Practical LawConferences

Simon spent the first ten years of his working life in the school of hard knocks – sales. Since then, he has acquired 28 years’ experience of professional service firm leadership.

His career has spanned marketing, brand management, business development, operations, general management and governance roles with global, national and regional practices across the legal, accountancy and property professions. These include Eversheds Sutherland, Taylor Wessing, Charles Russell Speechlys, PKF Littlejohn and DTZ (now Cushman & Wakefield).

During his career, Simon has also founded, built and sold his own advisory business and until recently was deputy chairman of a leading college of further education. He has served as non-executive director with a number of organisations in recent years and is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Institute of Directors and the Royal Society of Arts.

Phil Jones is Managing Director of Brother UK, an Information, Communication and Technology business supplying products and services to hundreds of thousands of UK enterprises.

He has spoken at over fifty business conferences, sharing his views around Leadership, Effective Thinking, The Winning Patters of Successful people and Workplace Culture.

Awarded an MBE in the June 2016 Birthday Honours List for Services to Business, he is a fellow of the IoD and a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute, amongst a list of accolades.

You can follow him on Twitter @philjones40 and find out more at www.philjones.branded.me

Peter has worked in information security since 1996 and since 2005 has focused on Information Security Management, notably as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of Petroleum Research and recently the Gala Coral Group. His expertise covers enterprise risk management, information security business development and penetration testing. A trusted adviser to a number of UK organisations on Information Security, Peter frequently speaks at Information Security events throughout Europe.

Qualified as a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) status, Peter is a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society and is a guest lecturer on Information Security practises and a number of universities.

Peter has been a long time community leader in Information Security and spent a lot of time working on the PCI-DSS standards. In 2009 he was recognised by his peers as one of the top CISO’s at SC magazines annual awards. Frequently invited to speak at events and conferences, Peter additionally advises on Information Security matters at a parliamentary level.

Richard is the COO of Riliance and is responsible for overall service deliver to over 1,000 clients in the UK legal sector. A key aspect of Richard’s role is ensuring that the services delivered by Riliance meet the needs of growing and entrepreneurial law firms, which is driving development of the Riliance software platform, Riliance Learning Management System and the launch of a fully outsourced compliance service.

Richard works directly with Riliance clients of all sizes to implement effective risk frameworks. Richard passionately believes that effective risk and compliance management is a core part of commercial strategy, and can demonstrate an ROI for businesses that approach risk and compliance with a commercial outlook.

Peter is one of the most experienced professional managers in the legal industry. 10 years in his current role of COO of Bates Wells Braithwaite was preceded by 20 years in chief officer roles within a large high street firm, what is now BLM, one of the largest Common Law Chambers and Maitland Chambers – the top commercial chancery set. He became dual qualified in accountancy and marketing and has a keen interest in strategic & risk based management.

BWB is a 250 strong £25 million turnover City based commercial law firm, with a strong brand in its own sectors. Over the last 10 years turnover has increased by 250% and profit by 400% all through organic growth. Peter led the conversion of BWB to become an ABS in 2014 and is the only city based solicitor led organisation to offer “one stop shop” client facing corporate finance and FCA regulatory services from its team of accountants and other specialists.

Peter has written regularly for Managing Partner on his matter based risk management system which has just achieved 10 years without a PI payment. Another initiative is “BWB Get Legal” which is now in its second year of offering a large number of increasingly complex legal documents directly to clients via the BWB website – for which BWB received a “highly commended” in the FT European Innovation awards 2016.

Mary Bonsor was a property litigator in a city firm who came up with the idea of F-LEX when she was looking out the window and saw a gang of law students who she wished she could contact to ask for their help. F-LEX is an online platform to connect law firms and GC with pre vetted law students for a flexible, on demand service.

Michael thrives on finding a better way to do things. Especially where, change, disruption and bucking the trend are involved. Through to his core this is what he is about. And what he does.

His career has taken him from solicitor within London’s Magic Circle to Director at Board Level within large financial institutions.

Along the way he became very frustrated with the practice of law. He had first hand experience and a deep-rooted knowledge that the traditional law firm model was broken. It didn’t work for lawyers or clients.

Michael knew there had to be a different way, a better way. For lawyers. For clients.

So the belief that this existed launched him on a journey where, research, exploration and dogged determination has brought him to where he is today, CEO of Carbon Law Partners. A commercial law firm, where they are doing things a different way. A better way.

carbonlawpartners.com

MW Solicitors is the UK’s largest consumer high street law firm with 25 branches and 450 staff throughout London and the South East and South West of England.

David is a member of the Board and is responsible for the ICT & Operations Strategy that has to ensure the business can grow to 40 branches and 800 staff in the next three years whilst achieving both revenue growth year on year and a reduction in operating costs.

He has already implemented infrastructure and legal software services that has seen the business grow from 160 staff and 10 offices to 450 staff and 25 offices in the last 3 years.

Revenue has grown from £11m to £28m in the last 3 years and he has ensured efficiency savings and cost centre savings of £1.5m in that time.

In 2009 he co-founded a Cloud based IT company providing outsourced IT to law firms first as Chief Operating Officer and then CEO.  In just 3 years the company had built up long term legal contracts worth £1.7m and he sold the company to a telecoms firm back in 2013.

David’s professional background has been in Legal IT for the last 10 years, he was Head of IT Service Delivery and then IT Strategy at Eversheds LLP for 3 years between 2006 and 2009.  He oversaw the outsourcing of Eversheds ICT department to Computercentre in a deal worth £50m 8 years ago and it still stands as the largest legal outsourcing deal in the UK.

Simon is the founder and CEO of Metamorph Law, with more than 30 years’ legal market experience, both as a practitioner and as a developer of legal businesses. He is a proven legal market entrepreneur and successful business builder.

Following an initial career as a commercial litigation solicitor in the City and London markets, he left practice to co-found and build InterResolve Holdings Limited, providing volume personal injury claims services and dispute resolution to the UK motor accident market. He was appointed by Which? as their Special Adviser on ABS and the opportunities in the consumer legal market, which led then to the development of the concept and business plan for Metamorph Law. He has considerable board and governance expertise, as well as involvement in several educational charities, two of which he currently chairs.

Brian Inkster is the founder and CEO of Inksters Solicitors with offices in Glasgow, Forfar, Inverness, Portree, Wick and a visiting base in Lerwick.

Brian obtained the distinction of being named Solicitor of the Year at the Law Awards of Scotland in 2006. He was called “a one man Scottish legal institution” in the Recommended Law Firm Guide 2010. At the Law Awards of Scotland in 2014 he was recognised as Managing Partner of the Year.

Brian is actively expanding Inksters’ reach throughout Scotland with the aim to make his firm a pre-eminent force in the Scottish legal market. An entrepreneurial approach is an important part of this drive with Inksters often doing things a little bit differently.

Brian is a Lecturer in Commercial Awareness on the Diploma in Legal Practice at the University of Glasgow. He blogs on the Past, Present and Future Practice of Law at thetimeblawg.com

Milos Kresojevic is a global innovation architect at Freshfields Bruckhaus-Deringer. Milos’s major professional experience stems from work in the IBM Research Lab and Silicon Valley on major innovative efforts for blue chip and start-up companies in financial, insurance, transportation and software sector. Milos has an MBA Degree from Columbia University and London Business School and a  MSc. Aerospace Engineering from the University of Belgrade.

Milos’s current primary focus is researching the impact of AI and wider disruptive technologies on Big Law and Access to Justice. Milos has contributed to the Law Society’s newly published “Technology Innovation in Legal Services” report and has presented on “AI and Big Law at AI Business conference, New York.’

Steve is a principal lawyer in our business advisory team at Slater and Gordon Lawyers in Manchester.

He specialises in intellectual property, media and social media law with a particular emphasis on the creative, digital and technology sector. Steve is listed as a “recommended lawyer” in tier 2 of the Legal 500s 2014, 2015, and 2016 North West Technology, Media & Telecoms section.

He is a regular spokesperson, and has given interviews to the local and national press through BBC Breakfast, Sky News, ITV, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live and LBC London.

Steve’s first book, “Legal Issues of Web 2.0 and Social Media”, was published in June 2011 and his second book “Legal Issues of Corporate Communication in the Online World” was published in June 2012.

Alex has 11 years’ broad corporate and commercial experience at Freshfields and Hogan Lovells (including being short-listed at the Lawyer Awards in Deal of the Year and winning Pro Bono programme of the year at the Legal Business Awards).

Alex has been seconded to Goldman Sachs, Tesco and ExxonMobil, undertaking corporate, commercial and employment work.

Outside of Ignition, Alex is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He sits on an entrepreneurship panel at the Oxford Saïd Business School and has lectured on the Cambridge University Masters in Corporate Law postgraduate course. He is also the Founder of an online educational site (sucedo.com)

Deirdre is an experienced IT lawyer who joined Kemp IT Law in May 2016.

Deirdre trained with Allen & Overy and on qualification in 2007 joined the Communications, Technology and Media Team.

In 2010 Deirdre joined Morrison & Foerster’s Technology Transactions Group where she worked for six years, until joining Kemp IT Law.

While at Allen & Overy and MoFo, she advised a broad range of clients on commercial, information technology, intellectual property and data protection law issues. She has also spent time on secondment advising the treasury services team at a leading international bank and the EURMEA business of a global medical device company.

Deirdre has substantial information technology, commercial and intellectual property law expertise for technology buy-side clients in the digital media, financial services, healthcare, life sciences and pharmaceuticals industries, both in the UK and internationally. On the technology provider side, Deirdre has extensive experience working with hardware manufacturers and software developers on product development, supply chain and their UK and European licensing and distribution models.

Tim was a founding director of Nisus Consulting in 1994, created specifically to assist the professional services sector.  Its core services are market research and client insight studies to help professionals to be more client focused.

Nisus published its first research into what large corporates (FTSE-100 listed companies) thought of and wanted from the legal profession in 2002.  The follow-up studies in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2012 were widely publicised in the legal press.

Nisus also provides its clients with post transaction review services, internal surveys, brand research and advice and competitive pitching consultancy, – writing effectively, presentation planning and preparation.  Tim is currently writing a book on best pitching practice with Matthew Fuller.

The Nisus Performance & Value Index (PVI) offers benchmarked service performance research on line and has been used by Allen & Overy, Bird & Bird, Blake Morgan, BLP, DAC Beachcroft, DLA Piper, Gowlings WLG (previously Wragge Lawrence Graham), Macfarlanes, Mazars, Nabarro, Osborne Clarke, Smith & Williamson, Taylor Wessing and more besides.

Tim has an MBA from Cass Business School in the City, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a full Diploma member of the Market Research Society.  He also contributed a chapter to the Kogan Page Professional Services Marketing Handbook and has just finished co-authoring a book on tendering in professional services, to be published spring 2017..

Outside of work Tim is a keen skier, a retired marathon runner and persistent cyclist.  In 2009 he cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats (which was a pain in the backside).

Michelle Peters, The Business Instructor, helps law firms to attract and convert more of the right kinds of clients and then to increase fee income and profits from existing clients – so they can grow their practice profitably without working more hours.

Michelle helps law firms to achieve these results by providing:

• strategic advice and planning (identifying ‘what’ they need to do to grow their practice profitably and what order they should do it in to maximise results);
• training in business development skills and tactics (showing them ‘how’ to do it in the quickest and most effective way); and
• ongoing implementation and coaching programmes for fee-earners (to ensure they ‘get it done’).

Michelle works with the owners of small law firms and partners within larger firms who are responsible for the growth of their department.

Michelle is the author of the guide ‘Nine Essential Strategies For Growing Your Legal Practice Profitably’ and the forthcoming book ‘The Client Magnet Advantage for Lawyers: How To Attract And Convert More Of Your Ideal Clients Without Having To ‘Sell’ Your Services’. She is also the founder of ‘The Entrepreneurial Lawyer Network’ for ambitious and business-minded lawyers.

thebusinessinstructor.com

Colum Smith is CEO of McMillan Williams Solicitors Ltd (MW) and has spearheaded a program of organic growth through the delivery of high street legal services, backed by a scalable centrally controlled infrastructure.

By employing a retail roll-out model the business has grown from 5 to 25 locations & continues to develop new locations. By adopting an approach that reduces geographical exposure but provides additional opportunity to expand into new legal service lines growth has been maintained.

As an ABS, which is part owned and funded by the Business Growth Fund, MW has taken advantage of the alternative funding options now available to legal businesses.

Samantha is responsible for devising and implementing the strategy for Thomson Reuters’ Large Law customers, the Top 100 UK law firms and US Global Law Firms with UK offices.

Current innovation projects include blockchain and the financial and legal sectors, big data and open data, analytics and AI, document automation, knowledge management, project management, pricing, business process improvement and online dispute resolution.

David is a senior legal counsel at the Royal Bank of Scotland and specialises in commercial, outsourcing, IT and IP.  He qualified at DLA Piper in 2001 where he spent three years working in the corporate team.  He made the move in-house in 2004 and has held senior positions with Citigroup, RBS International in Jersey, the Co-operative Bank and the Co-operative Group, returning to RBS at the start of 2016.

David is also the Honorary Secretary of Manchester Law Society, the largest local law society in England and Wales outside London.

Richard Tromans is the founder of TromansConsulting, which is based in London, England. I am also the founder of Artificial Lawyer, which was recently recognised as one of the top 50 information sites in the world on Artificial Intelligence.

I have spent over 18 years working in the legal sector focused on the UK and global legal markets. My focus is on strategy and innovation.

I advise law firms, inhouse teams and also legal tech companies on business issues.

I previously worked at Jomati as a Strategy Consultant and as the firm’s Head of Research. I spent five years there covering a variety of advisory work, initially in support and then directly, for clients across a wide range of jurisdictions and sector focuses. This included law firms, barristers chambers and litigation funders. I also authored the Jomati Report thought leadership series between 2010 and 2014.

Prior to that, I worked at US-based, Hildebrandt International, as Report Editor in its Strategic Intelligence Group, then the largest legal sector consultancy in the world. It was here where I also began my career as a consultant to law firms after being asked to contribute to client advisory projects.

artificiallawyer.com – Awarded ‘Top 20 Best AI Sites in the World’, 2017

Nancy is Group Legal Counsel at Murphy Group.  She qualified in 2001 and spent fifteen years working at Addleshaw Goddard as a senior construction and projects lawyer before making the move in-house in 2016.

Murphy is a family-owned engineering and construction business with around 4,000 employees, that delivers a wide range of services to build infrastructure in the rail, power, water and natural resources sectors across the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia.

www.murphygroup.co.uk