VQ Forum 2015

Welcome to the 6th annual VQ Forum on 21 October 2015

VQ Forum brings together thought leaders and champions of change in the legal profession to discuss strategy and key developments in the legal market. This year's main theme is business development and new legal service opportunities.

Internationally renowned speakers will provide inspiration and spark your own musings about the future and how to focus on business development to prepare for the new legal market. Success stories and case studies will be presented by legal professionals who have successfully changed their business to adapt to the new legal future. New business opportunities for law as an export commodity will be discussed, as well as other new ways of providing legal service or manage an in-house legal department.

Key note speaker Jordan Furlong will hold a webinar on The New Rules: 8 Key Elements of the New Legal Marketplace, where he will explore the most significant aspects of the coming legal services marketplace, along with recommendations about how to best prepare today and adapt tomorrow.

Sara Öhrvall, Senior Advisor, Columnist and Board member of inter alia Investor, will provide her insights on digitalization and where it is taking us. Sara has always acted in the intersection between design, business, new technology and innovation, and has experience from large transformation projects, global product development and strategy work for several of Sweden's largest corporations. At VQ Forum, Sara will share her experience and insights on technical disruptions, digital business opportunities, how to create an innovation culture and why algorithms and robots soon will manage everything humans can do. Only better.

Archana Makol, Chief Counsel BT Legal. Director BT Law Ltd, will speak about Innovating the in-house legal team and share her experience from the BT Law Ltd ABS project, where the BT in-house company legal team is set up to offer services to businesses other than its employer company.

Miral Hamani-Samaan, Managing Counsel in Mergers and Acquisitions (EMEA) at Hewlett-Packard International Sàrl, will talk about HP's in-house legal strategy work and especially the newly invented M&A tool which captures years of experience from international lawyers to systematize the process and helps make better judgments on acquisitions.

Sally Gonzalez, consultant and KM Global Programme Manager for Norton Rose Fulbright, will speak about the evolution of knowledge management from its traditional inward-focused Know-How roots to today's progressive mission for KM as a client-focused service aligned with business development and legal process improvement. She will present case studies from both law firm and law department perspectives and discuss what the next transformation of KM might look like.

Kristoffer Löf, Partner Mannheimer Swartling, will hold a session analysing law as an export commodity creating job and wealth in the modern economy. Discussions with inter alia Johan Ramberg, Senior Group Legal Counsel, Electrolux, will focus on how to make a jurisdiction's lawyers, law and dispute resolution attractive for transactions in order to export the sales of legal services.

SCC Deputy Secretary General Kristin Campbell-Wilson and a panel of legal professionals, including inter alia Kate Davies, Allen & Overy, Archana Makol, BT Law, Richard Åkerman, Hannes Snellman, and Jim Runsten, Synch, will discuss the challenges and opportunities facing legal practitioners due to recent changes in the legal market, incl. regulatory changes, legal technological development and the new role of the general counsel.

Furthermore, Peter Danowsky, Partner Danowsky & Partners, will in light of recent claims against auditing firms discuss how the legal profession is evolving, and clients' possibly increasing readiness to claim damages from law firms when the result of the services is unsatisfying.

Please find further speaker and program information under “Speakers” and “Program” to the right.

Main features of the conference in short:

  • What are the most significant changes ahead?
  • Is the legal market prepared to meet the expectations of tomorrow?
  • How should legal professionals focus on business development to prepare for the new legal market?
  • Success stories from legal professionals who have successfully changed their business to adapt to the new legal future - yes, it can be done!
  • Opportunities and challenges for law as an export commodity.

Report from VQ Forum 2014 »