UK legal tech company Luminance has established a new advisory board aimed at accelerating AI adoption by BigLaw, with Slaughter and May senior partner Steve Cooke and Vodafone GC Rosemary Martin part of the heavyweight line up.
Cooke and Martin will sit alongside Italian law firm Portolano Cavallo founding partner Manuela Cavallo and former chairman of the International Bar Association Technology Committee Vagn Thorup. The group will support the work of the Security Advisory Board led by former director general of MI5 Lord Evans of Weardale KCB.
‘In the spring we were having conversations with Vagn and he asked “how can I help? How can I get involved?” Luminance chief executive Emily Foges (pictured) told Legal Business. ‘It originally came from that and the idea of getting senior lawyers who understand what we do to help us navigate the challenges ahead seemed like a great idea.’
Commitments for the board members include meeting as a group twice a year, with each member providing two engagements per year. Potential engagements include speaking at conferences or providing written pieces promoting technology adoption throughout the profession.
Foges also revealed plans are in place to set up an equivalent board in the US, where Luminance has been ramping up its presence following a $10m investment round earlier this year. The company also aims to create a board in the APAC region.
‘The board members are extremely busy people,’ Foges continued. ‘To be workable it has to be a close-knit group, we want them to be within a two-hour flight of one another.’
Meanwhile, legal tech services automation platform Reynen Court also received senior backing, with former Morgan Stanley lawyer and current deputy general counsel at Bridgewater Associates, Sylvia Khatcherian, joining its board of directors.
The addition of Khatcherian will be a boost for Reynen Court as the company looks to make good on its ambitions to create a platform to increase the uptake of technology in law. Currently the start-up is backed by Clifford Chance; Linklaters; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Latham & Watkins among others.