The Lawyer's Edge

Vishal Agnihotri is the Chief Knowledge Officer at Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, a national law firm with over 400 lawyers. Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP delivers a sophisticated legal practice with emphasis in litigation, consumer financial services, environmental law, and much more. As the CKO, Vishal oversees the firm's knowledge management, legal product management, and research services.  Before joini...

Mary Abbajay is the President of Careerstone Group, LLC, a full-service organizational and leadership development consultancy that delivers leading-edge talent development solutions to business and government. Mary has over 20 years of leadership experience and is a frequent contributor to print, radio, and television publications such as Forbes , The New York Times , and the BBC .  In addition to...

Kate Mortensen is the Chief Legal Officer at Xact Data Discovery (XDD), a leading international provider of eDiscovery, data management, and managed review services for law firms and corporations. In this role, Kate is responsible for leading corporate strategic and tactical legal initiatives, managing outside counsel, and offering support across all business units.  Kate is also the Assistant Dir...

Michael Swanson is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Advocate Capital, Inc., a litigation finance firm that provides funding to law firms, lawyers, and plaintiffs for legal disputes. Michael's daily role covers a wide variety of responsibilities, including client relations, strategic planning, marketing, and public relations.  Before joining Advocate Capital, In...

Shawn Swearingen is the Chief Innovation Officer at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, a top 50 law firm with locations across the US, the UK, and China. In this role, Shawn collaborates with the executive and operations leadership teams to create a culture of innovation and design. Shawn has an ITIL Foundation Certification and a white belt in Legal Lean Sigma, and in 2011 she was awarded the Min...

Kelly Purcaro is a practicing attorney and Partner at A.Y. Strauss, a law firm based in New York and New Jersey. She is Co-chair of the Litigation Group, specializing in complex and commercial litigation across the United States, as well as the Chair of the Class Action practice group. Kelly has over a decade of experience as a skilled trial lawyer and dynamic litigator, representing both individu...

Uri Gutfreund is the Founder and Moderator of The Managing Partner RoundTable™, a proactive forum where law firm leaders can share their best practices and seek advice from their peers. This unique program has quickly become a leading venue for thought leaders in the legal industry and is the largest regional peer-to-peer professional development group. Uri is a frequent speaker at legal industry...

John Mitchell is a lawyer, leader, and the Owner of KM Advisors and Quandary Consulting. John is also a Member of the Core Faculty for the Fellows Program at the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity and an Advisory Board Member and Co-Creator of the CBA Leadership Institute for the Chicago Bar Association.  Known as "The Purple Coach," John specializes in helping lawyers and unsung leaders discov...

Mark Goldstein is a Partner at Reed Smith's New York Labor & Employment Group, where he helps companies in New York and around the world manage their workplace needs. Mark defends employers in a wide range of employment litigation matters and advises clients on a variety of day-to-day and big-picture workplace issues, including policy development, risk assessment, and litigation avoidance.  Mark i...

Jeffrey Stern is the Co-Chair of Structured Finance Practice at Winston & Strawn LLP, an international law firm with over 900 attorneys in financial hubs around the world. Jeffrey has more than 25 years of experience in structured finance and derivatives, focusing on bespoke transactions and esoteric assets.  Jeffrey is a regular writer and speaker on topics related to structured finance and previ...

Jennifer Rosa is a Partner in the New York office of Mayer Brown's Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice. Her practice focuses primarily on the banking and financial services sector where she represents financial institutions in complex commercial and securities litigation in federal and state courts. Jennifer's experience also includes representing clients in government agency proceedings and...

Lori Marks-Esterman is a commercial litigator and the Chair of the Litigation Practice Group at Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP. Lori has more than 20 years of expertise in litigating complex commercial disputes and has substantial trial experience in New York's commercial divisions and the Delaware Chancery Court. She represents a wide range of clients, including hedge funds and private equity companies...

Andrea Markstrom is the CIO at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, a law firm with over 600 attorneys located in the Midwest. As CIO, Andrea is responsible for leading firm-wide technology and security initiatives across all tax practices and geographies. She has more than 25 years of technology leadership experience, including 15 years in the legal industry. Before entering the legal space, Andrea s...

Ben Lieber is the Founder and Managing Partner of Potomac Law Group, an all-remote national law firm with an innovative approach to law firm management and technology. Ben has wide-ranging experience in both business and law, having practiced as a Strategy Consultant at McKinsey & Company, a Tax Attorney at Covington & Burling, and General Counsel of several private companies before founding Potom...

Anushree Bagrodia is a Vice President for Mastercard and the Lead Lawyer for Mastercard's Legal Transformation department. She leads a global cross-functional team to identify and implement contract processes, technology, system efficiency, and transformation. Anushree has held several roles for Mastercard between New York and London and has also worked in mergers and acquisitions and commercial t...

Caroline Berdzik is a Partner at Goldberg Segalla, where she also serves as the Chair of the firm's Employment and Labor and Health Care Groups, the Chair of the Women's Initiative, and a member of the management committee. She represents companies in diverse industries like healthcare, transportation, and insurance, as well as nonprofit organizations and educational and religious institutions.  B...

Dr. Michelle Stein Teer is the Founder and Director of Rhetoric Academy, a professional training and coaching organization that specializes in effective communication and rhetoric skills. In addition to this, Dr. Stein Teer is the Head of the Rhetoric Art prestigious Executive Program at IDC in Herzliya, Israel, and a scholar and professor of Political Rhetoric and Cognitive Psychology at the Scho...

Jay Linder is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, a law firm with 16 offices around the world. With over 20 years of legal industry experience, Jay provides balanced direction related to brand reputation, client engagement, content marketing, creative services, and internal and external communication strategies. As a leader of Cleary Gottlieb's global...

Basha Rubin and Mirra Levitt are the Co-founders of Priori, a legal marketplace that is changing the way in-house teams find, hire, and manage outside counsel. Priori's clients include Fortune 500 enterprises and leading technology companies, such as Dreamhost, Via, Artsy, and Brex. The company was named a Financial Times Intelligent Business in 2018 and 2019 for its work in reducing legal spendin...

Leslie Berkoff is a Partner at Moritt Hock & Hamroff, a full-practice law firm with 80 attorneys and offices in Long Island, New York, and Naples, Florida. After graduating with her Doctor of Law from Hofstra University, Leslie completed two clerkships with federal judges and went on to Moritt Hock & Hamroff, where she has practiced for more than 25 years. She is the Chair of the firm's Dispute Re...

Dr. Lauren Tashman is a Performance Coach and the Founder of Align Performance, an organization focused on helping clients learn the science behind mindset, leadership, and team culture in order to better align their performance with their potential. She is also a Master Coach for Valor Performance and an expert in the science of performance coaching.  Dr. Tashman's background is in sports psychol...

Gina Rubel is the President and CEO of Furia Rubel Communications, an award-winning, woman-owned public relations and marketing agency that specializes in high-stakes public relations, reputation management, crisis planning, and incident response support for lawyers and law firms. Gina founded Furia Rubel in 2002, making it the first Pennsylvania marketing and public relations agency with a niche...

Elise Holtzman is an experienced attorney, a certified professional coach, and the founder of The Lawyer's Edge, a boutique firm that provides professional development services to individual attorneys and legal organizations.  Elise has a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She practiced commercial real estate transactional law before shifting her focus to empowering lawyers as they navigate their grow...

Anna McGrane is a former practicing lawyer and the current COO and Co-founder of PacerPro, a workflow automation and experience capture platform. PacerPro has become the standard for BigLaw and leading litigation boutiques when it comes to integrating federal court data into workflow and knowledge systems.  Anna speaks frequently on issues of law, technology, enterprise change management, workflow...

Domenic Cervoni is the Vice President of Legal and Senior Legal Counsel for HSBC, where he handles litigation and regulatory enforcement for the company's global banking and markets business.  Domenic has also developed a passion for employee health and well-being, with a particular focus on matters of mental health in the legal industry. This deep interest led him to pen his first book, From Trag...