?

David Smith

I think about human expertise and technology as complementary strengths. Technology is excellent at speed, scale, pattern recognition, and helping people navigate large bodies of information. Human experts are essential for judgment: what matters, what’s nuanced, what’s risky, and what should be done in a specific context. In legal education, the best outcomes happen when AI helps reduce friction (finding, summarizing, comparing, organizing) while faculty and editorial expertise provide the interpretation, the standards, and the “why” behind the guidance.

From a product standpoint, that translates into a few principles: be transparent about what an AI feature is doing and where its information comes from; anchor outputs in authoritative PLI content whenever possible; make it easy to inspect sources and context; and build in opportunities for expert input and continuous quality improvement. We also keep a close eye on risk —confidentiality, hallucinations, bias, and overreliance— because trust is the product. Ultimately, AI should help our members spend less time searching and more time engaging with content.

Work & Co

The new PLI.edu launched a year ago; looking back, what have you learned about how members are using the platform and any particular areas of ROI you’re proud of?

David Smith

The relaunch of PLI.edu has given us valuable insight into how members engage with the platform—and more broadly, with our brand. One of the clearest findings is the impact of personalization, which we deliberately built into the redesign. Mid-tier personalization, using personas in addition to one to one customization, has resonated with users and given us new ways to elevate relevant content. As a result, we plan to further segment our audiences based on what we’ve learned in order to improve relevance and engagement at scale.

From a platform perspective, building the site with flexibility for marketing tools has paid off. It enabled new promotional surfaces and pathways across the site, allowing us to highlight content more dynamically and respond more quickly to business and Member needs.

Work & Co

You’ve been with PLI for more than 20 years now, growing from Director of Marketing to CMO. How do you think about continuing to reinvent yourself as a leader, and what does the role of CMO mean to you today?

David Smith

I think about staying curious, staying close to the work, and showing up authentically. I still consider myself a learner and say, “I don’t know, but let’s explore it together” more often than I used to and see that as a strength.

The role of CMO today is very different than when I began. While the core is still about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time, increasingly it’s also about being a “citizen technologist”: partnering with product, data, and engineering, and designing experiences that help Members accomplish their goals faster—from prioritizing content to reducing friction and improving engagement over time. 

Building a strong brand takes time and consistency, but the payoff is tremendous. When we consistently deliver on our brand through how we present ourselves and serve Members, we create an experience people can trust. That experience is my focus.