Meet The Team

Recognised as one of the six in-house role models for the Financial Times 2018, being in the Hot 100 for the Lawyer Magazine in 2016, as well as being recognised for his contribution for numerous industry awards include best in-house team of the year 2017 and best legal technology adoption.

Mo is a Director of global energy giant with responsibilities for the legal function, change, process and communications. A practicing lawyer with deep experience in environmental, real estate and planning law. Holding a MBA from the prestigious Warwick Business School and a Masters degree in Science in Lean Enterprise from Buckingham University with a Distinction.

As part his consultancy work he has helped numerous GC’s undertake strategic reviews, efficiency and people development programmes, process optimisations, legal technology deployments and outside counsel best practice reviews.  In addition, he has helped law firms in client journey improvements, alignment of service delivery, process optimisation, what clients want and pricing strategies.

Mo is also the chair of Winmark’s Centre of Legal Operational Excellence, a regular writer for Thompson Reuters and Legal Business World and an active member of CLOC and ACCA.  Mo has presented key notes in Spain, Ireland, England, New York and Scotland.

Mo is has had excellent feedback his regular training programmes including topics like design thinking, digital transformation, process optimisation, legal operations, KPI’s and metrics, legal strategy and spend management.

Mo lives in Birmingham, England. He is married with two boys. He has a keen interest in diversity issues, exploring lean, operational and process excellence in the legal market.

Ronna is a Faculty member and Senior Consultant with the Legal Lean Sigma Institute. She teaches Legal Lean Sigma^® process improvement and project management White Belt and Yellow Belt certification courses for law firms, legal departments and military law offices. She has a particular focus on working with General Counsels and Chief executives to reduce legal costs, increase budget predictability, improve legal outcomes, break down silos and barriers between groups and organizations, and achieve greater employee satisfaction through our Legal WorkOut^®.

She stands out in the growing field of PI and PM with her proven track record in applied Project Management (PM). She helps lawyers and business professionals extrapolate the concepts and tools of PM and apply them to their matters and projects. Working with someone who actually has been both a successful practicing lawyer as well as a project manager is highly effective for those who want to do more than just learn the PM stages.

As a lawyer, Ronna represented and advised Boards of Education and school Superintendents on education, employment and constitutional matters in North Carolina. In Boston, she represented clients and managed matters in all phases of commercial, employment and securities litigation and arbitration. She then transitioned to trademark law and counseled clients in trademark clearance, registration, and enforcement. A testament to her abilities and skills, Ronna managed the firm’s Trademark Practice as an Associate.

As Global Director of Client Initiatives for an AmLaw100 firm, she was responsible for progressing projects through all stages of project management. Ronna’s primary focus was the Global Strategic Advisors team, comprised of firm leaders and former United States Presidential Cabinet members, Ambassadors and Senators. Her experience and skills inspired trust and qualified her to originate, plan, execute, monitor and close a complex and sophisticated engagement to form a $1.325 billion fund-of-funds to invest in a Canadian pension’s $12.5 billion global infrastructure alliance. 

She was the designated manager for a former United States Treasury Secretary’s legal projects in Europe, China and the Middle East including a $9 billion infrastructure project in Saudi Arabia with a former European Prime Minister’s team, as well as projects in London, Spain, Hong Kong and Shanghai for one of the largest privately owned conglomerates in China.

At the Department level, Ronna’s legal matter management expertise resulted in her team and the Business Department lawyers repeatedly engaging the highest number of new clients with the fewest number of meetings. At the Practice Group level, Ronna was responsible for strategic planning, execution, budgeting, monitoring and closing business with the leaders and lawyers for the Private Investment Funds, Construction & Real Estate, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, Corporate Finance, Securities and M&A, and Tax practices.

Ronna lives in Dallas. She enjoys spending time with her family and friends, travelling, experiencing new cultures, hiking, and horseback riding. She is a board member for Refuge City, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to ending sex trafficking.

Frederick J. Esposito, Jr, MBA, CLM is a member of the Faculty and a senior consultant for the Legal Lean Sigma Institute LLC. In May 2018, Fred earned a Yellow Belt Certification in Legal Lean Sigma® and Project Management and is working toward his Green Belt Certification.

Fred specializes in financial, operational, and organizational management and has managed and worked in a consulting capacity with several law firms, both international and domestic. Fred brings considerable “real world” experience to his role with LLSI. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of the regional law firm Rivkin Radler LLP and has been a Certified Legal Manager (CLM)^SM since 2006.

Fred has developed streamlined and results-oriented processes in the areas of business development/communications, client intake, contemporaneous time entry, billing, collections, electronic/document retention and destruction with a focus on client focus, value add and resource efficiency through the application of key process improvement methodologies and selected lean tools.

With more than 25 years of law and accounting firm experience, Fred is a thought-leader, frequent speaker, and an author of articles on a wide-range of topics and best practices. He has been published on topics such as billing and collections, profitability, attorney compensation systems, alternative fee arrangements, process improvement, project management, pricing legal services, the use of key performance indicators, and strategic planning by Law Practice Magazine, Law Practice Today, and Attorney at Work, among others.

Fred has delivered “An Introduction to Legal Lean Sigma®” for LLSI since 2018 with considerable success and popularity within the legal community.  This has spurred interest in process improvement and project management, particularly amongst those responsible for legal operations and administration in law firms and legal departments. Fred is also a highly rated, frequent author and speaker for the ABA, ALA, BNA/Bloomberg, Lexis/Nexis, and Thomson Reuters. In the Fall of 2016, he became a Faculty Advisor and Presenter for the Nassau County Bar Association Academy of Law and in June 2013, he was inducted into the National Speakers Association.

In 2012 Fred received the Association of Legal Administrator’s (ALA) Outstanding Association Volunteer Award for his service as a leader and national speaker. He was also named CFO of the Year by Long Island Business News the same year. From May 2013 to May 2016, Fred was the Chair of ALA’s Certification Committee.

Fred resides on Long Island, New York and has a home in Ogunquit, Maine. He loves to travel. In 2016, Fred traveled on the legendary Orient Express from London to Verona, Venice, Vienna, Budapest and Paris, and has traveled to Peru, Argentina and Chile. He loves red wine, fine dining, Community Theater, and spending time with his friends and family.

He also volunteers his time and is a strong supporter of the North Shore Animal Rescue, the Marginal Way Preservation Fund, The Ogunquit Playhouse, In a Landscape: Classical Music in the Wild, and the Derek Rieth Project: Empowering Youth through Music and Dance.

Merry Neitlich is an affiliated consultant with over 25 years of experience. She assists legal departments and law firms to create winning solutions through process improvement strategies, including legal operations work that eliminates pain points in how legal services are delivered. Merry helps legal departments identify and solve business problems for their internal clients.

Legal operations solutions can take many forms. To assess which options best eliminate pain points and solve problems, Merry works with stakeholders in the legal department to gather information and analyze it. The end result is developing better efficiency, innovation and predictability in legal work product, both internally and from outside law firms.

Merry is frequently called upon to facilitate retreats, and conducts personality and learning style inventories to enhance communication within the legal department.

Merry is the founder and managing partner of EM Consulting, a leader in creating better collaboration and teaming for greater relationship success and long-term engagement. She has been inducted into both the LMA Hall of Fame and the College of Law Practice Management. Merry is the author of numerous nationally published articles on legal operations and is a contributing author to the 2019 book, Tipping Point: Transformation and Innovation in the Legal Department. She is also a champion figure skater.

Jerry started on his Process Improvement journey when he entered the world of medical device manufacturing and packaging in 1996 as an Engineer and Production Supervisor. He is a seasoned Continuous Improvement Leader who has worked and consulted for organizations such as Ocean Spray, Cardinal Health, Alcan, Amcor, GlaxoSmithKline, Dun & Bradstreet, Jefferson Health and Intealth (ECFMG.) He loves to share stories and experiences with others to learn how to do things better.

He is the author of Small Doses: Common Sense to Common Practice, published in 2019. His book is about the intersection of Process Improvement, Leadership and Life and contains stories and practical wisdom that can be applied immediately. He co-authored groundbreaking articles on Behavioral Science and Process Improvement; the first published works to explore this intersection. 

Jerry gradually moved from engineering work into manufacturing leadership roles. He learned Lean Six Sigma philosophies and tools as they apply to the manufacturing space. With practice and experience, he eventually moved into other environments, such as sales, marketing, human resources, and legal operations.

Jerry has spent most of his career in Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare and Legal Operations, leading projects, and teaching business process improvement, with a focus on improving the customer experience; both internal and external. In Healthcare the focus is on the Patient, Payer and Provider and recognizing the needs, wants, desires and gaps in the delivery of value to each stakeholder. In Legal Operations, he believes that “it’s all about the Client” and that understanding and speaking the language of each of those customers is critical to success in every domain.Jerr

Jerry is a Mechanical Engineer (Purdue University), MBA (Loyola University Chicago) and certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt (The George Group & Villanova University) and draws from a variety of disciplines to find the right tools to use at the right time. Jerry loves reading and studying, especially in the spaces of Mental Models and Behavioral Economics, to better understand people, situations, and processes. Recognizing and overcoming biases is one set of tools that Jerry continues to study and apply when practical.

Jerry believes that well intentioned people too often look for the magic bullet or technology to solve complex business problems without first focusing on the basics and foundational tools. Being masterful at the basics, getting to true root cause and not jumping to solutions will get you most of way there; This is what he believes is the key to a well-defined path forward.

Jerry and his wife make their home in Philadelphia and enjoy summer weekends at the Jersey Shore. Jerry writes and publishes articles occasionally under the heading of “Smaller Doses.” You can also find Jerry under the hood of his 1987 Alfa Romeo Spider doing his own root cause analysis, prior to implementing the right solution for improved engine performance.

José Antonio Sanchez is an affiliated consultant and the Legal Lean Sigma Institute’s connection to Latin America. He is located in Ecuador. 

José gained more than 10 years experience as a corporate legal advisor until he became a Legal Manager. A certified Legal Lean Sigma® Process Improvement and Project Management Yellow Belt, José began his academic training in law and then completed his master’s degree in Quality Management Systems, which he complemented with several courses on strategy planning, business management, logistics chain, entrepreneurship, design thinking, finance and continuous improvement processes with focus in legal processes.

He is currently the founder of Bridge-L and CEO of Corporative Law Worldwide. The first is a startup that provides an automatic task prioritizer and communication tool for lawyers, while the second is a law firm specializing in corporate law for triple impact companies (ESG).”

Kyla Sandwith is a senior consultant, a scholar in residence, and the Legal Lean Sigma Institute’s connection to Canada.

 Kyla is a lawyer with a Masters in Law Firm Management and is the founder of De Novo Inc.  a legal operations and technology consulting firm. Kyla is also a certified Legal Lean Sigma® Process Improvement and Project Management Yellow Belt and sessional instructor at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law, teaching Leadership for Lawyers.

 Kyla incorporates her training, teaching, and consulting experience along with her keen interest in technology to help clients build customer-centric, streamlined, sustainable, and practical processes and solutions at the individual, team, and organizational level.

 She is also eager to share and amplify her knowledge to help develop lawyers and legal organizations that are more agile, responsive, relevant, accessible, and valuable to their stakeholders and the community at large.

 Kyla lives in Calgary, Alberta with her husband, three adorable (sometimes) kids, and their much-loved, long-suffering Cairn Terrier, Maggie.

Her career has been devoted to improving client service and financial performance in the legal industry. Kimberly has developed and implemented business strategy and process improvements, managed the successful integration of legal teams, and applied market data and performance metrics to set billing rates, negotiate alternative fee arrangements, optimize staffing levels, and increase client value.

Kimberly serves in leadership roles in civic and professional organizations including as current board member of the Friends of Radnor Lake, as past Treasurer of the international board of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA), and as past President of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the LMA. She and her husband, Joe, are regular volunteers at the therapeutic horse riding center Saddle Up, and they live in Nashville with their two dogs.

Since 2015, Aly has served on the Association of Legal Administrators’ Regional Legal Management Conference Planning Committee and is Chair of the 2017 Committee. ALA is a professional association comprised of almost 9,000 legal management professionals worldwide and the regional conferences provide education and networking opportunities to ALA members and non-members each fall. Aly also serves as Chair of the Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP) Advisory Committee of the State Bar of Wisconsin and on the Board of Directors of the Dane County Bar Association.

Aly is the founder of Next Step Legal Consulting LLC, which provides tailored business strategy advice and implementation for law firms that lack those resources in-house. Areas of specialization include strategic planning, marketing and business development coaching, financial budgeting and data analysis, recruiting, process improvement, project management, and technology procurement. Aly founded Next Step to help lawyers manage their businesses so they can spend more time practicing law, mentoring, bringing in business, and pursuing personal interests.

Aly received her B.A. in Economics from University of Wisconsin-Madison, J.D. from Marquette University, and M.P.S. in Law Firm Management from George Washington University. She also has a Yellow Belt in Legal Lean Sigma®.

Despite the diversity of job titles, volunteer positions, and areas of continuing education throughout her career, the core of Aly’s work has focused on one thing – helping lawyers better serve their clients.

Aly lives in Wisconsin with her litigator husband and two spoiled, but sweet dogs and is an avid Green Bay Packers and Wisconsin Badgers fan. She volunteers with and serves on the Board of Directors for the Western Wisconsin chapter of JDRF, which provides funding to type 1 diabetes research and education.