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Professional Services

Wiebke Reuter

Associate, Taylor Wessing

Germany

Bio

Wiebke Reuter, LL.M., graduated in law at the University of Hamburg with focus on data protection and media law. Since 2018, she works at Taylor Wessing Berlin in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) department. She advises companies on data protection and other issues relevant to technology law.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Among the various clients primarily active in the online sector are also companies that e.g. develop and provide legal tech solutions for data protection law compliance, whom Wiebke supports in the design of their product. Wiebke is also involved in the legal tech engagement of TaylorWessing. In this context she attends meetups on legal tech related topics and is committed to the internal use of new legal tech tools, particularly by participating in the pilot phase and assists colleagues in the application in practice.

In addition, she takes part in training sessions on legal tech solutions which are subject to internal assessment for possible areas of application in the firm. Besides, Wiebke also tries to make prospective lawyers aware of the relevance of legal law in practice. She is involved in the firm’s internal legal tech workshops for students, where they can experience the use of Legal Tech tools on practical examples. 

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Eleanor White

Legal Technology Advisor, Shearman & Sterling LLP

Professional Services

Lucía Carrau

Digital & IT Lawyer, Bonet Abogados

Spain

Bio

Since 2013, Lucia has experienced the rise and consolidation of entrepreneurship in Valencia (Spain) by creating synergies with the different agents of the Valencian entrepreneurial ecosystem. She is passionate about entrepreneurship. Her beginnings in the entrepreneurial world started in 2013, when some clients affected by the crisis bet and began to develop technological projects, with clear methodologies and scalability making a difference from the traditional enterprise.

She was the promoter of the creation of the TIC, Entrepreneurship and Startups Area in her first lawyers firm and actually the legal tech specialist at Bonet firm.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Through her current law firm, Lucia has developed and launched the Project www.reiniciandoempresas.com. Through this project, 6 companies from key fields (finance, legal, communications, technology, impact) provide solutions to companies affected by the COVID-19 crisis. The objective is to help them cope with the new challenges and become more resilient to the future. They are committed to implement Legaltech solutions to make companies more agile and competitive in the digital era.

Lucia has been mentoring startups in Innsomnia, open innovation hub based in Valencia and Madrid, where entrepreneurs develop Fintech, Insurtech and Legaltech projects of the Ships of the Valencia City Council and the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She provides legal advice on the processes to establish the society – according to the needs of each project-, partner agreements in the seed phase and partner agreements in the investment round phase, advice on the different types of contracts and loans for startups, intellectual property and industrial and data protection. She also acts as a connector with accelerators and incubators for the development of entrepreneurial projects.

Lucia is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Legaltech and how to advocate digital transformation in law firms organized by the Valencia Bar Association.

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Marion Schumacher

Personal Assistant, PA Employment, Taylor Wessing Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB

Professional Services

Eleanor White

Legal Technology Advisor, Shearman & Sterling LLP

UK

Bio

Eleanor White is the Legal Technology Advisor at Shearman & Sterling LLP. Having over ten years of experience as an information professional, she started in data management within the energy sector before gaining her MA in Library and Information Studies from UCL. After transitioning into Legal Knowledge Management she found her interest in legal technology and currently drives Shearman & Sterling’s innovation efforts as part of the Client Value Team.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Eleanor works closely alongside legal teams to match legal technology solutions to lawyer requirements, overseeing product evaluation and implementation and advising clients on the uses of legal technology within the current landscape. 

She co-led the project to define and centralise Shearman & Sterling’s legal technology governance framework and continues to lead adoption efforts through internal projects focused on increasing efficiency and productivity using legal technology. 

Recently collaborating as part of the Barclays Innovation Consortium, she also contributed to the forthcoming edition of BIALL’s Legal Information Management journal sharing her experiences of running successful proofs of value based on projects resulting in the meaningful implementation of legal technology solutions.

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Dr. Carolin Monsees

Senior Associate, Taylor Wessing

Germany

Bio

Carolin Monsees is a senior associate at Taylor Wessing’s Technology, Media & Telecoms group in Germany and advises clients in the tech industry in data protection and IT law. She focuses on the contractual aspects of international digitalization projects as well as European and international data protection requirements. Being an expert in the field of privacy litigation, she represents clients in court and conducts negotiations with the competent supervisory authorities.

Contribution to Legal Tech

From the implementation of new KI algorithms to the design of legally compliant consumer platforms: Carolin’s advisory and consulting service is to enable digitalization. This work is indispensable without appropriate legal tech tools. Therefore, Carolin uses and further develops Taylor Wessing’s legal tech tools for managing complex contract structures and modules.

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Leyly Erfani

Knowledge Management Lawyer, Taylor Wessing

Professional Services

Priya Lele

Legal Operations Lead, Client Solutions, UK, US & EMEA, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, Co-founder She Breaks the Law

UK

Bio

Priya is a corporate finance lawyer by background. She moved into knowledge management in 2009-10 when the legal industry began to grapple with the ‘more for less’ challenge. Inspired by the disruption in other industries, Priya started to focus on (Legal Operations) process design and use of technology to disrupt and innovate the practice of law and future proof the profession.

As a woman charting her own path, Priya believes we need to break down silos between disciplines, increase collaboration and improve diversity and inclusion to accelerate the pace of change in legal. She co-founded She Breaks the Law on International Woman’s Day 2019 – bringing together a community of 1000s of women from across the globe. She Breaks the Law supports and empowers women (#lawbreakers) of all backgrounds and disciplines in their strive for change and a more progressive, collaborative and inclusive legal ecosystem and gives them a safe space to come together and connect, develop, share and create.

Contribution to Legal Tech

A long-standing champion of human-centred design and legal technology, Priya has streamlined hundreds of legal processes and led transformational projects in private practice and corporations (including a Fortune50 and several FTSE100 clients). She is dedicated to helping legal teams adopt new ways of working that are supported by the effective use of technology and automated solutions to enhance the efficiency of legal service delivery and improve user experience. 

In addition to her day job and her work at She Breaks the Law, Priya mentors and advises legal-tech start-ups and entrepreneurs as well as students and young professionals, sharing her industry knowledge to inspire the next generation.

Other Winners

Professional Services

Isabel Parker

Founder & Director, Doyenne Consulting Ltd.

Professional Services

Lina Krawietz

Managing Partner, This is Legal Design GbR

Professional Services

Barbora Obračajová

Associate, Dentons

Czech Republic

Bio

Lawyer by day and a (future) self-taught programmer by night, Barbora is passionate about the ongoing transformation of the legal profession. She graduated summa cum laude from Charles University, where she set herself up for a big law path, thinking she would spend her professional career drafting, analysing, and pleading. Upon joining Dentons, however, she was quickly swept off her feet by the challenge of bringing innovative approaches to client work, and by the endless possibilities that the legal tech universe has to offer. She hasn’t stopped being excited about it ever since.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Barbora usually acts as a bridge between legal and tech within the broader Dentons innovation strategy. Her goal is to streamline and make implementation easier and innovation more accessible for everyone. Aware of the importance of excitement and positive change management and excitement, Barbora acts as an Innovation Ambassador, which is an internal innovation advocacy group that reaches minds at Dentons all around Europe. In particular, she likes to spark collaboration on client-facing solutions, educate her peers, and facilitate discussion among lawyers, IT and business services professionals. She is honoured and humbled to be recognised among so many inspiring women.

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Leyly Erfani

Knowledge Management Lawyer, Taylor Wessing

Professional Services

Maria Skakun

Senior Associate, Head of Business Development, AVITAR

Ukraine

Bio

Maria has 5+ years in consulting IT and digital companies in the spheres of Data Protection, Intellectual Property, Marketing Compliance. She is a 2020 TEDx speaker with a topic on cybersecurity. She studied law at the National Ukrainian University and she is now heading a leading position in AVITAR law firm.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Maria is an ambassador of the Women in Tech (W.Tech) community on legal matters. She regularly consults rising startups free of charge and guides them in their legal path. Also, she is an official consultant in the Governmental organization that is responsible for the digital transformation of Ukraine. (diia.business)

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Isabel Parker

Founder & Director, Doyenne Consulting Ltd.

Professional Services

Heidi Thomas

Legal Technology Manager, DLA Piper

UK

Bio

Heidi combines years of experience as a Corporate lawyer with an inquisitive, creative mindset and a solutions-focussed attitude. Moving into legal technology full time in May 2019 she started her legal technology career at DLA Piper at a break-neck pace, quickly becoming a key member of the legal technology team at the International firm (which forms a part of the DLA enhanced legal offering, Law&, delivering solutions beyond legal services to help clients succeed), where she is trusted by lawyers across the globe to deliver tech-based solutions to solve client problems across multiple jurisdictions with her trademark enthusiasm, drive and endless positive energy.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Leading the firm’s fast-evolving international electronic signature solution in response to the unique challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis, Heidi has worked tirelessly to build the firm’s DocuSign centred solution, keeping deals running and clients happy across the globe in universally difficult circumstances. Thanks to her hard work and dedication to the delivery of a quality tech solution, Heidi and her specialist DocuSign team are now trusted by hundreds of lawyers and clients, driving change by challenging lawyer’s attitudes to the “usual way of completing deals” encouraging greater adoption of legal tech across the UK, Europe and Australia with passion and tenacity.

Heidi has used her expertise in digital signatures to contribute her knowledge into guidance which was put to the Land Registry in the UK to assist with the creation of their digital signature policies. In addition to leading the firm’s work on electronic signatures, Heidi is also part of a change team revolutionising the firm’s approach to M&A by driving the use of machine learning technology Kira, using vRoomPlus technology and deal management tools like thedocyard to drive longer term change and greater efficiencies in the way that lawyers complete M&A deals; and is working with a wider team to develop software to aid in the generation and completion of due diligence reports.

She also forms part of the Working Group on LegalTech Adoption in International Arbitration, a team seeking to effect global change in the arbitration community through the better use of technology, who published in July 2020 the Protocol for Online Case Management in International Arbitration, helping arbitral participants develop efficient, safe and consistent procedures if adopting a shared online case management platform in their arbitration proceedings. Heidi is also an advocate for careers in legal technology, for example, speaking at a cross campus panel event on legal technology for the University of Law, encouraging future generations of legal professionals to develop core skills in technology.

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Lina Krawietz

Managing Partner, This is Legal Design GbR

Germany

Bio

Lina is the Managing Partner and co-founder of “This is Legal Design”, a consultancy and think tank, specialized in innovation at the intersection of law, design and technology. She founded the company in 2018, convinced that the digital transformation of the legal industry can only succeed if human needs are placed at the centre of every technical development. Lina is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Handelsblatt legal innovation journal “REthinking Law”. As a member of the Legal Policy Advisory Board of the ROLAND-Rechtsschutz-Versicherung-AG, she covers the topic “Digitalization”.

After her 1st Legal State Exam, Lina studied Design Thinking of the Hasso-Plattner-Institute and worked at SAP, where she contributed to designing user-centered software solutions in co-creative formats with customers & users. To get even deeper into legal digitization topics Lina did her legal clerkship i.a. at the Committee on the Digital Agenda (German Parliament), worked as a Customer Success Manager for LAWLIFT GmbH, a legal tech startup for document automation & knowledge management, and became a certified SCRUM Product Owner. 

Contribution to Legal Tech

As a co-founder of “This is Legal Design”  Lina has been pushing the digital transformation of the legal industry, voicing human needs to be placed at the centre of every technical development. Her contribution lies mostly on doing the hard job: working with traditional law firms and legal departments to take the bumpy road of digitalization. Particularly, in her role as Advisor to the Board at the ROLAND legal Insurance, she brings in new perspectives, defending the relevance of legal tech and legal innovation to make the legal system better.

She serves as a model not only to younger generations but also to experienced legal professionals. When she was questioned about the ethical implications of legal tech, she answered: “ethical conduct should not ever mean to put a stop to tech development, because we fear it. Instead, our commitment must be to find the ways tech and law come together to assure the rule of law, access to justice, and social peace”. Lina’s contribution to Legal Tech is beyond particular projects, but her vision of tech, law, and humanity. 

Other Winners

Professional Services

Kerry Westland

Head of Innovation & Legal Technology, Addelshaw Goddard

Professional Services

Claire O’Regan

Director of Customer Success, Juro

UK

Bio

Claire leads the Customer Success team at Juro – the contract collaboration platform. This means getting hands-on in the implementation of Juro for in-house legal teams. Previously, Claire held senior positions at Auth0 and at Swrve; establishing regional Customer Success teams and delivering world-class support to enterprise customers. Claire specializes in building and growing stellar CS teams in fast-paced environments. She believes that the most successful CS teams make their customers heroes.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Claire is an outstanding example of someone who not only talks about legal tech but actually enables lawyers to adopt legal tech. Where traditional contract management deployments can take up to a year to get going, Claire has got customers to value in an average of 14 days. This takes a keen understanding of customer pain points, a real passion for legal tech and the ability to take legal tech projects away from pure theory and into real applications that people use.

An example of Claire’s contribution has been onboarding and enabling Reach plc. Claire worked with Jane Clemetson, Commercial Legal Director to roll out Juro across the business. Jane says: Claire has been a huge asset to Reach, because although adopting Juro is a huge benefit to the legal department and the business, implementing it has been a bit of a logistic challenge, especially as we were starting from scratch and resources are tight. Without Claire, embarrassed as I am to say it, we might have just given up, excellent though Juro is. And as far as Reach is concerned, it is Claire who is the hero.

Other Nominees

Professional Services

Miriam Vietzke

Lawyer, Founder and Managing Director, Scheidungsportal24