The Great Big Legal Offsite (GBLO) 2024

Our Amazing GBLO Event Speakers included:

🌟 Piers Linney – Entrepreneur, former Dragon on BBC’s Dragons’ Den

Piers in an entrepreneur, investor and former Dragon on the prime-time BBC show Dragon’s Den. With a background in law and investment banking, Piers has established himself as a leading figure in the UK business world, particularly in the technology sector. Piers is a LinkedIn ‘Top Artificial Voice’ and is the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Implement AI which supports businesses to unlock the power of AI.

🌟 Jodie Hill – Founder of Thrive Law

Jodie is a neurodivergent solicitor, ED&I Consultant, quality coach and trainer, author and campaigner. She is passionate about employment law, mental health and wellbeing, ED&I and neurodiversity. A qualified barrister initially called to the Bar by The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in 2010, Jodie then cross-qualified to become a solicitor in 2013. Her mental breakdown in 2017, which Jodie now describes as her ‘mental breakthrough’, led her to establish Thrive Law in 2018. It was the first law firm in the UK founded with wellbeing and mental health at it’s heart. Today, Thrive Law, headquartered in Leeds with teams in London and the Southwest, provides employment law support to employees and employers, as well as outsourced HR and employment law support, training, coaching and consultancy to businesses, nationally and internationally. Jodie is also an active member of the Employment Law Committee at the Law Society.

🌟 Dana Denis-Smith – CEO of Obelisk Support | B Corp Certified

Dana is the CEO of Obelisk Support and the founder of the First 100 Years campaign. A TEDX speaker, Dana is regularly invited to address industry events and comment in the media on gender equality, entrepreneurship and legal technology. In 2020 Dan was recognised for her work as a women’s advocate and champion of gender equality with the Special Contribution Award at the Women in Law Awards. In 2019 Dana was awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Legal Services by The Legal 500 and, in 2018 she was voted Legal Personality of the Year at the LexisNexis Awards. Dana was shortlisted in the 2022 Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Europe awards, and she was awarded her second honorary doctorate in Law from the University of Glasgow in recognition of her contribution, achievements, and the positive impact on the legal profession in June 2022. In 2014, Dana founded the First 100 Years, a national charitable campaign to celebrate the first 100 years of women in the legal profession.

🌟 Ian McCann – CEO of Legal Studio Solicitors

In his own words, Ian is a solicitor who studied law for a bus pass. He is CEO of a new model law firm empowering lawyers to deliver the service their clients want by creating a better environment for them to work in. Ian was late diagnosed Autistic as an adult. He opening speaks abut his experience with depression and suicidal ideation. He is a Ménière’s sufferer with a hearing aid and walking stick. He is a neurodiversity advocate and a flexible working champion. Self confessed: Right-handed. Left-brained. Geek. Motorsports fan. Ian brings with him his affable charm that makes accessible those conversations and themes that can be hard to approach and difficult to navigate.

🌟 Colin Taylor – Divisional Director at Howden Insurance Brokers

Colin Taylor, Divisional Director at Howden Insurance Brokers, will be bringing with him over 30 years of experience of providing insurance and risk services for Law firms. Recipient of the Risk Champion of the Year award at the CIR Risk Awards 2022/23, Colin’s unique approach to risk management training has made a monumental difference to the behaviours of thousands of people in the legal sector. Colin will be sharing deep insights on practical risk management in mid-market law firms that effectively manages the cost of risk and PII insurance. With PII being one of the biggest concerns for law firms and vital to the viability of the business, this is a session not to be missed. Howden’s legal Professional Indemnity specialists bring more that 250 years’ combined experience in the legal sector. They place Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) on behalf of more than 2,000 law firm clients, ranging from sole practitioners to Top 100 firms.

🌟 Michael Burne – Founder of Bamboo Law

Self confessed rebel with a cause, Michael is the CEO and Founder of Carbon Law Partners and Bamboo Law. He has been challenging the way things are done in the legal sector since 2010. Michael qualified as a solicitor in 1995 and has experience from City law firms, listed professional service businesses and has led large scale merger, acquisition and integration projects over the last 25 years. Carbon’s mission is to ‘create and develop the conditions for exceptional people to flourish – that’s our why!”. They live by their four beliefs – quality for our clients, an ownership stake for our people, freedom and value in retirement for our lawyers and a belief in the quality of one team.

🌟  Kush Birdi – Co-Founder of Birdi & Co Solicitors

Perfectly positioned to address our collaborative community of mid-market Law Firms, Kush Birdi is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Birdi & Co Solicitors, an independent, multi-service law firm that believes by bringing energy and positivity to everything they do, better outcomes can be achieved for their clients. Kush believes that high-quality work is a given, but it’s the attitude you adopt in work (and life) that matters most. It’s what delivers real value and helps to cultivate long-lasting client relationships. It’s the more human element of the lawyer/client dynamic that he feels is often lost but is the thing that leaves the longest impression on clients. At Birdi & Co, there is a real mission to change the way that lawyers are perceived in the business world, and to inspire the next generation of lawyers to make the impersonal and over-industrialised legal sector a thing of the past.

🌟 Alex Holt – Director of Business Development at Cashroom

Alex has spent over 25 years in the Legal Sector as a partner in a top 60 firm. A founder of an executive search and recruitment business, and a director of business development for a global outsoutcing comapny, Alex now heads up Business Development as Chief Revenue Officer at Cashroom. Cashroom exist to provide compliant, cost-effective outsourced finance functions to law firms throughout the UK. With over 140 specialists including ILFM qualified cashiers and management accountants, they provide remote services to over 250 law firms of all shapes and sizes. They have a unique insight into the requirements of the legal sector, with directors who have held partnership positions within large law firms, as well as senior members of staff who have worked within finance teams in a variety of legal practices. They have developed and built a unique, secure and dynamic customer portal, utilising technology to further improve efficiency and security beyond the capability of many firms.

🌟 Shaun Jardine – Founder of Big Yellow Penguin

Shaun Jardine is unashamedly and unapologetically a disruptor. As a lawyer and former law firm CEO of a top 250 UK law firm which employed over 240 people , he has a unique insight into what makes law firms tick. Shaun founded Big Yellow Penguin (BYP) in 2021 with the aim of encouraging and helping lawyers and law firms to move on from the 20th century and adopt practices, including value pricing, which will make their futures more secure, both financially and operationally, and enjoy practising their craft again. Shaun has recently finished writing his first book ‘Ditch The Billable Hour’! which was published in January 2024 (and it’s brilliant!).

🌟 Sahar Farooqi – Harneys Transformation Officer

Sahar is a specialist in organisational transformation and change, currently the Transformation Officer at global offshore law firm, Harneys. His global mandate covers business strategy, growth, people and culture (ED&I), marketing and communications. His job is bringing the global managing partner and the firm’s executive committee’s vision to life on a daily basis, ensuring their stated objectives, whilst their people and their clients are clear on who they are and where they are going. As a barrister and law firm partner for over a decade, Sahar developed a particular specialism in international commercial dispute resolution and has acted for governments, UHNWIs, airlines, insurers and energy companies. He understands the pressures and realities of corporate clients and businesses as well as possessing a polished set of communication and advocacy skills.

Our Mastermind Sessions included:

💫 Kirsty Pappin of Aries Legal Practice Management

With 20 years’ experience in the legal industry, Kirsty brings fresh ideas and a disruptive approach to legal practice management and operations. Winner of the LPM Excellence Awards 2020 – ‘Practice Manager of the Year’, powered by Thomson Reuters and in association with the ILFM (The Institute of Legal Finance & Management). Kirsty’s offering covers all business, operations and administrative functions in a law firm.

💫 Tom Blandford of Sursum Advisory Ltd

Tom is a chartered accountant specialising in delivering strategic finance projects to law firms. Originally, Tom trained with PwC’s professional practices team, where he worked with some of our major UK law firms. He went on to become a partner in Armstrong Watson’s specialist legal sector team, where he acted as lead partner for over fifty law firms. This extensive hands-on experience makes Tom very well placed to work with law firms to improve their financial strategy. His starting point is always to consider data-driven internal budgeting, forecasting and result monitoring, then to use this information to partner with the board and drive business performance forwards. In addition to his work with mergers, acquisitions and tax structuring, Tom offers a range of other strategic financial director services. This includes specialist law firm valuations and support with law firm incorporation.

💫 Robert Blech of MHA

Robert has worked within the industry for over 20 years and joined MHA in April 2019. He is vice chair of the ICAEW Solicitors Community Advisory Group, representing the ICAEW and liaising regularly with the policy team at the SRA. Robert is also actively approached by The Law Society Regulatory department for his advice and has undertaken forensic work for the SRA in disciplinary matters and has also contributed to the Solicitors Handbook 2024. Robert works almost solely with law firms and solicitors in all areas of financial compliance and regulation. He has represented practices in high profile SRA investigations and delivers training for law firms, as well a regular webinars and seminars for MHA and is a regular guest speaker at Compliance for Law Firms.

💫 Nina Dayal of HiveRisk

Specialist adviser to Law Firms and Real Estate practices on regulatory risk and compliance. AML/CTF and Crypto enthusiast. Specialist counter fraud expert. Highly experienced in identifying, developing and implementing fraud strategies, operations and forensic claims investigations.

💫 Dan Warburton, Founder of the Law Firm Owners Club

Helps Law Firm Owners Gain Extra Profit While Reducing their Workload. I’ll Show You Management & Delegation Strategies That Grew My Client’s Business by 89.15% (£596,734 Extra) AND Halved His Workload in 6 Months.

💫 Andre Thomas of Thomas Telman

As the founder of Thomas Telman, a HR consulting firm, Andre has over 11 years of experience in helping organisations improve their employee retention and engagement. He has a strong background in data collection and analysis, focus group moderation, and report writing, as well as skills in human resources, people management, and recruitment. His mission is to help firms strengthen their employer brand by understanding and addressing the root causes of their turnover issues. Andre offers both basic and advanced services, depending on the level of data and insights each client needs. He also provides value benefits such as better decision making, culture gap identification, employee engagement improvement, employer brand enhancement, cost reduction, and clarity on culture for joint ventures or mergers and acquisitions. Whether you have no system in place to measure your employee experience, or you have some data but are not sure how to fix your retention problem, Andre can help you solve it. 

💫 Alicia Collinson of Thrive Law

Alicia is a Senior Associate at Thrive Law, in Leeds. She loves her job and is passionate about what we do at Thrive Law. We provide legal and strategic support to employees and employers, working to ensure that workplaces are truly happier and healthier. As a bit of background, Alicia attended Queen Mary, University of London and graduated in 2015 with a 2.1 in Law. Alicia completed her LPC in Leeds, University of Law, the following year, and then returned to London to complete the training contract at K&L Gates LLP. Qualified in September 2018. Having always been surrounded by strong female role models, Alicia is particularly passionate about equality in the workplace and female representation in the legal industry.

💫 Claire Sanders of Being Human Consulting Ltd

Claire is the co-founder of Being Human (www.being-human.co.uk), a consultancy business which supports legal teams to harness the power of their employees to maximise performance, minimise risk and optimise wellbeing.

💫 Jonathan Ashley of etiCloud: secure digital agility

Before founding etiCloud alongside his fellow directors, Jonathan helped to build one of the UK’s fastest growing, privately owned and managed ICT providers. With a focus on delivering an unrivalled customer experience and a combination of the very best telecoms, hosting and IT support services, he is a real advocate of the efficiency and cost-saving benefits of working with a single business partner across all aspects of IT and communications.

💫 Gavin Ball of HiveRisk

Topics include AML compliance in law firms, AML audits, SRA AML requirements, AML Training and Nominated Officer roles and requirements. Gavin is a certified Fraud Examiner and an Accredited Counter Fraud Specialist who has led numerous financial crime investigations and compliance engagements across international jurisdictions including the Middle East, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and the UK. He has worked with global organisations across varying sectors such as Law Firms, Accountants, Engineering, Construction, Financial Services, Retail, Charities, Central Government and Healthcare.

💫 Peter Taylor, ACFS, aka The Fraud Guy

Peter provides fraud risk and system improvement reviews, audits, training, events, articles, research, and investigation. The term The Fraud Guy is not a self given nickname, he has had a few decades of business development people introducing himself to clients as ‘The Fraud Guy’ because too many businesses don’t like to talk about fraud and cyber-crime. He decided to trademark it.

💫 Tom Lyes of Armalytix

Tom is the Head of Legal and Property Services for Armalytix. Armalytix combines data, insights and evidence to transform the convoluted process of conducting financial compliance checks. With Armalytix, you can replicate and enhance your existing processes to capture the information and analysis you need quickly with a digital journey journey that your customers can easily complete from their mobile or desktop. Our financial compliance checks can be used for: Fraud, AML, Customer harm and vulnerability.

💫 Steve Brett of E3 Compliance Training Ltd

Steve the Co Founder of E3 Compliance Training makes compliance training fun. We build training courses that engage players to make compliance training fun and and effective through the use of approaches proven with mobile games. The focus is to work with both customers and subject matter experts to ensure that our courses are the best they can be. If you want to change the way your compliance training is delivered or help us write new courses then get in touch.