FROM SUPPORTING TO STRATEGY:
ENGINEERING THE NEXT-GEN LEGAL DEPARTMENT
Agenda Day 2
8:00 am - 8:30 am
REGISTRATION & COFFEE
8:30 am - 8:40 am
OPENING REMARKS FROM THE CHAIRPERSON
Justin Turman -
Founder, Owner,
Automate Office Work
8:40 am - 8:45 am
LIVE POLLING
8:45 am - 9:45 am
QUICK-FIRE PRESENTATIONS: AI AT WORK – WINS, WARNINGS, AND WHAT WE’VE LEARNED SO FAR
Anne Wong -
Head of Legal Operations,
SUSE
Frederik Nevejan - Head of Corporate Support and Legal Operations, ING Belgium
Join this thirty-minute networking session aimed at quick-fire debate. Respond to a series of divisive prompts by physically positioning yourself on either side of the room, from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ – a great way to know where you, and others, “stand” in the debate!
With the constant influx of providers and solutions, it can often be difficult to assess which one is most suited to your needs and model, whether you are building from the ground up or adding onto your existing stack. What’s more, with capacities accelerating quickly in-house, it can be even trickier to determine whether buying offers more than building. External solutions tend to be necessary in certain cases (although there is growing hesitancy), but each situation will require a tailored solution to make sure it is just right for you and your team and aligns in the long term with your business model and goals. Join this session to consider the decision-making behind the scenes of each solution, and the implications of efficient collaboration with third parties.
- Evaluate the pros and cons of building vs. buying solutions according to a range of scenarios
- Assess the questions to factor into your decision-making when selecting a third-party provider to ensure your collaboration is as fruitful as possible
- Understand what is needed from you, your team and your current infrastructure, and build a strategy according to what you have available
11:35 am - 12:20 pm
PANEL DISCUSSION: THE CONFIDENT CONNECTOR – TRUST, CHANGE, AND LEADERSHIP IN LEGAL OPERATIONS
Caroline Graham -
Head of Legal Operations and Transformation,
Howden
Nicole Koenig - Legal Operations Officer, Siemens Healthineers
Dean Nash - COO (Legal), Santander
Denie Croll - Head of Contracting Services, AstraZeneca
Legal ops professionals are often the linchpin between ambitious transformation and operational reality. In environments where uncertainty and hype swirl – especially around tech – it’s easy to lose sight of one’s strategic purpose. Whether you’re assembling a new team or embedding tools across departments, success comes from building a people-first strategy and cultivating legal operations as a trusted internal service. It is time to reconnect with your “why,” manage cross-team expectations and lead change initiatives with clarity and courage.
• Learn to build change initiatives from a place of self-trust, not trend-chasing
• Explore strategies to manage expectations with empathy and connect business needs with legal capacity realistically
• Position legal ops as a strategic partner that connects dots, balances ambition with execution, and enables confident decision-making
12:55 pm - 1:55 pm
LUNCH
Budget and resource limitations continue to be the prime inhibitor for legal departments. More established legal operations teams might struggle with budgetary restraints, while a budding team might not have the resources necessary for new hires. More generally, building a team can also be difficult to navigate, as the legal operations field is a notoriously challenging one: it is still quite small, for one, and companies are at varying stages of maturity, making finding the right candidate for the job a particularly tricky task. Wherever they are at in their journey, legal operations professionals must have an arsenal of strategies to ensure they are making the most out of what they already have.
- Explore techniques for optimising costs and effectively allocating budget from both a people and technology perspective
- Weigh in on best prioritization practices to enhance your strategy and reduce costs
- Understand the importance data plays in your strategy to help you align on key objectives, priorities and where to allocate the resources you already have
2:30 pm - 2:35 pm
LIVE POLLING
2:35 pm - 3:05 pm
PRESENTATION: INSIGHTS FROM A TEAM - HOW LEGAL OPERATIONS AND GENERAL COUNSELS CAN CONTINUE TO RAISE THE BAR (TOGETHER)
Eszter Somodi -
Senior Lead Counsel,
Vodafone
Wayne Spillett - General Counsel & Head of Regulatory Affairs, Vodafone Group
3:05 pm - 3:50 pm
SCENARIO BASED WORKSHOP: ADAPTING IN REAL TIME – BECOMING THE LEGAL OPERATIONS PROFESSIONAL YOU WANT TO BE IN TIMES OF CRISIS
Justin Turman -
Founder, Owner,
Automate Office Work
3:50 pm - 4:00 pm
‘THE BEST BAUBLE’ WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT!
At the beginning of the Exchange, everyone will have received a Christmas bauble. On this bauble, you will have all written the name of the person who gave you the best piece of insight (at any point during the Exchange) and hung it on the tree in the plenary room – the Exchange team will count who has the most baubles attributed to their name, who will win a surprise prize. So, make sure to stay until the end – it could be you!
