Legal IT Show

Keynote Speakers at the 2010 Legal IT Show Speakers' Corner - FREE for ALL visitors

	Erik Brynjolfsson, Director, MIT CENTER FOR DIGITAL BUSINESS & Schussel Family Professor of Management MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT & Chair, MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW Prof. Brynjolfsson was among the first researchers to measure the productivity contributions of information technologies, and his research has been recognized with nine "Best Paper" awards by fellow academics and five U.S. Patents. He was named one of five “E-Business Visionaries” by BusinessWeek and one of the two most influential academics by Optimize magazine. Prof. Brynjolfsson is the Chair of MIT Sloan Management Review and editor of the Information System Network. Prof. Brynjolfsson is on the academic advisory board of Time Magazine's Board of Economists. He previously taught at Stanford Business School and at Harvard University. His research examines the effects of information technologies on business strategy, productivity and performance, Internet commerce, pricing models and intangible assets. Prof. Brynjolfsson is the co-author of Wired For Innovation: How IT Is Reshaping The Economy.
	Dr. Karen Stephenson, President, NETFORM INTERNATIONAL Dr. Karen Stephenson, hailed in Business 2.0 as “The Organization Woman”, is a corporate anthropologist and lauded as a pioneer and "leader in the growing field of social-network business consultants." She was also one of only four females recognized from a distinguished short list of 55 in Random House’s 2007 Guide to the Management Gurus. In 2006, she was awarded the first Houghton Hepburn Fellow at Bryn Mawr College for her groundbreaking contributions to civic engagement. In 2001, her consulting firm Netform was recognized as one of the top 100 leading innovation companies by CIO. Her prominence catapulted in 2000 when she was featured in a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell, regarding the social dynamics of office spaces. Even before these accolades, Stephenson had earned praises for innovatively solving a variety of complex problems which have been featured in The Economist, Forbes, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and Wired. Drawing upon her prolific experience and 400 member database, Dr. Stephenson consistently delivers that “aha’ moment to her clients and audiences. A global nomad, she currently lectures at the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University. This was preceded by 5 years at the Harvard School of Design and 10 years at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management.
	Charles Christian, Publisher & Editor, LEGAL TECHNOLOGY INSIDER Charles Christian is a former practising barrister turned independent writer, commentator and industry analyst who has been reporting on developments in law office technology and online legal services for over 25 years. After writing for other publications - he was a Reuters correspondent and a winner of the UK National Newspapers Technology Journalist of the Year Award - in 1995 he launched his own business publishing the industry newsletter Legal Technology Insider. Christian was also the launch editor for the Legal Technology Journal magazine and his 1998 book Legal Practice in the Digital Age was described as "essential reading for every lawyer in the land" by Professor Richard Susskind. Recently named as one of the "top 10 movers and shakers within the legal IT world", Christian has also been an advisor to the Law Society on its annual Software Solutions Guide - he also wrote the Society's Y2K millennium bug survival guide - and regularly briefs IT vendors, publishers, event organisers and venture capital groups on current industry trends and technology developments.
	Stuart Whittle Partner, Head of IS, WEIGHTMANS LLP Stuart joined Weightmans in 1993 and qualified in 1995. He became an associate in 1998 and was made a partner in 2002. Until 2004 Stuart was a member of Weightmans' Professional Indemnity team during which time he specialised in claims against solicitors. During his time in the Professional Indemnity team, Stuart’s practise included acting for a number of top 30 law firms on 7 and 8 figure claims that arose out of the House of Lords’ decision in Dimond v Lovell. In 2004, Stuart championed the roll out of bespoke case management templates to all practice areas within the firm and in February 2005 Stuart was promoted to the Head of IT. Stuart is an active member of LITIG and is responsible for leading a team of almost 40 IT professionals and for developing and delivering Weightmans’ IT strategy. He is a member of LexisNexis’ CIO advisory board and on the product board for LexisNexis’ dna* software.
	Mark Weston, Head of Commercial/IP/IS Team, & Partner, Marketing & IT, MATTHEW ARNOLD & BALDWIN LLP Mark Weston is a partner at Matthew Arnold and Baldwin where he joined in August 2004 as Head of the Commercial/IP/IT group after many years in the large City firms. Mark's practice covers both non-contentious and contentious matters in all areas of commercial law, intellectual property law, information technology law, Internet, electronic commerce, and on-line services law. He has extensive experience in advising clients regarding hardware and software issues (including development, licensing, maintenance and distribution), solutions for and methods of transacting on the Internet, electronic commerce, including B2B, B2C and B2G, strategies to minimise or maximise liability and carry out compliance audits, outsourcing, facilities management, procurement, company IT policies and data protection (privacy) issues. He also has experience in various other areas of advanced IT law (such as digital signatures and PKI) and in dealing with software disputes and IT litigation (and methods of using alternative dispute resolution techniques).
	Colin Smith Director of IT,PINSENT MASON Colin is the Director of Information Technology and has responsibility for the provision, support and strategic development of the firm's I.T systems and supporting infrastructure. He has significant experience of working within a professional services environment. In addition, prior to joining Pinsent Masons, he gained valuable experience working in both development and technical consultancy roles for several large I.T Systems integration / Service organisations. He is a member of the Institute of Directors, the BCC (British Computer Society) and a qualified member of the itSMF (IT Service Management Forum).
	Peter Birley Director of IT & Business Operations, BROWNE JACOBSON LLP Peter Birley has been director of IT and business operations for law firm Browne Jacobson LLP since 2005 - joining from another law firm, Eversheds LLP, where he was project/programme manager. Among his achievements at Browne Jacobson is the introduction of a three-year rolling IT strategy aligned with the business, and the implementation of a business process improvement methodology to assist in the drive for efficiency. Programme and project management is another speciality for Birley who holds the highly acclaimed PMP (Project Manager Professional) accreditation, as well as being a certified practitioner in the Prince2 project methodology, the MSP (managing successful programmes) methodology and a Six Sigma Black Belt. In addition to the legal profession, Birley has held senior IT positions in the London insurance market and manufacturing sectors. He is a fellow of the Institution of Analyst and Programmers, and a fellow and Chartered IT Professional with the British Computer Society.
	Lars Plougmann Head of Consulting, London,HEADSHIFT Lars's background is in professional services: management consulting in an international consulting firm, internal consulting in a big law firm, market strategy in a specialist consultancy and twice the owner of his own independent consulting business. He has been with Headshift since April 2007 although the professional relationship goes back to 2004. Collaboration and social technologies has been his focus since 1998. Headshift is Europe's leading social business consultancy. They help organisations use smarter, simpler, social technologies to improve business performance, communication and customer engagement.
	Ian Lauwerys IT Director, KENNEDYS LLP Ian Lauwerys is the IT Director of highly regarded law firm, Kennedys. The firm specialises in dispute resolution and services to the insurance industry. Ian’s role as IT Director focuses on strategic IT issues. He directs a team supporting the firm’s network of eight UK and six international offices, providing IT services to over 650 partners, lawyers and other staff. Ian has more than 20 years of IT industry experience in a variety of technical, managerial and leadership roles. For the past 12 years, he has focussed exclusively on the legal industry, as an in-house IT Director and also as an independent technology consultant. Ian joined Kennedys as IT Director in July 2005
	Donna Gildea Head of Information Technology,CMS CAMERON MCKENNA LLP Donna Gildea has been Head of Information Technology at CMS Cameron McKenna LLP since 2008 having held various roles in the firm over the last six years including international IT management and business liaison. Prior to moving into legal, Donna was a management consultant at Accenture for six years working primarily in technology-driven business transformation roles in the Energy and Natural Resources sector. At CMS Cameron McKenna, Donna is responsible for IT strategy but also for delivering IT services through an integrated co-sourcing relationship with HCL Technologies, which means the majority of her team are offshore in India. This has brought numerous benefits but also some challenges, all of which have been magnified since launching an extensive programme of IT transformation covering infrastructure and applications, again in partnership with HCL.
	Fran Evans Head of IT, BERRYMANS LACE MAWER LLP Fran Evans is the Head of Information Technology at BLM and joined the firm with 10 years prior experience of IT and IT Management gained in the legal IT sphere. The firm specialises in dispute resolution and provides advice to a broad range of commercial and public sector clients including insurance companies. Fran is responsible for the delivery, support and development of the firm’s IT systems and she leads a team of 40 IT professionals providing solutions to 1200 users. Fran has worked closely with the Management Team to develop an IT strategy that is transforming working practices and processes in an evolutionary manner and ensuring that IT is an enabler. Currently responsible for delivery of two projects that are central to BLM’s drive to improve existing services and provide an agile response to a rapidly changing field, Fran recently successfully achieved a very rapid implementation of the firm’s new Case Management solution to selected legal teams, and plans to extend this to all departments.
	Laurence Lewis Senior Consultant, CONSULTING STREAM LTD Laurence is a senior consultant focused on improving business performance. He is a strong business developer, change implementer and programme manager with operational experience supported by business oriented technical knowledge. He is a strategist, passionate communicator and avid public speaker who champions business ideas and solutions to complex problems. With a background in telecoms, media and technology, Laurence has been working with a number of clients on business transformation projects enabled by technology. He has worked extensively in offshore outsourcing and out-tasking and has addressed the topic at international conferences. He has broad experience in such sectors as telecommunications, retail, banking, transport and since 2004 in the legal sector with such clients as MoD, BT, DfT, Logica, HMRC, M&S, Natwest, Abbey National, DLA Piper and Berrymans Lace Mawer. Laurence has held senior positions in British Telecom and Virgin Media (Telewest).
	Neil Renfrew Head of IT, THOMAS EGGAR LLP Neil began his career in IT as a software developer with Olivetti in Edinburgh in 1976. In 1984, he set up the company that became ResSoft and was responsible for the design and implementation of systems such as FirmControl (for Linklaters), FirmWare (for Freshfields) and Panaseea (for Slaughter and May). In February 2005, following the acquisition of ResSoft, he became Tikit’s Professional Services Director. He is now working 50% of his time for the top 100 law firm Thomas Eggar as Head of IT and 50% as an independent consultant. Neil offers a wealth of business management experience as well as skills in IT strategy, business analysis, project management, solutions design, systems integration and implementation.
	Peter Cocks Partner, CONSULTING STREAM Peter is a senior manager, experienced consultant and a technology enthusiast who has worked throughout his career developing and successfully managing complex managed services and BPO projects. He has held senior roles in large technology and telecommunications organisations including, Digital Equipment, BT plc and Concert Communications and has designed and managed multi disciplined customer facing organisations at both the Global and UK level. Peter has also helped establish several successful businesses including a UK based web marketplace aimed at trades people and an offshore contact centre business. For the last 5 years at independent consultants Consulting Stream, he has been advising organisations on improving operational efficiency as well as major technology procurement, vendor management and negotiation, service design and service recovery. Peter has advised many private and public sector clients including a number of top 50 law firms.
	Andrew Haslam Litigation Support Consultant, ALLVISION COMPUTING Andrew is one of the UK's leading independent litigation support consultants with full knowledge of all the strategic and practical elements of every stage of the EDRM model. He has been in contract Project Manager posts in the legal environment since April 1997, working for law firms including; Slaughter and May, Lovells, Masons, Wragge & Co, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, Geldards, SJ Berwin, Mishcon de Reya and Hugh James. He has a wide range of IT experience gained from 10 years with 3 Systems Integration companies. Andrew is skilled in all aspects of project management, with optimum use of his abilities found in the roles of board level liaison, programme/project management, interfacing with users and top level briefings or seminars. Since September 1997, Andrew has worked part time at Lovells, where he runs an IT litigation support group controlling 3M records with 15M images spread across 60 databases using 5 different technologies. He is responsible for the daily activities of a team of six, providing strategic consultancy advice as well as project implementation and on-going maintenance. During 2001-2, Andrew's group implemented a Knowledge Management system using the Ringtail software suite along with a series of bespoke modules which has underpinned two successful projects for external clients, resulting in significant new business. He has also carried out long term assignments for other law firms including; the deployment of Carpe Diem in Slaughter and May and RPC, implementation of Knowledge Management software at Slaughter and May, production of PMS reporting modules at Masons, provision of advice on litigation support software to Wragge & Co and EDD consultancy to firms including BLP, RPC, Geldards, SJ Berwin, Mishcon de Reya and Hugh James.
	Stu Gooderham Sales Director, REDWOOD ANALYTICS, a LexisNexis Company Before entering the legal sector Stu spent over 10 years in client facing and partner management roles in the Automotive industry working with Rover MG and Land Rover. A move into the computer software industry followed in 2000 and continued the strong client focused approach with an Oracle 11i VAR specialising in CRM to the services sector. Stu has been working within the legal industry for almost 6 years and has been associated with Redwood for over 4 of those, formerly joining the company in 2008 when they were acquired by LexisNexis. He is responsible for representing Redwood internationally in all aspects of the work that they do with law firms.
	Sean Robinson Associate Director, PHOENIX SOFTWARE After completing more than 600 projects in the last 6 years and being directly involved in the development of the International Standard for Software Asset Management (ISO/IEC 197701), Sean Robinson is now regarded as one of the leading authorities in Software Asset Management (SAM). In addition to being an Associate Director for Phoenix Software Ltd, Sean continues to be responsible for the development of Europe's leading licence management tool, Licence Dashboard and is a Board Director of Investors in Software.
	Melanie Farquharson, Consultant, 3KITES Melanie joined 3Kites Consulting in February 2007 from Simmons & Simmons where she had been a partner since 1994. From 2001, after more than 14 years of fee-earning experience she moved into a central role in the firm with responsibility for knowledge management. During the following six years, Melanie became increasingly aware of the potential for technology to change the way that lawyers work, by dramatically improving both efficiency and client service. At Simmons & Simmons she was involved in a number of technology related projects, including the implementation of PMS and CRM systems, workflow and document management, as well as the more traditional knowledge management tools. This has given her a wealth of experience of specifying, purchasing and implementing technology in the professional services environment. She also brings experience of knowledge services for clients, both from her responsibility for Simmons & Simmons’ online legal resource, elexica and from the firm’s involvement in the ground breaking Banking Legal Technology (BLT) portal. Melanie is a passionate believer in the power of technology to bring about transformation, even in a profession which is notoriously attached to established ways of working. And she is firmly convinced that market forces – in the form of clients - will increasingly force lawyers to change, by punishing inefficiency and rewarding innovation. Having practised law in a major international firm and been involved in its management, Melanie sees her role as a consultant at 3Kites as helping to bridge the communication gap and assist firms in implementing solutions that lawyers can readily work with. This means not only finding and implementing the right technology but also identifying how working practices need to change so that the firm gets value from its investment and persuading lawyers to embrace that change.
	Tim Cheadle General Manager, LEXISNEXIS PRACTICE & PRODUCTIVITY MANAGEMENT Tim Cheadle leads the LexixNexis Practice & Productivity Management business, driving focus on expanding the company's position as a leading supplier integrated business of law solutions to the legal, corporate and government markets. His team are responsible for the technology-leading integrated Practice Management solutions and developing industry leading processes that anticipate and accommodate new legislative and best practice changes across legal, tax and compliance related work flows. Prior to LexisNexis, Tim previously served as Director of Product Solutions at Micro Focus where he lead the product management and solutions organisation across a large software portfolio; has also run his own hi-tech consultancy, and held a variety of senior positions at FormScape Software and at Imation Corp.
	Finlay Carmichael Director, C2 SOFTWARE Having co-founded C2 Software (developers of the Activedition CMS) in 1997 Finlay has gained valuable experience in running a software business which has an established track record. Before starting C2 Software, Finlay worked on high profile assignments for leading blue chip organisations including, RBS, British Airways, NCR, AT&T. Finlay is the architect of the popular Activedition CMS and is the firm’s Consulting Director. He is an exponent of the power of social media and how this phenomenon can revolutionise the way businesses look at the web as a channel to market.
	Osman Ismail Founder, DPS SOFTWARE Osman Ismail is the founder of DPS Software and the original developer of the company’s case management software which was the first commercially successful case management system in the UK. Osman has since developed solutions such as Digital Dictation software, Practice Management software and the concept of fulfilling ‘the paperless office’. He has been at the forefront of software development for 25 years and has concentrated on developing software solutions to bring efficiency to the legal market for 20 years.
	Gerry Lawrence Chief Technical Officer, NETBENEFIT Gerry Lawrence joined NetBenefit in February 2007. Gerry is responsible for the management of NetBenefit’s technical operations and development. He has previously lead technical teams in several high growth and high profile UK and international internet businesses. His roles have included Head of Network Services at Demon Internet and Director of Global Hosting at Tiscali.
	Peter Owen Director, LIGHTS-ON CONSULTING LTD Lights-On Consulting Limited has been established to provide pragmatic consultancy primarily to Law Firms on their use of IT. Lights-On was set up by Peter Owen who, for 10 years until Autumn 2005, was the IT Director for Eversheds. Eversheds was the largest law firm in Europe with some 4500 people in the firm. Office sizes varied from over 800 people down to 20 or 30 giving a great range of experiences and exposure to issues for law firms of all sizes. Prior to that Peter worked for DuPont and for the many subsidiary companies, particularly oil, gas, technology and energy conservation acting in roles that ranged from developer and 1st and 2nd line support positions through internal consultant for start-up joint ventures to IT Manager. With over 20 years varied experience working in the IT arena, over 10 of which have been heading up the IT in a law firm and latterly 3 years in Legal IT Consulting, Peter has a broad experience in all aspects of corporate IT ranging from IT Service and Service Desks through IT systems development to IT project delivery and strategy. It is believed that this experience backed by a practical, friendly, no-nonsense nature and a network of associates will bring benefit to other commercial law firms of all sizes who feel their IT could be further improved or greater return on investment extracted.