Summit ‘26 Speakers
October 27–29, San Francisco
Bringing together the best in the profession.
October 27–29, San Francisco
Bringing together the best in the profession.
AJ Shankar is the Founder & CEO of Everlaw, an AI-powered cloud-based software for litigation and investigations that helps legal teams chart a straighter path to the truth. Before founding Everlaw, AJ graduated from Harvard with an AB in Mathematics and Computer Science and received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
she/her
Therapist and Consulting Producer, Couples Therapy, Showtime
New York City
Dr. Orna Guralnik is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and writer. She is faculty of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis, and on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and is the therapist and consulting producer of “Couples Therapy,” airing on Showtime/Paramount+.
Robert Mahari is Head of Claude for Legal at Anthropic, where he leads product and go-to-market strategy for how Claude serves law firms, in-house legal teams, and legal tech companies. Before joining Anthropic, he founded Akiva AI, which builds custom AI solutions for law firms and corporate legal departments. He also served as Associate Director of Stanford CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, leading interdisciplinary, practice-oriented research in AI and law.
Robert holds a JD-PhD in Legal Artificial Intelligence from Harvard Law School and the MIT Media Lab. His research has appeared in journals including Science and Nature Machine Intelligence and has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Robert is on the faculty of Harvard Law School’s executive education program, where he teaches courses on AI transformation in legal practice, and remains a fellow at Stanford’s CodeX Center.
Gloria Lee is the Chief Legal Officer (CLO) at Everlaw, a cloud-based platform that unlocks the collaborative power of litigation and investigative teams.
As the company’s legal strategist, Gloria advises Everlaw’s executive leaders and Board of Directors to drive business growth while mitigating risk. She leads the legal department and is responsible for all legal, regulatory and privacy issues across the company.
Gloria brings to Everlaw over 25 years of experience as a ground-breaking trial lawyer and in-house counsel, with deep expertise in litigation, regulatory issues, technology and legal operations.
As CLO of Commure, a health-tech unicorn, Gloria oversaw the legal, regulatory, compliance, and security functions, and closed a merger with an imputed value of $6 billion. She also served as General Counsel (GC) at Newsela, an ed-tech unicorn. As Newsela’s first GC, she built the legal function from scratch, executed on a mandate to get the company IPO-ready and helped complete five acquisitions over two years.
Prior to Commure, Gloria served as VP, Deputy GC at Fitbit where she built and led various legal functions over time, helping the company launch more than 20 new products and services, and expand from 60 to more than 100 countries. In addition to successfully defending Fitbit in contentious patent and intellectual property litigation, Gloria was the company’s lead lawyer in Google’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit, shepherding the deal through rigorous antitrust review. Gloria worked with regulators around the world for nearly 15 months to successfully clear the merger in a climate of intense antitrust scrutiny of Big Tech, while dealing with novel data privacy issues.
Gloria has also held leadership positions at McKesson, a Fortune 10 healthcare company, where she advised on complex and novel legal matters. Prior, Gloria was a trial lawyer with the Oakland City Attorney’s Office, an attorney with the law firm of Morrison & Foerster, and a judicial law clerk for Chief Judge Pallmeyer of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois.
Gloria received her B.A. with Honors from Swarthmore College and her J.D. Magna Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota Law School. She lives in the East Bay with her family and dog. She and her family love to travel, eating their way through countries. Ever the consummate litigation attorney, Gloria is a long time yoga devotee who still struggles to clear her mind.
Established eDiscovery thought leader with over 30 years of experience providing eDiscovery best practices, legal technology consulting, software product management and technical project management services to numerous commercial and government clients.
Aaron is the U.S. Vice President of Litigation Support & Legal Operations at Balfour Beatty. With 25+ years of litigation experience and over 120 trials, he brings practical insight to the intersection of law, operations, and technology. He teaches legal technology—including AI in law—at SMU in Dallas and serves on advisory boards for Consero and Brightflag. A former DAPA President and current ACEDS North Texas board member, Aaron studied AI/ML at MIT and is currently a second-year law student at UNT Dallas College of Law. A frequent speaker, he’s known for translating complex legal and technology concepts into actionable strategies.
Catherine Bender is an E-Discovery Specialist/Litigation Paralegal who joined Mclean & Armstrong LLP in 2017. In addition to managing e-discovery for the firm, she provides full cycle litigation support and occasionally assists the corporate department on land title matters. She has nineteen years of experience in law firms in the U.S. and Canada and currently serves as the Vice President for the Vancouver chapter of the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists.
Her primary focus is e-discovery management, including:
Partner & Director of Technology and Innovation at Flannery | Georgalis
Cleveland, OH
Jeffrey Berman, Partner and Director of Technology and Innovation at Flannery | Georgalis, specializes in complex litigation, investigations, and electronic evidence. Previously an Assistant U.S. Attorney and state prosecutor, he served as his office’s first director of eLitigation, leading legal technology adoption, AI integration, and large-scale discovery management.
Stephanie Biehl has dedicated her career to advocacy on behalf of communities and individuals taking on prodigious and powerful adversaries in complex, high-stakes litigation. She has a variety of experience prosecuting cases from investigation through trial and appeals and has been named a Super Lawyers Rising Star consistently throughout her practice.
Before joining Sher Edling, Stephanie was successful in obtaining multimillion-dollar recoveries through complex cases in the business, consumer, employment, securities, derivative, and class action fields. She and her teams were routinely appointed Lead Counsel and Class Counsel in a variety of state and federal cases.
Stephanie was a judicial extern for Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer for the Northern District of California, and she graduated cum laude from UC Hastings College of the Law. While at Hastings, she earned her concentration in Civil Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution, was an award-winning member of the nationally-renowned Hastings Trial Team, and was the Executive Notes Editor of the Hastings Business Law Journal.
Prior to law school, Stephanie attended Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU) where she received her BS in Business Administration and her BA in Spanish Studies. She graduated summa cum laude, as the valedictorian of her class. Stephanie also had the honor of being the Undergraduate Commencement Speaker and receiving the highest leadership and excellence awards from her academic schools, the Cross Country team, multiple student life groups, the NDNU Board of Trustees, and the City of Belmont.
Adam is an senior associate in the Vorys Columbus office and a member of the labor and employment group. He represents management in a broad range of employment and traditional labor law matters, including matters arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and its amendments, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Adam has experience defending employers in single-plaintiff, class and collective actions in both state and federal court, as well as in matters before the National Labor Relations Board, the Ohio State Employment Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and other similar state agencies throughout the country.
Adam received his J.D. from The University of Toledo College of Law, where he was an executive editor of the University of Toledo Law Review. Adam received his B.S. from Mercyhurst University.
Herman Brown is an experienced CIO with a demonstrated history of working in the private sector and government administration industry, who pairs a strong operations background with professional skills in project management, digital strategy, management, cloud services, team buildering, customer service, and IT services.
Jerry Bui is a nationally recognized expert in digital forensics, computer forensics, and technology‑driven internal investigations, bringing more than two decades of experience supporting complex civil litigation and regulatory matters. A seasoned expert witness, Jerry has testified over 30 times on issues involving spoliation, cloud data, forensic methodologies, and the integrity of digital evidence.
Jerry advises clients across multiple industries, helping them navigate emerging data sources, cloud platforms, and eDiscovery workflows. He is frequently engaged to conduct in‑depth forensic examinations, analyze opposing experts’ methodologies, and guide organizations through high‑stakes government and internal investigations.
Jerry also contributes his expertise globally, serving as an advisor to INTERPOL’s Metaverse and Synthetic Media groups. He provides annual pro bono support in Lesotho to help build digital forensics capabilities for anti‑corruption authorities and regularly educates the public on deepfake and synthetic media risks.
Before joining Purpose Legal, Jerry held leadership roles at several global consulting firms and founded a digital forensics company focused on advanced evidence extraction, analysis, and preservation.
Stephanie joined NAAG as a NAAG training program counsel for the Center for Legal Advocacy and Faculty Development in August 2021. Her duties include assisting in providing legal skills training, developing and enhancing skills courses, and engaging in faculty recruitment and development.
Prior to coming to NAAG, Stephanie served an assistant attorney general at the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office in the Civil Litigation Section for 17 years. At the Attorney General’s Office, she practiced in complex litigation involving a wide variety of legal issues including: tort, civil rights, employment law, inmate litigation, declaratory judgment, constitutionality issues, administrative law, and appellate work. She appeared and argued before the Nebraska Court of Appeals, the Nebraska Supreme Court, and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Stephanie obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with Minors in Spanish and Latin American Studies from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 2001 and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2004. She is a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association and is a native of Papillion, Nebraska. Stephanie is married with three children, and enjoys running, bicycling, traveling and spending time with her family and friends.
Catherine Choe is Chief of Staff and Head of Legal Operations for the Legal department at Zendesk, an AI-powered customer service and experience management platform. In her role, she collaborates with and advises the CLO and the Legal leadership team on department strategy and operations to ensure that Legal facilitates growth and mitigates risk in support of Zendesk’s mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet.
Prior to joining Zendesk, Catherine established the Legal operations function at Everlaw, where she helped turn Sales into Legal’s biggest fans and enabled Legal to see around corners and predict and mitigate risks early. Before joining Everlaw, Catherine worked as a consultant delivering results in program management, operations, sales enablement, business planning, and executive education for her clients. Catherine earned a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and a B.S. from Texas A&M University.
Catherine’s stakeholders have said she turns red tape into glitter. She lives in San Francisco, where she painstakingly picks shreds of cilantro out of her food.
Suzanne Clark started her journey at Beasley Allen in 2021 and currently supports various litigation efforts, notably in the areas of social media addiction and hair relaxer cases. In her role, she assists with the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI).
She loves diving into the technical details and finds it rewarding to support litigation by managing electronic data. She became a Certified eDiscovery Specialist in 2014 and was recognized as a Relativity Review Management Specialist from 2019 to 2022. She also earned a Mass Tort MDL Certificate from Duke University’s Bolch Judicial Institute in 2019 and was honored as the ACEDS Outstanding Local Leader in 2015.
The Social Media Adolescent Addiction case has been the most impactful of her career. By addressing the harms caused by social media, she is helping protect our youth. As a mother of two teenage boys, she understands firsthand the importance of safeguarding our children and holding responsible companies accountable.
Suzanne is deeply involved in professional and community organizations, reflecting her dedication to law and her community. She is a Planning Committee Member for the University of Florida College of Law E-Discovery Conference, a Board Member of the Plaintiffs Complex Litigation E-Discovery Forum (CLEF), and a Director-at-Large for ACEDS Jacksonville. Additionally, Suzanne is involved in the Jacksonville Justice Association. She has served on the Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association board and held leadership roles in the Jacksonville Bar Association, EDRM, and Creeks Youth Lacrosse.
Suzanne considers herself a child of the Southeast. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, she now lives in Florida with her two teenage sons, their golden retriever and two cats. Outside of work, Suzanne is very involved in her church and her kids’ sports activities, including football, lacrosse, and shot put. She’s also a big fan of SEC football (Go, Gators!). In her free time, she enjoys sports photography, capturing action shots of her sons’ games, and being right in the middle of the excitement.
Pam has been a paralegal since 2008, working with the North Carolina Attorney General’s office since 2011 as a State Bar Certified Paralegal. She worked in the Health and Public Assistance Section of the AG’s office from 2011 to 2016, in the Composite Litigation Section from 2016 to 2018, and since 2018, in the Special Litigation Section under the Litigation Division. Pam has been actively working in litigation, discovery, and ediscovery throughout her career at the Attorney General’s office with a focus on state agency defense litigation. She received her bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York, College at Oswego, in 2005, and her Paralegal Certificate from Syracuse University in 2008.
Steven oversees the firm’s ediscovery consulting, processing, analytics, and document review capabilities, and manages the Litigation Support Department.
He is responsible for the overall strategic planning of litigation technology for the firm, including development of recommended practices and standard operating procedures, and the selection of preferred vendor partnerships. Steven also advises clients and litigation teams on evidence management, ESI protocols, best practices, trial technology, and ediscovery project workflow.
Professor Delfino joined the tenure-track research faculty after more than two decades of service in various academic and administrative leadership roles at LMU Loyola Law School. Her professional journey reflects a deep commitment to teaching excellence, institutional service, and scholarly inquiry that bridges doctrine, practice, and public relevance.
From 2022 to 2025, Professor Delfino served as Associate Dean for Clinical Programs and Experiential Learning. In that capacity, she oversaw the law school’s 21 live-client clinics, its robust array of legal skills courses, and its extensive experiential learning programs, including trial and appellate advocacy, field placements, public interest and entertainment law programs, practicums, and academic centers. As Associate Dean, she worked closely with the LLS and LMU administrations on curricular design, academic policy, faculty development, and strategic budgetary planning. She also led initiatives to support teaching excellence, particularly in clinical pedagogy and professional skills instruction.
Prior to her tenure as Associate Dean, Professor Delfino served for a decade as a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Loyola’s Field Placement Program. From 2006 to 2025, she served as the Faculty Director of Loyola’s nationally ranked Moot Court Program, where she developed and taught an intensive summer “boot camp” for advanced legal writing and oral advocacy students. Under her leadership, Loyola teams achieved consistent national recognition for excellence in brief writing and oral advocacy.
Professor Delfino teaches both doctrinal and experiential courses in civil procedure, appellate law, professional responsibility, civil procedure, and judicial process. In addition, she teaches a seminar on generative AI and the future of legal practice, exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping the legal profession, legal reasoning, and access to justice. She is also a faculty member in Loyola’s innovative part-time evening hybrid J.D. program, where she designed and teaches core courses tailored to the program’s distinctive pedagogical format, including ethical lawyering, appellate advocacy, and moot court.
Her research lies at the intersection of law, current events, and systemic disruptions—examining how the legal system responds to emergent threats such as the opioid epidemic, synthetic media and deepfake technologies, and mass migration. Her scholarship draws from multiple disciplines to address institutional design, risk allocation, and access to justice, with an emphasis on how law can offer redress, deterrence, and resilience in the face of unfolding societal challenges. She advocates for scholarship that engages across disciplines—connecting legal inquiry with fields such as business, humanities, public health, engineering, and the social sciences.
Before transitioning to full-time academia, Professor Delfino served for 17 years as a Lead Senior Appellate Attorney at the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Seven. There, she researched and drafted over 900 bench memoranda and legal opinions across a broad range of subject areas, including complex civil litigation, felony criminal appeals, dependency and delinquency matters, probate, and family law. She joined Loyola’s adjunct faculty in 1999 and began teaching while maintaining her full-time role at the court.
In addition to her work at Loyola, Professor Delfino is a longtime member of the adjunct faculty at Glendale Community College, where she has taught courses in California State and Local Government and political science. From 1999 to 2014, she served as a volunteer neutral for the Los Angeles County Superior Court, presiding as a mediator, arbitrator, and judge pro tem in more than 100 limited civil and small claims matters.
Earlier in her legal career, Professor Delfino practiced complex business litigation at Kirkland & Ellis and later at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, where she handled a wide range of civil matters, including intellectual property disputes, construction defect litigation, white-collar criminal defense, and employment law.
She began her legal career with judicial clerkships for the Honorable Cliff Young of the Nevada Supreme Court and the Honorable William Shubb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. Before attending law school, Professor Delfino served as an elementary school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, working in schools in South Central Los Angeles.
Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr. serves as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Missouri and sits in Jefferson City. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School. He began his legal career in service to our country as an Air Force Judge Advocate, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Assistant Special Counsel for the Waco Investigation. Later, he was named partner at two law firms and head of litigation at a financial services firm. Judge Epps is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Toni Fuentes is the former Director of Freedom of Information within the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Transparency at the Department of Defense. She has previously served in various FOIA positions for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoDIG), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) and participates on the ASAP Education Committee.
Manfred Gabriel is an attorney in Holland & Knight’s New York office who leads the firm’s Legal Support Services organization. In this role, Mr. Gabriel oversees Holland & Knight’s comprehensive and integrated ediscovery and fact-finding unit, which assists clients in managing the risks and costs of ediscovery by leveraging advanced technology and workflows. In addition, he provides clients with a wide range of services from enterprise-level ediscovery management to delivery on large, complex ediscovery projects.
He has assisted clients in: responding to litigation ediscovery requests, including data identification and collection, data processing and hosting, and structuring document reviews, quality control and document productions; advanced ediscovery workflows, with a particular focus on technology-assisted review or predictive coding, statistical sampling and statistical process control, as well as streamlining and integrating the various aspects of complex ediscovery projects; data privacy and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), especially for international companies active in the United States; litigation readiness, litigation holds and data preservation; sophisticated fact development to minimize the risk in litigation while strengthening the client’s case.
As an antitrust attorney, Mr. Gabriel has successfully assisted clients in responding to large, fast-paced regulatory requests. He has worked with Fortune 1000 companies in several industries, including high-tech, transportation, pharmaceuticals and financial services. Mr. Gabriel has testified as a 30(b)(6) witness on ediscovery process and data spoliation issues.
In addition, Mr. Gabriel teaches ediscovery at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.
Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Mr. Gabriel led the managed-review offering for a multinational professional services network. In addition, he led global engagements (including time in India to lead a team of 70) in ediscovery, contract intelligence and litigation readiness. Mr. Gabriel also consulted on data privacy and cross-border discovery, including GDPR and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
Judge Allison Goddard was sworn in as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of California in August 2019. She graduated from Boston College in 1993 and received her JD from the University of San Diego School of Law in 2000. Judge Goddard spent the first half of her legal career representing corporate defendants in litigation at Cooley LLP and her own law firm, Jaczko Goddard LLP. In 2011, she shifted her practice to representing plaintiffs in complex and intellectual property litigation. She has tried several cases, including class actions and patent infringement disputes. Judge Goddard speaks regularly on ediscovery and other litigation issues. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the San Diego Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and the Louis M. Welsh Inn of Court.
Eric Goldman is Associate Dean for Research, Professor of Law, and Co-Director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. A nationally recognized IP and Internet Law scholar, he previously served as General Counsel of Epinions.com and practiced law at Cooley Godward LLP. He holds a JD/MBA from UCLA.
John Haried was the Director of Electronic Litigation for the U.S. Department of Justice from 2020 to 2025. He worked with the Department’s litigating divisions (US Attorneys, Criminal, Civil, Environment & Natural Resources, Tax, Civil Rights, National Security, and Antitrust) and its law enforcement agencies (FBI, DEA, ATF, BOP, and USMS) to develop proficiency with electronic evidence from collection through investigation, litigation, and appeal.
From 2013 to 2020 he was the Criminal eDiscovery Coordinator for the Executive Office of United States Attorneys (EOUSA) in the U.S. Department of Justice, working with the 94 U.S. Attorneys Offices across the United States. The mission of EOUSA is to develop guidance on electronic litigation issues and practices for criminal and civil cases, to provide assistance and guidance through education and web-based resources, and to work with client agencies and DOJ components on effective electronic litigation practices. From 2010 to 2013, Mr. Haried was the Assistant National Criminal Discovery Coordinator for DOJ working on policy and training for federal prosecutors and investigative agents, as well as electronic case information management. From 1990 to 2010 he was an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the District of Colorado, and from 1981 to 1990 he was a state criminal prosecutor.
Ryan Hockley is a commercial and disputes lawyer and the founder and director of the alternative legal services provider Jandr. Jandr Legal provides experienced legal freelancers, technology consulting and project management expertise on legal projects such as document reviews in edisclosure, investigations and DSARs, due diligence exercises and bulk contract production/review/amendment tasks.
Elizabeth Koenig leads consulting services at ILS, managing a team of ediscovery consultants and advising Plaintiffs’ attorneys on all aspects of ediscovery. She has nearly a decade of experience working with Plaintiffs’ attorneys on the nation’s most high-profile mass tort and class action litigations. Elizabeth is an ACEDS-certified Ediscovery Specialist and frequently writes and presents on electronic discovery issues.
Before joining ILS, Elizabeth spent eight years practicing law at Milbank LLP in New York City and Los Angeles. Elizabeth holds a J.D. from UCLA School of Law and a B.A. from Boston University, and is a member of the California, New York, and Massachusetts bars.
Nicholas “Nick” Kohrs started his journey at Beasley Allen in 2025. He focuses on cases involving Hair Relaxers, Kratom, and Ozempic. In his role, he assists with Discovery and electronically stored information.
Gathering electronic data requires knowledge that many people may not fully understand or find interesting. Nick excels in this area, always willing to do the work that others might overlook. He holds several certifications, including the Everlaw Project Manager Certification (covering Reviewer, Storybuilder, Data Operations, and Managing Review), ACEDS eDiscovery Executive Certification, and ACEDS eDiscovery Technology Certification.
Nick is passionate about piecing together the puzzle of what, where, and how to gather the necessary information to build a strong case and help maximize clients’ recovery. One of his notable cases was his involvement in the BP Oil Spill litigation. As part of a dedicated team of attorneys, he sifted through millions of pages of documents, contributing significantly to the litigation and ultimately aiding in the recovery efforts for those along the Gulf Coast affected by the historic spill.
He is a member of several prestigious organizations, including the American Association of Justice, the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS), Electronic Discovery Reference Model, Louisiana Association of Justice, Complex Litigation E-Discovery Forum, and the Sedona Conference Working Group 1.
Nick and his wife, Colleen, have been happily married for 17 years and have two wonderful children. In his free time, Nick enjoys running half-marathons and rowing. He is also deeply involved in his community, serving as the President of his church and Past-President of the school Men’s Club. Since 2012, Nick has been a proud member of the 610 Stompers, raising funds for various local non-profits. Additionally, he is part of a BBQ team that supports children and families dealing with pediatric brain cancer through the annual Hogs for the Cause event.
Marcin is a counsel in Reed Smith’s Records & E-Discovery team and a founding member of the group, having joined the firm in 2011 as an e-discovery attorney. He brings a unique skill set to Reed Smith, with over 15 years of experience in e-discovery law, a background in computer science, and a Relativity Certified Administrator credential.
Marcin leverages his deep technical understanding and years of experience with technology assisted review to advise case teams and clients on the most efficient and defensible approaches to large-scale document reviews. He also collaborates with case teams to develop creative solutions to complex large document review challenges and provides user training and support for various e-discovery software platforms.
In addition, Marcin plays an active role in beta testing and proof-of-concept evaluation of new technology, including artificial intelligence tools, for potential adoption by the firm.
Tamara Lemmon is an attorney in the Salt Lake City office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati specializing in complex litigation and data privacy regulation. She works extensively on pro bono civil rights matters representing clients whose constitutional rights have been violated by the state.
Tamara enjoys speaking at professional conferences, where she teaches how to use tech, time management, and psychological re-framing to develop a unique, authentic, and sustainable brand designed to achieve career and life goals.
Sean leads the firm’s innovation in organizing and prosecuting individual class cases across many states involving the same defendants and similar factual and legal issues, an approach that continues to be a key factor in the firm’s success.
Current Role
Considered the “Magic Man,” independent fire litigation consultant Greg McCullough specializes in uncovering the key evidence that makes the case in fire-related litigation.
Farhad Mirzadeh is Counsel in the firm’s Washington, DC office, where he represents clients across a wide range of industries in high-stakes antitrust, commercial, and sports and entertainment litigation. He has appeared in court opposite industry-leading technology and media companies, and is valued by clients and colleagues alike for his practical judgment, creative strategy, and ability to translate complex legal theories into meaningful results.
Farhad represents plaintiffs in prominent class actions including, In re NFL Sunday Ticket Antitrust Litigation, on behalf of millions of residential and commercial subscribers challenging the NFL’s media‑rights agreements; In re Domestic Airline Travel Antitrust Litigation, alleging a multi‑airline conspiracy to inflate domestic fares; and In re Local TV Advertising Antitrust Litigation, a multidistrict case alleging price‑fixing by major broadcast groups in the local television ad market.
Beyond the courtroom, Farhad is an active contributor to the legal community. He regularly speaks and writes on sports law, emerging antitrust trends, and complex discovery issues.
Caitlin “Cat” Moon serves as founding co-director of the Vanderbilt AI Law Lab (VAILL) and co-directs the Program on Law and Innovation (PoLI) at Vanderbilt Law School. In these roles, she co-designs the technology and innovation curriculum for the JD program. She also founded the Summit on Law and Innovation (SoLI), which brings together experts across legal, technology, and other disciplines in collaborative legal innovation projects. Professor Moon currently teaches the VAILL Practicum, Legal Problem Solving, Law as a Business, Legal Operations, Leading in the Law, Data in Law Practice, AI in Law Practice, and Designing a Life in the Law.
Professor Moon’s current academic research on AI in law practice centers on how legal professionals can use AI and other technologies to innovate the delivery of legal services. For over a decade, she has been studying the 21st-century competencies for legal professionals in combination with lawyer thriving and achieving true diversity and inclusion across the profession. She is a co-creator of the Delta Model for lawyer competency and Design Your Delta, a playbook for holistic professional development grounded in human-centered design principles and methods.
In addition to her Vanderbilt teaching roles, Professor Moon works with law firms, legal departments, legal aid organizations, and law schools globally to bring a human-centered design perspective to re-imagining the delivery of legal services, lawyer formation, and inclusion across the profession. She regularly speaks and facilitates workshops across the United States and globally on the application of human-centered design and technology to realize innovation in both the legal profession and legal education.
Professor Moon is a Fellow and Trustee of the College of Law Practice Management and serves on the advisory board for the Justice Tech Association, Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Innovation Lab, and the MIT Computational Law Report. Professor Moon received the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services’ Janice M. Holder Award in 2017, recognizing her work in creating access to justice solutions through legal hackathons. She has been recognized in the inaugural class (2016) of ABA’s Women of Legal Tech and by Fastcase 50. Professor Moon also is a co-organizer of Music City Legal Hackers, part of the global Legal Hackers community.
Alexander has worked on complex civil cases in both state and federal courts across the country. His experience covers a wide range of issues, including breach of contract, fraud, statutory interpretation, administrative law, voting rights, and civil rights. His work has involved managing voluminous and complex discovery for companies in ownership disputes as well as working closely with high-net-worth individuals facing catastrophic litigation in deeply personal matters.
Alexander is committed to public interest litigation. During the pandemic, he advocated for hundreds of clients in federal prison, helping them vindicate their rights under the CARES Act. He also provided research and analysis to the Biden Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
While in law school, Alexander represented clients through law school clinics and worked as a summer associate with a Florida-based litigation boutique and the National Center for State Courts. He holds a B.A., summa cum laude from William & Mary and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Staci J. Olsen is a Baron & Budd shareholder overseeing eDiscovery for large-scale environmental litigation. She manages evidence compilation, ESI protocol negotiations, and document review for public entities facing contamination issues, including major PFAS, water pollutant, and wildfire cases. A top-rated litigator, she holds over 15 years of specialized environmental eDiscovery experience.
Nilay Patel is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Verge, the technology and culture brand from Vox Media. In his decade at Vox, Patel has grown The Verge into one of the largest and most influential tech sites, with a global audience of millions of monthly readers. Under his leadership, The Verge has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
Peter is the Ediscovery Director at the Cincinnati office of Dinsmore & Shohl, where he manages the litigation support department and oversees the firm’s ediscovery initiatives. Peter is also an internal consultant for collection and culling methodologies and designing review protocols. Prior to Dinsmore, Peter was Associate General Counsel at Mimecast North America and Ediscovery Solutions Director at CA.
Katey Rusch is a senior investigative reporter at UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, where her work focuses on misconduct and secrecy in policing and public education.
In 2024, Rusch and Casey Smith published “Right to Remain Secret” in the San Francisco Chronicle, an investigation into the “clean-record agreements” California law enforcement agencies used to conceal officer misconduct and allow problem officers to be hired elsewhere. The series was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for local reporting and won the George Polk Award, the Selden Ring Award, the Goldsmith Prize, an IRE Award and a National Headliner Award. It led to a new state law outlawing the agreements.
Rusch also works on the California Reporting Project, a coalition of more than 40 newsrooms, and helped build a first-of-its-kind database making some 1.5 million pages of once-secret California police records publicly searchable.
Before joining the IRP, Katey spent a decade as an on-air reporter and writer in local television newsrooms, including stops in Seattle, Phoenix, Bakersfield, Duluth and Topeka. As a video journalist, she won several Emmys and an Edward R. Murrow Award for a series about fracking and the energy potential of shale oil reserves. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Angela Emmerling Shapiro is a litigation Shareholder based in Butzel’s Detroit office. She has extensive experience in all aspects of commercial litigation, with a strong focus on electronic discovery (“E-Discovery”). She is a Certified E-Discovery Specialist, having earned CEDS certification through ACEDS.
Angela leverages her training and years of experience to efficiently and cost-effectively guide clients through complicated global and domestic E-Discovery requirements in lawsuits, arbitrations, and governmental investigations (including DOJ, NHTSA and Congressional investigations). She oversees all stages of the E-Discovery life cycle, including information management, developing and executing preservation plans, working with the client to identify and collect data, creating efficient review workflows, assessing and utilizing technology assisted review where appropriate, managing contract reviewers, negotiating production protocols, and approving final deliverables for production. She also litigates electronic discovery issues, including spoliation and cost shifting, and negotiates contracts with technology and other vendors.
Angela has been repeatedly recognized by her peers and DBusiness magazine as a “Top Lawyer” in the areas of Information Management and E-Discovery. In 2018, Crain’s Detroit Business included Angela in its inaugural class of “Notable Women in Technology.”
Angela sits on the firm’s Technology and Pro Bono Committees. She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan, the American Bar Association, and the Eastern District of Michigan Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. She is admitted to practice in all Michigan state and federal courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
Angela graduated from Michigan State University (1994) and the Michigan State University College of Law (J.D., magna cum laude, 1998). She earned numerous honors during her academic career and was the recipient of an Eve August Moot Court Scholarship and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers Plaque.
Dave Shargel represents companies and executives in both internal and government investigations, as well as complex commercial disputes and arbitrations, across a wide range of business sectors and circumstances.
He has experience representing clients before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), among other regulators. He has also represented clients before the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and advises clients on sanctions compliance and related issues.
His litigation experience includes contract disputes, shareholder disputes, business valuation, insurance coverage, civil RICO, and fraud. He also handles real estate, aviation, construction and employment disputes, as well as matters involving constitutional law, such as under the Commerce and Due Process clauses. Dave has also successfully defended consumer class actions, such as those involving the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and food labeling.
Dave is also highly adept at leveraging legal technology in his practice. He leads the firm’s ePractice Department, assisting clients and other Bracewell lawyers with best practices and guidance concerning electronically stored information (ESI) and digital forensics.
Dave devotes his pro bono efforts to clients in a variety of subject matters, including asylum and landlord-tenant disputes. Dave also serves as an adjunct professor of legal writing at Brooklyn Law School.
Steve Shuldman (he/him) is a lead member of Harvey AI’s Legal Engineering team, where he advises law firms and corporate legal departments on defining and capturing value through the deployment of legal domain-specific generative AI. His work focuses on how emerging legal technologies, including agentic AI systems, are reshaping legal workflows.
Jarrad Smith, part of the Orrick Analytics team, applies legal technology and structured project management to assist attorneys with large-volume data tasks. He oversees document review, redaction, production, and ECA strategies for litigation and investigations. Additionally, Jarrad provides core litigation support, trial preparation, and transactional contract review and due diligence.
Jamie Solis is an eDiscovery Senior Project Manager at Holland & Knight. She provides strategic consulting to legal teams and corporate clients, specializing in ESI collection, culling, and document review workflows. Jamie optimizes legal technology integration, timeline management, and production workflows for complex, large-scale firm litigation matters.
Strategic, forward-thinking and results-driven, Joseph Tate brings more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of law, technology, and business operations to his role as Director of Ediscovery. A respected legal innovator, Joe has built and scaled high-performing eDiscovery and litigation support functions across Am Law 100 firms, government agencies and corporate legal departments. He has a deep track record of aligning legal, business and technical strategies to deliver defensible, efficient, and cost-effective outcomes for clients navigating complex disputes and investigations.
Leading the firm’s ediscovery efforts, Joe works closely with practice group leaders to deliver strategic, technology-driven solutions for clients through added litigation support and legal technology. With a sharp focus on innovation, efficiency, and scalability, he is driving the next phase of growth in the firm’s discovery services. Whether optimizing workflows or integrating cutting-edge platforms, Joe’s forward-thinking leadership is elevating client service and helping teams manage complex matters with greater speed, precision and value.
Stephanie has loved the law her entire life. When she was nine years old and people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d say, “Supreme Court Justice.” When she was fourteen, she visited the Supreme Court. She saw the way that lawyers could shape our nation and help right a wrong for their clients. Although her career path has changed a few times, there is a common thread that runs through all of her choices—she wants to help others and use the law as a way to do so. This is evident in her work ethic and commitment to her clients.
Stephanie’s commitment to hard work and helping others started at Duke University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy. While there, she was a four-year varsity athlete on the Duke Swim Team. After graduation, Stephanie spent the next two years working in sports marketing for the Houston Texans and Reliant Energy. She then went to Pepperdine University School of Law, where she was named to the Dean’s List. While in law school, she worked for the National Football League in its Management Council Department, focusing on labor disputes and conduct policies. After graduation, Stephanie began her career as a trial lawyer, where she found what she truly loved doing.
In matters ranging from large commercial cases to complex products liability cases to personal injury cases, Stephanie focuses her practice on each client’s specific needs. As a result, she has successfully resolved disputes in both state and federal courts all over the country. Whether she’s representing an international company or an injured individual, Stephanie’s commitment to achieving the best possible outcome for her client never changes.
Stephanie M. Taylor has been a trial lawyer since 2011. Stephanie has been named a 2022 Houstonia Top Lawyer, by Houstonia Magazine; an America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigator, by America’s Top 100, in 2024 and 2025; a Top 40 Under 40 Civil Plaintiff Trial Lawyer, by The National Trial Lawyer, from 2019-2024; and a Civil Plaintiff Top 100 Attorney, by The National Trial Lawyer, in 2025-2026. Stephanie also has been named a Texas Rising Star, by Thomson Reuters, from 2019-2021, and a 2026 Texas Super Lawyer.
Stephanie is active in the community as a member of the local and state bar associations and the local, state and national trial lawyer associations, including the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, Houston Trial Lawyers Association, Houston Bar Association, and Texas Bar Foundation. Outside the office, Stephanie races triathlon, finishing a full Ironman and several 70.3 Ironman distances. When she’s not training, she’s trying a new restaurant or traveling somewhere new.
Samuel A. Thumma served on the Arizona Court of Appeals (2012–2026), including as Chief Judge. Following his judicial retirement, he was appointed Director of the Arizona Supreme Court’s Center for Forensics and Artificial Intelligence. A former trial judge and law partner, he co-teaches evidence at ASU Law.
Verna L. Williams (she/her) is the CEO of Equal Justice Works. In her role as CEO, Verna has continued to advance the mission of Equal Justice Works to create opportunities for leaders to transform their passion for equal justice into a lifelong commitment to public service.
Verna brings with her an extensive background of experience teaching and practicing law, as well as researching civil and women’s rights. Verna previously served as the dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she was a professor prior to becoming dean, and taught courses on family law, gender discrimination, and constitutional law. Additionally, she founded and co-directed the Judge Nathaniel Jones Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice at the University of Cincinnati.
Before her work at the University of Cincinnati, Verna was the vice president and director of educational opportunities at the National Women’s Law Center, where she focused on gender disparity in education. In this role, she was the lead counsel and successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which established that educational institutions have a duty to respond to and address complaints of student-to-student sexual harassment.
Verna clerked for the Honorable David S. Nelson, U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts. After the clerkship, she practiced law at Sidley Austin LLP and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Verna also has a background in research, which examines the intersection of race, gender, and class in law and policy. She has authored and co-authored many articles and essays on her area of expertise.
Among her other achievements, Verna has presented papers at meetings of the Association of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. She also served as a consultant for the Ford Foundation, where she chaired the convening of a national conference at UC entitled Women Coming Together: Claiming the Law for Social Change.
Verna received the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2004 and 2011. She was recently honored by the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati, the Black Lawyers Association of Cincinnati, and the Cincinnati Bar Association, which presented her with the Themis Award for exemplary service to the law and the community.
Verna is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and Georgetown University.
Nicki is the Senior eDisclosure/eData Manager for Travers Smith.
Her current role allows her engagement with clients, internal teams and third party providers. She has spoken on panels regarding artificial intelligence and machine learning at conferences such as the Nuix Insider Conference, Women in eDiscovery and the eDiscovery forum.
Nicki is the head of the inhouse resource supporting the Travers Smith teams specialising in the technology of eDisclosure with the focus on project management, client and internal support, training and technical difficulties.
Nicki and the eDisclosure team supports the Dispute Resolution team on litigations, the Employment and Commercial, IP and Technology teams on tribunal based and Subject Access Request (SAR) disclosures; aligning the technology, appropriate workflow and guidance throughout the matter. She further assists the Competition Practice with disclosure to regulators and technical questions.
Nicki has worked on a number of regulatory cases, large financial investigations, internal investigations, and assisted government bodies with review of documents, subject access requests and technology focussed matters including Artificial Intelligence, neural translation and cloud storage.
Nicki is a regular speaker and panellist for technology awareness sessions; her audiences have included that of the Judicial college discussing eDisclosure in England and Wales alongside the technology used to support the process and long-term implications associated with expanding data volumes. She is also one of the founding members of the Association of Certified eDiscovery Specialists (ACEDS) and this not-for-profit role allows her to support the niche industry of forensic technology and eDisclosure with educational seminars, documents and training. She is also a member of the ILTA Special Interest Working Group for Litigation Support and eDiscovery of which created the ‘eDisclosure Exchange Protocol’, a document used industry wide.
Michelle Beer is a Manager on Everlaw’s User Education team. In her role, she designs learning experiences and resources for Everlaw’s users and has led virtual and in-person training series. She’s passionate about helping users from the legal, government, and corporate organizations get the most out of Everlaw’s platform. Prior to joining Everlaw, Michelle was an adjunct professor in history and published author.
Max Christoff is Everlaw’s Chief Technology Officer, where he leads the company’s technology strategy and engineering execution as Everlaw scales its AI-powered investigation and litigation platform. He brings 25+ years of engineering leadership experience, including 14 years at Google — most recently leading engineering for Chrome — and earlier work helping launch Google Wallet/Pay, with additional leadership experience at Morgan Stanley.
Aden Daniel is a User Education Specialist at Everlaw, based in our Washington, D.C. office, where she helps legal professionals and investigators get hands-on with Everlaw through live training, workshops, and interactive programs.
Pauline Day is Director of Product, where she leads Everlaw’s product management function. She is committed to delivering a product experience that both transforms workflows and make everyday work more efficient and delightful for users.
Lillie is a User Education Specialist at Everlaw with a master’s degree in education and a background in teaching. She loves creating an environment where learning is personalized and enjoyable, and where users feel comfortable asking questions, engaging with the material, and building confidence using Everlaw. When she isn’t in the office, you can find Lillie reading, writing, and spending time with her dog, Sadie.
Lexie is a User Education Specialist at Everlaw, where she creates informative and engaging learning experiences to help users feel comfortable working in the platform. She tailors her approach to education around real-world legal workflows and pain points, ensuring new tools feel intuitive and approachable. Before Everlaw, Lexie advised legal teams as a litigation consultant and taught undergraduate forensic psychology.
Alyssa is a dedicated User Education Manager at Everlaw, where she loves empowering users to feel at ease and confident with the platform. Before diving into the world of user education, Alyssa sharpened her skills as a Customer Support Specialist, gaining deep insights into what users truly need. When she’s not crafting engaging training sessions, Alyssa enjoys cozying up with her beloved cats or getting creative with her crochet projects.
Aaron Patton is a Sr. Solutions Architect at Everlaw, where he partners with customers and prospects to help ensure successful integration of Everlaw into legal workflows. A longtime ediscovery professional, Aaron also devotes his time to content creation, both ediscovery-related and not, as a screenwriter, ghostwriter, and as the persona behind Gates Dogfish, an ediscovery meme account.
Michael Sarich is the Veterans Affairs (VA) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Director and the Co-Chair of the Chief FOIA Officer’s Technology Committee.
The VA FOIA Program, a perennial top-5 FOIA program in the federal government, serves Veterans and requesters with nearly 1,000 team members across 12 time zones processing over 50,000 FOIA requests in FY23. Mike is leading an effort to modernize VA FOIA through the adoption of advanced technology, training enhancements and revised enterprise-wide staffing models.
As the Co-Chair of the Chief FOIA Officer’s Technology Committee, Mike has led and co-authored numerous white papers and presented on topics related to FOIA and technology to thousands of individuals. Of note, the Technology Committee led the FOIA Tech Showcase in 2022 bringing industry and FOIA professionals together for the first time to showcase both program needs and industry capabilities.
Prior to directing the VA FOIA Office, Mike was charged with leading Veteran Health Administration’s FOIA program, the program won multiple awards from the Department of Justice for tech advances and for reducing the VHA FOIA backlog by over 90% in just 14 months. In addition, Mike has served in FOIA leadership roles at the Social Security Administration and the Bureau of Land Management.
Mike’s a licensed attorney and a class of 2011 Presidential Management Fellow, he’s worked in the Irish Parliament, was elected to three terms on his hometown’s City Council and continues to be active in his community. Mike is also a United States Army Veteran who served in Korea, Germany, Texas, and Maryland. He lives in Laurel, Maryland and is raising two boys alongside his amazing wife, Angela.
Margot is a User Education Specialist and started with Everlaw in 2017. Prior to joining the User Education team, Margot was focused on enabling Everlaw’s customer-facing employees to deliver outstanding customer service. She’s excited to apply her enablement expertise and product knowledge towards creating effective and engaging learning experiences for Everlaw users!
Carrie is a User Education Specialist with a background in Educational Publishing. Carrie combines their knowledge of instructional experience design with platform prowess to create engaging learning opportunities for Everlaw users of all levels. Outside of Everlaw, Carrie enjoys developing recipes, rockclimbing, and taking their dog for walks along the beach.
Kayla Teese is a User Education Manager at Everlaw. She’s passionate about witnessing the “lightbulb moment" in training sessions when users say “Oh, that’s how you do it?! That’s going to make my job so much easier!” Before Everlaw, you could find Kayla in a classroom in San Francisco teaching literature and history to teenagers.
Cal Yeaman recently joined Everlaw as a Senior Strategic AI Advisor, helping clients effectively and responsibly implement AI into their litigation and investigations workflow. Previously, Cal Yeaman worked as a Project Attorney in Orrick Analytics where he led an interdisciplinary litigation support team that focused on the intersection of law, technology and data.