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”.

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.

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. 

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.