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The Educational Institute for Buying Legal Services & Legal Technology Education | Insights | Best Practices


OUR ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

OUR ADVISORY BOARD



Orazio Difruscolo

Head Claims and Legal Sourcing
Swiss Re

Orazio is leading Claims & Legal Sourcing global team at Swiss Re Group. He builds partnerships with clients, colleagues and providers to increase revenues, reduce costs, mitigate risks and create new value, elevating sourcing beyond the traditional procurement levers. Over the last two decades he studied and practiced intersections between people, process and technology also during post-merger while living in eight countries.

Recent track record includes the application of Augmented Intelligence (combining human and artificial intelligence/machine learning), predictive analytics, product development and winning new business as part of cross-functional teams

Previous positions held at: Deutsche Bank

Education:

Bocconi University | Bachelor of Science, Business Administration; Master of Science (Hons), Organisation & IT systems

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore | PhD, Management



Adrienne Fox

Director, Global Procurement Professional Services: Legal Services & Payment Channels

Novartis

 

Adrienne works in the Novartis Global Procurement organization, located in East Hanover, NJ. She is responsible for leading Legal Procurement strategy, business partnering and sourcing program management, with a current focus on Intellectual Property spend. In her 7 years of legal procurement experience, she has partnered with Legal Operations on a variety of initiatives to enhance the way the company engages and manages outside counsel. She has played a key role in enhancing relationships with law firms and legal vendors by applying procurement principles within the legal sector. Her work on the Preferred Panel Firm Program, matter scoping, pricing strategies and use of legal sourcing technology has resulted in culture change, cost efficiencies and value delivery.  She is passionate and active in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) initiatives and currently acts as co-lead of the Buying Legal Council DEIB Working Group. 

In addition to her Legal Procurement role, Adrienne also leads a Payment Channels Optimization project (credit card and payment strategies). Prior to her procurement work in Legal, Adrienne has managed various indirect procurement categories and been employed as a consultant, compliance manager and paralegal.   

Education:
Fairleigh Dickinson University: M.A. Corporate and Organizational Communications | ABA Paralegal Certificate

Rutgers College: B.S. Administration of Justice and B.A. English



Karen Helten

Outside Counsel Senior Manager

Salesforce 

Karen joined Salesforce in 2020 and is the Senior Manager of Outside Counsel. She is primarily responsible for managing all the law firm relationships with a focus on the global preferred panel. Karen has over a decade of legal operations experience, and throughout her career she managed a number of initiatives including implementation of three different ebilling systems. 

Prior to Salesforce, she was at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., where she helped to create the Outside Counsel Management program and legal operations function.

Education:

Fort Hays State University | Bachelors of Science, Biology



Stanislav Gejdos

Category Manager, Legal Services

Syngenta

Stanislav joined Syngenta in 2012. Prior to starting his Legal Procurement role in 2016, he worked in IT Procurement managing key outsourcing relationships. Stano builds effective partnerships with internal clients and providers. His main focus is on delivering sustainable savings, negotiating strategic legal contracts, increase the usage of value based billing models and to drive the SRM program with key legal providers. He is working closely with Legal Operations to enhance data analytics to drive better sourcing decisions.

Previous positions held at: Volkswagen, Hewlett-Packard

Education:

University of Economics in Bratislava | Master's degree



Andy Krebs

Senior Director, Head of Legal Operations

Twilio

Strategic and innovative legal industry leader, known for leading, motivating, and gaining consensus in large cross-functional teams and being adept at managing in complex, ambiguous environments. Problem solver with a record of employing innovative processes and solutions to solve challenging problems and developing world class programs. Experienced at building and leading high performing teams with deep operational expertise across multiple business functions. Effective communicator and presenter who influences externally and internally across levels.


Previous positions held at: Intel


Education:

Defiance College | Bachelor of Science, Accounting and Criminal Justice 

University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business | MBA in International Business and MIS



Bernardine Lai

Director, Outside Counsel Relationships

U.S. Bank

Bernardine Lai heads outside counsel relationships for U.S. Bank and is the Law Division’s DEI Champion. She leads initiatives to deepen and broaden U.S. Bank’s relationships with law firms in a meaningful and sustainable way that is consistent with U.S. Bank’s values and strategic and business goals. 

Bernardine grew up in Australia, is an immigrant three times over, and started her career as a telecommunications transactions lawyer in big law in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, including working for Vodafone in Tokyo and Deutsche Telekom/Siemens in Beijing.


Education:

University of Sydney, Australia | LL.M (Hons), B.Ec/LL.B

Admissions: NY, NH, Hong Kong, England & Wales, NSW



Jon Lane 

Senior Manager, Global Legal Procurement

GSK

Jon leads the Global Legal Services category at GSK and has been with the company since 2008.  Prior to starting his legal role in 2015, he managed several categories across direct, indirect and operational roles.  Jon is responsible for procurement’s engagement with external law firms and ancillary service providers and is the procurement lead for GSK’s award winning OCSI program.


Education:

University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill | BA Management/Public Policy



Andie Lam

Global Category Manager Legal Services

Novartis
Andie is a seasoned professional experienced in indirect procurement in complex and global organizations. She has lived and worked in multiple countries and industries, leading cross-functional teams in sourcing and process improvement projects. 
Previous positions held: Philips Electronics, Guardian Life Insurance, Pfizer

Education: 

University of Macau | BA in Marketing

University of Groningen |  MSc in International Business




Paul Lewis III

Director, Category, Legal Services

Johnson & Johnson
Paul leads the Global Legal Services category team at J&J, with responsibility for procurement’s engagement with external vendors and the implementation of the function’s strategic vision in the legal space. He has driven strategic sourcing engagements and procurement best-value outcomes across many direct material and indirect service categories and led a global program for evaluating the financial health of key vendors and driving risk mitigation efforts where necessary.

Education:

Millersville University of Pennsylvania | Bachelor of Arts, Economics (Quantitative)



Kristina Panettiere

Strategic Sourcing Manager – Legal & Global Compliance Category

Boston Scientific Corporation

Kristina joined the indirect sourcing team at BSC in 2018. In her first year with the company, she partnered with Legal Operations to establish BSC’s Preferred Provider Network (PPN), a firm and vendor panel. Since then, she has continued building strong relationships throughout the organization, with outside counsel, and with vendors. Leveraging these partnerships, she has become a trusted advisor to her stakeholders, leading and supporting countless projects to maximize efficiency and optimize spend for the Legal and Global Compliance departments. Prior to joining BSC, she worked in real estate and finance before ultimately transitioning into sourcing. 

Previous position: Staples, Inc.

Education: 

Dartmouth College | Bachelor of Arts, Economics



Milly Parekh

Sr. Manager Litigation Operations

Johnson & Johnson

Milly joined Johnson & Johnson's law department beginning of 2022 as a Senior manager Litigation Operation. Before this role, Milly spent her time in J&J in various procurement categories, including Legal services Sourcing Manager. In her current position, Milly is a primary point of contact on Procurement partnerships with a focus on strategic cost containment efforts and operational efficiencies. She has led several complex RFPs, executed Alternative fee arrangements for mass tort litigation, and implemented technology tools in Invoice review and DE&I workstreams.

Education

Drexel University, PA I MBA - Marketing



Emily Peeroo 

Sourcing Manager Marketing & Legal Services

Lloyds Banking Group

Emily joined Lloyds in 2009 and welcomes change and new challenges having covered a diverse range of supply market roles and categories. She has led numerous Legal Panel reviews and new initiatives, including the implementation of a legal ebilling system and a legal invoice review pilot.

Previous Positions Held: Barclays, Alcatel-Lucent and Intel Corporation

Long standing business mentor & volunteer for various international charities

Education:
Royal Holloway University of London | Bachelor of Arts, German, French & Computing

Wharton, University of Pennsylvania | Marketing Management



Matt Rossman

Manager, Shared Services Sourcing

Valley National Bank

Matt has 15 years’ experience in legal, insurance and professional services sourcing. In addition to Valley National Bank, he has worked at Citigroup, AIG, AXA XL and Deutsche Bank. Matt has conducted hundreds of competitive sourcing events, using e-sourcing tools to run RFxs and Reverse Auctions and has conducted direct contract and pricing negotiations with large, multinational and regional law firms and software / SaaS providers, including managing the vendor risk management process. He also has a law degree from Cardozo School of Law and spent 15 years as a financial lines insurance broker and underwriter before working in Procurement.

Education:
St. John's University, The Peter J. Tobin School of Business | BBA, Insurance

Cardozo School of Law | Juris Doctor



Jessica Williams

Director, Legal Team Strategy and Operations

FanDuel

Jessica Williams joined FanDuel, a sports entertainment and betting company, as their Director for Legal Team Strategy and Operations in June 2023. Prior to her role at FanDuel, Jessica was the Outside Counsel Operations Manager for HEARST’s Office of General Counsel. After nearly 15 years in the legal industry, Jessica’s experience ranges from public service to boutique law firms and Fortune 100 corporate legal departments. Today, she oversees Hearst’s global outside counsel program and is responsible for all things rates and relationships.

Previous position: HEARST, Liberty Mutual Insurance

Education: 

Western Governors University | Bachelor's in Business Management

Syracuse University | Master's in Business Administration, Data Analytics


Lily Beatty

Chief Legal Office Operations

Uber


Lily is a manager on Uber's CLO (Chief Legal Office) Operations team. She designed Uber's preferred counsel program and oversees various vendor operations and sourcing activities across the CLO. Prior to shifting her focus to legal services, her responsibilities included cybersecurity software and professional services procurement. Before joining Uber, Lily held supply chain planning and strategic sourcing positions on Nestle.


Education:

The Pennsylvania State University, Smeal College of Business

B.S. Supply Chain Management and Information Systems



Jennifer Black Sherman

Vice President-Global Procurement Legal


Bank of America

Jennifer works for Bank of America’s Global Procurement Legal team located in Charlotte, NC. She is responsible for the legal department’s end to end procurement engagements with third party vendors.  She negotiates agreements at various levels of complexity in order to minimize risk and achieve measurable cost savings. Jennifer is a licensed Attorney with over sixteen years of experience in law firms, trial courts, as well as, lead the legal department and the procurement functions for a federally funded not for profit agency.


Education:

Quinnipiac University School of Law / Juris Doctor

Sacred Heart University / Bachelor of Science, Criminal Justice