Legal Ops: Strategies for Setting Up a Scalable and Nimble Legal Department

Amy M. Au is Senior Corporate Counsel and Director, Global Legal with BCD Travel, a $27.5 billion corporate travel management company with 14,900 employees worldwide in 2019. Amy has over twenty years of corporate legal and business management experience. She is currently responsible for the legal needs of each client transaction from beginning to end, as well as assisting with developing and implementing strategic improvements to legal operational efficiency. She is also a certified mediator and experienced negotiator. Amy holds an MBA from North Western University Kellogg School of Management and a JD from the University of San Diego School of Law.

BCD Travel helps companies make the most of what they spend on travel. We give travelers innovative tools that keep them safe and productive, and help them make good choices on the road. We partner with travel and procurement leaders to simplify the complexities of business travel, drive savings and satisfaction, and move whole companies toward their goals. In short, we help our clients travel smart and achieve more. We make this happen in 109 countries with a global client retention rate of 98%, the highest in the industry.

Edward Chick is Chief Growth Officer at ContractPodAi. He leads market positioning, channel growth, and revenue strategy, while supporting Tier-1 enterprise deals and accounts. A veteran of the contract lifecycle management (CLM) industry, Edward served as CLM GM at Apttus (now Conga) and World Wide Leader for Emptoris at IBM, and has held senior leadership roles at SAP, Siebel, and Janna. He has a deep and nuanced view of the legal tech and CLM landscape, having closed many hundreds of enterprise CLM sales to date. He is committed to partner enablement and execution excellence, as well as providing customers with the best possible outcomes in the marketplace. Originally from London, England, Edward has worked in Canada, Sweden, Netherlands, and is now based in Chicago.

Kim Metrick is Vice President, Employment Law, Legal Operations and Investigations for the Walgreen Company, the nation’s largest drugstore chain with more than 8,000 pharmacies across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Kim began her career with Walgreens in 1995 as a Senior Attorney. She has held various management positions throughout her career with Walgreens. In her current role, Kim is responsible for leading a team of employment law and employee benefit attorneys and legal staff professionals engaged in a broad based national employment and accessibility law practice. Together they work with Business Leaders and Human Resources to support employment decisions that reduce risk and drive business objectives. Kim also oversees the Global Legal Operations and Investigations Functions at Walgreens. Prior to joining Walgreens, Kim was an associate with the law firm of Ross and Hardies (now McGuire Woods).

Kim holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Juris Doctorate degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Kim is a frequent speaker on employment law topics and is active in various community service organizations. A longtime advocate of diversity within the legal industry, she is the immediate past President of the Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law. Her work to advance women’s initiatives was also recognized by Best Lawyers magazine where she was awarded a Woman of Influence award in 2017. This year, Kim was awarded the 2018 Walgreen Champion of Champions Legal Division Engagement Award, an award that recognizes team members who best demonstrate the Walgreens mission to champion everyone’s right to be happy and healthy. She was the 2018 recipient of the Women’s Bar Foundation Rise Up and Reach Back award for her contributions to the legal profession and efforts to advance women’s initiatives in law.