03 Mar Legal Disruption is Back in 2020
ECLA has kicked off the new decade by hosting a Legal Disruption roadshow event in Dublin, Ireland. The roadshow in 2020 builds on the foundation that ECLA has already established, aiming to bring captivating speakers to in-house lawyers all across Europe.
Images of the event can be seen below or by clicking here.
The first Legal Disruption of 2020 took place in Dublin at The Gibson Hotel. On Wednesday evening on 26 February, in-house lawyers gathered to hear Jane Challoner of CMS give input on possibilities on how to innovate within corporate legal departments and how the role of in-house counsel might be changing. The practical information on where corporate legal departments currently are at served as an excellent introduction to the discussions the following day.
The first session on Thursday 27 February touched privacy matters. The previous decade saw privacy and data handling become one of the most discussed legal themes. Denis Kelleher of LinkedIn gave a detailed overview of the evolution of the European privacy regime, how GDPR has influenced it and what have been the landmark judgments by the CJEU, whilst also giving input on what the future might entail. Linda Thielova of OneTrust built upon Mr. Kelleher’s speech and highlighted other privacy regimes around the world, namely the CCPA. Given that a considerable proportion of companies that today operate globally, a harmonised program lowers costs and greatly reduces challenges for the legal departments of such companies.
Session number two focused on tech utilisation in corporate legal departments. Julienne Jameson of Ewopharma showcased how legal technology could facilitate smaller legal departments, enabling her to handle multiple jurisdictions amongst offices across Europe. This was followed by Nicola Palmer of the Bank of Ireland, who gave an overview of how utilising BusyLamp and their legal spend management tool has changed their operations. The final speaker of the session was Jean-Philippe Doho of Ubisoft who showcased what the legal innovation team in Ubisoft have been doing. The presentation included topics such as legal design to demonstrating a video on how to inform about privacy rules.
The third session focused on contemporary legal departments in general. Monica Mahay of Intel sat down with Mark Cockerill, Vice-President of ECLA, to discuss flexible working practices in high-ranking positions and how she has accomplished a quality work-life balance throughout her distinguished career. Cian Farrell of Huawei Ireland gave some input into how digitalisation and legal technology is being utilised in such large and global companies and the legal departments within. Michelle Feely of Ribbon Communications gave advice on how to ensure a smooth transition in a merger and that the processes in place and technologies in use operate properly afterwards.
The final session saw two speakers looking into the future of corporate lawyers. Colm O’Connor of SCOR Ireland shared some personal experiences in how he has seen the role of general counsel change over the years and how technology has influenced the change. William Irwin of Glassdoor complimented the speech with providing his own input and remarked how far in-house lawyers have come already.
Participants were engaged throughout the day, asking a wide array of questions from the speakers. We hope that everybody that attended left with a positive can-do attitude, motivated to disrupt their own legal departments.
We would like to extent our deepest gratitude to our esteemed speakers and we hope that we will see you again soon. We would also like to thank our sponsors, without whom the event would not have become a reality – CMS, OneTrust, and BusyLamp. We hope that this fruitful relationship continues throughout the year and many more to come.
To those, who missed out on attending in Dublin, do not fret, our next legal disruption will take place in summer in Berlin!
