Financial Times Innovative Lawyer Summit – Leadership & the Future of Work

Following the outstanding success of the inaugural FT/RSG Innovative Lawyers Summit in 2016, we are delighted to announce the 2017 Summit. Once more this independent meeting will bring together our global community of corporate counsel and private practice lawyers together with chief executives, academics and non-legal innovators to discuss how the profession can best meet the challenges it faces, both in terms of innovation and in its evolving role in business, government and society.

This year’s agenda will focus on the drivers of innovation and include topics such as collaboration, culture, diversity in its widest sense and leadership. In addition, the Summit will focus on the role of lawyers in upholding the rule of law and increasing access to justice, automation and how it is changing lawyers’ practices and the changing structures of law firms and corporate law departments.

Ample time will be provided for both structured and un-structured networking. We will arrange three salons where private practice and in-house lawyers will discuss their challenges and solutions to the topic issues.

As the Academic Partner for this event, the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession will be hosting the following session on June 20th: Leadership and Performance – The Future of Work

A law firm managing partner or chief legal officer can transform their organizations and drive innovation. They are critical catalysts for change. However, many legal leaders are failing to respond to what their organizations, and the younger generation, need. What should be at the top of the leadership agenda? How are some of the best-known leaders in the profession motivating their teams to rise to the challenge of longer lifespans, the desire for portfolio careers and fears of automation?

Presenter: Professor David B. Wilkins, Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Harvard Law School.

Case study: Example of how leadership is driving innovation

Stephen Immelt, Chief Executive Officer, Hogan Lovells

Commentators: 

Jonathan Brayne, Partner and Chairman, Fuse, Allen & Overy

Michelle H. Browdy, Senior Vice President, Legal & Regulatory Affairs, and General Counsel, IBM

Brent Irvin, Vice President and General Counsel, Tencent Holdings Limited

Zia Mody, Managing Partner, AZB & Partners

Moderator: Andrew Hill, Associate Editor and Management Editor, Financial Times