Josh Lazar
PPC Member for Corporate Content Coordinating Team
ILTA touts itself as a volunteer-led, staff-managed association with a focus on premiership. Nothing embodies that truth more than the Ascend conference. A multi-day conference that includes education, team building, and content creation, ILTA staff and volunteers work together to start the process of delivering the content that the membership expects from a premier organization. I have received a great amount of value from my time as a member of ILTA, and attending Ascend is one of the ways that I give back so that others can get that same experience in the future. It is an event that truly embodies the fact that ILTA is indeed volunteer-led, staff managed, and the best association of its kind in the industry.
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Vanessa Lozzi
Relationship Coordinating Team Member
From my perspective one of the strongest outcomes was getting processes, procedures and timelines around the local meetings and roadshows, as well as refreshing the mentoring process and continuing education for the MLs. With everything that occurred last year it caused huge disruption to the LM process. The team agreed that our first priority had to be to figure out how we get the train back on the tracks and I feel we accomplished our mission of getting a solid plan in place to make it happen.
I think the overall Ascend weekend is important so the volunteers can meet other volunteers, as well as finding areas for connection and collaboration. It was also very helpful this year to be able to meet all the wonderful new ILTA staff and interim CEO in person. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of having that in person contact with your team to be able to plan for the year ahead. The time is short, but so valuable.
What can the MLs expect this year? Clearly defined processes and procedures for LMs and Roadshows, including identifying “who does what”. A revised mentoring program that includes all MLs. A refresh of the continuing education series we first launched in 2017. We are also looking forward to taking a new approach with the monthly calls, and making greater use of the ML COI.
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David Hobbie
ILTACON Planning Committee Co-Chair
Seeing the ILTACON team at work over this extended weekend has been inspiring and impressive. Again and again I have been reminded of the power of peers coming together and sharing their knowledge and experience with each other, in anticipation of creating a packed four days of educational content this August. One peer might mention a challenge like partial use or adoption of Office 365 and others immediately chime in with their distinct experience in that area.
This year at Ascend, for the first time, ILTACON leaders (team coordinators and co-chairs) and other leaders of ILTA content development teams, the leaders of “Content Coordinating Teams,” sat down and shared trends and themes that had emerged from dozens of conversations over the previous few days. It was great to see what we were thinking in common about what ILTA members need to learn, and how we might collaborate on arcs of content that anticipate, supplement, and follow up on content scheduled for delivery at ILTACON. It’s easy to forget in the months between ILTA events the power of connecting with peers. I’ve met many people this weekend in many different roles from many different places, attending an ILTA volunteer event for the first time. Seeing their pleasure in connecting with others, while working to serve other peers, is always rewarding.
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Chris Hunt
PPC Member for Compliance Content Coordinating Team and Volunteer Leadership Taskforce Member
The primary focus for the planning of Ascend was around fostering and encouraging collaboration between and among the various volunteer content teams. Based on various conversations we were fairly successful, particularly between the ILTACON teams and the Content Coordinating Teams (CCTs). The energy and engagement of the volunteers was incredible, all weekend. Teams accomplished their goals, volunteers offered valuable contributions, and programming across volunteer groups is taking shape for the rest of the year.
The Keynote stressed the importance of legal technologists needing to understand the business of their organizations in order to be properly positioned to help lead their firms through a changing industry. It also stressed the importance of the concept of servant leadership and design-thinking principles being linked through empathy, and leveraging these methods and principles will lead to a deeper understanding of the challenges facing our businesses and provide pathways to success. Another great takeaway was the Hack-a-Thons on the awards ceremony, diversity and inclusion, lawyer involvement with ILTA, and competitors and collaborators of ILTA. They were a great way to have focused discussions about some specific issues facing ILTA and a way to present new ways to think about creative solutions.
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Ricky Brooman
PPC Member for Litigation and Practice Support Content Coordinating Team
My greatest Ascend takeaways are getting to spend quality time with peers across all volunteer roles both inside and outside my vertical, and engaging in productive working sessions to generate a content roadmap for the year with the content teams and conference committee.
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Sam Surillo
New ILTA Professional Staff Member
Attending ASCEND for the first time was a very eye-opening and energizing experience. The ILTA volunteers' collective passion, kindness, and pure excitement to contribute is far beyond anything I've ever seen!
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Kara Portwood & David Clark
Strategic Relationship Liaisons
Ascend was about deepening roots with strategic partners to find thought-leaders and building collaboration with other volunteers; re-engagement, becoming passionate again, and positivity going forward. Also, gearing up for the new team structure.
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Jeffrey Richards
Relationship Coordinating Team Member
Ascend is the opportunity we need to reconnect, retool and re-gear. The work done here gets the wheel rolling for the year ahead – a symphony of programming ideas, topics, and content. All the items necessary to forge new connections, develop existing opportunities, and nurture old relationships. It’s how ILTA works. Be a volunteer!
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Eric Anderson
LegalSEC Summit Educational Co-Chair
Ascend was the start of the amazing programming for LegalSEC Summit. After spending a day and a half with the committee, I was incredibly impressed with the knowledge and expertise of my team members. The committee spent a lot of our time with each other, building an even stronger team and building educational topics. I took away a lot of information and learned simply from the many discussions within the different groups I attended.
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Martha Breil
PPC Member for Compliance Content Coordinating Team
As a second-year Ascend attendee and third- year volunteer, my biggest takeaway from 2019 was what a transformative effect embodied leadership has on an organization. It’s often touted in leadership training, but this was the first time I’ve experienced just how much it matters, in such a profound way. I will strive to apply this lesson as a volunteer leader, employee, and teacher.
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Gary Berger
LegalSEC Summit Educational Co-Chair
There was an overall attitude of “let’s get it done, but let’s make sure we have a good time doing it.” This helped people relax and made the event even more productive. The message was sent that ILTA is about the volunteers and the panel on Sunday morning made it clear ILTA wants to make sure volunteers stay the focus. Our group left with a clear idea of what they needed to do and were ready to be engaged. I think it’s safe to say we accomplished all of our goals.
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Andrew Powell
PPC Member for UK/International Membership
It's really helpful to meet with all the content teams and explain my international role, ask for content, and make suggestions firsthand. Just being face-to-face with people, whether in sessions, at lunch, over a beer or in an out of control motorboat - has immense value when the rest of the years communication is via zoom etc.
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