2026 Conference Agenda
Agenda Sessions
Knowledge and innovation groups looking for “unicorn” team members who have the legal knowledge, business acumen, data literacy, and AI fluency are seeking people who may not actually exist. This session explores how firms are instead identifying untapped potential inside their KM, library, research, and intelligence teams, to develop professionals into future-ready roles amid constant change. It examines talent transformation in practice, how leaders identify who can make the leap, and the possible friction when some evolve while others continue in traditional roles.
Transforming the People You Already Have Into the Professionals the Future Demands
Norah Olson Bluvshtein, Chief AI & Legal Operations Officer, Fredrikson & Byron
Myka Hopgood, Chief Knowledge and Innovation Officer, Dykema
Some lawyers are building their own software tools without IT, KM, or Innovation oversight. This session explores what they're actually making. We'll examine the gaps those tools reveal in firm innovation programs. We'll also look at how teams can capture value from unsanctioned work, govern risk without killing initiative, and scale one lawyer's fix into a practice-group solution. Finally, we'll cover the shift from primary builder to strategic enabler.
How Innovation Teams Adapt When Lawyers Vibe Code Their Own Tools
Michel Paradis, Partner, Stepstone LLP
Case Study: Creating the Modern Transformation Office at Husch Blackwell
As AI, data, knowledge, pricing, innovation, and strategic delivery intertwine, structures become strained. Explore how Husch Blackwell created a Transformation Office uniting independent capabilities around a shared mandate for change, how it defined ownership across disciplines, and the lessons learned from building an integrated approach to innovation, intelligence, governance, and client value. Discover opportunities and tensions as functional boundaries disappear.
Joanna Penn, Chief Transformation Officer, Husch Blackwell
Thom Hutchison, Director of Data Science and AI, Husch Blackwell
Case Study: Building KM From the Ground Up After a Major Merger
When Troutman Pepper and Locke Lord merged in January 2025, the firm chairman declared KM a priority, and 18 months of hard work followed: Appointing KM and AI Innovation Partners, launching enterprise-wide KM tools, building a partner champion network, designing a knowledge infrastructure, and implementing an AI strategy. This session is an inspiration for any firm building KM from scratch. Explore the challenges they faced, the decisions that worked, and lessons you can take from their experience.
William Gaus, Chief Knowledge Management and Innovation Officer, Troutman Pepper Locke
Nancy Bouthilet, Managing Director of Knowledge Management, Troutman Pepper Locke
Knowledge management and legal engineering have long operated separately. KM structured legal knowledge; legal engineers built systems to execute it. Generative AI is collapsing that gap, enabling experts to operationalize knowledge directly and blurring traditional boundaries. This session explores how AI reshapes the relationship between legal knowledge, workflow design, and delivery, why structured knowledge is more strategically valuable, and how firms are rethinking who owns the systems that translate judgment into scalable execution.
Knowledge Management Meets Legal Engineering: Who Owns the Space Between?
Al Hounsell, Senior Director of AI, Innovation and Knowledge, Gowling WLG