Bio

Anne is Salary Partner at Taylor Wessing in Düsseldorf and is a specialist lawyer for employment law. Best Lawyers 2020 has recommended her for Labour and Employment Law. Anne supports companies not only in their everyday business but above all advises them with regard to the digitalization of work/world of work 4.0.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Anne has many years of industry expertise in the IT sector and is very experienced in the structuring of flexible projects under employment law. In this context, the question of how software can be created in an agile manner and at the same time in compliance with labour law is being intensively discussed. Together with her colleague MareikeGehrmann Anne is currently involved in the development of a Legal TechTool for the design of agile working (Scrum, Kanban & Co) in accordance with labour law. Interested clients should be able to check whether they comply with labour law requirements in their day-to-day cooperation with their IT service providers or whether they have toadapt their cooperation.

Bio

Dani Poobalasingam is an Innovation Solutions Analyst dedicated to the international development of  legal tech. She has lived in various countries including New Zealand, India, Switzerland, and England, where she developed superior communication skills in English, Tamil, German, French and Spanish. After graduating with a law degree with from City University of London in 2018, she joined the London office of prestigious international law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP where she manages and develops legal innovation projects.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Dani astutely recognises that the future legal field will be vastly different, bringing with it unmatched challenges at the intersection of law, technology, and data. She has worked across a number of disciplines within the field of machine learning, including deep learning, natural language processing and pattern recognition. She also mastered refining the softwares’ understanding of legal clauses and concepts and consulted a Magic Circle firm in the completion of their review with AI assistance, transforming the way due diligence exercises are executed. After excelling in these tasks, she worked herself up into an integral position in the Knowledge Management team as a Legal Solutions Engineer at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP.

There, she was heavily involved in digital contract automation, optimized contract creations and due diligence processes, which are now part of the wider innovation strategy of the world renowned law firm. Thereafter, she joined the Innovation team, where she was part of the core team for the firm’s adoption of an AI Assisted review platform on an international level. She became the contact person for many stakeholders in the areas of digitisation and legal tech by championing horizon scanning, piloting and adoption exercises. Additionally, Dani is the youngest member of BCLP’s Innovation Team.

As an Innovation Analyst she manages innovation projects by identifying the tech needs as well as the design and development of user-focused end to end solutions with the necessary technologies, which she also partly develops herself. Her latest achievement includes working ad hoc on BCLP’s new integrated legal service delivery, Cubed, which has won several recognised awards within the legal industry. Further, she is coordinating the implementation of a new Innovation Trainee Seat within the firm. Having closely worked with Knowledge Management and being a core part of the firm’s innovation agenda, she believes this initiative will help form a new generation of lawyers with a solid foundation in legal tech and innovation and prepare them for the new legal world.

Bio

Catherine leads the Practice Innovation & Legal Solutions Department in the London office of Paul Hastings LLP, and is part of the global team named 2020 ‘Innovators of the Year’ by the International Legal Technology Association, for outstanding achievements in maximising the value of innovative technology in support of legal professionals. 

Catherine has always been excited by what the combination of law and technology can achieve and deliver, and pioneered e-learning in a legal context as a business law lecturer. She energetically promotes the necessity to embed tech in the work and mindsets of lawyers and support functions such as compliance and risk, for their own benefit and that of clients, and is committed to facilitating openness, honesty, and collaboration in legal tech projects.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Catherine applies her 20 years in the legal industry to the implementation of Paul Hastings’ award-winning legal tech solutions, including the Associate Committee on Technology, Matter Management resources and AI-based workflow automation. She is a driving force behind new solutions and the ground-breaking PH Legaltech University UK, which provides a unique curriculum of experiential legaltech learning and embeds that learning and client-informed mindsets in the firm’s lawyers from the outset of their careers. 

Catherine has a huge passion for legal education and strives to see technology feature in it as an essential part of progressing the delivery of effective legal services and solutions. She continues to develop her coding skills to enhance her knowledge of the mechanics behind legal tech.

Bio

Sidney Flaig is a trainee lawyer at the Regional Court of Frankfurt and a research assistant in the real estate and construction team at the international law firm Taylor Wessing.

Contribution to Legal Tech

She is interested in the simplification of legal work through legal tech tools and is committed to the technological progress of the firm in and with her team.  Last year she was a coach at the first Tech & Law Camp organized by the firm and introduced students and trainee lawyers to a program for document automation. She built several LAWLIFT templates for her department.

Bio

For over 20 years, Elena has been an expert when it comes to Labor law in Russia. She along with her team at BLS Law, have worked on several projects to protect employers’ interests in Russia, including technical development of their services. She also advises on Labor law issues of neighboring countries – Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan etc.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Elena and BLS team have realized a new product – Smart-HR consultations when clients can choose hourly limits to use our experts’ time for their projects (consultations, audit, project support etc.). Over 50 clients use Smart-HR. BLS has made a new chat-bot service for clients to make HR-administrations easier and faster. In addition, they support clients to legalize this process. 

Elena and her team have created a new BLS-portal for their clients’ HR and lawyers. Getting an account they can get quick answers to their question, to see advise history, to keep up with major updates in Labor law etc.

During the pandemic, Elena and the team launched a new special project –Reduce costs and wage fund based on Labor Law. Currently, they are working on over 10 similar projects.

Bio

Tara is Client Solutions Lead at Foot Anstey. Previous to this she held senior positions in Business Development and Marketing in the legal market over the last 15 years. However, it was her time outside of law that Tara really developed the knowledge and skills she applies in her role today. Forever curious she was fascinated by computers in the early 90’s and learned to programme in PASCAL. She then worked at a very entrepreneurial company in London which worked across a number of vertical and horizontal industries across the globe – this honed her skills on understanding clients and markets. Having spent the last 15 years in law has allowed her to nurture the skills required to span business, legal and technology in a way that helps to differentiate Foot Anstey. 

Contribution to Legal Tech

A creative thinker who is outcome focused, she is adept at not only bringing the voice of the client into the firm but helping to present the firm’s work in a way clients value and can readily deploy within their businesses. She has successfully delivered a number of fresh and novel solutions and product to client problems using technology. She has also played a key role in helping the firm to win new clients by creating proofs of concept to support responses to tender and she works as part of the legal team delivering work for clients to ensure that there is continuous improvement of solutions deployed and the lessons learned in the delivery process are adopted “on the job”. Her current work with the Real Estate team has not only achieved client wins but has also helped revolutionise the work being delivered to the client.

Bio

Sally currently works at Thomson Reuters as a Client Success Consultant for HighQ. She provides consultancy services to leading Global Law Firms to help solve their business challenges around keeping pace with the legal tech landscape as well as dealing with regulatory change. Prior to this Sally worked as a well-respected Knowledge Management consultant with experience of knowledge management strategy, (from design to implementation), document and knowledge management systems, intranets, search, process improvement and change management.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Sally has been a pioneer in legal tech by making a natural transition from traditional Knowledge Management roles at various global law firms, to now working with one of the most well respected technology platforms in the legal industry. She is a trusted legal tech advisor to some of the most prestigious law firms in the world and, during her career in legal tech, has worked on some ambitious global projects involving Enterprise Search and Knowledge Strategy for magic circle and silver circle firms. Her ability and proven track record to deliver on complex projects by often bridging the gap between lawyers and technology solutions deserves recognition in this field.

Bio

Sara is the CEO of Nize Partners. She is also a People Innovation Coach and Consultant in Digital Transformation involving process modelling and tech solutions. Sara has over 8 years of experience in helping policymakers and lawyers to better use and understand technology. Her mission is to promote efficiency in legal administration and law firms management.

Contribution to Legal Tech

In order to achieve her mission, Sara also holds different positions in a number of organizations, some of the most remarkable are: member of Digital Transformation and Humanism Group of experts in EOI, Vice president of Mental Health Institute of Legal Professions, Promoter of juiciostelematicos.com, Co-organizer of Legal Hackers Madrid (legalhackers.org), Promoter of the Management and Innovation Department for Law Firms in Madrid BAR Association, Member of Woman in a Legal World

Bio

Maria is the Founding partner at Instituto de Innovación Legal a consultancy from which she advises many law firms, lawyers and organisations of the legal sector on innovation and digital transformation. She has organized three hackathons and two editions of the Legal Design Challenge, a pioneering program that has introduced the Legal Design Thinking methodology in Spain. Vicepresident of the European Legaltech Association (ELTA), co-organizer of Madrid #LegalHackers and Vicepresident of the Latin American Legal Professionals Women Association (AMJI). She has created and build several corporate and professional brands and is a lawyer passionate for Technology Law.

Maria Jesus devoted the first half of her career to the practice of law, specializing in #IP, #DataProtection and #Contracts’ Drafting. Admitted to the Madrid bar in 1989. She practiced first as a solicitor at Clifford Chance and Gómez-Acebo&Pombo; and later as a corporate counsel in several companies. Is author of several books on innovation and LegalTech, management of law firms, innovation and Legaltech. She contributes frequently to professional media and lectures in several universities, conferences and workshops. She has been recognized by the International Legal Tecnology Association (ILTA) as one of the 5 most influential women in Legal Tech. The Madrid Town hall named her ambassador of Madrid and she has been included in the ranking of Spanish Leading women, Top 100. She can work in Spanish, English, French, Italian, Dutch and Catalan.

Contribution to Legal Tech

She has organized several events with an strong impact: three hackathons (#HackTheJustice and #JustiApps) and two editions of The Legal Design Challenge, a pioneering program that has introduced the Legal Design Thinking methodology in Spain.  She has organised Madrid, 2020 European LegalTech Congress. She is a co-organizer of Madrid #LegalHackers. She has developed www.comparador-legaltech.com a directory of legaltech that lets users compare and choose the right tool. She has also develped www.conflictmap.com a legaltech help individuals a auto diagnosis of their interpersonal conflicts to understand them and help them finding a solution. She is author of several books on innovation and LegalTech, management of law firms, innovation and Legaltech. She also contributes frequently to professional media. She teaches in several universities and lectures frequently in conferences and workshops.

Bio

Mareike is Salary Partner at TaylorWessing in Düsseldorf and is listed in the Women in Business Law Expert Guide as one of the best TMT experts in Germany. In 2019 she was nominated as “Best in Privacy & Data Protection” at the Euromoney LMG Europe Women in Business Law Awards 2019. As a specialist lawyer for IT law, Mareike guides clients through the changes of digitalisation. Both companies and authorities value her legal advice. With proven expertise gained from numerous digital projects, she advises on data protection, cybersecurity and IT contracts.

Mareike is familiar with the needs of medium-sized companies and global players, especially in the insurance, healthcare and personnel services sectors. Her practice also includes cross-border work with the Dutch Taylor Wessing team, primarily advising companies entering the German market.

Contribution to Legal Tech

With proven expertise in IT licence management gained from numerous digital projects, Mareike advises on data protection, cybersecurity and IT contracts – including agile software projects, SaaS (software as a service) and IT sourcing.

Mareike has over 8 years experience in drafting and negotiating IT contracts, in particular for the agile development of software. In this context, the question of how software can be created in an agile manner and at the same time in compliance with labour law is being intensively dicussed. Together with her colleague Dr. Anne Förster Mareike Gehrmann is currently involved in the development of a Legal TechTool for the design of agile working (Scrum, Kanban & Co) in accordance with labour law. Interested clients should be able to check whether they comply with labour law requirements in their day-to-day cooperation with their IT service providers or whether they have to adapt their cooperation.

Mareike publishes articles, gives lectures and is a member of the Computerwoche magazine expert network for “IT Compliance, IT Law and IT Security”.