Aligning AI with Legal Success: How Merging Tech Advances With Best Practices Equals Success for Legal Professionals

Stephanie Wilkins is the Editor-in-Chief of Legaltech News. She has spent the better part of the past decade following the evolution of legal tech and learning how it can help in-house counsel, law firms and others in the legal industry. Her primary focus is on how legal tech can and should be used in real-life practice and the valuable differences it can make. Prior to joining ALM, and after leaving a successful Biglaw litigation career, Stephanie spent several years as a freelance writer, focusing on the intersection of law, technology and the business of law for a wide range of publications and legal tech companies. Stephanie earned her J.D. from NYU School of Law and her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, where she majored in Psychology, Sociology and Russian.

Ari Kaplan, an attorney and legal industry analyst, is an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree, a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, and a finalist for ILTA’s Thought Leader of the Year award. He is the author of Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace (Wiley, 2011) and The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development (West Academic, 2nd Ed. 2016). Kaplan serves as the principal researcher for a variety of widely distributed benchmarking reports, hosts the Virtual Lunch daily on Zoom, has been the keynote speaker for events worldwide, and is the founder of the Lawcountability® business development software platform and iPhone app. He is an avid swimmer, a self-taught, struggling, but hopeful, python coder, and a two-time Ironman triathlon finisher.

As the Enterprise Legal Solutions Innovation and Technology Architect/Advisor at FedEx Services, April Holcomb has solutioned innovation and implemented enterprise legal technology for FedEx for almost 25 years. She is a legal digital transformation leader/tech evangelist who implements innovative integrative solutions of automation and extensibility and breaks down barriers for technology in legal. She researches, solutions, and implements innovative AI to handle evolving legal department demand: streamlining processes to save time, automate task, increase productivity, and reduce cost while mitigating risk. Her perspective, honed as a practitioner, consultant, solution provider, and a senior legal technology leader, prioritizes actionable insights that drive results quickly and effectively for one of the largest corporate multi-opco legal departments globally. April earned both her B.S. and EMBA from Auburn University.

As the global leader of DISCO’s managed review practice, Umair Muhajir helps law firms and legal teams around the world embrace AI-powered review and consulting solutions that prioritize relevant information, minimize risk, and rationalize effort. With more than 20 years of experience in litigation, managed review and other legal services, he delivers solutions for clients with a strong focus on leveraging technology to drive efficiencies and defensibility.

Previously, Umair led service delivery teams at Pangea3 (acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2010, and by EY in 2019) and EY for more than a decade, focusing on managed document review, contract lifecycle management, and other service areas, including regulatory change management and legal research. Umair was an integral part of the business’ expansion from its core Mumbai and Delhi centers to a global operation, with teams in ten locations in five countries.

A graduate of Columbia University School of Law, Umair practiced law for six years at Paul Weiss LLP, where he specialized in financial services and other complex federal and state litigation

Corinne Geller is the director of Legal Knowledge Engineering at Litera.  She has spent the past 5 years working to enhance Litera’s leading machine learning contract analysis solution, Kira.  Prior to her time at Litera, she practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at Stikeman Elliott LLP in Toronto with secondments spent at the Ontario Securities Commission and Hudson’s Bay Company. Corinne earned her J.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School, her M.B.A from the Ted Rodgers School of Management and her BCom from McGill University.

As CEO of a venture-backed startup, I obviously wear many hats in the service of building a great company. At Zero, I’m primarily responsible for: “Keeping the vision” — making sure everyone on the team knows where we’re trying to go, and why. In the jet blast of our day-to-day work, is easy — and fatal — to lose sight of this. My job is to make sure nobody does. Making sure I know exactly what our customers need, and getting it built. Leading a growing high-performing team of very smart people in a very dynamic, highly competitive business environment. When it comes to this, I think Bruce Springsteen said it best: “Nobody wins unless everybody wins.” Staying on top of both what’s going on in both the legal world and AI, and what’s coming next. Showing up every morning energized, focused and on my game — and helping everyone else do the same. And finally — making it all fun.