Law.com Pro Strategic Insights: The Future State of the Industry - NOT CLE

Tomek is the Director of ALM Media’s Pacesetter Research team. Before this position he was an analyst with the Vanguard series of consulting market research reports acquired by ALM in 2015 from Kennedy Information.

Prior, Tomek led the European asset-backed securities (ABS) and global collateralized debt obligation (CDO) report sourcing and research efforts for the asset-backed securities market intelligence firm Lewtan Technologies. Before that he worked his way through the data research team with Capital Access International, a fixed-income market intelligence firm responsible for bringing the widely known fixed-income investment professional and securities profile tool eMAXX™ to the investment world. He was Director of North American Data Research when that firm was acquired by Lipper (a Reuters company) in 2002.

Tomek earned a B.A. in History magna cum laude, with a minor in Cultural Anthropology, from SUNY at Buffalo (New York). In 2017 Tomek earned his Masters of Science degree in Applied Economics from Southern New Hampshire University. He also spent several years living and studying in Poland, Hungary, and other regions of Eastern Europe and has authored a successful book (published in late 2013) on Eastern Europe, which went into a second edition in 2021 and is being reissued in later 2023.

Rachel Zahorsky is responsible for developing and overseeing new business and marketing strategies, internal and external communications, and media content for our firm. She is a former legal affairs journalist for the ABA Journal where she co-authored the award-winning Paradigm Shift series, which examined how the current economic and technology climate is changing the future of the legal profession. She has also reported for Bloomberg News and the Associated Press.

Ms. Zahorsky is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and Fastcase 50 Award recipient. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola University Chicago, a Juris Doctor from the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law, and a Master of Science degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She is admitted to practice law in Illinois.

Ms. Cohen serves as Managing Director and Chief Legal Officer of ING Americas. Her responsibilities include managing the legal function, providing leadership, guidance and support to ING globally in major strategic initiatives, corporate governance, regulatory affairs, transactional matters and acquisitions as well as serving as a member of the Americas Management Team, Risk and Compliance Committees, and ING’s Global Legal Management Team. Ms. Cohen is a founding member of the ING NY Lioness Group whose mission is fostering diversity and inclusion and responsible for career development initiatives.

Before joining ING in 2005, Ms. Cohen held similar senior positions at the U.S. operations of other major global financial institutions, including BNP Paribas, Westdeutsche Landesbank, Republic New York Corporation and the National Bank of Greece. Board Service: Ms. Cohen served on the Board of Keb Hana Bank US from 2017-2020 and was Chair of the Nominating and Governance and Compliance Committees and a member of the Audit, Asset/Liability and Oversight Committees. She currently is on the Board of Directors of the Museum of American Finance serving on the strategic planning committee and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Cue Arts Foundation.

Liz has built and managed Legal Operations teams in various industries in both public and private companies over her 20 year career. She excels in global project management and business reengineering, with particular expertise in process improvement, change management, cross-functional collaboration and team building, but her true passion is helping others find their own strengths and talents and harness them for the value of all.

Before joining UpLevel, Liz served as the Senior Director of Legal Operations at WeWork. Prior to WeWork, Liz served as Director of Legal Operations at a diverse range of companies, including UnitedLex, DXC Technology, Becton Dickinson, and MetLife. She also worked at Citigroup as Manager, Strategy and M&A.

Liz holds a BA in Political Science and Journalism from Rutgers University, is certified in Lean Six Sigma and fluent in Spanish. She is based in New Jersey.

Stephanie Wilkins is the Editor-in-Chief of Legaltech News at ALM. 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. As a former practicing litigator, she is particularly interested in how legal tech can and should be used in real-life practice and the valuable differences it can make. Stephanie is also keenly interested in shining a light on the ways legal tech is being used to help the greater good.

I am an experienced litigator and the founder of Digitory Legal (now part of BigHand), an award-winning cost analytics company that helps law firms and legal departments leverage data to succeed in an evolving legal market. Digitory Legal was purpose-built to reduce tension between lawyers and clients through data-driven pricing, cost transparency, and effective project management. With that goal in mind, I help our customers - both law firms and legal departments - bridge the divide between the practice of law and the business of law, facilitating legal service delivery models that serve business needs without sacrificing quality of service. I am also passionate about data-driven DEI and have designed programs and analytics that leverage data to promote inclusive allocation career-advancing work.

Before founding Digitory Legal, I practiced law at top-tier firms - first at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett and then at Orrick, where I was a litigation Partner. I am an accomplished trial lawyer with extensive experience representing global corporations in a wide variety of high-stakes litigation matters. I am also a frequent speaker and recognized thought leader on legal technology, litigation practice management, cost analytics, and the use of artificial intelligence and data in law.

Since founding Digitory, I have received a number of accolades recognizing our groundbreaking work in legal technology and the advancement of the legal industry. In 2022, we were recognized by CLOC as a Legal Innovation in Operations project recipient. In 2021, Digitory Legal was awarded the InnovAction award for our work with Kaiser Permanente on data-driven diversity and inclusion programs. In 2020, I was elected to be a fellow of the prestigious College of Law Practice Management, and Digitory was named 2020 Disrupter of the Year by the Changing Lawyer. In 2019, I was an American Bar Association "Women in Legal Tech" honoree and was named to the Fastcase50 list "honoring the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders." I also received CloudNow's 2019 Top Women Entrepreneur in Cloud Innovation award and was the 2018 winner of "The Pitch", an international legal technology competition.