Practical LawConferences

Rick is Executive Director at The Compliance Foundation – a boutique compliance, data compliance and risk consultancy – which he co-founded with Sandra Quinn in 2015. Rick works across primarily the Financial and Legal sectors providing support and advice to Boards and senior executives on the handling of complex compliance and data compliance issues. Needless to say in the last 24 months GDPR has kept him exceptionally busy as clients try to work out both the myth from the reality and get to grips with how to implement a pragmatic and workable approach to Data Protection.

Prior to co-founding The Compliance Foundation Rick set up and ran a small innovation consultancy called addonova. Rick is still a Director of addonova and advises on Innovation although he has passed on the day to day running to his fellow Directors.

However, the majority of Rick’s career has been as a management consultant – with 6 years spent at Accenture where he became a Partner in Financial Services before leaving to join Capgemini Consulting where for 7 years he was a Senior Executive responsible for setting up and running the Financial Services consulting team in the UK and advising on Innovation.

If you go back far enough you’ll discover Rick was trained as and worked as a psychologist – working with people with learning difficulties. As a result he has a passion for understanding how intelligence – both human and Artificial operate.

Drew is a co-founder and Chief Legal Engineer of Wavelength where he is responsible for operational matters and technical delivery.

He specialises in transformational change in the legal services sector. Drew is a commercial lawyer who moved into law firm management. His previous role was as Director of Operational Development at an international law firm. He uses lean sigma philosophies with smart legal technologies and designs capable services and systems.
Earlier in Drew’s career, he worked in several manufacturing businesses focusing on data and scheduling issues, and also at booking.com as its legal and compliance manager.

As Director of Advisory Services in Europe, Lisa works with the international team to create thriving outcomes for clients in the UK and Europe on regulatory, contentious and non-contentious matters. She has 20 years’ experience in both legal technology and regulatory compliance, having worked on high profile projects within financial crime, insurance, pharmaceutical, automotive, and telecoms. Lisa specialises in business and strategic consulting in the governance, regulatory and compliance sectors, managed document review, LIBOR, FX surveillance and reporting, AML and remediation solutions, project management, eCourt and eDisclosure, and cloud platforms, such as Microsoft Office 365, to assist clients in successfully supporting the legal/compliance function.

Prior to her role at Lighthouse, Lisa was a Director at PwC where she assisted the Forensic Technology and Corporate Investigations department to develop external market awareness for the company’s legal technology support services and worked closely with the Data Analytics and Business Consulting teams to effectively deliver solutions to clients. She also supported clients with contract lifestyle governance and compliance alongside PwC Legal.

Before joining PwC, Lisa was the Director of Professional Services at UNIFIED, where she oversaw and lead complex projects across the EDRM. She was responsible for supporting business growth through strategic objectives, building a corporate profile and market presence. As Head of eDisclosure at Grant Thorton UK LLP and worked to ensure client engagement, internal education and training, as well as vender management. Beyond this, Lisa was the owner of Legal Inc Ltd. an award winning company, and has held a number of legal roles for several UK law firms.

Lisa is PRINCE II certified and is a legally trained graduate of Birkbeck, London University LLB.

Sally has been with Thomson Reuters Legal UK & Ireland since 2013 and utilised her in-depth market and product knowledge to support Legal Tracker customers through pre-sales to implementation and longer term success by sharing best practices in legal operations and thus helping customers maximise their investment in the solution. Prior to this Sally was a Marketing Professional for over twelve years before spending eight years as a Business Manager in the legal and compliance department at UBS, supporting the General Counsel in all areas of legal department and outside counsel management. She was also a consultant in the Business Finance Department at Herbert Smith Freehills supporting customers with specific billing and reporting requirements.

Mike has over 18 years of in-house and consultancy experience in the legal technology industry. He has a strong track record in helping global corporations to achieve greater efficiency when managing compliance, information governance and complex disputes including litigation, arbitration and investigations.

Previously Mike was with Linklaters in London and New York for several years, developing their e-discovery capabilities, before moving on to practice as an industry consultant.  Mike has since held executive director positions at Control Risks and Epiq Systems, where he was instrumental in founding the EMEA e-discovery business for both companies. His team leadership experience is paired with his client facing project experience, particularly in mainland Europe and the Middle East.

Mark has over 20 years’ experience working as an Enterprise Solutions Architect for companies such as EMC, Bocada and Kazeon. Mark has been involved with Seal Software since its conception and is responsible for bringing software products to market, both as a product manager and as a solutions architect.

Chris is a partner and Co-head of our global Ashurst Advance team, the firm’s integrated alternative legal services offering which focuses on the three fundamental areas of innovation in legal services: resources, process and technology.

Chris joins from a leading international law firm where he helped build and headed up the firm’s innovative alternative legal solutions platform. With over 25 years’ experience in the legal sector, both in private practice and in-house, Chris has a deep understanding of clients’ changing needs, and has a market leading reputation in developing innovative solutions for clients. Prior to rejoining Ashurst in 2018, Chris formerly spent fourteen years with the firm successfully building a global securities and derivatives practice and as co-head of the firm’s bank sector, and played a key role in establishing the firm’s alternative legal services capability in Glasgow in 2013.

Rebecca brings nearly 20 years of experience in legal management and technology consulting to Thomson Reuter’s multinational clients.  Rebecca serves as a strategic advisor to legal, operations and procurement teams considering outsourcing as a means to achieve mission critical business objectives such as cost savings, efficiency improvements and legal resource optimization in delivery of legal services.  Her area of expertise is contract management, and she has been instrumental in developing Pangea3’s technology-enabled services by adding capabilities in contract analytics, template harmonization, automation/assembly, workflow management, process reporting, automated abstraction and due diligence.  The cornerstone of these new service offerings is contract risk management, a topic on which Rebecca often speaks and writes.

Rebecca holds an MBA from Kellogg.

Jodi is Corporate Functions Platform IT Manager at Unilever, managing the partnership between IT and Global Legal Services. The IT platform is responsible for identifying and onboarding new technology solutions and ensuring existing legal technology services run effectively. Working with various stakeholders providing technology solutions that are fit for purpose, secure and aligned with the organisation’s wider technology strategy,  Jodi has worked in Project and Program level roles delivering in the Private and Public-sector environments.  She has managed the successful transition of business change arising from executive mandate to implementation into operational areas. Throughout her career, Jodi has gained significant experience in areas including Contract Lifecycle Management, Privacy, eDiscovery, Procurement, Claims Management and Intellectual Property.

Joanna L. Batstone, Ph.D., is the Vice President, IBM Watson and Cloud Platform, Delivery and Expert Services, based in New York City. Previously, Joanna was the Vice President and Lab Director, IBM Research – Australia and Chief Technology Officer, IBM Australia and New Zealand. Joanna has held a variety of technical and business leadership roles in IBM’s Research and Development Laboratories. She was Vice President, Architecture and Technical Solution Design, IBM Global Technology Services, based in Dublin, Ireland. Joanna was the Director for Distributed Computing in IBM Research in New York, USA, the Development Program Director for IBM’s Sensors & Actuators business unit and a Senior Technical Staff Member for IBM Software Group. She was the Senior Manager for Solutions Development in IBM’s Healthcare & Life Sciences Business Unit with responsibilities for IBM’s Life Sciences solutions for Pharma and Biotech. Joanna joined IBM in the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, in the Physical Sciences department.

Joanna has published over 80 papers and organized many industry conference symposia. In 2016, Joanna was appointed Honorary Enterprise Professor, University of Melbourne School of Engineering. She is a member of the Innovation Expert Panel for the Government of Victoria and serves on the NSW Data Analytics Centre Advisory Board.  

Joanna received a B.Sc., in Chemical Physics and a Ph.D., in Physics from The University of Bristol, UK, followed by postdoctoral work at AT&T Bell Laboratories, NJ, and a Lectureship in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Liverpool, UK, before joining IBM.  She received the Burton Medal from the Microscopy Society of America, the Robert Lansing Hardy Gold Medal from The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society and the  Cosslett Award from the Microbeam Analysis Society.

Mo is currently Chief Counsel of National Grid Property and Group Operational Excellence. He is a member of performance, change and improvement across the Global Legal function and has accountability for National Grid’s Operational Excellence programmes across the function (Risk and Compliance, Assurance, UK / US Legal and Company Secretariat). Mo has accountability for all legal services for National Grid’s property portfolio. He is the Founder of LEx360.co.uk – a legal operations consultancy and also the Founder of LexOpenSource.com – a legal operations know-how portal.

Mo was previously General Counsel for National Grid Property and a Director and executive member of National Grid Property (a commercial subsidiary of National Grid) with responsibility for Legal, Change, Compliance, Business Assurance, Process Management, Communications and Legal Teams.

Mo was voted ‘the Purchaser’ [1 of 6 role models for corporate counsel] by Financial Times in 2018 and is acknowledged on the GC Powerlist UK 2018 [Team Elite: Energy].

Sarah was the Director of Legal Operations at Royal Mail plc (RMG) from 2012-17, when she left to pursue freelance opportunities. At RMG, Sarah was responsible for managing the legal budget, running all legal panel reviews/appointments alongside the GC, and managing the company’s law firms and other legal suppliers.  She was accountable for the operational aspects of a team of c. 80 people, investigating and implementing legal technology – such as an ebilling system and contract automation tool – whilst continually improving processes.

Prior to that, Sarah was a lawyer for 13 years, private practice then in-house, before moving into a Contract & Procurement Manager role at the Legal Aid Agency (MOJ).  She joined RMG’s procurement team in 2009, carrying out the company’s first legal panel review for RMG and the Post Office (pre-IPO).  In 2012 Sarah moved across to Group Legal to work directly for GC Neil Harnby (and then Maaike de Bie) as Director of Legal Operations.

Sarah now provides consultancy services for in-house legal departments, law firms and legal technology companies, including:

– legal procurement/panel reviews – public & private sector
– legal technology implementation/process improvements for in-house teams
– bid writing for legal services providers.

Claire is the Legal COO for the UK and EMEA at Deutsche Bank.  An outcome oriented executive who shapes the strategic direction at Deutsche Bank, she is hugely experienced in implementing change through fit for purpose transformation projects. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Claire was the Global Head, Business Services, Procurement, Consulting & CPCI at Integreon. She has also worked in private practice and was formerly at Clifford Chance, where she was the Director in  the Global Programme Group. Before that, she worked at Andersons as a Senior Management Consultant.H

Adam Curphey is the Head of Development (Innovation Technology) at BPP University Law School, having spent six years lecturing at BPP following his time in practice as a solicitor with White & Case LLP. He specialises in legal and educational technology, and has produced a series of Two Minute Tech Talks describing concepts such as Blockchain and AI in two minutes. His passion is legal innovation and the skills that future lawyers need to prepare for an ever-changing landscape of legal services. He is currently studying a Master’s degree in Education and Technology at the Institute of Education.

Stephen Cooke is Deputy General Counsel at HSBC based in London and appointed in January 2017 as head of the global legal team supporting the technology and operations division of HSBC.  He joined HSBC in 2007 in the Head Office legal team focussing on M&A and corporate matters including recovery & resolution, and moved into the team supporting HSBC’s technology in operations division in 2014.   From 2000 to 2007, Stephen was Associate General Counsel at Factiva, a joint venture between Reuters and Dow Jones, where he was responsible for supporting the group in Europe and AsiaPac.  Prior to joining Factiva, he was a corporate lawyer in Taylor Wessing.

Vincent Cordo was appointed Central Legal Operations Officer of Shell’s Legal Services Global Operations Department with effect from 1 January 2018.

In 2015, Vince joined Shell in Houston in the Litigation Department as the Sourcing Officer before moving to the Netherlands to become Central Legal Operations Officer.

Central Legal Operations is focused on supporting global legal strategy, enabling services and operations, driving effective and efficient relationships with our external law firms / vendors, reducing costs and enhancing transparency, visibility and controls through improved reporting, forecasting, operating controls, and risk management.

Mr. Cordo is also a long-time member of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium and has experience in the strategy and application of each of these areas, which help drive our legal team’s efforts to define and deliver maximum value and quality services throughout our organization.

Mr. Cordo also worked with several top 50 global law firms, building their AFA and LPM value programs, firm wide profitability programs, and Legal Process Outsourcing Services.   His responsibilities included global strategy relating to the evaluation and implementation of Commercial Projects, Value Pricing, Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs), Client Service Level Agreements, Communications and Project Management (LPM). He has also worked with venture capital firms, assisting with multiple public offerings

He is author of the book Law Firm Pricing: Strategies, Roles, and Responsibilities and in 2017 lead a legal project that resulted in Shell being the first IOC to win the ACC Value Champion Award.

Mr. Cordo is a trained Six Sigma Black Belt, AGILE Project Management Certified from Rutgers Business School, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, an MBA from The University of Liverpool, and a Master’s from Columbia University.

Andrew has been involved in various operational, change management, technology and strategy roles within in-house Legal teams, including Barclays Bank.  He has undertaken numerous strategic reviews and legal technology audits and been responsible for the end to end project lifecycle for many technology implementations – including document management, case and matter management, legal eBilling, document automation and knowledge management.

A founder member of the Banking Legal Technology (“BLT”) group, the Legal IT Innovators Group (“LITIG”) and the “KMIT” in-house legal group, Andrew is an active member of the KM Committee of the Society for Computers and Law and recently co-authored a research report on the value of law firm value added services.

He is frequently asked to provide real-life insight on the implementation of legal technologies within Corporate legal teams, and thought leadership at industry events.  He is currently providing consultancy to in-house legal teams in his own right and with the Legal Operations Consulting Team at Consilio.

An experienced Purchasing & Supply Chain professional who joined Lloyds Banking Group in 2012 and took on the lead Legal Services Sourcing role in 2014.

He has also had a number of senior management positions in supply chain assessment and accreditation organisations, including being responsible for business and product development.

Prior to this he had several different procurement roles including Director of Group Purchasing at Bradford & Bingley up to 2004 but he started his working career as a Print Production Manager.

Sandy became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply in 2013.

Andrew is EMEA Director of Business Development & Marketing and has been at Baker McKenzie since 2009.

Andrew is deeply experienced in managing global client relationships within the legal industry with over a decade of experience. He has been involved in developing the account and financial protocols which have enabled the smooth running of the Baker McKenzie relationship with many clients. In more recent times Andrew has worked with legal procurement at FTSE organisations and helped them to design their legal panels and RFP process. Previous to the legal sector Andrew worked in the property sector and advertising.

With a vision to set-up a firm that was both innovative and creative in meeting clients’ needs, Alex founded and is CEO of Radiant Law, a “NewLaw” firm specialising in managing high-volume commercial contracts.

Before founding Radiant Law, Alex was a Partner at Latham & Watkins and co-Chair of Latham & Watkins’ global Technology Transactions Group. Alex has led a number of projects that have been recognised by the FT’s Innovative Lawyer Awards, and was a finalist for the FT’s 2010 Innovative Lawyer of the Year award.

Widely recognised as one of the world’s top IT lawyers, Richard has built an outstanding reputation for commercial legal solutions to the business challenges of IT development, deployment and regulation. In the legal sector, Richard works with 7 of the top 100 UK law firms and with a range of software and services providers to the legal community. Since establishing Kemp IT Law in 2014, the firm has won over fifty awards for legal expertise, innovation and legal business leadership.

Sue is Head of Supplier Relationships, Legal at Standard Chartered Bank. She is a business professional with a unique insight having worked with both In-house Counsel and in Private Practice.  Prior to joining Standard Chartered Bank, Sue was Head of Clients at Addleshaw Goddard, where she led the key account programme and worked with the Executive to set the strategic approach towards clients, through client listening, feedback trend analysis and working closely with partners, leading a team of six Relationship Managers across the UK. Key strategic projects she has worked on include: establishing Legal Panels; Legal Project Management training; and Organisational Design of legal functions. Sue has over 20 years of experience in the Financial Services Sector, also working at the Nationwide Building Society as Head of Strategy and Operational Support, where she reported directly to the Group General Counsel.

Adam is the Assistant General Counsel, Corporate UK at AstraZeneca with global responsibility for a team supporting M&A, business development and AstraZeneca’s Global Procurement Organisation. Adam manages AstraZeneca’s Legal Tech workstream and has developed various contract automation and digital initiatives over the past 18 months. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Adam has worked for Novartis and Amgen in Switzerland and in private practice in the UK.

Alistair is the founder of SYKE, a legal engineering business that helps companies to procure and use technology to solve legal problems. Alistair is an expert at putting legal technology to operational use from experience of his previous roles as Head of Contracts and Data Protection Officer at ASDA, where Alistair successfully deployed automation tech, AI and expert applications to deliver an end-to-end digital contracts and compliance solution called Delphi.

Marta is a Program Manager in legal innovation, collaborating on a wide range of projects to help a diversified Legal Department (of over 1,000 employees across the globe) achieve its digital transformation. She has responsibility for knowledge management vision and strategy with a view to promoting knowledge integration and creation leveraging new technologies. Marta is a strong end user advocate with significant understanding of user experience best practices and innovation methodologies to identify new models for developing innovative legal products and services to change the way legal services are delivered.

Mike is Co-Head of Innovation at Ashurst and Head of Ashurst Advance, the firm’s integrated legal service efficiency platform focused on the three fundamental areas of innovation in legal service: resources, process and technology. In addition, Mike is Managing Partner of Ashurst’s legal sourcing and business services office in Glasgow.

Mike was previously a senior corporate partner with a leading Scottish firm and joined Ashurst in 2013 in the lead-up to the opening of the new Glasgow office in August of the same year. Mike is a regular commentator and contributor in the areas of the changing legal market and on innovation and efficiency in the delivery of legal services covering areas of resources, process and technology.

Fiona is an MBA with over 15 years of experience in Operations Management in the professional services sector. Her main focus in her current role is in designing and delivering organisation change, process and productivity improvements and service excellence for the global Compliance, Legal and Governance functions within Schroders.

She has experience of evaluating and implementing technologies for contract review, communications surveillance, employee conflicts of interest management systems, client on-boarding workflows and robotics process automation (RPA).

Savina is the Procurement Category Head for Professional Services at Nationwide, focused on delivering a number of transformational projects involving third party partners across multiple industries. She has responsibility for building and implementing a Consultancy Buying Framework across the whole society, managing a multimillion external spend category. Savina leads a team which manages consultancy and advisory, legal, conveyancing and valuations. Prior to joining Nationwide, Savina was the Senior Procurement Manager for Legal Services at the Royal Bank of Scotland, leading the commercial and tendering sourcing activity for various external legal services that RBS Legal uses. As well, she had responsibility for competitive tendering and e-auctions as well as contract management.

Jon is a Managing Director at ES / Consulting.  He is responsible for leading both ES / Ignite, a managed service solution for in house legal teams, and our major engagements and projects, advising clients on legal strategy and efficiency, business processes and technology enabled transformation.  Jon leads a team of management consultants, project managers, lawyers, business process and technologists that are engaged on legal consultancy projects and the delivery of legal managed services across, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

eversheds-sutherland.com/jonathantownend

With over 25 years’ experience as a commercial practitioner across multiple sectors including Financial Services, Telecoms, IT, Government, Retail and Start-ups, Nick advises Clients on legal, financial & professional services procurement. Uniquely, he is practiced from both sides of the negotiating table as before moving back into procurement roles in 2012, Nick had been successful in sales & business development for 11 years and later was a founder of a highly regarded training business.

Nick is responsible for his subject matter thought leadership within Proxima, supporting Clients programme activities globally for legal, consulting and financial services procurement strategy.