Speakers

Conference Speakers: Day two

 

Wendy Small, Head of Knowledge Management, Eversheds LLP

 

Wendy is Head of Knowledge Management for the international law firm, Eversheds LLP. Originally graduating in Information Management, Wendy went on to study law at Nottingham law school. She has worked in the legal sector for eighteen years, taking on the role of Head of Information Services for Eversheds in 2004, working with a team of 35 information professionals.

 

The Practice Lawyer, Business Development and Information teams have been aligned for some time within Eversheds and Wendy has worked with all of these teams to assist with the delivery of knowledge and information to both internal and external clients. In her new role as Head of Knowledge Management, she will be taking an holistic view of professional support across the business, aiming to ensure that the wide range of professional support skills available to the business are fully utilised and maximised in line with global strategy.

 

Wendy is also a regular guest speaker at the University of Sheffield where she teaches post-graduate students in Information Management on KM and marketing related topics. She has also delivered lectures at the College of Law for LPC students on legal research and KM in law firms.

 

Wendy won the award for City/National Knowledge Officer of the Year at the 2008 Legal Technology Awards and the Eversheds Information and Knowledge Services team was short-listed for the City/National Knowledge Team of the Year.

 

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Rachel O'Connor, Director, Knowledge & Risk, Allens Arthur Robinson

 

Rachel is the Director of Knowledge & Risk at Allens Arthur Robinson. Rachel started her career as a lawyer in the Melbourne office of Allens Arthur Robinson and was a senior associate practising in mergers and acquisitions before moving to professional support role. Rachel has worked in the knowledge management field since 2000, first as a professional support lawyer with the Corporate Department and then in a management role as the manager of the knowledge management and library functions and now as the Director of Knowledge & Risk, encompassing knowledge management, library services, risk management, intranet and legal training.

 

Allens Arthur Robinson

 

Allens Arthur Robinson is one of Australia and Asia 's premier law firms with a history of excellence and achievement going back more than 180 years. The firm has offices in Sydney , Melbourne , Perth , Brisbane , Bangkok , Beijing , Hong Kong, Jakarta , Shanghai , Singapore , Phnom Penh , Port Moresby , Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City , comprising an international team of more than 190 partners, 800 legal staff and 1,500 staff in total. With a reputation for clear thinking, the firm acts for more than half of Australia 's and 20 of the world's top 100 companies.

 

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Chris Bull, Chief Operating Officer, Osborne Clarke

 

Chris Bull is Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Osborne Clarke. With overall responsibility for Osborne Clarke's business service functions, Chris works alongside the firm's Managing Partner on a wide range of strategic and management issues. Chris's role gives him a unique insight into the use of technology across the firm in areas as diverse as HR, IT, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Infrastructure, Knowledge & Development and Quality & Risk.

 

Holding direct responsibility for knowledge management systems and strategy and line reports from Library & Information Services and Learning & Development, Chris has a particular focus on KM and Enterprise Information Management issues. This includes leading the recent implementation of a full matter-centric document management environment and now the ambitious overhaul of OC's intranet, incorporating enterprise search and a Sharepoint 2007 platform.

 

Chris is involved in defining the strategic direction of Osborne Clarke as one of the seven members of the Firm's Partnership Council - effectively its board.

Prior to joining Osborne Clarke in 1996, Chris was a Management Consultant and Finance Manager. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and his previous experience includes periods at PwC, Ernst & Young and NatWest Bank.

 

Chris led Osborne Clarke through an early assessment of the potential sourcing options for the services they use and over the past few years has entered into a number of outsourcing contracts for a range of services. His wide knowledge and analysis of the emerging legal outsourcing world means that he is in demand as a speaker, writer and adviser on this subject in the UK and US.

 

Osborne Clarke

 

Osborne Clarke provides industry-focused legal solutions to businesses worldwide through its UK , US, German and European Alliance offices, with over 1,000 people active in 17 locations.

 

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Carol Aldridge, Head of KM/IS, Burges Salmon LLP

 

Carol Aldridge LLB (Hons), LLM (Distinction) – Head of Knowledge Management and Information Services, Burges Salmon LLP

 

Carol was admitted as a solicitor in 1987. She qualified and practised with Herbert Smith until 1991 before a career break for parental and study leave. Carol joined Burges Salmon LLP in Bristol in 2000 as Commercial PSL and was appointed Head of KM & IS in 2004. Achievements since then have included appointment of KM Partners, promotion of KM as a constituent of CRM and launch of an Autonomy-based KM System completed in March 2008. Current targets include updating the firm's KM Strategy and promoting best practice in relation to professional support. Carol recently won Legal & Technology Awards Regional Knowledge Officer of the Year 2008.

 

Burges Salmon LLP

 

Burges Salmon is one of the UK 's leading commercial law firms. It provides national and international organisations and individuals with a full service through the core practice areas of commercial, corporate, employment and pensions, finance, litigation, property and tax. Chambers commends 70% of Burges Salmon partners as leaders in their field and the firm also achieved top tier rankings in 14 practice areas in the Best of UK lists published in the Legal 500 and Chambers directories in 2007.

 

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Judith Pain, Head of PLC Property

 

Judith worked at Allen & Overy for thirteen years, specialising in commercial property. She spent the first seven years working on transactions, and then, in 1994, she set up the professional support service for the property department, becoming one of the first professional support lawyers in the City. In this capacity, Judith was one of the founder members of the London Property Support Lawyers Group and was involved in the project to produce a national standard of pre-contract enquiries, now widely known as the CPSEs.

 

In July 2000, Judith moved to the Practical Law Company, where she set up and continues to run the online service, PLC Property, the first of the PLC web services, providing a combination of current awareness and transaction support material.

 

 

Practical Law Company

 

The Practical Law Company is the UK 's pre-eminent provider of legal know-how, transactional analysis and market intelligence for business lawyers. It is the only independent provider of professional support, employing a team of over 100 experienced lawyers with significant transactional experience. The Practical Law Company provides a range of web services, each covering an important area of practice. The materials provided are focused on the practical application of law. They include practice notes and precedent documents with detailed drafting notes, which are continually maintained, and updates on cases, legislation, practice and industry developments.

 

Subscribers to the Practical Law Company range from small law firms and public sector organisations to the major international law firms: 92% of the top 100 UK law firms and 77% of the top 500 UK law firms subscribe and 85% of the FTSE 100 regularly use materials from the Practical Law Company.

 

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Sarah Fahy , Head of Global Library Services, Allen & Overy LLP

 

Sarah is the Head of Global Library Services at Allen & Overy LLP, an international legal practice. She is responsible for the strategy of the firm's library and information service across its global network. Her particular focus is on the promotion of library services within the firm's different practice areas, the global development of the service to meet the changing needs of a modern law firm and consultation with the legal and business development teams to ensure they have access to the best resources to support their clients. She advises the Knowledge and Training Board on all aspects of information and library management. Her background of many years working in consultancy firms and investment banking allows her to bring a fresh approach to this established service.

 

Allen & Overy LLP

Allen & Overy is an international legal practice with approximately 4900 staff, including some 420 partners working in 25 major centres worldwide. Allen & Overy is one of a small group of truly international and integrated legal practices. Its vision is to build a client-centred global law practice in which its people can maximise their potential and fulfill their ambitions.

Allen & Overy's clients are at the heart of its vision. Its proposition to clients rests on five themes: expert knowledge, mirroring clients, managing risk and developing opportunity, integrating across our practice and professionalism. Its lawyers advise the world's leading businesses, financial institutions, governments and private individuals, regularly working on complex cross-border transactions, new legal solutions and products and helping clients resolve difficult disputes.

 

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Oz Benamram, Director of Knowledge Management, Morrison & Foerster LLP

 

Oz is the Director of Knowledge Management and Head of Israel Desk at Morrison & Foerster.

 

As the Director of Knowledge Management, Oz provides the firm's strategic direction in the use of technology and knowledge management to support the substantive practice of law. He leads the firm's Knowledge Management Group and ensures the implementation and broad adoption of technology by practice groups worldwide.

 

Oz is a nationally recognised thought leader and a frequent speaker on legal technology and knowledge management subjects. He has won numerous awards for the design and development of AnswerBase, the firm's intelligent search system that offers the firm's attorneys and staff a powerful one-stop source for finding, understanding, and using the vast array of information needed to serve clients.

 

Oz was a practicing lawyer until 2002. His practice focused on corporate and securities law, assisting clients primarily with public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and joint venture agreements. Oz received his B.A. in Economics from the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Social Sciences, magna cum laude, and his LL.B from the Tel Aviv University Law School in 1995. He can be reached at +1 (212) 506-7351 or obenamram@mofo.com.

 

Morrison & Foerster

 

With more than a thousand lawyers in eighteen offices around the world, Morrison & Foerster offers clients comprehensive, global legal services in business and litigation. The firm is distinguished by its unsurpassed expertise in finance, life sciences, technology, legendary litigation skills, and an unrivalled reach across the Pacific Rim, particularly in Japan and China.

 

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Claire Andrews, Director of Knowledge Management - Europe and Asia , Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

 

Claire qualified as a solicitor in 1995 and practised in corporate law at Lawrence Graham and Ashurst before becoming a PSL at Ashurst in 1998. In 1999 Claire moved to Cleary Gottlieb to be the first PSL at the firm, where she supported the English practice and became increasingly involved in the firm's growing knowledge management group. In 2007 Claire was appointed Director of Knowledge Management for the firm's 10 offices in Europe and Asia with responsibility for the development of the KM strategy and delivery of KM projects in those offices. This has involved a major review of KM initiatives, with a particular focus on engaging lawyers in the firm's KM efforts and ensuring that KM resources are responsive to lawyers' needs.

 

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

 

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP is a leading international law firm with over 950 lawyers in 12 offices around the world and is widely recognised for its expertise in finance, mergers and acquisitions and antitrust law, as well as for its tax, regulatory and litigation practice.  The firm was founded in 1946 by lawyers committed to excellence in the practice of law, the highest ethical standards and diversity and individuality in its lawyers.  Clients include corporations, banks and other financial institutions engaged in domestic and international matters, sovereign governments and international and multi-lateral organisations, individuals, trusts and non-profit institutions.

 

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Dave Snowden, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, Cognitive Edge Pte Ltd

 

Dave Snowden is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge. His work involves the application of natural science to social systems. He pioneered the development of narrative approaches to knowledge management and understanding cultural and other social systems. The various concepts and ideas from which were incorporated into the Singapore Government's Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning System and are now marketed by Cognitive Edge as SenseMaker™. This work now extends to the capture and rapid recall of experience in narrative form and has high applicability to case history, the serendipitous discovery of connections and precedent and capturing knowledge from soon to retire staff.

 

He was acknowledged by Tom Stewart, editor of the Harvard Business Review in respect of tacit knowledge as "the best person I know in the world on the subject" . A frequent and well respected keynote speaker, he is known as a formidable realist, and for his iconoclastic style and pragmatic cynicism. He holds various academic appointments in Europe, Asia and Africa as well as advisory positions to Governments and Industry.

 

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Neil Richards, Head of Knowledge Management Systems, Linklaters LLP

 

Neil is the Head of Knowledge Management Systems at Linklaters. As a senior member of Linklaters' Knowledge Management function Neil is responsible for the firm's KM systems strategy.

 

Neil has an education in Computer Science and over 10 years of technology experience working for leaders in the telecommunications, pharmaceutical, banking and legal sectors.

 

In recent years Neil has worked closely with former Linklaters' CKO Matthew Parsons to design key systems including the firm's SharePoint-supported Intranet , an expertise database and a variety of KM tools. Together they co-author knowledgethoughts.com, a blog focusing on KM in the legal profession.

 

Linklaters LLP

 

Linklaters LLP is a leading global law firm which specialises in advising the world's leading companies, financial institutions and governments on their most challenging transactions and assignments. With offices in 30 major business and financial centres in 23 countries, Linklaters meets client needs anywhere in the world.

 

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Sam Dimond, Global Knowledge Systems Manager, Clifford Chance LLP

 

Sam started his career by reading English, a subject which he has profoundly left behind him, much to his regret, and he now reads only his Blackberry and Dilbert.

 

He joined Clifford Chance as a trainee solicitor in 1996, qualifying into the Tax practice where he specialised in the taxation of securitisations and derivative instruments. It was a new and rapidly changing area of law and Sam soon realised the value to the group and himself of creating best practice guides and know-how about the subject area, some of which are still in use today. He soon got the knowledge management bug but didn't know what to call it at that time.

 

While looking into the growing career sector for professional support lawyers, in 2001 he became the global manager for the firm's blossoming intranet. After a couple of years herding cats, Sam's responsibility expanded to cover the firm's global knowledge systems and processes. Despite the ostensible focus on systems, Sam is firmly in the "people, not technology, make knowledge" camp which frustrates his colleagues no end.

 

Sam has led many large global knowledge projects including creating a global intranet, online expertise system, knowledge management system and search tools.

 

Clifford Chance LLP

 

Clifford Chance advise financial institutions, commercial enterprises, and state and regulatory bodies on complex and critical legal issues. Their aim is to provide consistently high quality advice that combines technical expertise, and an understanding of the commercial environment in which their clients operate.

 

With 28 offices in 20 countries throughout the Americas , Asia, Europe and the Middle East , they offer in-depth local knowledge and a uniquely global perspective.

 

Clifford Chance lawyers advise internationally and domestically; under common law and civil law systems; in local and cross-border transactions; on day-to-day operations and the most challenging deals. The firm is structured around six global practice areas: Banking and Finance, Capital Markets, Corporate/M&A, Litigation and Dispute Resolution, Real Estate, Tax, Pensions and Employment. Each area comprises industry-focussed teams dedicated to delivering incisive advice.

 

An ambition to be the world's premier law firm underpins their business strategy. Clifford Chance aim to achieve this goal through sustained investment in managing knowledge and information, and by creating a working culture in all their offices that enables their people to offer consistently high standards of client service.

 

As the world's largest law firm, they embrace responsibilities that extend beyond their client work. Through an active programme of pro bono, arts and charitable initiatives, all their people are encouraged to develop strong links with the communities in which they work.

 

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Professor Paul Maharg, Glasgow Graduate School of Law, University of Strathclyde

 

Paul Maharg is a Professor of Law in the Glasgow Graduate School (GGSL), University of Strathclyde. He is Co-Director of Legal Practice Courses, and Director of the innovative Learning Technologies Development Unit at the GGSL. Paul is the author of Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-first Century (2007, Ashgate Publishing, 354pp, www.transforming.org.uk), and has published widely in the fields of legal education and professional learning design (http://ssrn.com/author=272987). His specialisms include interdisciplinary educational design, and the use of ICT at all levels of legal education. He consults with law firms and other legal service employers. He blogs at http://zeugma.typepad.com.

Glasgow Graduate School of Law, University of Strathclyde

The Glasgow Graduate School of Law (GGSL) is a unique collaborative initiative between the Law Schools of the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. The School shares resources and expertise across a range of academic activities, and a key focus of activity is the use of innovative ICT in legal education. Based in purpose-built teaching accommodation, the School jointly delivers a number of professional and Masters programmes, including the Diploma in Legal Practice, the Professional Competence Course, and an MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice.

 

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Richard King, Head of Legal Knowledge, Herbert Smith LLP

 

Richard is Head of Legal Knowledge at Herbert Smith. He is responsible for (1) Professional Support Lawyers – in conjunction with practice areas, (2) central information, know-how databases and online resources and (3) professional legal training. His role is international, covering the firm's offices outside London as well, and working with Herbert Smith's Alliance firms. Richard is a solicitor and was a corporate finance lawyer at Linklaters before working as a professional training manager and then knowledge manager for law firms. More recently he was a partner and director at Andersen and Ernst & Young respectively, playing a training and general management role for those firms' international legal practices. He works extensively in his central know-how management role with the firm's business development team on a range of client-facing know-how initiatives.

 

Herbert Smith LLP

 

Herbert Smith LLP is a leading and full-service international legal practice with a 1,100-lawyer network across 12 offices in Europe and Asia . We are acknowledged as being in the top tier in each of our main areas of work: transactions, projects and disputes. Our international capability is enhanced by our Alliance with Gleiss Lutz and Stibbe, the leading Western European law firms with whom we have worked on many major cross-border matters.

 

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