Tom Blanford of Your Law Firms CFO, delivers strategic finance projects to law firms to make them better and has been doing it for nearly twenty years. He is based primarily in Yorkshire but has some national and international clients. His only area of focus is law firms. His start point is data-driven internal budgeting, forecasting, and result monitoring then using that to partner with the board and drive business performance. He trained originally with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in their Professional Practices team working with large firms like DLA Piper and Ince. More recently he was a partner in Armstrong Watson’s specialist Legal Sector team where he worked exclusively with legal clients and with hundreds of law firms. Tom was the lead partner for over 50 different firms – from large to small, niche to the high street and from distressed to cash rich.
Lisa Bolton is the Practise Manager at Peter Edwards Law.
Sarah Keegan qualified as a Solicitor in 1996 and has over 20 years’ experience as a property lawyer. She ran one of the biggest residential property departments in the country and co-founded The CS Partnership in 2012 with the mission to help law firms modernise and change the way that they deliver their services. Sarah focuses on the risk and compliance behaviours in her work, in particular, finding ways to ensure her client firms are compliant and safe on every transaction. She also focuses on helping firms ensure that they are CQS compliant.
Tom Lyes is the Head of Legal at one of the UK’s leading fintech companies, Armalytix. With 10 years experience in Residential Conveyancing at a top 20 Law Firm and Lawyer Checker Tom joined Armalytix in October 21, with the aim of helping lawyers collect financial information safely and efficiently from clients using Open Banking and other smart technology.
Sue Mawdsley is a Partner at Keystone Law. Sue is a specialist regulatory lawyer with over 35 years of experience advising law firms and property professionals on regulatory issues. She has particular expertise in relation to anti-money laundering and other financial crime, as well as risk management, and claims prevention.
Judith Ratcliffe is a Privacy Professional, Conference Speaker and Author, who was Called to the Bar in 2010 by The Honourable Society of The Inner Temple (although she is not a fully-qualified barrister, as she hasn’t done pupillage) and also has financial crime prevention experience. Her missions include debunking compliance myths, integrating practical Privacy Compliance into every organisation’s every day activities and making the Law understandable for non-lawyers. She acts as Data Protection Officer, advises and guides organisations on compliance, rights request handling, and other related matters. Her first Privacy and Data Protection Book, Privacy and Data Protection in Your Pocket – Personal Data Breaches, https://www.waterstones.com/book/privacy-and-data-protection-in-your-pocket-personal-data-breaches/judith-ratcliffe/9781526209511 received a favourable review from The Law Society Gazette.
Brian Rogers is Regulatory Director at Access Legal, a division of the Access Group, which currently serves around 4,000 law firm clients. He is a regulation and compliance subject matter expert and uses this expertise in course content design, policy template content, regular webinars, and social media engagement. Brian has worked in and around the legal sector for 30 years, and was Chair of Regulatory Affairs at Manchester Law Society from 2010-2012.
