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”.

Bio

Katsia is an Associate at Morae Global. She has worked on several legal transformation projects including IT reviews, external legal spend management assessments, and working practice behavioral observations studies. Prior to joining Morae, Katsia was an Analyst at JandersDean International. She was involved in numerous client engagements working with senior leadership at large in-house legal departments and private practice law firms in the UK, France, and Australia. Katsia has been responsible for providing in-depth analysis, project management, and creative and innovative solutions for clients.

Prior to that, she gained valuable experience as a marketing strategist and worked on successful business development initiatives. Katsia was also an Intellectual Property Legal Advisor at Sterling Law. Her international experience includes working in London, Amsterdam, and Minsk. Katsia is a mentor of the University of Miami Law Without Walls program, a founder of multiple start-ups, and a member of the UCL BaseKX Hatchery Accelerator. As a student, she has been participating in the annual scientific and research activities organization, appointed as the Ambassador of the Economic Summit at Warwick University, as well as has to be responsible for running the Model United Nations Conference. Katsia graduated from the Belarusian State University with an LLB and has undertaken a one-year International Law exchange program at the Charles University in Prague. 

Contribution to Legal Tech

Katsia contributes to the legal technology community through her advisory and consulting in the professional services space, as well as through her role in legal design and technical development. She regularly works with international law firm and inhouse legal team management to strip back the waste from current processes and technology stacks. Katsia is involved in the identification of potential innovative interventions where workflow and decision-tree technologies can replace existing legacy approaches, and has been involved in developing some of the most complex multi-year technology roadmaps for law firms and legal departments. A champion of democratised data and intuitive design, Katsia also regularly works to develop bespoke tools in the access to justice space.

Bio

Marjan is the co-founder of L-IME. L-IME is an independent legal tech consultancy company that is focused on advising, guiding and assisting law firms to thrive in an ever-changing playing field driven by the digital transformation of our society.

As a business consultant, business change, and project manager Marjan has successfully delivered several large-scale IT projects for renowned national and international law firms. Her leadership skills, strong didactics, and over 18 years of hands-on experience are valued by many law firms, corporate legal departments, and business partners in the legal industry. Marjan is a true entrepreneur and legal tech enthusiast focussing on the human side of change.

Contribution to Legal Tech

After years of consulting and being in various leadership positions for legal IT software vendors Marjan decided to break away from the vendor arena, to launch L-IME and to team up with law firms as their go-to advisor. By sharing her in-depth knowledge of legal tech and its industry Marjan contributes to the increasing awareness of the opportunities that arise when stakeholders dare to think outside the box and start collaborating on innovative solutions for the challenges ahead. In that very position Marjan is ELTA Ambassador for the Netherlands. A group of handpicked well-connected legal tech pioneers from all over Europe and beyond, who volunteer to act as “swinging doors” between their country or region and the international level of ELTA (the European Legal Technology Association).

With L-IME Marjan not only launched the Legaltech Academy providing law firms and law students training on legal tech solutions and concepts enabling lawyers and students to get a better understanding and grip on legal tech developments, but Marjan also developed the Legaltech-Radar: a free and easy to use platform that helps law firms to find and compare legal tech and legal IT solutions based on the features they are looking for. The Legaltech-Radar goes beyond a mere legal tech map including the option to actually receive a comparison summary by mail at no costs. Currently the Legaltech-Radar is available for the Dutch market: IT-Kieswijzer and the Spanish market, managed by Instituto Innovación Legal:  Comparador Legaltech and is expanding to other countries or regions.

Bio

Leyly works as a Knowledge Management Lawyer in Berlin. She is responsible for all knowledge management related topics in the fields of Corporate/M&A and Technology, Media & Telecoms. Prior to joining TaylorWessing, she had 13 years of experience as in-house counsel of a (non-listed) stock corporation in the renewable energy segment with up to 15 affiliated companies. In addition to all legal matters of the company, she was steering project development and management, including financing and financial structuring, M&A transactions and corporate reorganizations. Templates, samples, checklists, etc as predecessors have been her other commitments since the beginning of her professional career. Leyly is a Certified (DAA) Mediator with 7+ years experience.

Contribution to Legal Tech

She acts as a link between Knowledge Management and Legal Tech in her specific additional function as Legal Tech Coordinator at TaylorWessing Germany. She is responsible for the inhouse support and project management of LAWLIFT and TW:diligence, including the  continuous improvement and development of both tools.

In addition to her law degree 2nd Exam, she successfully completed her MBA with a focus on Change Management in 2018 and her Thesis “strategic flexibility of start-ups with a focus on IT companies”.

Bio

Sara is a part of the Enterprise Legal Services & Legal Technology Team within the Digital Services Tax & Legal Department in PwC Germany, Frankfurt a.M. She completed her bachelor and master studies in Law at the University of Belgrade, as well as additional master studies at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. As an individual who believes in lifelong learning, Sara has recently enrolled in the Foundations of Design Thinking Online Program at IDEO U.

Driven by the impact of technology on the legal profession, Sara specializes in the field of legal transformation and innovation. Legal departments are facing different challenges, such as the increase of volume and complexity of work, as well as the pressure to reduce costs. As a strong believer in change and growth, Sara supports clients in the mindful, digital transformation of their legal and procurement departments.   

Contribution to Legal Tech

Sara supports clients to make the legal function what it should be: the lifeblood of the business it supports.

Being a part of PwC enables Sara to work with big clients that have big challenges, and the results of mindful digital transformation of the legal function with such clients are mind-blowing and have a significant impact on the future growth and success of these organizations. Some of these challenges concerned the implementation and global roll-out of the contract lifecycle management solution, as well as change management to prepare, support, and help clients in making organizational changes. In addition, Sara led the implementation of an automated document generation software, as a part of the internal digital transformation.

Bio

Lydia Torne is a Managing Associate in Simmons & Simmons’ Intellectual Property team in London.  She is a specialist in intellectual property transactions, including licensing and collaboration agreements, monetisations, consortia agreements, joint ventures and the IP aspects of corporate transactions and financings. Lydia also advises on life sciences regulatory compliance issues. Lydia has a particular interest in Digital Health, where tech meets the healthcare and life sciences sector. Lydia advises clients on a wide range of digital health issues, including on collaborations using artificial intelligence in drug discovery, re-use of patient data and regulatory compliance issues for digital health solutions.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Lydia is one of Simmons & Simmons’ Tech Ambassadors, assisting with the roll out of, and engagement of lawyers in, new legal tech to help streamline lawyers’ work and increase efficiencies. Lydia is also part of a working group developing new software applications to help clients quickly and easily obtain information and high level advice regarding common digital health issues.

Lydia has worked alongside Simmons & Simmons Wavelength (Simmons & Simmons’ team of legal engineers) on a number of recent projects to help develop new technology solutions for her clients, including automating and/or condensing legal processes or simply developing new, innovative, ways of presenting key legal information.

Lydia is active in the legal and scientific tech community. She has been recognised as a Leading Individual for Life Sciences and Healthcare in Legal 500, as well as contributing to the Institute of Global Health Innovation’s white paper on data monetisation and being published in The Lancet regarding NHS/private collaborations using patient data. She speaks regularly at events such as Blockchain Live, the Westminster Forum and those hosted by think tank Reform, regarding data monetisation issues. Lydia has also been featured on the popular blockchain podcast, Blockchain Insider, discussing data monetisation issues. Lydia is a lecturer at the forthcoming Society for Computers and Law’s lecture on legal issues for AI.

Bio

Belen Martin Rial, founding partner, is a Spanish and US lawyer, admitted to the New York Bar after obtaining a Master’s Degree in Banking, Corporate, and Finance at Fordham University Law School in New York. She has a JD in Law from the Central University of Barcelona (Spain). She is passionate about the internationalization of businesses, her professional career is focused on representing local and foreign companies in data privacy and corporate matters. She has worked in Spain, New York and Amsterdam.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Belen brings trust to the client relationship providing strategic legal solutions in alignment with its clients’ interests in a win-win scenario. She has been working hard with several blockchain initiative and lawmakers to bring trust into play.

She participated as key speaker in the 2019 Barcelona Blockchain Week, the Tech Spirit Barcelona 2020 and several investors events, to address topics such as, blockchain as a tech that can accelerate the EU fair data economy, how GDPR is impacting cryptocurrencies and blockchain and the right to be forgotten. 

Bio

Since setting up the Addleshaw Goddard Innovation and Legal Technology (ILT) team four years ago with a team of three, Kerry’s drive, passion and philosophy of ‘there must be a better way’ has seen it grow to twenty-six. It develops, tests and invests in technology-enabled legal solutions and drives behavioural change across the firm by encouraging fee earners to actively seek opportunities to introduce tech into their areas.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Innovation and legal technology are now at the heart of AG operations, not an afterthought or an add-on but integral to how they work with clients and colleagues. It is not technology for its own sake, but as an enabler of smarter practices and processes with the ultimate objective of improving a clients’ business. One of first dedicated units of its kind, it has grown to become one of the largest, a unique mix of legal technologists, developers and lawyers that marries tech knowledge with proven legal expertise to create focussed, bespoke solutions. 

Working with HR, Kerry has forged new roles and alternative career paths within the firm and is particularly proud of the fact that 50% of the ILT are female. She is an enthusiastic advocate for developing, training and equipping the lawyers of tomorrow, helping to future-proof the firm for a changing business world. She has created a secondment programme for associates across the firm allowing them to gain experience utilising tech to better serve clients. ITL also boasts the first lawyers in the profession to have qualified through working wholly within legal technology.

Kerry displays a relentless drive and energy that has embedded an ethos within the firm that ensures technology and expert legal advice are blended to deliver an enhanced offering to clients and provide a real sector differentiator. She is not an avid ‘technologist’ but a passionate believer that technology is there to be harnessed to provide answers to her perpetual question: ‘Is there a better way of doing this?’