Kathryn DeBord is Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s Global Chief Innovation Officer and co-leader of Cantilever, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s legal operations consulting group. In her role, Ms. DeBord leads the firm’s Innovation Team, which is an international cross-disciplinary team dedicated to legal service delivery innovation. As part of the firm’s commitment to adopting and driving technology-enabled practices where appropriate, Ms. DeBord also oversees lawyers, technologists, and related professionals who participate in technology trials and prototypes relevant to their practice areas. Ms. DeBord also serves as an advisor to the firm’s various initiatives to train its associates in legal innovation, including in the firm’s internationally recognized Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner Business Academy. As part of her efforts to drive innovation in new lawyer education and training, Ms. DeBord sits on the Silicon Flatirons Tech Law Accelerator Program Advisory Board, the Institute for the Future of Law Practice Advisory Board, and the Evolve the Law Advisory Council, and she sits on the editorial board of The Journal of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Law.

As co-leader of Cantilever, Ms. DeBord works with law departments to help them work better with their internal business clients as well as outside counsel and vendors. Cantilever works with law departments to leverage tools, proprietary technology, and best practices focused on the needs of law departments, which were developed over the last two decades inside Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Common areas of consulting and technology implementation include contract management, matter management, legal spend analysis and convergence, and portfolio litigation management.

Prior to her current role, Ms. DeBord was a partner in the firm’s Commercial Litigation Group and a trial attorney specializing in complex contract, patent, and IP licensing matters, as well as consumer class action defense. She also served on the firm’s Commercial Litigation Innovation Committee.