Bio

Marion Schumacher has been working as a partner secretary at Taylor Wessing Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB in Düsseldorf for almost 10 years. There she works in the Practice Area “Employment, Pensions & Mobility. As a certified legal specialist and prospective Bachelor of Laws, she manages the organization on a daily basis under legal and office management aspects and pushes the digitization of the Practice Area. During her training as a paralegal and notary’s assistant in Essen at that time, Marion was still using a typewriter. Just in 1999 the first computer moved in. Unimaginable in today’s digital working world 4.0.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Her know-how from years of legal assistance and her passion for new IT solutions help her to understand digital structures and to integrate them into her daily work sustainably and efficiently in the following. In doing so, she innovatively pursues the realization of a uniform digital structure for one of the largest departments in labour law at Taylor Wessing. As an interface between the team and IT, she works out solutions to problems and implements the knowledge gained in her strategic planning. She is committed to the further development of the IT infrastructure and already uses several tools developed by TW Legal Tech (a law firm start-up specialized in legal tech for companies) in her daily work.

Bio

Wendy is Innovation Manager at the Legal Tech Studio of ARAG SE NL. Her background is in Industrial Design Engineering at the University of Technology in Delft and she completed OneMBA at the Rotterdam School of Management in 2016. 

Prior to ARAG she worked for 8 years with high tech startups and SMEs in the healthcare and new energy sector. Her career started at the Strategic Futures group of Philips Design, the Design studio of Philips Electronics, in which she worked on Design and Design Research projects in healthcare, lighting and automotive.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Her background in Design and Technology enables Wendy and her team to support ARAG in the transition process towards becoming a Smart Insurer. Combining her Design skills and the opportunities that Legaltech offers, she develops new services and novel ways of customer interactions. 

Over the span of two years, Wendy initiated 15 experiments and 5 pilot projects with (Legal) tech startups. These experiments and projects bridged the gap between the corporate organization and start-ups and introduced 600+ legal experts to new technologies such as document automation, chatbots and speech recognition software.

In the past year she built up ARAG’s expertise and knowledge on decision tree software as a means to democratize legal knowledge. This enables ARAG to offer ever more people access to legal support through online self-service products.

Bio

 Marianna is an entrepreneur, International lawyer, Aviation law expert and CEO of AirLaw.Pro.

 Marianna graduated with Summa cum laude degree from Kyiv International University and received her LL.M. in University van Amsterdam. Before she started own business, she worked at various international and medium-sized law firms. As an avid traveler herself, Marianna founded AirLaw.Pro following a terrible experience on a disrupted flight. Marianna is creating a data driven, proactive service notifying passengers in real-time. Her goal is to make it as easy as possible for other air passengers to assert their legal rights, right at the moment when they are struggling at the airports.  She’s working tirelessly to raise public awareness of air passengers legal rights.

AirLaw.Pro was awarded as the winner of the leading European LegalTech program HiiL – Innovating Justice challenge in November 2019. Marianna also represented AirLaw.Pro on HiiL`s International Innovating Justice LegalTech conference on February 2020 in The Hague.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Marianna figured out the legal-tech project, able to help millions of passengers experiencing canceled or delayed flight pro-active way. Global aviation statistics are saying more than 20,000,000 passengers a year are affected by disrupted flights. 85% of them are not receiving any money even if they are eligible for compensation. Thanks to Marianna`s innovation, air-passengers can learn their right and receive the step-by-step manual, just in time when they experience problems in airports. It is useful mainly for occasional travelers, non-English speakers with poor language skills. Moreover, some passengers can claim compensation from airlines through Marianna’s company easier than ever before. This year Marianna tested her legal-tech startup and personally helped more than 500 air-passengers manually. She was able to verify her business concept and test minimal valuable product of her company. During this test period, Marianna was able to pay her clients thousands of euros on compensations, even if this industry was strongly affected by COVID-19. 

Bio

Marion is a bar-admitted lawyer at Media Kanzlei, one of Germany’s premier law firms for media and IT law. She advises private clients and companies on questions of copyright law, IT contracts, media and competition law. She has specialized in particular on open licensing and injunctive relief against Content ID and upload filters.

Contribution to Legal Tech

As an experienced IT lawyer, Marion is among the most engaging and outspoken advocates for open technology and knowledge commons in the German legal profession. She argued Germany’s first reported case against the abuse of Content ID, establishing that such abuse of filtering technology can itself be copyright infringement. In addition to her work as an attorney, Marion combines academic research with broader outreach activities that engage a wide general audience. In addition to her research on topics such as intellectual property and open data in film and media studies (DOI 10.17176/20180515-233758), Marion raises public awareness for issues of law and technology through a variety of communication outlets, such as blog posts (e.g., on iRights.info or oabooks.de), televized science slams (e.g., ZKM Open Codes 2018), or panel discussions (e.g., at OTOS, Open Technology for an Open Science). Marion is also a first-generation fellow in Wikimedia’s competitive Free Knowledge Fellowship, as well as a member of the German chapter of Creative Commons, further establishing the societal relevance of her research.

Bio

As Vice President, Client Services, Forensics, and Information Governance for Epiq in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Bishu sets the strategic vision of consultative service delivery combining technology expertise together with her legal background to ensure that her team can offer as much value and support to clients as possible. 

Bishu is also a champion of diversity and inclusion and is currently the Chair of the D&I Governing Committee at Epiq. She has held the position of Assistant Chapter Director for Women in eDiscovery’s London chapter for 2 years, during which time she participated in numerous events showcasing the remarkable talents and expertise of women within the eDiscovery profession in the UK. She also serves as a mentor both within her organisation and to aspiring legal and eDiscovery professionals in Canada and the UK. 

Contribution to Legal Tech

Bishu began her career in law practice and fell into eDiscovery early in her journey after managing multiple successful and high profile document review projects for large scale litigation and competition investigations. Having worked in a law firm, consulting firm, and now a technology and services provider, she uses her insights and expertise to collaborate with product development and sales in the creation of custom workflows and solutions for law firms and corporate clients. This diversity in experience has solidified her belief in the power of technology to transform the practice of law. Beyond efficiency, advanced analytics offer the gift of meaningful intelligent insights into data sets that can make the difference between a satisfactory deliverable and a decisive claim. 

In her service delivery leadership role, Bishu is responsible for ensuring the successful launch and integration of new products and solutions within Epiq. From machine translation programs to advanced analytics tools and technology that simplifies the DSAR process, Bishu has been involved in the mapping and rolling out of key strategic products within Epiq’s portfolio. In her oversight of Epiq’s managed services business in EMEA, Bishu has also worked collaboratively with clients to facilitate stakeholder engagement discussions that enable the successful implementation of managed services agreements that span the globe.

Bio

Shilpa Bhandarkar is the CEO of Nakhoda, the Linklaters-backed technology start-up. She is responsible for the product portfolio of Nakhoda, including its flagship product ISDA Create, a document automation and digital negotiation platform built in collaboration with the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) to automate and streamline high volumes of sensitive and complex contractual negotiations in the derivatives industry. 

Shilpa started her career as a project finance lawyer but her interest in technology and entrepreneurship led her to found, build and sell a mobile app company as well as grow a legaltech start-up before re-joining Linklaters in 2018 as the Global Head of Innovation. She sits on the firm’s Innovation Steering Group which is responsible for the firm’s strategic approach to Innovation and Efficiency. She was listed as a leading ‘Disruptor’ in The Lawyer Hot 100, 2019 and an ‘Individual winner’ of the ‘TechWomen100 Awards, 2018’.    

Contribution to Legal Tech

Shilpa is a self-proclaimed non-techie who nonetheless believes in the power of technology to generate value – whether that is by giving private practice lawyers a significantly different experience of the profession than was common a decade ago, delivering a world-class service to clients in new ways that increase quality and efficiency whilst reducing risk, or leveraging Nakhoda’s products to unlock valuable data in legal contracts to drive better business decisions across organisations.  

This belief is reflected in her collaborative and user-centric approach to technology development. Some examples of recent work that reflect this approach include: 

Most recently, Shilpa has taken over leadership of Nakhoda, a Linklaters backed technology start-up that collaborates with clients to build bespoke tech solutions for lawyers who work alongside them to grow their businesses’.  

Outside of work, she invests in start-ups and mentors founders and young professionals interested in LegalTech, including via the LegalGeek Women in LawTech programme. 

In summary, even though responsible for a number of technology products, Shilpa’s contribution to LegalTech is most impressive in her approach to the space – bringing together various members of the Legaltech community into collaborative projects and initiatives so that we learn from each other, maximise our collective expertise and drive the legal industry forward together, for everyone. 

Bio

Katharina is a senior associate at the headquarters of Luther in Cologne. She advises clients on all matters concerning civil law litigation and alternative dispute resolution. Besides complex individual disputes, she is experienced in the handling of mass claims, including the development of Legal Tech solutions. Before joining Luther as a lawyer in 2017, Katharina worked inter alia as deputy manager for the German Chinese Business Association (DCW). She holds a degree in law as well as Chinese regional studies and has worked and studied inter alia in Beijing, Taiwan, Manila and New York.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Katharina, together with the in-house IT service team and her colleagues from the Complex Disputes team, has developed a solution for handling mass claims. It is a database that can be used to control the content and strategy of the proceedings, eliminating the need for additional platforms, calendars, etc. Each step of the proceeding is secured automatically: necessary and possibly forgotten steps are recognized in time and the caseworker or, if necessary, a third party is reminded. Comprehensive monitoring is also guaranteed. comprehensive reports can be created automatically, with only a few input details that are secured by automated data control and data quality. Deadline management runs via the same tool.

Even the coordination of the facts with the client is largely automatic, whereby only necessary questions are recognized and bundled. Personnel management also runs via the tool. Personnel data, absences and conflicting appointments are recorded and time-consuming coordination for the allocation of tasks is no longer necessary. Time recording, billing, and invoicing run automatically. Standardized drafts, letters or emails with the correct recipient and subject can be created and sent automatically. In the future, the tool will provide further great advantages and simplifications for diverse mass proceedings, not only for internal case handling but also for the clients involved in mass claim proceedings.
Luther is currently voted Juve Kazlei of the Year. The jury’s reasoning referred in particular to IT solutions in the management of mass claims.

Bio

Christiane Müller-Haye has a track record of almost 20 years in the Legal industry. She started her Legal-IT career at Hengeler Mueller in early 2000, the very early days of Legal IT and was responsible for implementing new Legal IT applications. After a few years, she changed to the vendor side and since then she and her teams were running hundreds of implementations in Law Firms and Legal Departments, mainly around the well-known market leading Information Management portfolio of iManage.

Contribution to Legal Tech

As Director of Global Strategy & Products at Phoenix Business Solutions a Morae Global division she is running the global development team which develops addons to the iManage software as well as forward-thinking Legal IT solutions.

Christiane Mueller-Haye has always had a very good understanding of needs and demands of customers understanding their business needs even before they might do. With her “no fear of change – attitude” she is supporting her customers and their businesses with clear strategies. She listens and includes multidisciplinary teams of different customers to be part of the software design of new solutions or the ones which need a revamp, to make sure it will add value to their practice. Her ability to connect the dots between technology and business value is outstanding in the industry that is why she is the trusted advisor for a lot of clients.

Bio

Stefanie has studied European, Comparative Law and Transnational Law at the University of Bremen, Carl-von-Ossietzly University Oldenburg and Autonomous University in Barcelona. She focussed during her master studies on data protection and IT security law from a transnational perspective. Furthermore, she has also taken scientific training for Social Media Managers offered by the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. She is consulting corporate groups as a Senior Privacy Consultant in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical and energy sector to foster their programs towards GDPR compliance.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Stefanie is focussing on developments in the ad technology environment including real time bidding processes, where the guidelines and laws are still a step beyond reality. Furthermore, she supports clients to build a bridge between data protection practises and “intelligent” technologies such as artificial intelligence which are implemented into websites, games and applications. The combination of new technologies and rather old legal structures are a part of her day-to-day practices. She is able to adapt legal frameworks into new developments and to foster a culture of privacy by design and by default for her clients. 

She is also training a new generation of data protection officers during her courses to obtain basic knowledge to work as in-house data protection officers for small and medium sized-companies in Germany.

Bio

Cristina is Partner at Aphaia, one of the first world’s consultant firms in providing AI ethics and regulation services, with offices in London and Madrid. She is a lawyer and also a data expert on the legal, business and technical side. Cristina holds a MSc in Data Analytics & Cognitive Intelligence, a LL.M in Data Protection, ICT & Cyber Law, Telecom Law & Media Law and another LL.M in Legal Practice. Her dual profile as a lawyer and data scientist provides her with 360º data skills that she has applied to several projects during her tenure as a Privacy Advisor, and in her role as the Data Protection Officer to a number of vibrant businesses, including London and Silicon Valley tech start-ups in the areas of finance, sharing economy, e-commerce and software development. She is also part of the EU AI Alliance and participates as a member of the ethics board in EU H2020 projects. Before working at Aphaia, Cristina worked as a Project Manager at an international trade company based in Vietnam, and participated as companies’ defence counsel in the Madrid Court of Arbitration for the resolution of e-commerce and e-advertising disputes. Cristina also wrote her LL.M thesis about AI Ethics on algorithmic decision-making.

Cristina is also a mentor in Chaitech, a young Techpreneur Programme in St. Lucia which focuses on essential skills required to both develop tech solutions and put them into productive use. She teaches programming, AI ethics and data protection, helping young Caribbean techpreneurs to set up their businesses

Contribution to Legal Tech

Cristina’s contribution to Legal Tech is threefold, as she shows her passion about it either in her work, her volunteering activities and her spare time. As a lawyer and data scientist, Cristina helps both start-ups and multinational companies to build their algorithm and AI-powered apps and features in line with the GDPR and the AI ethical requirements set by the AI-HLEG, achieveing trustworthy AI while complying with the relevant legal framework, mainly in Europe and the US. She assists her clients in the whole process of product and algorithm creation, implementation, application and audit. She helps them to identify the risks for people’s fundamental rights and freedoms and the biases that may be derived from their technology, and suggests relevant mitigation measures. She may as well get involved with code review. 

As a Privacy and Data Protection expert, she also acts as the Data Protection Officer for a number of disruptive businesses in London and Silicon Valley which incoporateAI in their activities and services. The company she is a Partner at, Aphaia, has developed its own methodology and ‘smart compliance’ approach which saves time and costs to make the services affordable and accessible to any type of business, regardless of their budget or location worldwide. Cristina is also a member of the European AI Alliance, which allows her to contribute to the European debate on AI. She is part of some H2020 projects’ Ethics Board, such as DIH4CPS.

Cristina also collaborates as a mentor with Chaitech, a Caribbean tech and AI hub which provides young techpreneurs with essential skills required to both develop tech solutions and put them into productive use. Together with her colleagues at Aphaia, she maintains a YouTube channel, called Aphaia’s AI Ethics and Regulation, both in English and Spanish, where they discuss and analyse news, facts, FAQs, and tips on AI. She also writes AI and data protection related articles for Aphaia’s blog regularly. Her motto is “Everything is possible, you just need to know how to do it”. In her view, the combination of Technology and Law may provide almost any response one may need.