With more than 25 years’ experience as a leader in professional firms, John Chisholm established his own consultancy in 2005 to share his expertise and experience with firms looking to move beyond the traditional firm model.

David Rueff has practiced law for more than 20 years. He also is a certified project manager through the Project Management Institute (PMP®) and is certified in the Toyota Manufacturing Production System (Lean). David leads a team of attorneys and project managers to implement project management for Baker Donelson clients, in-house corporate legal departments and disaster recovery programs. He was responsible for the development of the Firm’s patent pending legal project management model – BakerManage®, the Firm’s Lean model– BakerLean™ and the Firm’s proprietary budgeting tool – Budget Designer™. I had the pleasure of speaking with him about his project management expertise and how lawyers can apply project management to the practice of law. 

Susan Lambreth is a founding Principal at LawVision and the Founder of the LPM Institute.  She is nationally recognized as one of the top leadership, practice group and project management consultants for law firms. For over 25 years, she has helped law firms of all sizes improve their profitability and enhance their lawyers’ leadership and management skills. She is also the author or co-author of six leading books on practice group management and legal project management. 

I recently spoke with the CEO of an intriguing legal tech startup called Tali. Matt Volm describes himself as a recovering accountant, rookie fly fisherman, and technology entrepreneur with an MBA from the Berkeley – Haas School of Business. I love taking ideas from concept stage to execution and learning a whole lot along the way.”  Tali is a legal tech startup. Tali is a productivity assistant enabled by voice. Tali seeks to automate time entry for lawyers and other professionals. 

Patrick Lamb is a true legal innovator. He is a founding member of ElevateNext Law, a business law firm aligned with Elevate Services to build the future of legal services delivery. From maximizing the role of data analytics and project management to unparalleled efficiency and use of non-hourly pricing, ElevateNext is designed to be the “Amazon of law firms.” Prior to ElevateNext, he was a founding member of Valorem Law Group, a business litigation law firm. Valorem pioneered the use of Value Fees for business litigation, believing fees can be fixed and incentives created for any business dispute. Valorem was named by BTI Consulting as one of the 22 firms “Best at Delivering AFAs.” 

Jordan Galvin is a true innovator and someone who welcomes change and disruption. She is currently Fellow and Innovation Counsel at LegalRnD —The Center for Legal Services Innovation at Michigan State University College of Law. She soon will be moving to Mayer Brown and taking on the role of Knowledge Management Resources Lead. 

Professor Michael L. Bloom is the founding director of the Transactional Lab & Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. The clinic is an experiential program giving students the opportunity to work on transactional matters for large multinational companies. Prof. Bloom is also the founder of Praktio, a provider of interactive, online learning games and exercises for developing practical contracts skills and knowhow. Praktio recently joined with two other training tools to form the Legal Launch Kit to help law students acquire the skills they now need to be effective in the rapidly changing law practice world. Professor Bloom is also the co-author of two books on contracts from a transactional perspective: Contracts and Commercial Transactions; and Contracts: A Transactional Approach, both published by Aspen.

Sterling Miller is a highly experienced General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and in-house attorney. He is currently General Counsel of Marketo, a marketing automation firm. Sterling is also the author of the highly-regarded Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel blog and author of the book Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel: Practical Advice and Successful Strategies. 

Adi Prakash is an experienced leader in the transformation space, having spent many years working with C-level organizational leaders defining and executing transformation initiatives spanning the gamut from Business Process Re-Engineering to Machine Learning and Analytics. His previous roles have included CTO and Head of Legal, eDiscovery & Corporate Responsibility technology at JP Morgan Chase, Head of Controls Functions technology at Och-Ziff Capital Management and Head of Anti-Money Laundering and Trade Surveillance Technology at UBS amongst others. He now is the Chief Innovation Officer for Yerra Solutions tasked with running their Global Client Services and Innovation division.

Catherine Bamford is in her words a “Legal Engineer.” She is working at the intersection of legal practice and legal technology helping both law firms and law departments improve the delivery of legal service through the smart application of legal technology. She is the co-founder and CEO of the legal tech consultancy firm BamLegal. I had the pleasure of speaking with her about her career path, her views of legal technology, and about her current work. 

Gerald Glover III  “discovered his passion for legal technology at Suffolk Law School while researching how to increase access to justice. After earning his degree, he went on to work at a company specializing in document automation, where he developed project management, data analytics, and software-building skills. Since joining DWT De Novo, he has sharpened the team’s ability to engage with and evaluate vendors. Gerald’s dedication to improving solution adoption supports DWT De Novo’s ongoing work to transform legal service delivery.” (https://denovo.dwt.com/gerald-glover/)

I recently spoke with Bruce MacEwen to get his take on a number of issues facing the legal industry and the practice of law. Bruce MacEwen is a leader in the legal consultant industry, having published nearly 2,000 articles on topics relevant to the field. He also founded Adam Smith, Esq. in 2003. Bruce has also written several books including most recently Tomorrowland: Scenarios for law firms beyond the horizon (2017).