I help forward-looking law department meeting planners provide accessible and engaging, and keynote sessions on corporate law department innovation that end with practical action steps toward real-world outcomes outcomes, not theory or sales pitches.
Dennis Kennedy is a sought-after and highly-regarded keynote speaker on corporate law department innovation. He is known for providing accessible, challenging, and engaging presentations using his unique experience, expertise, and connection, including working in Mastercard’s law department and speaking, writing, and teaching on legal technology and innovation for many years. His book, Successful Innovation Outcomes in Law: A Practical Guide for Law Firms, Law Departments and Other Legal Organizations, is a widely-praised resource on legal innovation. In these fast-changing and challenging times, he focuses on helping corporate law departments innovate and improve so that they can gain a place of respect at the table in business and leadership discussions about innovation and transformation.
Dennis is Yoda. – Jordan Furlong, Law21
Schedule a Zoom call to learn more and start the process.
In today’s market, forward-thinking law departments must avoid being overtaken, displaced, or even bypassed by competition on all sides, and, instead, build bridges to their own successful outcomes and futures as a respected part of the leadership team.
Speaking at Your Event or For Your Organization
I specialize in paid keynote speaking for legal departments at annual meetings, offsite, retreats, and similar events, which are now more important than ever before. “Check the box” and “guess we have to do it” events no longer make any sense in a time of pandemic and digital transformation.
Keynote Topics
- Successful Innovation Outcomes in Law Departments
- Collaboration Tools and Technologies for In-house Counsel and Law Departments
- Cybersecurity for the Non-Technical In-House Counsel
- Panel Convergence – Innovation Driver or Innovation Destroyer
- Legal Technology and Innovation Trends for In-house Counsel and Law Departments
Fee Schedule
Pricing for non-standard presentations will be negotiated and customized to your specific requirements and audience objectives.
NOTE: If I am not able to speak at your event, I generally can recommend a few excellent speakers for you, especially women and diversity speakers.
Commitment to Diversity. My goal is to speak only at events with diverse speakers and otherwise promote speaker diversity. In some cases, especially when I commit to a program early or there is a late speaker replacement, that is not practically possible. In all cases, whether or not I am speaking at the event, I am happy to recommend diverse speakers from my extensive set of speaker contacts. In the case of CLE speaking, I’m making a conscious effort to step back from CLE speaking and multi-member panels to open the door for younger and diverse speakers. I recommend the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center’s Women of Legal Tech list as a great place to find excellent women speakers on legal technology topics.
Schedule a Zoom call to learn more and start the process.
Videos: Dennis in Action
Agile Lawyering in the Platform Era 
Another great way to get an idea of my style, approach, and ideas is to listen to an episode to two of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast (launched in 2006) on the Legal Talk Network since 2006.
Schedule a Zoom call to learn more and start the process.
What Event Planners Say About Dennis
Dennis Kennedy was a pleasure to work with throughout the process—bringing a multitude of interesting, timely and useful ideas to the table—as well as presenting and speaking to these concepts in a very clear, concise and palatable manner. His many practical take-aways made his segment particularly popular among attendees… and of course, Dennis stayed at the event for the duration—making himself available to further answer questions and chat with attendees.
– Kevin Klein, Program Director, Ark Group
Mr. Kennedy was a significant contributor to the Federation of Law Societies of Canada’s recent Conference on technology and legal regulation. Robots and Rule-Makers: New Frontiers for Legal Regulation was held in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on October 16 and 17, 2018.
The audience was comprised of approximately 100 elected and staff leaders of Canada’s law societies which regulate lawyers, Quebec notaries and Ontario paralegals in the public interest.
Mr. Kennedy gave a thought-provoking opening address on the Top Trends in Technology and Legal Innovation. His presentation deftly balanced breadth of coverage with depth on points of particular interest, meeting the needs of a diverse audience in terms of subject-matter knowledge. His presentation provided an essential foundation of knowledge and stirred anticipation for the day’s discussions. Mr. Kennedy’s clear and engaging style set a tone of excellence for the remainder of the Conference.
Mr. Kennedy also participated in a panel on AI, new technologies and legal practice wherein his extensive knowledge and insights contributed greatly to the discussion and learning.
Mr. Kennedy participated in planning calls and was able to match his remarks to precisely what we wanted. We were delighted that he was able to stay for the entire Conference, sharing ideas and insights during the small group sessions and engaging with other participants at the breaks and social functions. Mr. Kennedy’s contributions and presence throughout were a tangible asset to the Conference.
The Federation would not hesitate to highly recommend Dennis Kennedy as a presenter.
Schedule a Zoom call to learn more and start the process.
I find that many forward-looking law departments wanting presentations and programs on innovation and technology lack the time and capacity to create them internally and are confused and overwhelmed by too many choices. They should not have to rely on vendor sales representatives for information, consultants with a sales agenda, or presentations from speakers with little or no real-world experience working as in-house counsel and on law department innovation projects. As an independent and experienced guide, I provide memorable and thought-provoking sessions for retreats, offsite, annual meetings, and strategic planning sessions featuring an in-house counsel friendly framework, simple action steps, and practical approaches to start working on after your event ends.
Schedule a Zoom call to learn more and start the process.
