Blake Vanderhyde
A Minnesota attorney writing on artificial intelligence and legal marketing
Practicing Attorney and Legal Marketer
Welcome
I write about artificial intelligence and the practice of law, for plaintiff firms trying to tell what actually works from what is just noise.
Most lawyers are served neither by the hype around AI nor by blanket caution. What helps is a clear way to reason about what the technology can do, where it fails, and how to use it within the duties the profession already carries. That is what I write about here.
I write from inside the work, not above it. For two decades I built and ran plaintiff marketing operations, from mass tort SEO to paid social across every major platform. Today I co-founded and helped build Ardeo, an AI marketing platform for plaintiff law firms. So when I write about where AI helps a firm and where it does not, it comes from having written the code, run the campaigns, and measured the results myself.
What I Write About
Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice
Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice
Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice
How lawyers and firms can adopt AI responsibly, with attention to professional judgment, confidentiality, ethics, marketing compliance, and the practical realities of running a firm. My AI for Lawyers series is a working primer for the whole profession.
Legal Marketing for Plaintiff Firms
Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice
Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice
Two decades of what actually connects injured people with the firms who can help them, from the early days of legal SEO through today's multi-channel reality, and how AI is reshaping the economics of reach.
Access to Representation
Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice
Access to Representation
The structural problem underneath all of it: too many victims of mass injury never reach the right firm, because effective outreach is expensive, complex, and hard to coordinate. What that costs, and what could change it.
What I am Building
Ardeo
Disclosure
Disclosure
I do not just write about AI for plaintiff marketing. I build it. Ardeo is an AI marketing platform I co-founded for plaintiff law firms, now live. If you want to see the product behind the writing on this site, that is where it lives.
Disclosure
Disclosure
Disclosure
I co-founded Ardeo and its parent company, A4A, Inc., and I hold a financial stake in both. When I mention them here, you should know that. Everything else on this site is my honest read of the field.
Latest Writing - Original Analysis on AI for Lawyers
Why AI Hallucinates Legal Citations
The Rational Case for Legal AI Hesitancy
The Rational Case for Legal AI Hesitancy
Hallucinations are the most cited reason lawyers hesitate to adopt AI, but most explanations of why they happen miss the mechanism. Understanding what's actually going on inside the model changes how you evaluate which tools are safe to use and where the real risks lie. Read the full article here.
The Rational Case for Legal AI Hesitancy
The Rational Case for Legal AI Hesitancy
The Rational Case for Legal AI Hesitancy
Much of the legal profession's hesitation around AI is not irrational resistance. It's a measured response to unclear rules, real professional risk, and a market full of noise. Here's how to separate genuine caution from missed opportunity. Read the full article here.
AI for Lawyers: Separating Signal from Noise
AI for Lawyers: Separating Signal from Noise
AI for Lawyers: Separating Signal from Noise
Lawyers today are inundated with information about artificial intelligence. Some of it is valuable, much of it is not. This series builds a reliable framework for evaluating AI tools: what they are, where they help, and where they don't. Read the full article here.
Visit our Full Archive
AI for Lawyers: Separating Signal from Noise
AI for Lawyers: Separating Signal from Noise
Original analysis on AI for the legal profession, drawn from years of hands-on work with the technology and the industry it's reshaping. For the full archive, including a 27-part series on antimicrobial resistance that informs much of how I think about using complex systems, visit Insights.