2022 Legal Innovation Conference

Teruel Carrasco

Investor, Speaker, Growth Strategist, SaaS Innovator, Board Advisor, Start-Up Mentor, Chief Revenue Officer, CEO

Currently CEO of Lending Assist – Recently acquired Legal Technology Company and Vice President of Entrepreneur Engagement with Valhalla Private Capital.

Teruel is a co-founder at Radar Endeavour Group Inc. private equity firm based in Edmonton. He also sits on the advisory board of ez enRoute IOT, serves as an advisor to Aris MD and through Radar Endeavour Group works with G2V Optics, Copperstone Technologies and Lending Assist. He was an executive-in residence at NABI (Northern Alberta Business Incubator), participates in the VMS (Venture Mentoring Service) program part of the University of Alberta alumni association.

Teruel is a past CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) of dealcloser, a transaction management platform start-up of which his firm Radar Endeavour was an investor in.

He is currently CEO of Lending Assist, a commercial lending platform used by lawyers to facilitate commercial lending transactions.

Teruel brings strong start-up, enterprise sales, operational and general executive leadership experience that serves as a potent combination of skills for any emerging company. Combined with years of leadership coaching, leading and mentoring, Teruel is well rounded enough to bring a variety of strategies to the table.

Will Morrison

Will Morrison is the manager of the Access to Innovation project at the Law Society of Ontario. In prior policy roles at the Law Society, Will developed expertise in legal tech as well as a wide range of lawyer and paralegal regulation issues, and he was instrumental in developing the Access to Innovation project proposal. He has presented to legal regulators and innovators across North America about regulatory reform initiatives.

Will attended the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and was called to the bar as a lawyer in 2012. Prior to joining the Law Society, Will articled at the Constitutional Law Branch of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and practised litigation at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in Toronto.

Paul Paton

Dr. Paul D. Paton is recognized internationally as an expert on legal ethics, professional responsibility, the regulation of lawyers, legal education and corporate governance. He was Dean of Law at UAlberta between 2014-19 and served as Interim CEO of the Canadian Bar Association in 2021. He was appointed by the American Bar Association President to the ABA Standing Committee on Professional Regulation (2020-23), was Reporter to the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission, and was a member of the Arizona Supreme Court Working Group that drafted new rules to implement ABS and non-lawyer ownership in 2021 in that state. Dr. Paton holds a B.A. and LL.B. from the University of Toronto, an M.Phil in International Relations from Cambridge, and master’s and doctoral degrees in Law (JSM, JSD) from Stanford. Called to the bar in Ontario and Alberta, he practiced commercial litigation as an associate and partner with one of Canada’s leading firms, was in-house counsel to an international professional services firm, and served as Justice and Social Policy Advisor to the Premier of Ontario. He has been a professor and university administrator in both Canada and the United States. He is a four-time finalist in the Canadian Lawyer Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada, most recently in the “Changemaker” category in 2021. He was named Queen’s Counsel in Alberta in 2020.

Len Polsky

Len is originally from Montreal where he earned Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Civil Law and Bachelor of Common Law degrees from McGill University.

After graduating, he studied in The Hague and worked at a law firm in Geneva, Switzerland. When he returned to Canada, it was in Alberta that he put down his roots.

Len was in private practice for almost 30 years and was Managing Partner of his own litigation boutique firm where his practice focused on complex commercial litigation and employment law disputes.

The insight he developed serving as legal counsel gave him first-hand knowledge of the challenges and opportunities that practicing law presents and helped him understand the many ways that technology can level the playing field and improve the delivery of law.

Today he serves as the Law Society of Alberta’s Manager of Legal Technology & Mentorship. He is responsible for developing, implementing and managing the Law Society’s practice technology programs and is a member of the Innovating Regulation Group overseeing the rollout of the Law Society’s Innovation Sandbox project. He also established and directs the Mentor Connect, Mentor Express and Locum Connect programs for lawyers in Alberta.

Amir Reshef

Amir completed a combined JD/MBA degree at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law, in 2014. While working as a corporate lawyer, Amir noticed the inefficiencies of the deal closing process. Tracking versions, exchanging documents, ensuring every party signed every document properly and creating a closing book—lawyers did it all by hand. In 2017, Amir teamed up with co-founder Mike O’Connor to create dealcloser: an app that modernizes the deal closing process. Amir is currently the CEO of dealcloser and dealcloser has customers thoughout North America. Amir enjoys working out, trying new restaurants and listening to live music. He was also recently recognized by Edify as one of Edmonton’s Top 40 under 40.

Gillian Scott

Gillian Scott, Partner, Innovative Products, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. Gillian leads Osler's products business, and is focused on transforming the business of law to drive client-centric solutions. Her role includes building out Osler's overarching product strategy, as well as leading the market assessment, development, staffing, scaling, launch and sale of digitized product offerings. Current products in Osler's suite include Osler DashTM, Osler ACTionTM and Osler Capture. Gillian brings 15 years as a commercial litigator and litigation partner at Osler and three years in Client Development to her role, giving her a unique understanding of client challenges and business objectives. Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP is a national Canadian business law firm. Gillian is based in the firm's Toronto, Ontario office.

Kate Simpson

National Director of Knowledge & Practice Innovation.

Kate is responsible for knowledge management, library and practice innovation at Bennett Jones. Kate develops and implements the strategy and initiatives for the Knowledge & Information Services team to deliver practice tools and resources that leverage the firm's intellectual capital. Prior to Bennett Jones, Kate was a consultant to many Canadian, UK and global law firms advising them in the design and implementation of useful, usable and engaging KM solutions that benefited both the lawyers and their clients. Since the early 2000s Kate has been involved in the design, development and adoption by lawyers of enterprise search systems, content-rich knowledge collections and extranets, as well as innovative practice apps and technologies. The future of KM and LegalTech is chockablock-full of exciting opportunities and you'll be hard-pressed to shut Kate up about it – either through her regular scribbles or when she's asked to speak on such matters.

Jordan Titosky

Jordan is a current third year law student at the University of Alberta who is the Past Criminal Project Coordinator for Student Legal Services (SLS). Prior to law school he completed an undergraduate and masters degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked in this field with a number of different organizations and assisted in the development and implementation of project tracking and maintenance record databases. In his latest role with SLS Jordan led the implementation of legal tech tools from Clio in an effort to more efficiently provide legal services and increased access to SLS clients. Jordan hopes to share some insights gained through this experience with other student organizations and small to medium sized firms who are interested in adding legal tech to their practice.

Mike Zouhri

Michael Zouhri has spent nearly 20 years dedicated to social change, justice and entrepreneurship. He is a mission-driven Canadian whose work has honoured him with many accolades including top 20 under 30 and a medal from the Queen, among others. He is deeply community minded and regularly involves himself with projects that are interesting, creative, and advance the social good. In his youth he built and led charities to improve care and health outcomes from debilitating diseases, led organizations to improve social equality and advocated for restorative justice. He also built a major publication that, at its peak, reached over 60M readers per month and has led 3 different technology companies. He has filed 2 patents and sits on the investment committee for a private equity firm. He also occasionally participates in small angel investments.

In 2019, after being tragically struck by a drunk driver, Mike set his current sights on improving universal access to justice. His current venture, Painworth, has a narrow focus on using data science and technology to create a framework that improves access and outcomes for injury tort claims but will later grow that framework to improve other areas of the justice system. Painworth has already selflessly helped victims with over $100M in claims.

Mike received his degree from the University of Alberta where he studied neuroscience and began his passion for physics. He currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

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