Negotiation Tips & Tricks

A creative legal strategist and tenacious advocate for her clients, Paula Pendley is a skilled defense attorney and partner in Lathrop GPM's Environmental Law and Product Liability and Tort Litigation practice group. She represents agribusiness and product distributors, manufacturers, and retailers in complex matters in state and federal courts across the country. Paula's decade-plus of experience litigating high-stakes claims, and her deep knowledge of toxic torts and product liability cases set her apart from others in the industry.

Paula is an accomplished litigator who presents the facts in a way that enables the judge and jury to see the conflict from her client's perspective. Paula has an impressive track record of defense verdicts and settlements in complex litigation including product liability, toxic tort, and high-profile nuisance cases in courts across the U.S. Paula understands the challenges clients face when defending their brand and reputation. She puts herself into each case wholeheartedly and ensures every client receives personalized attention and exceptional representation. She works tirelessly to prepare for litigation completed her Certificate in Dispute Resolution and assisted in the publication of the article "Arbitration: The 'New Litigation'" and the book Mediators Acting as Arbitrators. In addition to serving clients in the courtroom, Paula recently joined Attorneys Serving the Community, an organization committed to making a positive difference in the greater Dallas region through community service. Its mission is to unite 400-plus women lawyer members and their resources and talents to support connections in the legal community and raise money for nonprofit organizations whose programs benefit women, children or families.

Katisha Fortune leads Risk Management at CBRE, providing critical enterprise-wide leadership and execution of CBRE's risk management strategy and programs, including enterprise risk management, security and crisis management, and workplace safety. Ms. Fortune’s experience includes enterprise risk management, regulatory risk assessment, crisis management and safety. She brings progressive leadership experience across government, private practice and public and private companies.

Prior to joining CBRE, Ms. Fortune was the Vice President and Head of Legal & Compliance at Carrot Fertility. She also served as Managing Counsel, Enterprise Risk Management and Global Head of Regulatory Risk for Walmart, where she led the legal team responsible for evaluating and revising the retailer's global regulatory risk assessment and enterprise risk management programs. Ms. Fortune was a key legal partner for several of Sam's Club's technology initiatives and provided critical support to Sam's Club and its leadership team in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and coordinated Walmart’s response to the California wildfire crisis and the El Paso mass shooting.

Kia is a dynamic business leader with extensive experience in business operations as well as in the legal realm as a specialist in health law, litigation, labor and employment, privacy, and compliance. She is also certified as Information Privacy Professional in both the US and EU by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and is a Cornell Certified Diversity Professional. Kia leverages her experience to assist leaders in driving strategic planning, making risk-aware business decisions, and supporting cross-functional teams. Kia is trained in the emerging world of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and Machine Learning (M.L.), Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and legal ethics. Her expertise translates into practical advice and actionable solutions and enables her to deliver elegantly negotiated agreements and view challenges with a strategic eye toward innovation.

Dimple Manghnani built out [solidcore]’s legal department from the ground up. A wearer of many hats, Dimple oversees the company’s compliance, contract, and vendor negotiations, and commercial transactions. More recently, Dimple supported her company through two rounds of funding, and an acquisition, and led their real estate negotiations through COVID-19.

Outside of her practice, Dimple is a fitness enthusiast, dog lover, amateur wine connoisseur, and appreciator of all outdoor adventures.

Laurie Ehrlich is Chief Legal Officer at Dioptra, the most accurate and reliable AI-powered contract review tool, trusted by in-house teams and law firms. Laurie has a passion for creation and transformation. She focuses on creating value and better solutions for her business partners through cross-functional and intradepartmental collaboration while protecting against potential risks.

Prior to joining Dioptra, she was Chief Commercial Counsel at Datadog, where she implemented processes and technology to scale better and close contracts faster. Earlier in her career, Laurie realized her passion for legal operations and established the Legal Operations function at Cognizant so that she could focus on her passion projects, knowledge management and process optimization to drive more efficient legal support for commercial transactions powered by common sense and data analytics.

Prior to running the LegalOps function at Cognizant, Laurie was Chief Counsel for Cognizant’s North America Insurance vertical where she served as a business-savvy, trusted advisor to her business teams and a mentor for many of Cognizant’s junior attorneys. Laurie also served as the Executive Sponsor for Women of Datadog and the NYC Regional Lead for Cognizant's Women Empowered. Before going in-house, Laurie was the first US intellectual property specialist at Allen & Overy after starting her career on the IP team at Schulte, Roth, and Zabel.

Laurie received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.S. from Cornell University - School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where she focused on organizational behavior.