Sally Gonzalez

Senior Consultant

Bio

Sally Gonzalez is recognized as a leading expert in knowledge management and strategic technology planning for the legal services industry. As a sought-after subject matter expert, legal organizations rely on Sally’s 30+ years of experience in strategic planning and implementing complex, knowledge and information-intensive solutions that require tight integration of policy, process, people, and technology. She brings her clients strong leadership, facilitation, analytical and advisory skills, combined with innovative thinking and practical implementation experience.

Sally’s clients include top-tier global and national law firms based in the US, UK, and Canada as well as the law departments of global Fortune 100 companies. She has also held top IT and KM leadership positions at global law firms including Dentons, Akin Gump, and Jones Day.

Sally is on the editorial board for Practice Innovations, is a frequent and well-respected speaker for industry and educational conferences, and has had numerous articles published in the legal trade press. She has also served on the judging panels for several legal industry awards, including the Managing Partner Forum’s Practice Management Awards and the Legal IT Awards.

Work Experience

KM Programme Manager – Norton Rose Fulbright
August 2014 – April 2016 | London, UK
Sally led a $6M, multi-year, global program to implement enterprise search connecting people to people and people to information globally. As part of this project, she worked with the General Counsels of all member firms to negotiate core principles governing information sharing and established unified, common taxonomies for classifying information. The project successfully reduced knowledge and IT spend by streamlining processes and systems, retiring obsolete systems, and avoiding forced consolidation of existing repositories.

Principal – Michael Farrell Group LTD
2013-2014 | Phoenix, Arizona
As an independent consultant, Sally delivered KM, legal process improvement, and IT strategy services to law firms and corporations. Significant engagements included:

  • For an AmLaw 100 firm, developing a strategy to leverage knowledge and technology resources to improve lawyer productivity and firm profitability.
  • For a leading US regional law firm, providing on-going strategic advice to align renovation of technology platform with strategic business objectives while also optimizing spending and appropriately leveraging external providers.

CIO for US and Asia/Pacific Regions — Dentons (formerly SNR Denton)
2012 – 2013 | Chicago, IL.
As CIO for three regions, Sally led SNR Denton’s IT planning, implementation, and operations during the final stages of the largest legal combination in history.

Senior Director – HBR Consulting (Formerly Hildebrandt Baker Robbins)
2008 – 2012 | New York, NY
Sally was one of two service line leaders responsible for strategic technology planning and benchmarking while also continuing her practice in the areas of legal process improvement, KM, e-mail management, and information management. Significant areas of focus included:

  • Assisting AmLaw 10 and Canadian Seven-Sister firms as well as Fortune 100 corporations in developing KM strategies, benchmarking KM services, and implementing strategic knowledge inititives.
  • Providing bespoke mentoring and coaching services to KM leaders in top AmLaw and Canadian firms.
  • Conducting IT balanced scorecard assessments for law firms using a proprietary methodology to mitigate risk, manage spending, improve IT systems and services and enhance lawyer and staff productivity.
  • Performing interim CIO services for top tier US law firms.

Director – Navigant Consulting, Inc.
2006 – 2008 | Washington, DC
Sally co-led the newly-formed Information Lifecycle Management practice helping corporations and law firms proactively manage knowledge, information and records to achieve litigation readiness, compliance, and operational efficiencies while also preserving and sharing institutional knowledge. In addition, she worked with Top-Tier law firms in US and Canada and a global pharmaceutical corporation to progress award-winning KM initiatives.

Shareholder – Baker Robbins & Company
2002 – 2006 | New York, NY
Sally expanded the firm’s KM practice and led KM engagements with Global 50, Magic Circle, and AmLaw100 firms. Significant engagements included:

  • Working with a Magic Circle firm for over three years to first create a KM strategy guiding its 300+ person KM organization and then leading implementation of high-priority strategic initiatives to renovate its know-how systems and realign the working practices and KM roles to improve quality, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of knowledge services. Implementation included the design and rollout of Athena, the firm’s award-winning knowledge delivery and content management system; development of a new, multi-lingual information architecture to align content from 56 legacy KM databases on silo’d technology platforms; and migration of all legacy content.
  • Working with the legal department of a global pharmaceutical corporation to develop a KM strategy supporting realignment of the legal function and then helping to implement a know-how system, enterprise search, and a portal to bind lawyers into a virtual law department.
  • Assisting an AmLaw 100 firm with development of its first KM strategy and one of the first law firm implementations of enterprise search.
  • Providing bespoke mentoring and coaching services to KM leaders in top AmLaw and Canadian firms.

Consultant – Hildebrandt International
2001 – 2001 | Washington, DC
Sally built trusted advisor relationships with key clients, providing on-going advice and counsel on building successful KM programs. She also served as a member of the faculty of Hildebrandt Institute, integrating KM into its on-going executive leadership training workshops.

CIO and CKO – Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld
1999 – 2000 | Washington, DC
As CKO , Sally developed the firm’s first KM strategy, established its KM organization, and introduced the firm’s first KM solutions including an enterprise information portal and a know-how system

As CIO, Sally led strategic technology initiatives that successfully guided the firm through its Y2K technology transition and positioned it to use technology to support enhanced business and practice services on the transformed technology platform

Principal Consultant, Law Firm & Law Department Consulting Group – PriceWaterhouseCoopers
1998 – 1999 | New York, NY
While at PWC, Sally led engagements for legal departments focusing on core technologies and services and knowledge management tools.

Director, IT Services – Covington & Burling
1996-1998 | Washington, DC
Sally worked with firm leadership to develop its first strategic technology plan and managed the IT function and operations while also implementing the firm’s first collaboration and KM systems.

Firmwide Manager of Practice Systems – Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue
1993-1996 | Cleveland, OH
Sally led a development team that introduced new tools for collaboration and KM including solutions for imaging, electronic research, collaboration, document assembly, and document management.

Manager of Information Systems, Washington DC – Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue
1990-1993 | Washington, DC
Sally led the IT function for the firm’s DC office and participated in firm-wide strategic planning to align technology initiatives with the business goals. She also led teams that implemented innovative prototype systems that were subsequently deployed firm-wide.

Principal – Farrell Associates
1988-1990 | Washington, DC
Sally established a successful independent consulting practice focused on strategic systems planning, legal automation, expert systems design, and technical facilities planning. Significant engagements included the design of a work product retrieval system for the International Monetary Fund and providing interim management services for law firm IT organizations.

Information Systems Director – Hogan & Hartson
1983-1988 | Washington, DC
Sally first founded a department to develop and build legal practice applications, including KM and document assembly, and later was promoted to build and manage the firm’s first IT organization during a period of rapid business growth.

Legal Assistant – Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering
1978 – 1983 | Washington, DC
As a litigation paralegal, Sally led early eDiscovery efforts for the largest US-based arbitration and later developed early document assembly systems to support the Estates & Trusts practice.

Education

Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University Executive Program – Management of Technology (1996)

Sarah Lawrence College – B.A. (1972)

Publications

“The Role of KM in Legal Project Management” Chapter 15 in “The Power of Legal Project Management: A Practical Handbook,” Susan Raridon Lambreth and David A. Rueff, American Bar Association (January 2014).

“Managing Knowledge— Firms Explore Ways that PSLs Can Increase Productivity,” Law Technology News, December 2006

“IT@ Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer: In Search of Athena,” Law Technology News, December 2005

“Knowledge Management and the Use of Technology;” Chapter 9 in The Practice Group Leaders Handbook for Success authored by Susan Raridon Lambreth of Hildebrandt International, June 2005