Innovation Roundtable

Rachel is a Director in the Solutioning team at Elevate.  Leveraging the broad range of Elevate experts, tools, and services to design solutions that truly address the business of law problems that legal professionals face.

Previous experience as Head of Collaborations within Ashurst Advance NewLaw division, involved a focus on identifying and embedding a network of strategic collaborations in delivery, data and technology. Not only with vendors, but also with other law firms (coopetition) and with customers.

Prior to this Rachel spent time in innovation in the legal sector, in investment banking and also in the start-up world. She is experienced in designing and driving an innovation and transformation agenda, focussed on culture, customers, data and technology.

Rachel’s enthusiasm is for culture change, creating a creative mindset and environment, in which new ways of working can be embedded and ideas can blossom. She is passionate about all things people, diversity and lifelong learning. Rachel is an evangelist (she loves writing and speaking) and facilitator, to educate and drive change.

Curt Meltzer is is an Evangelist at Litera, responsible for pre-sales customer education and aligning their needs to Litera’s products. He works with large US law firms to identify opportunities for Litera to deliver value.

Curt has more than 30 years of experience in applying technology to the practice of law. His career has included work in litigation support, software, training, publishing, and management consulting. He has also been CIO for four law firms, including Orrick and Chadbourne.

He is a frequent speaker and writer on legal technology. Curt is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, and a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.

April is an experienced lawyer who has spent the last decade working on transforming global law firms through roles in innovation and business change, technology, risk and knowledge.

April’s keen interest in disruption, technology and legal operations has been instrumental in delivering a range of practical solutions to improve legal processes, drive best practice and deliver client driven products.

Chris is the Managing Director of the Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) and the Law Practice Program (LPP), both housed at Ryerson University, Toronto. Chris led the development of the LPP, a modern approach to lawyer licensing authorized by the Law Society of Ontario. He also co-founded LIZ, Canada’s first incubator dedicated to legal startups, to help deliver better legal solutions to consumers. It supports legal startups, R&D for law firms, businesses, organizations and government, and practical reform initiatives.

Chris was elected as an Ontario MPP for London West from 2003-2013. He was a member of Cabinet for all 10 years, serving as Minister in 5 Cabinet posts: 4 years as Attorney General, as well as Labour, Training Colleges and Universities, Aboriginal Affairs, and Energy. He drove a number of change initiatives, such as Justice on Target (that reduced, for the first time in 18 years, the time to trial and the number of court appearances per criminal case), a health and safety initiative that reduced workplace injuries by 20 % in 3 years, the 4 Pillars of Family Reform, Civil Justice Reform, the largest funding increase in Legal Aid’s history, and was part of a new approach to indigenous relations recognized by the United Nations. He also helped drive the implementation of the Reaching Higher investments in postsecondary education.

For 23 years before politics Chris practiced criminal defence and labour law. He taught part-time for 10 of those years at Western’s Law School, and helped establish and became the first Chairperson of Neighbourhood Legal Services, London and Middlesex, which provides legal services to those who cannot afford them.