Navigating Uncertain Times: Managing Resource & Legal Spend Management

Virginia is an experienced legal leader with a passion for business development and legal operations. Virginia spent 11 years with Thomson Reuters in a variety of roles primarily focusing on the research and knowledge management needs of in-house counsel. Virginia also spent time in the big four working closely with corporate legal departments in support of their legal operations and regulatory programs. Virginia was published in the summer 2019 edition of Peer to Peer, ILTA’s Quarterly Magazine “Leveraging Service Providers to Power Internal Sales” and is a frequent speaker at ALM’s In-House Counsel events.

Virginia holds her JD from Valparaiso University and is a current member of the Virginia Bar

Lucy Bassli is an attorney, author of CLM Simplified and The Simple Guide to Legal Innovation, and Founder and Principal of InnoLaw Group. Previously, Lucy was a former Assistant General Counsel of Legal Operations and Contracting at Microsoft. While at Microsoft, she redefined how legal work is done and created one of the first managed service engagements with a law firm. She was tapped to teach the Legal Operations course for Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation & Technology Certificate Program. Lucy has a partnership with Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, to deliver operations consulting to corporate legal departments.

Lucy is a highly sought-after legal industry expert who works with corporate legal departments and law firms on legal service delivery, automation, smart risk-taking and alternative resourcing models. She educates and consults with lawyers to take best practices in the legal industry to a new level. Lucy is also a strategy advisor for LawGeex, an AI legal start-up that automates contract review services.

Stephanie Corey is a co-founder of UpLevel Ops, a consulting firm specializing in providing services for in-house legal departments and law firms. UpLevel Ops provides a complete range of Legal Operations support, including IT solutions, Finance and Budget guidance, Talent Management and Development, Benchmarking, Best Practices and Metrics, and Outside Counsel Selection and Management.

Stephanie also founded and is a former executive member of the leading legal operations trade organization CLOC, Corporate Legal Operations Consortium. She is a widely respected veteran in the Legal Ops field.

Most recently, Stephanie has served as the Chief of Staff and Senior Director of Legal Operations at Flex, the second largest manufacturing company in the world. She has spent the better part of her career providing value-added services to Legal Departments, including building and deploying critical infrastructure to enable them to meet their business priorities. Her areas of expertise include Information Technology, System Implementations, Process Analysis and Improvements, Finance, Communications and Administration.

Stephanie began her career at Merrill Lynch in Pennsylvania, and after relocating to California, she worked at Bailard, Biehl and Kaiser, an investment firm in Foster City. Once she decided to move into Corporate Finance, Stephanie took a position under the CFO, managing the Finance and Accounting Department at Provident Funding Mortgage Bank.

She later moved to Hewlett-Packard, where she was employed for eleven years as the head Legal Operations Manager, running a large IT and Finance Department. Her most recent role at HP was Chief of Staff to the General Counsel, responsible for managing the daily operations of the Legal Department, working closely with the General Counsel and his reports to develop the strategy for the delivery of technology, finance and administrative solutions.

Stephanie holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from Lehigh University, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Wilkes University.

Susan Hackett is the CEO of Legal Executive Leadership, LLC, a law practice management consultancy she founded in 2011 after serving for 22 years as the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC).

Susan is a recognized leader in the legal profession, viewed by many as among the most knowledgeable experts on in-house practice and legal operations; she is a founding leader of the value movement in law, and is widely recognized for her creative and visionary approach to re-engineering law departments and legal practice service delivery.

Her career-long focus has been to help general counsel and their teams – including those who support and provide services to them – to improve their ability to deliver demonstrable results to their clients.