Tearing up the legal rulebook with Tom Fleuriot
Welcome to our Legal Disruptors Spotlight series, where weat Summize, dive into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
For this spotlight episode, we sat down with Tom Fleuriot, legal professional, founder of legal ops consultancy Flocsam, and a sharp legal mind who’s not afraid to tear up therulebook.
From his early career at Babcock and Reckitt Benckiser to launching Flocsam, Tom has shown that legal impact doesn’t come from following tradition, it comes from bold, tacticalexecution. His philosophy? Forget lengthy roadmaps and instead go narrow, go deep, and act quickly.
In this episode, Tom shares why technology should be treated as an enabler, not a silver bullet, and why combining data with human judgment is what makes good lawyering.
Listen to how Tom is challenging lawyers to rethink their approach, simplify their role, and embrace disruption through focus, clarity, and fast action.
If you would like to read Tom’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlightstories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors report,drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals.
Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions to empower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
This is Legal Disruptors!
Welcome to our Legal Disruptors Spotlight series, where weat Summize, dive into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
For this spotlight episode, we sat down with Claire Sanders, former General Counsel and founder of Being Human.
Claire’s legal career took her to the top, serving as GC for brands such as Huel, Brompton Bicycle and Nintendo. But even at the height of her career, she saw that manyhigh-performing lawyers, herself included, were struggling under the pressure to always have the right answer. That realization led her to create Being Human, a consultancy helping lawyers develop the human skills they need to perform sustainably and thrive.
In this episode, Claire shares why true disruption in legal isn’t about speed or perfection, it’s about giving yourself permission to pause. She explains how building resilience,protecting time for focus, embracing wellbeing, and letting technology handle routine tasks can free lawyers to do their best work.
Listen to how Claire is challenging the myth of the all-knowing lawyer and showing the profession thatbeing well is the best way forward.
If you would like to read Claire’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlightstories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors report,drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals. Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions toempower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
Welcome to this episode of our Legal Disruptors Spotlight series, where we at Summize, dive into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
For this spotlight episode, we sat down with Patti Barnard, seasoned legal and compliance C-suite executive and now a fractional General Counsel.
Patti studied law with the ambition of becoming a State Prosecutor, but her career path shifted when she joined CoAdvantage as Associate Counsel. After CoAdvantage was acquired by PlanSource, she moved with the business and later returned as interim GC, a role that would become permanent and transform into more than a decade of leadership, impact, and business-first legal success.
Throughout her career, Patti has shown how legal teams can shift from cost centers to powerful drivers of revenue and growth. She shares the four key lessons that defined her success: understand your business, buddy up with sales, write everything down, and make the business pay attention. In this episode, she is joined by Summize’s Head of Content, Rebecca Wood.
Listen to how Patti built a disruptive legal team, the importance of visibility and business alignment, and how CLM and AI tools enable her to leave lasting impact wherever she goes.
If you would like to read Patti’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlight stories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors report, drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals. Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions to empower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
This is Legal Disruptors!
Welcome to the fifth episode in our new Legal Disruptors Spotlight series, where we at Summize, dive into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
For this spotlight episode, we sat down with René Jovel, Deputy General Counsel & Director of Legal Operations at Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin, Inc.
René Jovel's legal journey started from a place of purpose, justice, and representation. It's his path that makes him one of our Legal Disruptors and an inspiration for legal professionals looking to challenge the norm of what purposeful legal work looks like.
Listen to how René’s personal experiences inspired him to become a lawyer dedicated to supporting underserved communities and hear his advice on the importance of knowing your business, investing in your personal brand and staying curious. In this episode, he is joined by Summize’s Senior Director of Sales, Harvey Trimble.
If you would like to read René’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlightstories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors 2025 report,drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals. Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions to empower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
This is Legal Disruptors!
Welcome to the fourth episode of Legal Disruptors Spotlight series, where we at Summize, dive into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
For this spotlight episode, we are proving how disruption doesn't always require loud voices. Sheila Murphy, former VP and Associate GC, and now founder of Focus Forward Consulting - legal consultancy helping legal professionals break through stagnation to see what is possible - proves introverts can drive legal change with empathy, strategy, and quiet strength.
Find out how in our latest Legal Disruptors Spotlights story, where Summize's Head of Content Rebecca Wood, chats to Sheila to learn from her career experience and her human-first approach to getting ahead and working towards becoming a key legal leader.
If you would like to read Sheila’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlight stories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors report, drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals. Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions to empower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
This is Legal Disruptors!
Welcome to the third episode in our new Legal Disruptors Spotlight series, where we at Summize, dive into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
For this spotlight episode, we sat down with Giovanna O’Malley, Founder of Contracts By Color, a legal consultancy created to help businesses in the US and EMEA problem solve through better contract processes.
Giovanna’s career demonstrates how embracing collaboration and bringing creativity to the legal field can set someone apart in an industry not often known for its creative flair.
Take a listen to learn about Giovanna's experience, how she has created a career with key mentors and connections, her disruption through collaboration, and her advice on how technology can further enable legal collaboration. In this episode, she is joined by Summize's Account Executive Toby McKenna.
If you would like to read Giovanna’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlight stories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors report, drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals. Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions to empower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
This is Legal Disruptors!
Welcome to the second episode in our new Legal Disruptors Spotlight series, where we at Summize, dive into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
For this spotlight episode, we sat down with Kate Tyers, Global Legal Director, mentor and conference speaker, to learn more about what makes Kate disruptive and how in-house legal teams can learn from her career and progression.
Kate is a self-professed “outdated Legal Sector Norms Challenger”, therefore she has lots of advice for legal teams who also want to disrupt and change the perception of the legal role in 2025.
Take a listen to learn about Kate's experience, her path to curiosity, how she has challenged and questioned the norm, and how she made innovation work for herself and her legal team. In this episode she is joined by Summize's Account Executive Jamie Travis, who gets to know Kate’s story.
If you would like to read Kate’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlight stories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors report, drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals. Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions to empower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
This is Legal Disruptors!
Welcome to the new Legal Disruptors Spotlight series for 2025, where we at Summize, are diving into the careers and journeys of the legal professionals who have carved their own path.
To kick off the series, we sat down with Carly Duvall le Riche, General Counsel at Cariloop and a legal expert who is not afraid to redefine the traditional legal career. Throughout her legal profession, she has shown continuous ambition to challenge the status quo and show the true value of the legal department.
Take a listen to learn about Carly's experience, her early signs of legal disruption, her advice on how to challenge the status quo, and her top tips for legal teams who are ready to disrupt change. In this episode she is joined by Summize's Head of Enterprise Sales Olly Atkins, who gets to know Carly’s story.
If you would like to read Carly’s full story, take a look here.
If you would like to learn more about all our Spotlight stories and findings, explore our Legal Disruptors report, drawing on the results from 200+ surveyed legal professionals. Our report combines industry perspectives, expert responses and actionable solutions to empower legal teams to embrace change and take a more strategic approach.
This is Legal Disruptors!
Implementation can be one of the biggest challenges of any legal tech adoption and is often why many people are put off buying a legal tech solution.
Marie Widmer is an experienced Legal Ops professional Through her experience, she has developed a passion for implementation and ensuring this is done correctly and efficiently to maximize the benefits.
In this episode, we talk with Marie about her experience as a legal ops professional, how to ensure a successful implementation of any legal technology and get buy-in from the wider business when purchasing.
This is Legal Disruptors 2023.
In today's episode we are chatting with Jonathan Keen, Director of Legal at Figma. Having started his career in a law firm before making the move in-house for several US-based tech companies, Jonathan was the first non-US legal professional in several organizations. From there, he has helped enable companies’ rapid growth into Europe and beyond, growing a team around him.
In this episode, we will be discussing growing in-house legal teams within fast-growth tech companies, the challenges that come with it and how working with a CLM solution has helped automate lower-value tasks to make room to focus on more strategic work.
This is Legal Disruptors 2023.
From supporting the digital transformation of customers to in-house legal ops, there’s no one who understands the digital transformation gap between legal and other departments within the business as Sarah does. Sarah started out working in the GTM team at PTC, before transitioning into the first ever legal ops role at PTC.
In this episode, Sarah will discuss the difference in attitude towards automation within legal teams compared to other departments, what it's like building a business case for technology at a global company like PTC, and what the team hope to achieve through partnering with Summize.
This is Legal Disruptors 2023.
Collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Slack have become part of the day-to-day operations of many businesses. With the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerating the adoption of collaboration tools, more and more companies now look to adopt other technology to integrate with these systems to avoid learning entirely new software.
In this episode, we chat with Phil Simon, future of work guru and author of multiple books including ‘Reimagining Collaboration’, on the importance of embracing collaboration tools within the workplace, how best to use them and how other technology that integrates with tools such as Teams and Slack can further benefit businesses.
This is Legal Disruptors 2023.
In this episode of Summize’s ‘In Conversation With...’ series, we are joined by Brandon Tatum, music/entertainment executive and international legal counsel. Brandon has had a successful career working within large law firm practice groups, within in-house legal departments, and as private outside counsel for several high-profile traditional and Web3 music and entertainment companies across the globe.
Brandon has also experienced first-hand the challenges surrounding contracts and the benefits implementing a CLM solution can bring to an organization. In this episode, Brandon will be sharing how to cut above the noise and choose the right CLM solution for you and his top tips to ensure a successful CLM implementation.
This is Legal Disruptors 2023.
Larry Lueck and Susan Roberts are part of the in-house legal team at Nsight, a leading telecommunications provider based in North-East America. Larry joined the team as In-House Counsel in 2001, before Susan joined the team in 2016.
The pair have extensive experience working with several CLM providers before becoming Summize customers in 2023. In this episode, we talk about how they chose the right CLM solution for them, what has gone wrong in the past and the benefits they have seen using Summize.
This is Legal Disruptors 2023.
The latest in the world of Legal Tech, AI and business.
On this episode's trendsetter talk. Bjarne Tellmann is the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Member of the Executive of Haleon, the world’s largest consumer healthcare business.
The company, JV between GSK and Pfizer, is set to de-merge and list on the London and New York stock exchange in July 2022 in what will be the largest spin-off and listing in modern UK history. Bjarne was previously CLO, General Counsel and member of the Executive at Pearson, a FTSE 100 company. He has received numerous professional awards, including Chamber’s GC Influencers Global 100 Award in 2019, Legal Era’s 2018 “General Counsel of the Year” at The British Legal Awards.
A regular writer on leadership, disruption and digital transformation, his book Building an Outstanding Legal Team: Battle-Tested Strategies from a General Counsel came out in May 2017 and a forthcoming law review article on digital transformation is being published in volume 17 of the Journal of Business and Technology Law by the University of Maryland. We were very happy to chat to him regarding his unique approach to building an in-house legal team.
THIS IS LEGAL DISRUPTORS
The latest in the world of Legal Tech, AI and business.
TAKING DIVERSITY SERIOUSLY:
Being more diverse makes for more profitable and resilient organizations. Survey after survey has shown. Yet still, some people across multiple sectors are resistant to the changes needed and the benefits that flow from them.
In this episode, we focus on another way people are being disruptive in the legal technology sector.
This episode includes a chat between KATIE PASSLEY (SENIOR SOLICITOR AT EY, INSTITUTE OF DIRECTORS DEI AMBASSADOR) & STEVEN JOHN (DEI LEAD AT SUMMIZE AND HEAD OF CUSTOMER SUCCESS). As well as the lived experience of Katie as a mum of three dual ethnicity children and a senior woman in law, we hear the perspective of Steven as an openly gay black man. Katie tells of her struggles dealing with educators and the time her family was subjected to a terrifying racially motivated attack.
This is a must listen to for any organization taking DEI seriously at a time employees and customers are looking closely at this.
The latest in the word of legal tech, AI and business.
This week we look at the latest UK legal technology event. Tech Play day featured some big name speakers and the latest legal tech, we report back from the London event including a speech from Cavan Fabris, the recently appointed partner for data privacy, cyber security and telecoms at Deloitte Legal. Cavan was previously an economic and commercial diplomat for the US Department of State, and also held an in-house legal counsel role with Apple.
Also a chat on lessons in procurement of legal tech with Ben Audley (CRO of Summize and formerly founder and CEO of cyber security firm PurplePhish) and Magnus Lindberg (currently with JOHOC and formerly consultant on legal tech implementation at HSBC and Sky). Anyone involved in rolling out a complex technology within an organization should take a listen to these expert tips.
This is Legal Disruptors.
WATCH THIS EPISODE IN FULL VIDEO EXCLUSIVELY ON SPOTIFY
Legal is a complex sector that understandably has been slower to take on the digital changes seen in other industries and corporate departments. But, with the rise in tech solutions accelerated by the pandemic, more in-house legal teams and forward-thinking firms are taking a more innovative approach to make contracts more streamlined, accessible and valuable to the enterprise.
In their latest virtual discussion on the 28 April 2022, Summize partnered with Artificial Lawyer to explore how a group of panellists, including Tom Dunlop, Vanessa Challess, and Electra Japonas, and their connections, are doing things differently in legal.
Our panel of experts, chaired by Artificial Lawyer founder, Richard Tromans, provide crucial tips and guidance for bringing innovation and digital contracting to your own department or firm, based on the work they’ve done within their own teams.
This is Legal Disruptors.
The latest in the world of legal technology, business and AI.
On this episode Rosie Burbidge a specialist IP lawyer and partner at Gunnercooke chats to the CTO of Summize Richard Somerfield about trends in IP and Patent law and how they both feel about the new Hybrid working future.
This is Legal Disruptors.
The latest from the world of legal and technology including the findings of a report into home working in the legal sector in the UK and US. Electra Japonas (CEO and founder of The Law Boutique) and Tom Dunlop (CEO and founder of Summize) are in conversation and we hear about the impact of the metaverse on the legal industry.
This is Legal Disruptors.