Bio

Marije started her career as an M&A lawyer with CMS Derks in Amsterdam. After 9 years she decided to continue as a legal counsel, and joined the media company Sanoma. She was initially responsible for the Dutch digital business and M&A, and later switched to M&A for the Eastern European businesses. Having gained corporate finance expertise during her last four years at Sanoma, she started a new corporate finance company in Amsterdam.

3 years later, she realized she missed the legal landscape and decided not only to return to the landscape but also to redefine it. Hence she joined the ROOM and Legal Wing in January 2020 to make M&A more simple by promoting and introducing legal tech solutions in the different parts of the M&A process.

Contribution to legal tech

As a former M&A lawyer and legal counsel in a digital environment, Marije has experienced a lack of innovative powers and has a vision to redefine the legal landscape and bring legal tech to the table. The ROOM and its legal tech solutions help lawyers and counsels to apply the right combination of man and machine, and as such be more pro-active and more efficient at reduced costs.

Marije has contributed and still contributes to legal tech by increasing efficiency within the M&A process through automation. For Marije, legal tech will ensure a more efficient deployment of resources without compromising on quality, and will result in better accessible and understandable results while taking away repetitive tasks.  

Bio

Jasmin Bejaoui is a Manager Innovation at Reinvent Law GmbH (Reinvent Law), the first legal innovation hub in Continental Europe. She is mainly responsible for the key account Baker McKenzie, managing and pursuing the development of innovation ideas. Jasmin studied Economics and developed herself working for leading international law firms for more than 8 years in the field of project management, business development and marketing as well as client relationships. Further, Jasmin is a Legal Project Associate (LPA), accredited by the International Institute of Legal Project Management (IILPM).

Contribution to Legal Tech

With legal teams, Jasmin Bejaoui works on projects and initiatives upon the digitization of the law practice. Building a bridge between economy, technology, communication and creativity is one of her main tasks when it comes to collaboration with several stakeholders on innovation projects. Her expertise lies in managing the development of innovation ideas with respect to identifying the client’s needs of a global law firm, streamlining processes on the client and firm side as well as the design and development of user-centric solutions with the necessary technologies.

Therefore, she conceptualizes, organizes and hosts design thinking and innovation workshops on a regular basis. Building an innovative environment is a challenge that Jasmin has to face and succeed by setting important impulses with creative ideas, especially with regard to change management. Further, Jasmin is an author of articles focusing on legal design thinking and legal project management in professional journals and eBooks.

Bio

Pien has over 18 years of experience advising on corporate and regulatory matters, having worked for Loyens & Loeff from their Amsterdam and London offices. Pien advises on all corporate matters and specialises in public and private mergers & acquisitions, private equity, joint ventures, restructurings, corporate governance, and regulatory and general corporate advice. She also has experience in corporate litigation, inter alia regarding M&A disputes, squeeze-out proceedings and disputes between shareholders. In addition, she regularly publishes in legal journals on matters that are relevant for the public and private M&A market. Pien’s clients include national and international listed and privately held companies, private equity houses, family offices, investment funds and institutional investors.

Contribution to Legal Tech

Pien has been a firm supporter of legal tech innovations within her firm Orange Clover. She has gained vast experience in tech M&A and strongly believes in the adage that Software is eating the world and Software is still hungry (paraphrasing Marc Andreessen). Always on the hunt for innovations, she constantly scrutinizes legal tech applications using artificial intelligence. Convinced that this is the way forward in legal tech, she is a strong believer in full transparency amongst law firms to allow artificial intelligence to evolve into a product that can actually change the legal services industry in the near future.

Bio

Miriam is an alumnus of Ruhr-University Bochum and the University of Cologne. She has been an attorney of law since 2010. Since 2013, Miriam has been a specialist lawyer for family law and founder of the platform scheidungsportal24.de. Her platform handles online divorces throughout Germany.

Contributions to Legal Tech

All work processes of this Miriam’s firm- from client acquisition to case handling are exclusively online. This platform also gives physically handicapped people the possibility to handle their divorce online and barrier-free. As Head of Operations, her research interests lie in the permanent optimization and automation of work processes to increase the efficiency of legal work, as well as sustainable working, among other things through a paperless office.

This special service has been appreciated in the current reference book “Legal Tech – Die digitale Transformation der Anwaltskanzlei”.

Bio

Gudrun Stangl is a partner at Schoenherr, and since May 2013 has been the chief operating officer (COO). Prior to her assignment as COO, Gudrun was the managing partner of Schoenherr’s Bratislava office and has more than 12 years of experience as a lawyer specialising in international mergers & acquisitions with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe.

As COO and as executive member of the Schoenherr Steering Committee, Gudrun Stangl is responsible for the operational management of the firm, leading with a focus on efficiency, innovation and change. She is known for her strong commitment to legal innovation which has also resulted in cooperations with other law firms and external partners in the area of legal tech. 

Contribution to Legal Tech

Schoenherr is a proud founding member of the Legal Tech Hub Vienna (LTHV) in which Gudrun is serving as a board member for the second term. The LTHV is a unique initiative bringing together various law firms and partners, the core objective being to lead the legal industry innovatively and proactively, with a client-focus, into a digital future. 

Under Gudrun’s leadership Schoenherr has also implemented various legal tech solutions which facilitate the daily workings of a law firm (e.g. LAWRENCE®), and launched a number of initiatives promoting innovation at Schoenherr and beyond (e.g. “innovation hub @ schoenherr” initiative in 2017, which brings together tech-savvy, diversely trained people to work on practical solutions to everyday tasks and challenges faced in the context of a law firm). Additionally, Gudrun led Schoenherr into a partnership with Future-Law, an independent, multidisciplinary platform which aims to support the development of the legal industry with the help of technology and innovation

Bio

Niloofar is an experienced consultant with a special focus on Legal Tech and Digitalisation. Niloofarholds two Master of Laws degrees, including an LL.M. from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. After finishing her studies, she started to work at one of the prestigious magic circle law firms in Germany. She is a member of the Legal Tech Team at PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH Germany. She has been working on several national and international legal projects, including joint projects with numerous prominent companies and products.

Contributions to Legal Tech

Niloofar has carried out several diverse legal tech projects, from Contract/Document Automation to Mass Claims and Litigation. She has been working with multiple prominent companies and renowned products to provide and develop digital solutions for daily challenging legal tasks, including innovative solutions for the Covid-19 pandemic challenge in the legal sector.

After almost a decade working as a lawyer, she conceptualizes digitization ideas and systematically pursues them hand in hand with her colleagues and stakeholders. By promoting “Think out of box mindset”, Niloofar drives Legal Tech projects and ideas forward and she helps internal as well as external clients to develop a Legal Tech and digitization-based mindset and solutions. Through internal presentations and diverse exchanges with colleagues and experts on Legal Technology topics, Niloofar has helped PwC colleagues bringing their ideas to the boardroom, and this is a proof that new skills, different ways of thinking and teamwork make digital transformation and usage of technology a possible choice in legal teams. After sharpening her knowledge through various courses in Design-Thinking and Innovation Management she brings the future law firms concept one step closer to reality.

Bio

April is an experienced lawyer who has spent the last decade working on transforming global law firms through roles in innovation and business change, technology, risk and knowledge. April’s keen interest in disruption, technology and legal operations has been instrumental in delivering a range of practical solutions to improve legal processes, drive best practice and deliver client driven products.

Contributions to Legal Tech

April is an active member of the London legal tech ecosystem, consistently offering valuable advice to early-stage legal tech start-ups through her involvement in the Barclays LawTech Eagle Lab. Her involvement with the SEO London annual student workshop, where she delivered a talk on legal technology and innovation, illustrates her commitment to educating the next generation of lawyers on the world of legal tech.  At Clifford Chance she is leading the Create pillar of the firm’s Innovation & Best Delivery Programme, focusing on preparing us for the future of legal services through the exploration of potential disruptors and new ways of working.

Bio

Electra Japonas is the founder of the world’s first Legal Optimisation Company, The Law Boutique. After spending over 10 years in large organisations, becoming frustrated with repetitive tasks and complex, expensive contract procedures, she decided she wanted to start a business that helped businesses deliver better law. Her belief is that the solution lies in human-centric automated processes and legal documents. So, she started her own business in 2017 to do just that. 

Contributions to Legal Tech

Electra has been a champion of legal tech for years, helping in-house lawyers integrate tools. The Law Boutique is currently developing its own legal management platform; a one-stop-shop for lawyers, so they have everything they need in one place. It will help automate certain processes and make things easier for lawyers, freeing up their time so they can focus on high-level work, like driving growth. With a growing team of 11 people, they’re on a mission to change the face of law for good, working with some of the most disruptive businesses in the UK, helping their lawyers work more effectively.

Bio

Anna-Lisa Heyne studied Law in Potsdam, Berlin and Paris. After her studies and her legal traineeship at the Court of Appeal in Berlin, she has worked as an attorney at a French-German law firm in the areas of Economic and Labour law and built a focus on tech based legal solutions for french companies trading with Germany. 

Contributions to Legal Tech

Anna-Lisa is now an attorney at the law firm “Chevalier” which is one of the first German law firms to provide holistic legal advice in order to support and represent employees by using Legal Tech instruments. 
Since the beginning of her legal career, she has been interested in finding faster and more efficient legal solutions for her clients by the use of digitalized processes in order to close gaps in legal protection.”  

Bio

Silke is one of Baker McKenzie’s most active Innovation Ambassadors working closely with the German innovation team as well as legal tech teams in London and Belfast. Silke studied at the University of Applied Sciences, Trierand at the University of London. Silke works as a counsel in the Banking & Finance team in Frankfurt advising banks, investors and borrowers on all aspects of banking and finance law, especially in the areas of acquisition finance, corporate and syndicated lending.

Contributions to Legal Tech

Silke is a modern lawyer, able to manage complexity to not only use technology but also able to leverage technology. She improves the way of working within the Baker McKenzie Banking & Finance team with new ideas of implementing legal tech into their practice group and beyond, amongst others using the client-centric design thinking methodology, process optimization and automation. She is equipped with emotional intelligence and resilience – key skills for future lawyers. She also works continuously on the further development of young professionals with regard to the use of Legal Tech and the work in multidisciplinary teams. She represents the prototype of a future-ready lawyer, combining technical know-how and empathy.