Biographies for the ALSP Board of Directors
Deborah Coram
LDSI
Deborah Coram is an attorney with more than 13 years of experience in litigation. She is an expert on international litigation support issues, having worked in Australia, the United States and the UK. She is currently working as the Managing Director of the London arm of international legal specialists, LDSI. Prior to this, she ran her own consulting company in New York where she consulted to some of the largest NY law firms on their litigation support and ESI strategies. She also assisted in developing the strategies as well as overseen the management of several very large litigations.
Coram has a broad range of litigation experience and understands the litigation perspective from that of an attorney, litigation support vendor, consultant, and litigation support manager. Further, she has a detailed understanding of litigation support software, having worked as the International Business Manager, and the Director of Sales & Marketing, for one of the largest litigation support software houses in the United States. Her role as International Business Manager saw her consult to legal markets throughout North America, Asia Pacific and Europe. Further, having lived and worked in Australia, the United States and the UK, she is uniquely positioned to understand the international perspective of litigation, and has an accomplished grasp of international litigation support issues. She is passionate about connecting the industry on a global basis, and ensuring standards and certifications are recognized internationally. This goal helped motivate Deborah to be involved in the formation and ongoing development of ALSP.
Barbara Bennett
Dickinson Wright PLLC
With more than 25 years of experience in the legal field, Bennett’s responsibilities have included project management, administration of litigation case management software, management and supervision of new product testing, administration of Lotus QuickPlace; development and maintenance of firm-wide software training program, development of Lotus Notes databases; management and design of firm-specific word processing templates and macros, law office organization, management, and staff support.
She is the litigation support manager at Dickinson Wright PLLC, managing the firms' litigation cases utilizing CTSummation and WebBlaze, and serves as liaison between attorneys, legal assistants, clients and vendors regarding technology issues and the collection of electronic discovery. As a Certified Summation Trainer and certified in inData's Trial Director, Bennett often assists the firms' litigation attorneys during trials.
She has completed the paralegal program at Oakland University, holds a bachelor’s degree from Concordia University and is a Certified Computer Examiner.
Robin Thompson
Donovan & Watkins
Robin Thompson, a member of the Houston legal community since 1974, works in recruiting for nationwide law firms and corporations providing litiration support, RIM, knowledge management and document review. Her past experience includes senior project manager and case manager responsible for handling the discovery phase of nationwide, large-scale and MDL litigation, staffing manager for the contingent staff in Shell’s Litigation Information Group and a consultant for nationwide electronic discovery providers.
Thompson is service oriented with a devotion to education and promotion of the profession. She recently served on the board of directors for ARMA Houston, and has received numerous awards including the Ambassador Award, the Spirit of Education Award and was ARMA Houston’s 2007 Chapter Member of the Year. Thompson also received a U.S. Department of Justice Mentor Award was a finalist for a Stevie Award as Best Executive in a Service Industry under 100 employees in 2006. Thompson founded the National Association of Corporate Legal Professionals and the Houston Association of Corporate Legal Professionals, organizations that promote education and networking among non-attorney corporate legal professionals.
Espe Rebollar
Winston & Strawn LLP
Espe Rebollar is a litigation support coordinator at Winston & Strawn LLP. With more than 20 years of experience in litigation support, Rebollar began in this field with a temporary coding position with a major litigation support vendor in Maryland while studying for the D.C. Bar. After passing the Bar, she decided that litigation support would lead to a more satisfying career.
Rebollar has worked with major law firms and litigation support vendors in Washington D.C., New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. Her experience spans all areas of litigation support; she is certified in Concordance and CaseMap and is also actively developing BAALSM.
Victoria Edelman
Encore Discovery Solutions
Victoria Edelman J.D. is the Director of Training and Development for Encore Discovery Solutions. Victoria manages Encore’s training program offering training on litigation support, e-discovery technologies and best practices to attorneys, paralegals and litigation support professionals. Edelman also teaches Electronic Discovery Case Management classes at California State University at Fullerton.
Prior to joining Encore, Edelman served as the lead Concordance trainer for LexisNexis Litigation Services (formerly Dataflight). Edelman managed the Concordance and FYI certification classes including training, course and staff development, consulting and business development for training services. Edelman has been working in the litigation support industry since 1998. In addition to training and consulting, she managed training programs at large law firms and assisted with software design and development. Edelman is a frequent speaker at trade shows and industry events on litigation support technology and e-discovery topics.
Edelman attended William & Mary Law School where she worked at the Center for Legal and Court Technology (formerly the Courtroom 21 Project). Edelman is a member of the Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production, and Women in eDiscovery.
Edelman lives in Reston, VA with her husband the famous and critically acclaimed sci-fi novelist David Louis Edelman, their two children, two Bichon Frises, and her handbag collection.
Stephen Goldstein
Squire Sanders
Stephen Goldstein serves as the director of Practice Support for Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P. Since joining the firm in September 2001, he has managed the litigation support function including large-scale projects such as those related to the Enron Unsecured Creditors Committee. Acting as an internal consultant to Squire Sanders lawyers, he provides technical guidance and solutions to client-related matters around the globe.
With more than 15 years’ experience working with legal technology, Mr. Goldstein is a frequent speaker and presenter on topics such as litigation technology and electronic data discovery. He is a contributing author to the Electronic Data Reference Model (EDRM) project and a member of the Sedona Conference® Working Group on International Electronic Information Management, Discovery and Disclosure.
Mr. Goldstein also serves as a member of Squire Sanders E-Discovery & Data Management Team.
Prior to joining Squire Sanders, Mr. Goldstein provided litigation support services to Jones Day and McDermott Will & Emery.
Joe Howie
Howie Consulting
Joe Howie consults with companies in the litigation support industry. In the past 20 years he has worked with a number of innovative technology companies, co-founded one of the first document scanning/image-based litigation support operations, was product manager for the first company to offer Texas case law and other primary legal authority on CD-ROM, developed document definitions and data extraction rules for the first auto-coding product, and helped market linguistic search and near-duplicate grouping technology. Previously, he practiced law as in-house counsel for Phillips Petroleum and with the Ohio Attorney General.
Howie has held leadership positions with two ABA publications, serving as editor of the Litigation Applications newsletter and section editor of Winning With Computers, Trial Practice in the 21st Century. He has had numerous articles printed in trade publications, including one of the first electronic discovery articles published in 1989.
Karen LaFleur
Buchalter Nemer
Karen LaFleur, Director of Information Technology & Practice Support for Buchalter Nemer, has been in the legal industry for over 15 years. LaFleur created the Practice Support Department at Buchalter Nemer, establishing policies and procedures that helped the department achieve profitability in the first year. LaFleur oversees day-to-day Practice Support and IT functions for Buchalter’s five office locations.
LaFleur has substantial experience in the successful implementation of large e-Discovery projects, complex litigation and trials. LaFleur has been a conference speaker on several e-Discovery best practices and legal technology panels. In addition to the firm's E-Discovery projects; LaFleur manages its workflow, and created and manages the IT department's RFP processes.
Previously, as a litigation support manager for a well known vendor, LaFleur regularly delivered a host of large and complex data projects in a vast array of data formats and platforms. Having worked in every aspect of litigation/practice support industry has made LeFleur committed to the development and establishment of litigation support industry standards, and growth of the industry.
LaFleur is a certified trainer in several leading litigation support applications, and has been selected as a beta tester for additional software applications.
David MacNeil
Cox & Palmer
David MacNeil is Litigation Support Manager at Cox & Palmer, an Atlantic Canadian Law Firm. Based out of their Halifax office, he is responsible for the development, implementation and advancement of litigation support and e-Discovery within the firm. He began his career at Cox & Palmer as a Litigation Support Specialist in 2002, moving to the position of Litigation Support Manager in January of 2005.
David has extensive experience in large litigation matters, in-house document processing, creating coding standards and case assessment/management. He has been active in the litigation support community attending and presenting at various conferences in both the United States and Canada focusing primarily on e-Discovery. He is also a member of the Civil Procedure Rules Sub-Committee on Electronic Discovery for the Province of Nova Scotia, being the only non-lawyer member of this group.
David holds a Bachelor of Information Systems Degree with a Major in Information Systems.
Khrys McKinney
NewLaw Inc.
Khrys McKinney, president and chief operating officer of NewLaw Inc. has more than 20 years of legal computer services and support management experience. She works with numerous large law firms and their Fortune 500 clients on projects, business deals and cases. Her expertise covers areas such as electronic discovery systems, legal information technology consulting, staffing and training, database management systems, imaging systems and special applications used for large-scale litigation.
During her 18 years as practice and litigation support manager for Vinson & Elkins, she worked with one of the first law firms in Texas to implement imaging and electronic discovery technology. She was responsible for an internal operation of more than 300 workers who populated databases to generate revenue of more than $3 million per year. She also managed the law firm’s graphics department to support numerous trial, publishing and marketing endeavors.
McKinney has shared her insights as a faculty member of the SOFT BANK Institute Computer Training & Support Conference, Legal Tech, and Daticon’s litigation technology user group conferences. She also has held numerous executive posts in various legal technology professional organizations including the Association of Legal Computing.
Sandra E. Serkes
Valora Technologies
Sandra E. Serkes is one of Valora’s original founders and a driving force in the company. Responsible for setting long-term strategic direction and ensuring short-term revenue and profitability goals, she takes a very active, day-to-day executive role in the company. Serkes has been a dynamic senior manager, individual contributor and role model since the company’s inception in 2000. In her nine years as President & Chief Executive Officer, the company has grown over 1200%, remained profitable since 2003, and received numerous awards and accolades, most recently being named to Inc. Magazine’s annual list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in America.
Serkes is a dynamic and energetic leader with an extensive background in software marketing, product management and corporate strategy, particularly in document processing and voice and text recognition. Serkes has over 20 years experience founding and managing high tech companies, including two prior start-ups and her own consulting firm, Samurai Partners, which she founded in 1997.
As Managing Partner of Samurai, a consultancy focused on bringing new companies, products and services to market, Serkes advised and assisted numerous start-ups and early stage high-tech companies on topics such as: raising capital, crafting and executing corporate and product strategy, formulating operations plans, creating and nurturing sales channels and recruiting top personnel. In this capacity, Serkes developed many contacts within the Boston and San Francisco area start-up communities.
Serkes joined one of her clients as Vice President of Marketing and a member of the founding executive team. In her role at UltiVerse Technologies (www.ultiverse.com), an early stage company focused on wireless messaging solutions for the enterprise, she was responsible for all corporate and product marketing strategy and tactical implementation. These efforts included designing and executing: the company and product launch; the corporate presence, identity and message; and the product positioning and development roadmap. Serkes also secured and led the implementation for UltiVerse’s first major customer, a “Big 5” accounting/consulting firm.
Earlier in her career, Serkes served in numerous executive marketing and product management roles for Symantec Corporation, Phoenix Technologies, Voice Control Systems and Wildfire Communications, where she gained significant industry experience in the areas of telecommunications and messaging, text and speech recognition and customer relationship management.
A Harvard Business School MBA and MIT Sloan School of Management graduate, Serkes is a frequent industry speaker and panelist. She is an active participant of the Women Presidents Organization, MIT Enterprise Forum, the Massachusetts Software Council and the Network of Harvard Alumnae and serves on the boards of several technology-related start-ups. In her spare time, she coaches soccer and serves on the executive board of a 501(c)(3) non-profit childcare organization.