It’s all about the big name movers and shakers in this issue as Andy Sparkes takes over as director of legal markets and Matt O’Callaghan joins Peppermint Technology from Microsoft. Legal engineering firm Wavelength is bringing on board as head of strategy and policy Sophia Adams Bhatti, who was previously director of legal and regulatory policy at the Law Society of England and Wales. And Syke Legal Engineering is hiring Adrian Stafford from LexisNexis. Oh yes, and if you haven’t heard, which most people haven’t, Chris Bull is joining Deloitte Legal as legal operations architect.
Chris Bull joins Deloitte Legal as legal ops architect
Leading legal IT adviser Chris Bull has joined Deloitte Legal as legal operations architect, working with the team leading the development of the next phase of the Big Four giant’s legal services offering, as Deloitte also, we can reveal, looks for a chief technology officer.
Exclusive: Microsoft’s Matt O’Callaghan moves to Peppermint
Legal cloud software provider Peppermint Technology has hired Matt O’Callaghan as director of business development. O’Callaghan – who will report to chief sales officer Tony Cox – joins from Microsoft where he has been leading enterprise engagement within the UK legal sector. He will now take day-to-day responsibility of the Peppermint sales team.
Exclusive: Wavelength hires Sophia Adams Bhatti
In a very significant hire for Wavelength.law, the legal engineering firm, has hired the Law Society of England and Wales’ director of legal and regulatory policy, Sophia Adams Bhatti, who in September will take on the new role of head of strategy and policy at Wavelength.
Andy Sparkes takes over Lexis UK legal markets
Andy Sparkes has taken over from Simon Collin as director of legal markets for UK and Ireland, we can reveal.
Exclusive: Adrian Stafford to join Syke
LexisNexis’ head of legal knowledge engineering, Adrian Stafford, is to join leading legal tech engineering business Syke, we can reveal, in the latest of a number of big name hires in this growing sector of the market.
The French ban: The Law Society comments
News that France has banned the publication of statistical information about judges’ decisions shocked the legal industry this month. Punishable by a maximum five-year prison sentence, the French legislature is cracking down on litigation analytics in the first ban of its type anywhere in the world.
Bloomberg Ending UK Court Coverage
And news comes from America that Bloomberg Law will be, err, ending its coverage of UK Court Dockets.
Minster’s 9% tech investment
Minster Law’s director of IT and change, Mazella Heaton, talked to Legal IT Insider about the IT team’s remit, strategy, and challenges but it was the investment – estimated at 9% of income in the current year – that really jumped out. The average spend across the top 100 is closer to 3%.
Greenberg’s Recurve-ball
June saw the launch of US law firm Greenberg Traurig shared services subsidiary Recurve, which will be a launchpad for its innovations in technology, project management, alternative staffing and solutions for lawyers and clients that don’t involve the practice of law. Editor Caroline Hill looks at the new offering, how it compares against existing law firm offerings in the market, and why launching their own ALSP is a good idea, if they can pull it off.
What the innovation head said
Four legal innovation heads compare remits, challenges and priorities – Amy Carroll speaks to Isabel Parker, chief legal innovation officer, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Shilpa Bhandarkar, head of innovation, Linklaters; Wendy Butler Curtis, chief innovation officer, Orrick; and Kerry Westland, head of innovation and legal technology, Addleshaw Goddard
UK Top 50 tech profile: DAC Beachcroft
As part of the hugely popular series of law firm legal IT profiles that we are collating from the UK top 100/200, here DAC Beachcroft’s COO Andrew Keith talks to Legal IT Insider about the IT team function; where innovation lives; and what the key objectives and targets are for 2019.
CMS UK’s Obelisk partnership
We recently caught up with CMS’ head of innovation and legal operations, John Craske, to find out more about the UK top 10 law firm’s strategic partnership with Obelisk. CMS is using the flexible legal talent provider to support the delivery of CMS Mix, which focuses on the deployment of the right people, processes and tech for the right job.
JDHorizons rocks
We feel like kindred spirits with the Janders Dean crew, who sure know how to throw a conference. Mojitos, ice creams and bubbles punctuated the day, with one speaker commenting that the JD crew had ruined other conferences for her.
Zero hires marketing manager
Zero Cognitive Systems in June continued its growth trajectory with the hire of Bernie Toledano from real estate investment firm Hunt Companies as marketing manager. The word on the street is that Zero has signed a number of big name firms including Neal Gerber & Eisenberg and Holland & Knight.
ICYMI
A digest of the more important edisclosure/ediscovery news from industry veteran Jonathan Maas’ BONG! email updates over the past month
What’s Hot & What’s Not
We bring you 10 whole pages of wins and deals, and movers and shakers.
Lawyers and coding
And Thank you to Legal Week Strategic Technology Forum for inviting us to Marbella, where guests from across the globe enjoyed great content and networking. Legal IT Insider editor Caroline Hill chaired two panels, the second of which was a head-to-head debate on the topic “Should all lawyers learn to code?”. We thought you’d appreciate the preparation note, now at the back of the Orange Rag…
• If you are on the email distribution list you will be receiving your copy anytime now
• You can download a free copy HERE
• If you want to forward on a copy of this newsletter to a friend, please do
• If you use our Legal IT Insider IOS app – that will be live anytime soon on your iPhone and iPad
Our next issue (No #325 – July) will be out on Wednesday 31 July 2019
Click here to subscribe and see the full archive
