SOLID Chicago 2023

Getting Legal to Love New Tech: Secrets to Successful Adoption

Anna Richards will share an updated “playbook” on successfully introducing new technology in the corporate legal world. In this session, Anna will guide attendees through the challenges and proven strategies for motivating technology adoption and fostering a culture of engagement.

Key Points Covered:

• Practical tactics for encouraging buy-in from both leadership and team members
• How to communicate the “why” behind new technology to inspire commitment
• Real-world examples of wins that build momentum
• Lessons learned from overcoming resistance and addressing common adoption roadblocks

The Evolution of "Legal Ops" and New Specialized Roles

AI doesn’t eliminate work—it changes it. Legal operations professionals, data analysts, and AI specialists are now critical to running a modern legal team .

• Impact: Legal departments are creating new roles that blend technology, process improvement, and legal expertise.
• Challenge: These roles often don’t fit traditional legal career paths, causing uncertainty and opportunity for both professionals and organizations.
• Reality Check: Organizations must build clear career trajectories for these new roles to attract and retain top talent.

The Global Advantage: Thriving in Expanding Roles Through Prioritization and High-Impact Relationships

The Global Advantage: Thriving in Expanding Roles Through Prioritization and High-Impact Relationships. In today’s ever-evolving professional landscape, roles grow in scope, responsibilities multiply, and the need for collaboration across diverse environments intensifies. This session explores innovative strategies for managing an expanding role by "slicing the pizza" of priorities, focusing on what truly matters, and building high-impact relationships globally. Learn how to navigate regulatory, cultural, and technological complexities, deepen key partnerships, and find common ground across continents. Attendees will leave with actionable tools for prioritization, collaboration, and balance, empowering them to thrive in multi-layered, dynamic roles without losing focus—or sanity.

From Tactical to Transformative: The Expanding Mission of Legal Ops

Legal operations is at a turning point, with a rapidly evolving role that demands that Legal Operations professionals also be a strategic business partner. In this session, Stacy Lettie explores what that really means and how legal ops can move beyond tactical support to bring meaningful, measurable value to their organizations - and most importantly how we define just what that value is. Attendees will learn about the expanding remit of legal ops, how technology is changing how we look at our roles and how we execute on our roles, and partnering with business leaders to shape the future of legal. This talk is for professionals ready to elevate their roles and become agents of change.

Beyond Legal Advice: Building a Future-Ready Legal Department

In this session, Tim shares his vision for the future of in-house legal teams, inspired by his experience leading Toshiba’s legal transformation. With a focus on aligning operations, risk, and strategy to maximize value creation by and for the company, he’ll outline practical steps for moving beyond reactive legal services to becoming a proactive business partner. Tim’s leadership philosophy offers a blueprint for creating a legal function that drives business objectives while navigating the ever-accelerating pace of change. Discover how to future-proof your legal team and maximize its organizational impact.

The AI Agent Takeover: How Lawyers Are About to Be Replaced—Without Losing Their Jobs

The legal industry is on the verge of a massive disruption, but the conversation has been missing a key insight. For years, AI in law has been pitched as a tool for automating routine tasks, but that narrative misses the real transformation: AI Agents. Drawing on lessons learned from working with dozens of Fortune 500 legal departments, this talk reveals how AI Agents are already reshaping legal workflows—by handling complex work that once required human lawyers. Contrary to the prevailing hype, these agents aren’t eliminating jobs; they’re transforming roles and workflows in ways that were once unthinkable. This is the true future of AI in law: replacing tasks, not jobs, and enabling legal teams to focus on higher-value, more strategic work. Prepare to rethink what it means to be a lawyer in the age of AI.