Introducing the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference Keynote Speakers

If you’re attending your first Clio Cloud Conference this year, you’re in for a treat. And if you’ve attended before, whether in-person or virtual, we think you’ll find the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference the best one yet. Each year, the best and brightest professionals in legal (and beyond) take the Clio Cloud Conference stage, sharing their unique perspectives and insights to propel the legal industry forward. Thousands of legal professionals attend the Clio Cloud Conference each year, and this video will show you why:

Bob Ambrogi from LawSites even declared the Clio Cloud Conference as “the best virtual conference the legal industry has seen so far.” 

This year, the Clio Cloud Conference will focus on providing legal professionals like you with actionable skills to set you apart from your competitors, so you can drive new levels of success for your practice, career, and clients now and in the future.

Let’s dive into who the 2021 keynote speakers are, followed by the session speakers. If you haven’t gotten your Clio Cloud Conference pass yet, you can register now. 

Arianna Huffington

We’re excited to have Arianna Huffington as a keynote speaker at the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference. As Founder and CEO of Thrive Global—a behaviour-change technology company on a mission to change the way we work and live—and one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people, Arianna wants you to consider a different, more sustainable, approach to success. 

Arianna’s keynote will focus on how prioritizing mental health can improve your firm’s bottom line. Drawing on captivating personal anecdotes and mounting scientific evidence, Arianna will share: 

• How prioritizing employees’ well-being can increase your firm’s productivity
• Why redefining “success” will help you rediscover joy in your work and your life
• Ways to establish boundaries to ensure a sustainable career in the legal industry

We hope Arianna’s keynote will help you and your team find a sustainable work-life rhythm.

Find out more about Arianna and what to expect at her keynote at the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference.

Ian Manuel

We’re honored to have Ian Manuel—a survivor of excessive child punishment, author, and criminal justice reform advocate—keynote at the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference. Ian’s work focuses on advocating for change and reimagining the criminal justice system. 

At 13 years old, Ian Manuel was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He spent 18 consecutive years of a 26-year sentence in isolation. No one expected him to lead the fight to end juvenile solitary confinement. 

As a fierce advocate for criminal justice reform with a heavy emphasis on rehabilitation over retribution, Ian will share: 

• The harrowing injustices of solitary confinement, especially for children.
• The disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on young people of color.
• The need for added support for those reintegrating into society post-incarceration.
• Ian’s story will serve as a powerful reminder that we have the power—with our choices, our actions, and our words—to incite change.

You can listen to (or read about) Ian discussing his new memoir about his incarceration at a young age with NPR. You can also find out more about Ian Manuel and what to expect at his keynote at the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference.

Scott Stratten

Best-selling author, award-winning speaker, and social media marketing expert—Scott Stratten‘s keynote will teach you proven tactics to market your firm like an expert. 

The ability to build relationships and stand out in a saturated market is the key to growing your legal practice. But in reality, it’s a lot more challenging to successfully set your law firm apart from your competitors. As an expert in viral, social, and authentic marketing, Scott will share:

• Proven tactics to consistently attract more clients in a hybrid legal environment.
• Effective innovations to build trust and make you the logical choice to potential clients.
• Practical tools to help you amplify your services and stay in front of your desired audience.

Find out more about Scott Stratten and what to expect at his keynote at the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference.

Jack Newton

CEO and Founder of Clio, Jack Newton will give the opening conference keynote at the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference. Jack will address the state of the legal industry today, and paint a picture for where we’re headed. 

A pioneer in cloud-based legal technology, Jack Newton has spearheaded efforts to educate the legal community on the security, ethics, and privacy issues surrounding cloud computing, and has become a nationally recognized author and speaker on these topics. Jack’s tremendous vision has already made a deep impact on one of the world’s oldest professions. He’s been recognized with some of the highest honours in the business world, including Canada’s Most Admired CEO by Waterstone Human Capital, EY’s Entrepreneur Of The Year award, and BIV’s Forty under 40. Recently, Jack was awarded Person of the Year at BC Tech Association’s 2020 Technology Impact Awards. 

In addition, Jack is the author of The Client-Centered Law Firm,  a #1 bestseller that’s helping law firms thrive in today’s experience-driven era. He’s also the host of Matters, a podcast dedicated to conversations with legal professionals, industry leaders, and subject matter experts about the future of law.

In his opening keynote, Jack Newton will address:

• The industry changes we’re seeing across legal, and what your firm needs to know to thrive 
• Our 2021 Legal Trends Report, including first looks and insights into what they mean for your practice.
• Key Clio product announcements and where we’re headed

Find out more about Jack Newton and what to expect at his keynote at the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference. You can also catch highlights from Jack’s keynote at the 2020 Clio Cloud Conference.

Clio Cloud Conference 2021 Session Speakers

Christy Granieri

Christy Granieri is a founding partner of Freeburg & Granieri, APC, based in Pasadena, California, which specializes in employment, injury, and business litigation. Christy and her law partner founded Freeburg & Granieri, APC in February 2021 and had their firm up and running within the same month by using Clio as its practice management software. By using Clio and its integration partners, Christy was able to start a cloud-based law firm with minimal startup capital, reduced operating costs, and streamlined processes that created immediate profitability and growth.

Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin is co-founder and CEO of audience research startup SparkToro. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his writing, speaking, startups, and his book, Lost and Founder. When Rand’s not working, he’s usually cooking a fancy meal for the love of his life, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you bribe him with great pasta or great cocktails, he’ll spill big tech’s dark secrets.

David Lat

David Lat is a lawyer turned writer. He publishes Original Jurisdiction, a newsletter on Substack about law and legal affairs, and he writes for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Prior to launching Original Jurisdiction, David founded Above the Law, one of the nation’s most widely read legal news websites, and Underneath Their Robes, a popular blog about federal judges that he wrote under a pseudonym. He is also the author of a novel set in the world of the federal courts, Supreme Ambitions. 

Before entering the media world, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. David graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Rebecca Sandefur

Rebecca L. Sandefur is a professor at the Arizona State University and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. Rebecca investigates access to civil justice from every angle—from how legal services are delivered and consumed, how civil legal aid is organized around the nation, the role of pro bono, the relative efficacy of lawyers, nonlawyers, and digital tools as advisers and representatives, to how ordinary people think about their justice problems and try to resolve them. In addition to her appointment at ASU, Sandefur is Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. This is where she founded and leads the Access to Justice Research Initiative.  

Her public service includes her appointment by the Supreme Court of Utah to the state’s Office of Legal Services Innovation, her role as Co-Vice Chair of California’s Closing the Justice Gap Working Group, and her appointment by the Supreme Court of Arizona to the Arizona Commission on Access to Justice. 

In 2013, Sandefur was The Hague Visiting Chair in the Rule of Law. In 2015, she was named Champion of Justice by the National Center for Access to Justice. In 2018, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on inequality and access to justice. She is currently Editor of Law & Society Review.  

Sonia Lakhany

Sonia Lakhany is the founder of Lakhany Law, PC and focuses her practice on counseling business owners on how to protect their business names, logos, and tag lines through trademark registrations. In addition to her law practice, Sonia also teaches courses to other attorneys on practicing trademark law, marketing, and working smarter, not harder. Over the course of her career, Sonia has helped numerous startups and small-to-medium-sized businesses secure trademark protection for their brands.

She is considered a national expert in her field, as her work has been recognized and featured by numerous media outlets such as Bloomberg, Entrepreneur Magazine, Glamour Magazine, Business News Daily, and CBS. 

Allen Rodriguez

Allen Rodriguez is the founder of ONE400 and a legal product development and automation expert who has been serving the legal industry for over 20 years. Over the course of his career, Allen has built a reputation for creating innovative legal services products as well as developing highly effective, client-centered law firm experiences.  Allen is a valued speaker on law products, client-user experience, and law firm automation. He has provided consulting and marketing services for companies such as McKinsey & Co., LegalZoom, LexisNexis, Littler, and many small firms.

Prior to founding ONE400, Allen was the Director of Attorney Services at LegalZoom. While there, his work contributed to a substantial portion of overall revenue at the company and helped LegalZoom move from a provider of “do-it-yourself” legal services to a comprehensive legal solutions provider, incorporating attorney-fulfilled work across all U.S. jurisdictions.  Allen’s immersion in the legal industry began while running operations at the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Lawyer Referral Service. While there, his marketing knowledge, operational developments, and leadership helped generate millions of dollars in revenue for the association.

John Strohmeyer

John Strohmeyer is the proprietor of Strohmeyer Law PLLC in Houston where he guides individuals through the maze of estate planning, tax and probate law to help them leave no unfinished business. In addition, John is board-certified in both Tax Law and Estate Planning and Probate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. John is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC).

John hosts the Five Star Counsel podcast, which attempts to answer the question “What would a law firm built by the founders of Disney, Four Seasons, Amazon, and Zappos look like?” When he’s not practicing law, he spends his time with his wife Emily and their rescued mutts Griswold, Molly, and Billy; runs marathons (44 as of March 1, 2021); and homebrews beer.

Katy Goshtasbi, JD

Katy Goshtasbi is a growth, change and branding expert and founder of Puris Consulting. She works with law firms, lawyers, and organizations on growing, in size and profits, by mastering change and developing brands that get their message out effectively. The results include happier, more productive lawyers, reduced stress, attracting better clients, and more revenues. Katy practiced securities law for 14 years and was a federal lobbyist in Washington, D.C., Investment Counsel at the SEC in D.C., at a major law firm, and in-house. Recently, Katy chaired the ABA Law Practice Division in 2018-2019 and has written two books on her subject matter expertise. She lives with her family in San Diego and travels globally keynoting, consulting and training.

Listen to Katy Goshtasbi on Episode 9 of Daily Matters as she discusses the importance of mindset in a crisis and how to reframe the challenges in a crisis as opportunity. Katy also discusses lessons she learned in childhood adversity, building a brand through vulnerability, and how lawyers can connect authentically with their clients (and themselves).

Jae Um

Jae is a strategy executive, insights analyst and business designer for fast-changing legal markets, with over a decade of industry experience.  She is the founder and Executive Director of Six Parsecs, an insights firm for the legal vertical.  After a progression of high-impact roles in client service innovation and strategic growth at Seyfarth Shaw, Jae served as the Director of Pricing Strategy for Baker McKenzie worldwide.  In addition to strategic consulting for law firms, Jae serves as advisor to legal tech startups, including Datana, LexFusion, LegalMation, New Era ADR, and Reynen Court.  She is also a contributing author to Legal Evolution, American Lawyer, and other publications covering the legal industry.

Melanie Leonard

Melanie Leonard is the founder of streamlined.legal. As a young lawyer working in large law firms in downtown Chicago, Melanie was horrified by the stacks of paper that coated the desks of her colleagues. In 2006, Melanie started her own firm, driven by a single guiding principle: No Paper Allowed. To achieve that lofty goal, she searched for a cloud-based practice management software up to the task. In 2008, Melanie discovered the newly-launched Clio and became one of the first lawyers to deeply integrate the software into every facet of her firm.

Over the next 10 years, Melanie built a thriving real estate law practice and successfully kept her desk free of paper. She then sold that practice in 2018 and began streamlined.legal where she now helps other small law firms create efficiency in their daily workflows and optimize their use of practice management software. Melanie resides in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and their two children.

Get excited for the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference

We hope learning about our keynote and session speakers gets you excited about attending the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference. If you haven’t gotten your passes yet, you can register now. And if you’ve never attended a virtual legal conference and aren’t sure what to expect, we’ve put together a guide on what to expect at a virtual legal conference. 

There are many benefits to attending a virtual legal conference. You’ll spend less on a conference pass but will still get to enjoy networking opportunities, even though they may be online. Virtual conferences like the Clio Cloud Conference are also usually shorter, so you don’t have to commit several full days to attending, compared to an in-person conference. You also don’t have to spend money travelling or on accommodations. You’ll even get a chance to connect with some speakers at the Clio Cloud Conference! 

You’ll love this year’s virtual conference as you can get insights to power your firm’s success. The best part is that you can join the conference from anywhere you are. You’ll gain skills to drive your legal practice forward, and you’ll get daily opportunities to refresh and recharge. You can expect legendary online social events, including entertainment from GRAMMY award-winning musicians, a celebrity magician performance, even yoga and internal training.

We published this blog post in October 2021. Last updated: June 27, 2023.

Categorized in: Clio