The Leadership Side of Legal Operations
UpLevel View
Summary Leadership looks very different when an entire profession is evolving. Oyango Snell, CEO of CLOC, joins Stephanie Corey to trace how Legal Ops has moved from fighting for recognition to owning strategic decisions inside the enterprise. They talk through why mismatched expectations, and job descriptions written for a COO but budgeted for a paralegal, still trip up departments trying to build the function right. The conversation turns to AI, where Oyango argues the technology only exposes problems that were already there if a department lacks governance and a clear read on its own data....
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The New Economics of Legal Work
UpLevel View
Episode Summary In this episode of The Uplevel View Podcast, Stephanie Corey and Brandi Pack sit down with Ryan Walker, CEO and co-founder of General Legal, to explore how AI is transforming the legal industry. Ryan shares his journey from mathematics and early NLP work to building some of the first AI-powered legal tools at Casetext. The conversation dives into a persistent issue: despite massive advancements in AI, legal services remain expensive, inefficient, and largely unchanged for clients. General Legal is tackling this problem head-on with a new model—combining AI-native workflows,...
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Leading Legal in a Product-Led Company
UpLevel View
Summary In this episode of Uplevel View, Stephanie Corey sits down with Betsy Cantrell, VP of Legal at HighLevel, to explore how legal teams must evolve in fast-moving, product-led organizations. Betsy shares her journey from a highly structured corporate legal environment at Intel to building a scrappy, agile legal function from scratch in a startup. The conversation dives into how legal teams can move from being perceived as blockers to becoming strategic partners embedded within product development. Key themes include integrating legal into product workflows, hiring adaptable talent,...
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The New Standard for Legal Leadership
UpLevel View
Episode Summary How does Legal move from cost center to growth engine as expectations rise? Ron Bell, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer at Collective Health, joins Steph Corey to discuss the new standard for legal leadership and what it really takes for Legal to prove value, earn trust, and perform when the margin for error is small, and expectations keep going up. Listen to the UpLevel View and improve your legal leadership vision today! Links & Resources Collective Health: Ron Bell: UpLevel Ops: Above The Law: Keywords Legal leadership Cost center to...
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The End of the Billable Hour: AI, Value, and the New Economics of Expertise
UpLevel View
Summary In the first episode of 2026 for the UpLevel View podcast, Stephanie Corey and Ken Callander sit down with Rita Gunther McGrath, Columbia Business School professor and Wall Street Journal columnist, to talk about how AI is forcing professional services to price outcomes instead of hours. From law firms to in-house legal teams, the rules of value are being rewritten. The question is: who’s ready to lead the change? Listen to the UpLevel View and improve your legal leadership vision today! Episode Highlights 00:00:18 - Introducing Rita Gunther McGrath. 00:02:23 - Definition of...
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AI Adoption That Actually Works: How Hanna House Went from Pilot to Playbook
UpLevel View
What happens when a nonprofit embraces AI not for the hype, but for the help? In the latest episode of the UpLevel View podcast, Brandi Pack and Ken Callander sit down with Cristal Cardenas Sanchez, Director, Research & Evaluation, Hanna Center, and Marissa La Brecque, VP of Research and Training, from Hanna Center, to talk about how their grassroots AI pilot turned into a full 2026 roadmap. Hear how they’re using GenAI to streamline operations, spark new ideas, and even open the door to a broader range of grant opportunities, without losing sight of their mission. Highlights ...
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The Smart Start to Legal AI: Inside Enstar’s Legal Ops Revolution with Peter Calleo and Nick Giuliano
UpLevel View
What does practical AI success look like in legal terms? Peter Calleo and Nick Giuliano from Enstar Group join UpLevel Ops CEO, Stephanie Corey, and UpLevel's Director of Innovation, Brandi Pack, on the UpLevel View podcast. They'll share how UpLevel Ops and the Enstar team led a GenAI program that made Legal faster, smarter, and more connected to the business. No hype, just real-world insight. Listen to the UpLevel View and improve your legal leadership vision today! Highlights Transitioning from Microsoft Co-Pilot to ChatGPT The role of AI in legal ops pre-pandemic Simplifying...
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From Firefights to Fixed Fees: Strategic Pricing in High-Stakes Legal Work with Katie Armistead
UpLevel View
Litigation: the last stronghold of hourly billing. On the UpLevel View, Steph Corey and Ken Callander talk with Grubhub’s Katie Armistead about how legal teams are bringing order to the chaos with phase-based fees, risk-sharing, and value-driven pricing. The era of “We’ll see what the invoice says” is over. Take your Legal Leadership Vision to the Next Level: Subscribe to the UpLevel View today. Guest Additional Info Our guest today is Katie Armistead, Head of Legal at GrubHub. She began her career at Jones Day and holds a BA in Economics from Johns Hopkins University and a JD...
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More Than a Retainer: Value-Based Pricing for Ongoing Legal Advice with Collin Smyser
UpLevel View
Advice & Counsel work is due for a rethink. In this episode of the UpLevel View, Value Strategies Founder and pricing guru Ken Callander is joined by Collin Smyser, General Counsel of OptionCare, to explore how legal departments are moving beyond the billable hour with fixed monthly retainers. Discover how strategic advisory work is being redefined around accessibility, outcomes, and value, not minutes. Tune in and learn how to lead your legal department into a future where value, not hours, drives results. Subscribe to the UpLevel View and improve your legal leadership vision today!...
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Future-Proofing Legal – Aligning with Business Goals with April Miller Boise
UpLevel View
What does it take to future-proof legal? Intel's CLO, April Miller Boise, joins host Stephanie Corey to unpack how legal teams can drive business value, embrace AI, and rethink spending with value-based pricing. From leadership insights to flexible staffing strategies, this episode is a blueprint for modern legal transformation. Guest Additional Info April Miller Boise is Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Intel Corporation, where she leads the global legal, trade, and government affairs teams. Before joining Intel, she served as Chief Legal Officer (CLO) at Eaton...
info_outlineTune in to the next episode of the UpLevel View podcast, where UpLevel Ops’ Senior Advisor Sumi Trombley welcomes Christine Ho, Director of Legal Operations at Confluent, to delve into the art and science of transformation in legal operations. Discover how Christine's resourcefulness crafts both sweeping changes and subtle improvements within her team. Whether revolutionizing strategies or refining daily tasks, learn how mastering the art of being resourceful can propel legal departments forward. Don't miss these actionable insights on transforming legal ops at every level! Listen to this episode of the UpLevel View podcast for an enlightening conversation to help you improve your legal leadership vision today!
Highlights
- Tackling speed to execution of contracts.
- Emphasizing the human aspect in transformation.
- Measuring success with contract volume tracking.
- Adjusting internal perceptions of legal department bottlenecks.
- Successful completion of Big-T transformation.
- Implementing Jira for privacy and compliance team.
- Pilot program benefits and selection process.
- Overcoming idea overflow: Prioritization strategy.
- Struggling with budget constraints for additional transformation.
- Utilizing ChatGPT for e-billing when budget is a constraint.
- Importance of cross-functional relationships.
- Key advice for initiating transformations.
Episode Resources
- General Counsel Thought Leadership Hub at UpLevel Ops: https://uplevelops.com/gc_thoughtleadership/
- Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek: https://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire-Everyone/dp/1591846447
- https://linkforlegal.com/
- Connect with Stephanie Corey
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephcorey-ulo
- https://fr.linkedin.com/company/uplevel-ops
- https://uplevelops.com/
- https://linkforlegal.com/
- Thought Leadership Resources from UpLevel Ops: https://uplevelops.com/legalopsresources/
- Connect with Christine Ho, Director, Legal Operations, at Confluent
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-ho-882758146/