Summit ‘26 Speakers

AJ Shankar is the Founder & CEO of Everlaw, an AI-powered cloud-based software for litigation and investigations that helps legal teams chart a straighter path to the truth. Before founding Everlaw, AJ graduated from Harvard with an AB in Mathematics and Computer Science and received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Aaron is the U.S. Vice President of Litigation Support & Legal Operations at Balfour Beatty. With 25+ years of litigation experience and over 120 trials, he brings practical insight to the intersection of law, operations, and technology. He teaches legal technology—including AI in law—at SMU in Dallas and serves on advisory boards for Consero and Brightflag. A former DAPA President and current ACEDS North Texas board member, Aaron studied AI/ML at MIT and is currently a second-year law student at UNT Dallas College of Law. A frequent speaker, he’s known for translating complex legal and technology concepts into actionable strategies.

AUSA Berman is the head of eLitigation for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio. Mr. Berman and his team facilitate the Office’s ediscovery practice and provide consultative guidance on complex issues at the intersection of technology and the law in both civil and criminal cases.

Mr. Berman brings his prior experience in IT to his technology-centered law practice. In addition to serving as both a state and federal prosecutor, his career includes years spent defending and trying civil cases. Mr. Berman holds a J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law and a B.A. from Macalester College. He is a member of the California, Florida, Minnesota, and Ohio bars.

Adam is an senior associate in the Vorys Columbus office and a member of the labor and employment group. He represents management in a broad range of employment and traditional labor law matters, including matters arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and its amendments, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Adam has experience defending employers in single-plaintiff, class and collective actions in both state and federal court, as well as in matters before the National Labor Relations Board, the Ohio State Employment Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and other similar state agencies throughout the country.

Adam received his J.D. from The University of Toledo College of Law, where he was an executive editor of the University of Toledo Law Review. Adam received his B.S. from Mercyhurst University.

Herman Brown is an experienced CIO with a demonstrated history of working in the private sector and government administration industry, who pairs a strong operations background with professional skills in project management, digital strategy, management, cloud services, team buildering, customer service, and IT services.

Stephanie joined NAAG as a NAAG training program counsel for the Center for Legal Advocacy and Faculty Development in August 2021. Her duties include assisting in providing legal skills training, developing and enhancing skills courses, and engaging in faculty recruitment and development.

Prior to coming to NAAG, Stephanie served an assistant attorney general at the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office in the Civil Litigation Section for 17 years. At the Attorney General’s Office, she practiced in complex litigation involving a wide variety of legal issues including: tort, civil rights, employment law, inmate litigation, declaratory judgment, constitutionality issues, administrative law, and appellate work. She appeared and argued before the Nebraska Court of Appeals, the Nebraska Supreme Court, and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Stephanie obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with Minors in Spanish and Latin American Studies from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 2001 and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2004. She is a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association and is a native of Papillion, Nebraska. Stephanie is married with three children, and enjoys running, bicycling, traveling and spending time with her family and friends.

Catherine Choe is Chief of Staff and Head of Legal Operations for the Legal department at Zendesk, an AI-powered customer service and experience management platform. In her role, she collaborates with and advises the CLO and the Legal leadership team on department strategy and operations to ensure that Legal facilitates growth and mitigates risk in support of Zendesk’s mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet.

Prior to joining Zendesk, Catherine established the Legal operations function at Everlaw, where she helped turn Sales into Legal’s biggest fans and enabled Legal to see around corners and predict and mitigate risks early. Before joining Everlaw, Catherine worked as a consultant delivering results in program management, operations, sales enablement, business planning, and executive education for her clients. Catherine earned a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and a B.S. from Texas A&M University.

Catherine’s stakeholders have said she turns red tape into glitter. She lives in San Francisco, where she painstakingly picks shreds of cilantro out of her food.

Suzanne Clark started her journey at Beasley Allen in 2021 and currently supports various litigation efforts, notably in the areas of social media addiction and hair relaxer cases. In her role, she assists with the discovery of electronically stored information (ESI).

She loves diving into the technical details and finds it rewarding to support litigation by managing electronic data. She became a Certified eDiscovery Specialist in 2014 and was recognized as a Relativity Review Management Specialist from 2019 to 2022. She also earned a Mass Tort MDL Certificate from Duke University’s Bolch Judicial Institute in 2019 and was honored as the ACEDS Outstanding Local Leader in 2015.

The Social Media Adolescent Addiction case has been the most impactful of her career. By addressing the harms caused by social media, she is helping protect our youth. As a mother of two teenage boys, she understands firsthand the importance of safeguarding our children and holding responsible companies accountable.

Suzanne is deeply involved in professional and community organizations, reflecting her dedication to law and her community. She is a Planning Committee Member for the University of Florida College of Law E-Discovery Conference, a Board Member of the Plaintiffs Complex Litigation E-Discovery Forum (CLEF), and a Director-at-Large for ACEDS Jacksonville. Additionally, Suzanne is involved in the Jacksonville Justice Association. She has served on the Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association board and held leadership roles in the Jacksonville Bar Association, EDRM, and Creeks Youth Lacrosse.

Suzanne considers herself a child of the Southeast. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, she now lives in Florida with her two teenage sons, their golden retriever and two cats. Outside of work, Suzanne is very involved in her church and her kids’ sports activities, including football, lacrosse, and shot put. She’s also a big fan of SEC football (Go, Gators!). In her free time, she enjoys sports photography, capturing action shots of her sons’ games, and being right in the middle of the excitement.

Steven oversees the firm’s ediscovery consulting, processing, analytics, and document review capabilities, and manages the Litigation Support Department.

He is responsible for the overall strategic planning of litigation technology for the firm, including development of recommended practices and standard operating procedures, and the selection of preferred vendor partnerships. Steven also advises clients and litigation teams on evidence management, ESI protocols, best practices, trial technology, and ediscovery project workflow.

Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr. serves as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Missouri and sits in Jefferson City. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School. He began his legal career in service to our country as an Air Force Judge Advocate, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Assistant Special Counsel for the Waco Investigation. Later, he was named partner at two law firms and head of litigation at a financial services firm. Judge Epps is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Manfred Gabriel is an attorney in Holland & Knight’s New York office who leads the firm’s Legal Support Services organization. In this role, Mr. Gabriel oversees Holland & Knight’s comprehensive and integrated ediscovery and fact-finding unit, which assists clients in managing the risks and costs of ediscovery by leveraging advanced technology and workflows. In addition, he provides clients with a wide range of services from enterprise-level ediscovery management to delivery on large, complex ediscovery projects.

He has assisted clients in: responding to litigation ediscovery requests, including data identification and collection, data processing and hosting, and structuring document reviews, quality control and document productions; advanced ediscovery workflows, with a particular focus on technology-assisted review or predictive coding, statistical sampling and statistical process control, as well as streamlining and integrating the various aspects of complex ediscovery projects; data privacy and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), especially for international companies active in the United States; litigation readiness, litigation holds and data preservation; sophisticated fact development to minimize the risk in litigation while strengthening the client’s case.

As an antitrust attorney, Mr. Gabriel has successfully assisted clients in responding to large, fast-paced regulatory requests. He has worked with Fortune 1000 companies in several industries, including high-tech, transportation, pharmaceuticals and financial services. Mr. Gabriel has testified as a 30(b)(6) witness on ediscovery process and data spoliation issues.

In addition, Mr. Gabriel teaches ediscovery at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Mr. Gabriel led the managed-review offering for a multinational professional services network. In addition, he led global engagements (including time in India to lead a team of 70) in ediscovery, contract intelligence and litigation readiness. Mr. Gabriel also consulted on data privacy and cross-border discovery, including GDPR and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Judge Allison Goddard was sworn in as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of California in August 2019. She graduated from Boston College in 1993 and received her JD from the University of San Diego School of Law in 2000. Judge Goddard spent the first half of her legal career representing corporate defendants in litigation at Cooley LLP and her own law firm, Jaczko Goddard LLP. In 2011, she shifted her practice to representing plaintiffs in complex and intellectual property litigation. She has tried several cases, including class actions and patent infringement disputes. Judge Goddard speaks regularly on ediscovery and other litigation issues. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the San Diego Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and the Louis M. Welsh Inn of Court.

Sean leads the firm’s innovation in organizing and prosecuting individual class cases across many states involving the same defendants and similar factual and legal issues, an approach that continues to be a key factor in the firm’s success.

Current Role

• Partner, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP
• Practice focuses on multi-state and nationwide class actions and complex commercial litigation encompassing securities and finance, consumer, antitrust, insurance and products
• Diverse experience in most of the firm’s practice areas, involving appearances in state and federal courts across the country at both the trial and appellate levels
• Key member of the firm’s automobile defect litigation team
• Key member of the firm’s securities litigation team, co-leading the prosecution and settlement of the In re Charles Schwab Securities Litigation, the In re Oppenheimer Champion Income Fund Securities Class Actions and the Oppenheimer Core Bond Fund Class Action Litigation
• Key member of the firm’s pharmaceutical litigation team that confronts unfair and deceptive pricing and marketing practices in the drug and dietary supplement industries including Average Wholesale Price Litigation, the First Databank/McKesson Pricing Fraud Litigation and the Enzyte Litigation

Considered the “Magic Man,” independent fire litigation consultant Greg McCullough specializes in uncovering the key evidence that makes the case in fire-related litigation.

Nilay Patel is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Verge, the technology and culture brand from Vox Media. In his decade at Vox, Patel has grown The Verge into one of the largest and most influential tech sites, with a global audience of millions of monthly readers. Under his leadership, The Verge has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

Peter is the Ediscovery Director at the Cincinnati office of Dinsmore & Shohl, where he manages the litigation support department and oversees the firm’s ediscovery initiatives. Peter is also an internal consultant for collection and culling methodologies and designing review protocols. Prior to Dinsmore, Peter was Associate General Counsel at Mimecast North America and Ediscovery Solutions Director at CA.

Dave Shargel represents companies and executives in both internal and government investigations, as well as complex commercial disputes and arbitrations, across a wide range of business sectors and circumstances.

He has experience representing clients before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), among other regulators. He has also represented clients before the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and advises clients on sanctions compliance and related issues.

His litigation experience includes contract disputes, shareholder disputes, business valuation, insurance coverage, civil RICO, and fraud. He also handles real estate, aviation, construction and employment disputes, as well as matters involving constitutional law, such as under the Commerce and Due Process clauses. Dave has also successfully defended consumer class actions, such as those involving the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and food labeling.

Dave is also highly adept at leveraging legal technology in his practice. He leads the firm’s ePractice Department, assisting clients and other Bracewell lawyers with best practices and guidance concerning electronically stored information (ESI) and digital forensics.

Dave devotes his pro bono efforts to clients in a variety of subject matters, including asylum and landlord-tenant disputes. Dave also serves as an adjunct professor of legal writing at Brooklyn Law School.

Strategic, forward-thinking and results-driven, Joseph Tate brings more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of law, technology, and business operations to his role as Director of Ediscovery. A respected legal innovator, Joe has built and scaled high-performing eDiscovery and litigation support functions across Am Law 100 firms, government agencies and corporate legal departments. He has a deep track record of aligning legal, business and technical strategies to deliver defensible, efficient, and cost-effective outcomes for clients navigating complex disputes and investigations.

Leading the firm’s ediscovery efforts, Joe works closely with practice group leaders to deliver strategic, technology-driven solutions for clients through added litigation support and legal technology. With a sharp focus on innovation, efficiency, and scalability, he is driving the next phase of growth in the firm’s discovery services. Whether optimizing workflows or integrating cutting-edge platforms, Joe’s forward-thinking leadership is elevating client service and helping teams manage complex matters with greater speed, precision and value.

Michelle Beer is a Manager on Everlaw’s User Education team. In her role, she designs learning experiences and resources for Everlaw’s users and has led virtual and in-person training series. She’s passionate about helping users from the legal, government, and corporate organizations get the most out of Everlaw’s platform. Prior to joining Everlaw, Michelle was an adjunct professor in history and published author.

Max Christoff is Everlaw’s Chief Technology Officer, where he leads the company’s technology strategy and engineering execution as Everlaw scales its AI-powered investigation and litigation platform. He brings 25+ years of engineering leadership experience, including 14 years at Google — most recently leading engineering for Chrome — and earlier work helping launch Google Wallet/Pay, with additional leadership experience at Morgan Stanley.

Aden Daniel is a User Education Specialist at Everlaw, based in our Washington, D.C. office, where she helps legal professionals and investigators get hands-on with Everlaw through live training, workshops, and interactive programs.

Pauline Day is Director of Product, where she leads Everlaw’s product management function. She is committed to delivering a product experience that both transforms workflows and make everyday work more efficient and delightful for users.

Alyssa is a dedicated User Education Manager at Everlaw, where she loves empowering users to feel at ease and confident with the platform. Before diving into the world of user education, Alyssa sharpened her skills as a Customer Support Specialist, gaining deep insights into what users truly need. When she’s not crafting engaging training sessions, Alyssa enjoys cozying up with her beloved cats or getting creative with her crochet projects.

Aubrey Patrick is a Team Lead on Everlaw’s User Education team. Prior to joining Everlaw she was a teacher in the Bay area, teaching a range of topics including coding and mathematics. Now Aubrey leverages that teaching background, working to break down complex topics and ensure users feel confident and prepared using Everlaw.

Aaron Patton is a Sr. Solutions Architect at Everlaw, where he partners with customers and prospects to help ensure successful integration of Everlaw into legal workflows. A longtime ediscovery professional, Aaron also devotes his time to content creation, both ediscovery-related and not, as a screenwriter, ghostwriter, and as the persona behind Gates Dogfish, an ediscovery meme account.

Michael Sarich is the Veterans Affairs (VA) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Director and the Co-Chair of the Chief FOIA Officer’s Technology Committee.
The VA FOIA Program, a perennial top-5 FOIA program in the federal government, serves Veterans and requesters with nearly 1,000 team members across 12 time zones processing over 50,000 FOIA requests in FY23. Mike is leading an effort to modernize VA FOIA through the adoption of advanced technology, training enhancements and revised enterprise-wide staffing models.

As the Co-Chair of the Chief FOIA Officer’s Technology Committee, Mike has led and co-authored numerous white papers and presented on topics related to FOIA and technology to thousands of individuals. Of note, the Technology Committee led the FOIA Tech Showcase in 2022 bringing industry and FOIA professionals together for the first time to showcase both program needs and industry capabilities.

Prior to directing the VA FOIA Office, Mike was charged with leading Veteran Health Administration’s FOIA program, the program won multiple awards from the Department of Justice for tech advances and for reducing the VHA FOIA backlog by over 90% in just 14 months. In addition, Mike has served in FOIA leadership roles at the Social Security Administration and the Bureau of Land Management.

Mike’s a licensed attorney and a class of 2011 Presidential Management Fellow, he’s worked in the Irish Parliament, was elected to three terms on his hometown’s City Council and continues to be active in his community. Mike is also a United States Army Veteran who served in Korea, Germany, Texas, and Maryland. He lives in Laurel, Maryland and is raising two boys alongside his amazing wife, Angela.

Margot is a User Education Specialist and started with Everlaw in 2017. Prior to joining the User Education team, Margot was focused on enabling Everlaw’s customer-facing employees to deliver outstanding customer service. She’s excited to apply her enablement expertise and product knowledge towards creating effective and engaging learning experiences for Everlaw users!

Carrie is a User Education Specialist with a background in Educational Publishing. Carrie combines their knowledge of instructional experience design with platform prowess to create engaging learning opportunities for Everlaw users of all levels. Outside of Everlaw, Carrie enjoys developing recipes, rockclimbing, and taking their dog for walks along the beach.

Kayla Teese is a User Education Manager at Everlaw. She’s passionate about witnessing the “lightbulb moment" in training sessions when users say “Oh, that’s how you do it?! That’s going to make my job so much easier!” Before Everlaw, you could find Kayla in a classroom in San Francisco teaching literature and history to teenagers.