Transforming the Business & Practice of Law by Mastering the Art of People, Process & Technology

As Vice President, M&A Integration at Litera, Barry Solomon focuses on bringing together acquired legal technology companies, enabling continuous innovation and the delivery of a legal technology ecosystem that helps legal teams win and deliver high-quality legal services. Barry was on the leadership team of the Foundation prior to its acquisition by Litera.

Barry practiced law at Sidley Austin LLP. He left his practice to help found Interface Software, the maker of InterAction. When LexisNexis acquired the company, Barry was retained as vice president and general manager for several subsidiaries of LexisNexis, winning the Leadership Excellence Award. Prior to joining the Foundation team, Barry was Chief Marketing Officer for Microsystems (now Litera), and then for Sidley, overseeing global business development, marketing, and communications strategies.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Barry was named to The National Law Journal’s inaugural list of 50 Business of Law Trailblazers & Pioneers. Barry holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago.

Jardanian currently serves as the Global Business Director of Reed Smith's Financial Industry Group (FIG). He focuses on client relationships and serves as an interdepartmental liaison across the firm and helps drive strategic initiatives and margin goals.

He is also responsible for the development of knowledge management tools and technology to support profitability initiatives, including the custom creation of an internally built budgeting tool with KPI projections and matter management support. Jardanian also helps analyze and present PG budgets with individual timekeeper details for Finance Committee approval and presents budget vs. actual metrics to Sr. Management on a monthly basis and in PG meetings, which includes timekeeper utilization, billable hours, realization, inventory, revenue, RPL and margin, along with recommendations for improvement.

Jeffrey Salling, Esq. is the Chief of Staff and Senior Director of Operations at Moderna. In this role, he crafts the technology roadmaps for eBilling, contracts, law firm management, and eDiscovery. As Chief of Staff, Mr. Salling is a business partner with a law degree who focuses on continuous improvement, maximizing efficiencies, and employing metric-based decisions across the legal department.

Before joining Moderna, Mr. Salling was the Global Director of eDiscovery at Novartis (having worked in Basel, Switzerland & East Hanover, New Jersey). He previously held high-ranking positions at Complete Discovery Source (CDS) and Deloitte in Chicago. Mr. Salling is an expert on the topic of legal technology and eDiscovery whose hands-on experience managing large-scale, challenging matters (including antitrust, intellectual property, and commercial litigation) gives him a unique perspective living in a digital world. While at Deloitte, Mr. Salling focused on learning how AI & analytics can be applied to the legal arena. Beginning at Deloitte and continuing through his current role, Mr. Salling is a passionate people leader. He also seeks to give back. Mr. Salling is a foster-adoptive parent and has served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. He developed his own curriculum to give future professionals practice-ready skills in eDiscovery and data privacy.

In his hybrid role at Moderna, Mr. Salling focuses on combining ‘the big picture’ and analytics in developing a legal department fit for purpose. He collaborates across data privacy, IT, security, IP, and compliance. Simply put, his goal is uniting people, processes, and systems on a global level to drive efficiencies and deliver exceptional work-product to a business that is saving lives.

Melissa Mason is Global Head of Legal Operations for McKinsey & Company. Joining McKinsey in February 2019, Melissa leverages her business experience to lead the operations of a world-class legal department. In her role as a member of the legal department’s senior leadership team, Melissa focuses on strategic planning, financial and budget management, legal technology and innovation, vendor and contracts management, knowledge curation, talent oversight, training, and development. Melissa oversees the day-to-day operations of the in-house legal department and ensures the connectivity of 200 legal professionals across 46 countries.

Prior to joining McKinsey, Melissa’s work experience included legal practice management and operations for the Litigation and Corporate practice groups of Dechert LLP and Kaye Scholer LLP, respectively. Prior to those roles, Melissa was a paralegal in several global law firms.

Melissa holds a Master’s Degree in Law Firm & Legal Management from George Washington University (GWU) and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Virginia. Melissa also holds a Lean Six Sigma certification from GWU and a Paralegal certification from New York University. She has also completed coursework on Effective Execution of Organizational Strategy at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Horn is an experienced attorney with a corporate in house and law firm background. He is well versed in a range of litigation matters including product liability, mass torts, eDiscovery, RICO, insurance, franchise, antitrust and procurement/contracting. He also has a significant transactional background as he has lead acquisitions and divestitures.