Building for the Future
Meet Everlaw's New Chief Technology Officer, Max Christoff
Everlaw welcomes Max Christoff as our first Chief Technology Officer. With more than 25 years of experience leading engineering teams at Google and Morgan Stanley, Max brings expertise in applying advanced technology to solve meaningful problems, an approach that aligns well with Everlaw's mission of promoting justice by illuminating truth for the legal field.
We recently sat down with Max to learn about his journey from building products for billions of users to transforming legal technology, his perspective on AI's role in the legal industry, and what drew him to Everlaw.
Your experience at Google and Morgan Stanley is impressive, and you've led some incredible teams at both companies. What made you want to switch things up and transition to legal tech?
The constant for me is tech should be in the service of doing useful things for humans – the utilitarian aspect – which is what led me to launch Google Wallet and lead Chrome Browser engineering. I wanted it to create a tool that people had in their pocket and would save time and make them more productive.
I also wanted to be in a place where I can apply AI to solve specific and hard problems, grounded in what our customers need. Legal kept coming up as a space where AI and tech could enhance the industry and make things possible that weren’t even feasible until recently.
What made you feel like Everlaw was the right fit for your next career endeavor?
Everlaw could make a big difference, and I tuned into this as soon as I met AJ. The decision was multifaceted, but customer focus, an emphasis on quality, building a product that people love, and a strong engineering culture all stood out to me, in addition to AJ being awesome. Everlaw is legal tech that is already transforming the industry, and I want to be able to lead here and capitalize on this moment in time.
How do you unlock value that you didn't even know was possible? Legal kept coming up as a space where AI and tech could enhance the industry.
As you learned about Everlaw, as a company and a platform, what specific technical challenges drew you in?
Given the text and document-heavy nature of legal work, there’s a natural fit with the inherent capabilities of LLMs and how they function. I’ve been working in areas of natural language processing and AI models for more than two decades, going back to some of my graduate research, and it’s exciting to be joining a company that is focused on this space. Quality and grounding are also absolutely critical, and it was important to me that we innovate in ground-breaking ways while remaining committed to the quality of what we ship. Finally, I enjoy solving whole problems rather than pieces. Everlaw’s full stack technical environment across document processing, AI models, data engineering, search technologies, front end, storage, and infrastructure ensures that we have that opportunity.
Where do you see the biggest untapped opportunities for AI in the legal tech industry?
Lawyers don’t have interest in adopting something that maybe makes one thing a little bit faster, but then introduces a whole bunch of new risks to worry about or clean up problems. I think the ‘aha’ moment for many lawyers will be when they realize they have tools that they can depend on. We don't need to bestow human-like personalities on what we're building in order for it to add value and do useful work for people. We can put great and useful tech in lawyers' hands to help humans do productive work.
What would you say are the best pieces of career advice you've received?
First, surround yourself with people smarter than you. There's always an opportunity to learn more things over time. There's always so much to learn, this is not a checkmark you can make; the learning never stops.
Also, building consumer grade experiences is important. We should not expect a lower bar for quality or ease of use just because it is built for experts. Craft and care is essential for any end user. They need to be able to understand how it works. I've taken this with me throughout my career.
Lastly, make sure your energy matches the opportunity. If you’re not actually excited about what you’re doing, that will show up over time!
What's your vision for Everlaw's engineering team and culture as the company grows?
Engineering standards are high here, and there's no shortage of interesting problems to work on no matter your area of expertise. From a range of skills to the learning opportunities for a software engineer, the potential is high and the ability to shift between features is high. You can learn from some great technical leaders. The engineering culture and commitment to building for the long term is really appealing.
Everlaw for Good has also really resonated with me. It's important that as a company, we're not just pushing AI for our clients, but we're interested in making sure this technology can actually help those who can't afford it, because it is a critical element to leveling the playing field in legal.
Looking ahead, I'm excited to work alongside the leadership team to define our strategic vision for innovation in this rapidly evolving legal technology sector. As the legal industry continues to adopt AI and incorporate new tools that are transforming productivity and the discovery process, I'm looking forward to working with the team to advance our offerings to best support the needs of our users.
From a range of skills to the learning opportunities for a software engineer, the potential is high. The engineering culture and commitment to building for the long term is really appealing.
What are you most excited about working in Oakland?
I'm excited because of the better commute, but the local talent pool is so amazing. There are a lot of amazing engineers, designers who actually live in the East Bay but feel that they have to cross a bridge or drive down to the South Bay to find a cutting edge tech opportunity. So I'm super excited that we're building and investing right here, and we'll be looking for some of the Bay Area's best talent to join us.
We're excited to have Max on board as Everlaw enters its next phase of growth and innovation. Welcome to Everlaw, Max!
