Agenda

If AI is moving from augmentation to substitution, will organisations confront the consequences or sleepwalk into profound structural change?

In this opening keynote, we examine how AI is already reshaping professional work, narrowing career pathways, concentrating power and challenging long held assumptions about expertise and progression. Drawing on first-hand experience of working with law firms, we explore what this means for the sector: who gains, who loses, and whether efficiency alone is a sufficient organising principle for the future. A deliberately challenging session for leaders who must decide not just what AI can do but what it should do.

Technology investment in law firms is no longer an IT issue, it is a leadership and economic choice.

Firms are spending more than ever on AI, platforms, cyber security and data, yet many still struggle to define who truly owns the decisions, the trade offs and the outcomes, or to agree what “value” actually means.

In this Talking Heads faceoff, Managing Partners and IT Directors sit across the table to challenge a tension firms rarely address openly: leadership often delegates technology while expecting strategic impact, while IT is asked to deliver value without always having the authority, clarity or protection to make hard calls. The result is ambition without prioritisation and accountability that shifts depending on success or failure.

The session asks a blunt question: do firms genuinely want technology to be a strategic driver, with leadership prepared to own the consequences, or is IT expected to absorb risk, complexity and disappointment while rising technology spend quietly becomes a permanent cost centre rather than a strategic asset?

Our sponsors’ lightning-fast sessions will give attendees a snapshot of the latest legal tech tools designed specifically to support law firms in driving efficiency, innovation and client value.

• Thomson Reuters
• Harvey
• Morae

This is an exciting time to lead a law firm. With capital flowing, AI reshaping delivery, and bold moves across the market, the sector is in flux, creating a window of real choice, with multiple paths to growth for firms ready to act.

Wherever your firm is right now, testing ideas, making plans, or already mid-move, this is a chance to step back from the day-to-day and think seriously about your firm’s future and growth opportunities. Stress-test your thinking with peers and hear directly from leaders who’ve taken different routes, learned the hard way and are willing to share what worked, what didn’t, and what they’d never do again.

This session puts four routes on the table and asks you to engage with what each path really involves:

🔗 Acquisition & merger
Mark Briegal, Founding Partner, Bennett Briegal LLP

🏆 Sale / exit
Richard Cripps, Partner, Knights

🤝 Referral partnerships & joint ventures
Alex McPherson, Founder & Partner, ignition law

🌱 Organic growth
Alexandra Isenegger, Founder and Managing Director, Linkilaw Solicitors

Hear from law firm leaders who’ve been through it, then work through the realities yourself in practical, discussion-led groups.

How it works:

• Paths taken (20 mins) Each law firm leader will take to the stage to give a short, focused presentation outlining their chosen route, why they took it, and the key decisions behind it. Leaders share honest reflections on their choices, surprises along the way, and what they’d do differently now.
• Discussion groups (25 mins) Each law firm leader, representing a different route to growth, will facilitate a table discussion exploring their path in depth — what made it attractive, the hidden risks, and what success really looks like over what timeframe. Practical, experience-led and deliberately challenging.
• Room debrief (10 mins) Each table shares one insight that challenges assumptions.
• Vote with your feet (5 mins) Delegates take a stand on the path that feels right, moving to the part of the room representing the growth route that resonates most and reflecting on whether the session has shifted their thinking.

Our sponsors’ lightning-fast sessions will give attendees a snapshot of the latest legal tech tools designed specifically to support law firms in driving efficiency, innovation and client value.

• Thomson Reuters
• Harvey

Followed by Have your say: Industry Benchmarking sponsored by Thomson Reuters.
Delegates will be invited to answer a few short questions to help build an up-to-date picture of the industry and benchmark current priorities, challenges and progress.

During the networking lunch, a select group of exhibitors will each provide a 15-minute fast-paced short demonstration of their products and services.

Use event app Whova to book your seat in the Learning Lounge.

13:40-13:55 – Thomson Reuters
Built for legal, built for your stack: CoCounsel legal and the next generation of legal AI
For IT Directors in SME law firms, the pressure is familiar – lawyers want AI now, leadership wants ROI, and IT is left holding the responsibility for security, governance and making it all work without creating new risk. This session cuts through the noise with a demonstration of CoCounsel Legal, Thomson Reuters’ AI assistant built on verified legal content and designed to integrate with the tools SME firms already run. We’ll show how CoCounsel Legal surfaces directly inside Microsoft 365, how administrators maintain visibility and control over access and usage, and how the platform connects to existing practice management workflows – so lawyers get powerful AI assistance without IT inheriting a shadow technology problem. We’ll also look ahead at next-generation agentic capabilities and what they mean for firms building a technology stack that needs to last. If you’re evaluating legal AI and need to know it’s secure, governable and built to fit – not disrupt – this session is for you.
Presented by: Ryan Lin, Legal Technologist, Thomson Reuters

14:00-14:15 – Harvey
Harvey Product Demo
See how Harvey is reshaping legal work. This live demo shows how leading law firms use Harvey’s AI agents to move faster on drafting, research, and complex recurring tasks, cutting through manual work that used to take hours. Attendees will get a firsthand look at what’s driving adoption across 2,000+ customers in 60+ countries, and where agentic workflows are heading next in legal practice.
Presented by: Andrew Cottrell, Legal Engineer – Product Specialist, Harvey

14:20-14:35 – Morae
Know Your Data. Reduce Risk. Enable AI.
Most law firms are investing in AI. Far fewer know exactly what information their AI is accessing. The biggest carrier to AI success in law firms isn’t technology, it’s unmanaged information. Sensitive client data is no longer confined to core document management systems, it is spread across email, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, file shares and legacy repositories, creating compliance risk, security exposure and operational inefficiency. Morae helps firms regain control through a managed Information Governance approach that discovers, classifies and governs information across the entire digital estate and keeps it governed over time. By combining legal-sector expertise, governance frameworks and managed services, we help firms reduce risk, minimise the burden on internal IT, strengthen client confidentiality, improve operational efficiency and build the trusted information foundation required for compliant, confident AI adoption.
Presented by: Sam Harper, Manager, Solution Engineering, Morae

When a small firm loses one good person, the whole firm feels it; in client relationships, in capacity, in momentum.

Pay is rarely why people leave; they leave because the role has run out of room.

Small firms have an advantage they consistently underplay: you can build a role around the actual person: their capability; what they’re ready to take on, without committee or delay. Larger firms cannot move that quickly.

You’ll leave with practical ideas you can act on this quarter and a clearer view of where your firm’s key-person risk really lies.

Many smaller firms are either avoiding AI entirely or experimenting without a clear framework. Both carry risk. This session is a practical, no-jargon guide to using AI in a way that’s responsible, to regulators, to insurers and to your clients.

You’ll leave with a clear sense of what governance looks like without a dedicated IT or compliance team and how to document your decisions in language that holds up.

Peer to peer roundtables are 45 minute discussion groups.

Delegates choose one of three available topics, each facilitated by a leader who has been there and done it, growing a firm and sharing real, lived experience of what works and what doesn’t.

A hallmark of an Alternative Event, these roundtables are like group therapy for firm leaders. Small, confidential groups (following the Chatham House rule) create space for honest conversation, practical problem solving and shared experience.

You’ll leave with insights and takeaways from peers that you simply won’t get anywhere else, grounded in reality, not theory.

While our delegates join the sessions in the conference room, we have created something special for our vendor community.

16:25 – 16:35
Who’s in the room? Understanding today’s event audience
An overview of the Alternative Events registration data, tech budgets, sizes of firm and a general overview to the audience that we have created for you.
Discover why this data is crucial in aligning your product with the right firms.
Steve Parrott, Co-Founder & Director, Alternative Events  

16:35 – 17:05
How you earn attention, before you ask for it
This session is built to help you sell to law firms.
Today’s Alternative event gives vendors access to the right people; the real value comes from what you then do with the access. It is not enough to have a presence, stand and follow up afterwards. The opportunity is to become useful, trusted and remembered by the law firm buyers as they want to build relationships with you, the question is: are you ready?
This session will support you and ask the question: Where do you start if you want people to trust you before you sell to them?
Mark Masters, Founder, You Are The Media

The traditional IT team is no longer defined by infrastructure, tickets and technical ownership.

As cloud platforms, AI tools and legal tech point solutions become easier to buy, the value of IT sits in a different place: shaping the problem, governing the risk, enabling adoption, managing vendors, protecting data and proving client impact. The debate should ask whether today’s IT teams are evolving quickly enough or whether the old mindset has already made them obsolete.