CES has historically introduced tech that crosses over to the legal industry.
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The Las Vegas Convention Center during CES last January. (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

“We bring you the circus, pied piper whose magic tunes greet children of all ages, from 6 to 70, into a tinsel and spun-candy world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter and whirling thrills; of rhythm, excitement and grace; of blaring and daring and dance; of high-stepping horses and high-flying stars…It’s a fierce, primitive fighting force that smashes relentlessly forward against impossible odds. That is the circus.”

— Narrator colloquy at the beginning of “The Greatest Show on Earth”

Ahh, January. The holidays are over. It’s back to reality.

But in Las Vegas the first week of January is all about the possibilities and promises of consumer technology as the annual gigantic consumer electronics show, CES (sponsored by the Consumer Technology Association), kicks off.

Just as in the past six years, I’ll be there. Just like last year. I will be covering the show from a legal tech and innovation viewpoint for Above the Law.

The Greatest Show on Earth

To call CES a “show” is a bit of an understatement.

As I have said before, it’s a massive conga line stretching from the Convention Center at the north end of the Strip to Mandalay Bay at the south end. It’s part computer science, part giant party, part marketing and part schmaltz. The spectacle begins on January 5, with a day and a half of media days, and then goes full tilt for five days.

Consider the numbers (according to CES):

Over 138,000 attendees, 60% of whom hold jobs at senior positions in their organizations.
Representatives of 309 Fortune 500 companies from some 160 countries.
Over 4312 exhibitors
1442 start-up exhibitors housed in the basement of the Venetian Expo convention center called Eureka Park, where you find people pursuing their passions and dreams.
Keynote addresses from the CEOs of companies such as Waymo, Nvidia, Panasonic, Volvo, Accenture, Sirius, and Delta (in the Sphere, followed by a concert by none other than Lenny Kravitz).
Over 1000 speakers across 250 educational sessions from thought leaders from companies like Meta, Vogue, Netflix, Mitsubishi, and Mastercard, to name a few.

Those of us in legal tend to think of large conferences in terms of those put on by Clio, ILTA, LegalWeek, or even TechShow (of which I am the current co-chair). But CES is in an entirely different league altogether.

To paraphrase the sportswriter Irvin Cobb: Until You Go To CES With Your Own Eyes, Behold CES, You Ain’t Never Been Nowhere, And You Ain’t Seen Nothin.

CES 2025

Kinsey Fabrisio, the Consumer Technology Association current president, and John Kelley, the 2025 show director, recently emphasized in their pre-show presser that this year’s show will focus on things like how quantum computing will transform business, advances in consumer wearables, beauty and fashion products, food tech, fitness and longevity, gaming, and health care and mobility tools.

And, of course, the show will focus heavily on machine learning and Gen AI and how these tools will change every profession.

Among the top 10 things to look for this year, according to CES promotional materials, are a Health Summit, new Innovation Awards, vehicle and space tech, a “Shark Tank” open call, and, last but not least, an Indy car race with full size autonomous vehicles.

Among the top 10 products not to miss: foldable TVs, new HDMIs, perhaps laptops with wall displace capability, new vacuum robots, smart home robots and flying cars.

Other notables touted by CES : how AI agents will take over more and more things us humans now do (better, cheaper, faster), as I wrote about after attending the Summit AI New York a few weeks ago, hologram display products, and cute “affectionate Intelligence” robots. Computing with keyboard-less input. Glasses that display data as you view objects around you. Voices that talk the info you request into your earbuds or smartphone on demand. Autonomous vehicles or drones delivering you and/or goods.

All this and more.

What’s a Lawyer Doing Here?

What does all this have you do with legal? Why attend and write about a Show directed toward consumer products, not products for lawyers and legal professionals? As I have written before, there are two main reasons: the first is attitudinal, and the second is practical.

It’s the ‘Tude, Man

First, the attitude. The people and exhibitors at CES look at the world and ask questions differently than most lawyers. They look for ideas that could, might, or even possibly work to address consumer pain points. Legal spends its time looking for ways something won’t work. CES is the party of yes, Legal is often the party of no.

The people who attend CES are motivated and rewarded for finding ways of doing things that make what consumers do better, cheaper, and faster. Legal, on the other hand, in large part poo poos better, cheaper, and faster, especially if the better, cheaper, faster could impact billable hours.

CES is a different and refreshing perspective. Different viewpoints and perspectives lead to different approaches that could someday be applied to law. But for that to happen you have to be exposed to different perspectives.

Crossover Potential

I have found that CES has historically introduced tech that, in different forms, later crosses over in one form or the other into legal. (As far back as 2020, CES speakers were saying that AI would permeate every facet of our commerce and culture.)

Like everyone else, lawyers are consumers. And when they use consumer products, they look for products that work, are easy to use, and solve actual pain points. Inevitably, those consumer products and their uses will spill over into legal. Lawyers gradually begin to expect and demand products that help them in the same way as the consumer products they use in everyday (real?) life.

So, it’s important to see what products and trends in the consumer domain could have implications for the legal profession. Understanding the relevance of these products and trends is crucial for anticipating future challenges and opportunities in legal.

The prime example: the iPhone. When it was introduced, most legal and business people dismissed the iPhone as having no work-related significance. The common belief was it would never replace the BlackBerry. Yet the iPhone and similar smartphones, ultimately completely transformed how lawyers and legal professionals work.

I have learned over seven years, amidst all CES spectacle are stories that could affect legal. Last year, for example, I wrote about such things as the best use and practices for AI that might work for legal, how consumer electronics could impact client attrition and expectations, and how the metaverse could be used to train lawyers. I also wrote about a gallery of flops that an exhibitor identified and how legal could take a lesson from those flops.

All insights and perspectives different from what I might have obtained by sticking with legal tech conferences. Legal tech conferences all too often turn into a bunch of us sitting in a closet talking to ourselves too much, as one of my clients used to say.

Stay Tuned

CES is a blend of computer science, marketing, and pure revelry that turns Las Vegas into a giant, interconnected stage for innovation. As I attend CES for the seventh time, I hope to bring you some insights and stories about the experience and what I discover and what’s relevant and important to legal.

“And now let us welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke

Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.