Speaker Spotlights

Connie Brenton

LegalOps.com, Reno, NV

Session: Value, Risk-Sharing & the New Client-Law Firm Model: How In-House Counsel Will Buy Legal Services in the Future
Date: Thursday, October 22

Named one of Business Insider's Top 10 Notable Power Players Innovating the Legal Industry and recognized by the Financial Times as one of the Top 20 Legal Industry Market Shapers, Connie Brenton is a pioneering force at the intersection of legal operations, technology, and artificial intelligence.

Connie is the Founder and CEO of CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium), the organization that defined the legal operations profession globally, and Co-CEO and Co-Founder of LegalOps.com, a global community redefining how legal work is delivered across corporate law departments, law firms, and service providers. Her career spans decades of building what the legal industry is still catching up to: the idea that legal departments perform at their best when run with the discipline, data, and strategic clarity of a business.

She began as a civil litigator in private practice before moving in-house to senior legal operations leadership at Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and NetApp, where she served as Vice President of Law, Technology, and Operations. In each role, Connie transformed how legal departments manage litigation, engage outside counsel, and use data and technology to drive better outcomes and cost control.

Today, through LegalOps.com and its flagship Running Legal Like a Business (RLLB) conference, she convenes the full legal ecosystem, law departments, law firms, and service providers, around practical strategies for AI adoption, litigation management, and operational excellence. Her work focuses on moving organizations beyond experimentation and embedding AI into the core infrastructure of legal work.

Her honors include Silicon Valley's 100 Women of Influence, Corporate Counsel's Women, Influence & Power in Law, Top 10 Deputy General Counsel by the Daily Journal, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from ALM. She holds both a JD and an MBA, a combination that has defined her approach from day one: rigorous, data-driven, and relentlessly focused on outcomes and creating a competitive advantage for the business.

Robyn Buck

Bayer

Session: The Modern GC Playbook: Risk, Reputation, and Real-Time Decisions
Date: Thursday, October 22

Robyn Buck is Senior Assistant General Counsel (Litigation) at Bayer. She has expertise in managing internal and external legal teams in high-stakes, complex litigation, as well as advising business and executive clients on a variety of issues. She has over 25 years of professional experience in life sciences/chemical industries litigation, with a focus on risk identification and mitigation, mass tort/product liability and complex commercial actions. She is devoted to building cross-functional, energized, diverse and successful teams.

Robyn grew up in southern Illinois just outside of St. Louis. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, Order of the Woolsack, from St. Louis University School of Law, as well as both a B.S.B.A. in Accounting and a B.S. in Criminal Justice from Central Missouri State University, summa cum laude. Before joining Monsanto/Bayer, Robyn spent over 16 years at Husch Blackwell LLP in St. Louis, where she was a litigation partner/trial attorney in the Mass Tort & Product Liability group. In her free time, she enjoys sports, traveling (particularly adding National Parks to the family list), and music. She lives in St. Louis with her husband, two teenage sons, and two stray rescue dogs.

Christian Gonzalez

Fifth Third Bank

Session: The Modern GC Playbook: Risk, Reputation, and Real-Time Decisions
Date: Thursday, October 22

Christian Gonzalez serves as executive vice president and chief legal officer for Fifth Third Bancorp. Christian is responsible for overseeing the Bank’s Legal, Government Affairs and Regulatory Affairs departments and the Office of the Corporate Secretary. Christian’s deep experience spans multiple practice areas, including corporate, banking and securities laws. He also brings expertise in mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, capital markets, regulatory compliance and corporate governance.

Previous to joining Fifth Third in 2025, Christian served as an executive board member of Dinsmore & Shohl LLP and corporate department chair, overseeing over 300 lawyers within the department. As part of his legal practice, he has served as outside general counsel for clients ranging from multibillion-dollar public companies to community banks and has led numerous complex acquisitions across a multitude of industries. Before joining Dinsmore, Christian served as general counsel for the Ohio Division of Financial Institutions, working on various regulatory and corporate matters affecting, at the time, over 145 state-chartered financial institutions.

Lena Sisco

The Congruency Group, Washington, D.C.

Session: Deceptive Analysis Secrets from a Former Expert Military Interrogator to Spot the Lies and Get the Truth
Date: Friday, October 23

Lena Sisco is the author of "You're Lying! Secrets From an Expert Military Interrogator to Spot the Lies and Get to the Truth,” and "Marine Scout Snipers; True Stories From U.S. Marine Corps Snipers." She is also a deceptive analysis expert on the TV show, Couples Court with the Cutlers, a former TEDx speaker, a Mindsail Expert coach, a senior Body Language Institute train-the-trainer instructor with Janine Driver, instructor and a keynote speaker for numerous agencies and industries. In October 2013 she founded her own company, The Congruency Group, in order to train people in body language and detecting deception skills, interviewing and interrogation techniques, elicitation methods, body language, deceptive analysis and enhanced communication skills. Lena also works for SAIC as a principle training analyst educating government agency personnel in leadership foundations, mindfulness and communication practices.

Lena’s background as a former Department of Defense (DoD) certified military interrogator and Naval Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Officer who served in the Global War on Terror interrogating members of al Qaida and Taliban shortly after 9/11 at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, shaped her expert abilities that she trains others in today. She is the recipient of the Joint Service and the Navy/Marine Corp Commendation and Achievement Medals.

She has worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency and partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in HUMINT collection activities. Lena has trained numerous DoD and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel since 2003 and continues to train them today. Prior to her career in HUMINT, she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s Degree in Archaeology from Brown University and has excavated overseas. She is an animal advocate and currently volunteers as a bird-of-prey handler.

David Stringer

The Progressive Corporation

Session: The Modern GC Playbook: Risk, Reputation, and Real-Time Decisions
Date: Thursday, October 22

David Stringer is Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of The Progressive Corporation, a leading provider of personal and commercial insurance products and services. He is responsible for leading Progressive’s Legal Group, supporting all Progressive business units and Progressive’s Board of Directors.

David joined Progressive in 2004 as Senior Counsel and served as Deputy General Counsel—Corporate Litigation and Employment prior to assuming his current role. David and his team provide legal counsel on matters ranging from core business issues to public company concerns, including class action and complex litigation, corporate governance, corporate transactions, employment and labor, mergers and acquisitions, privacy and data security, internal investigations, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, intellectual property, and regulatory matters, among others. David also leads Progressive’s government affairs team and provides counsel on public relations matters. Earlier in his career, David authored and launched Progressive’s Code of Conduct, served on the company’s HR Leadership Team, and volunteered as an Employee Resource Group board member. David joined Progressive from Ropes & Gray LLP in Boston, MA.

Active in in-house bar activities, David is a past Chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Global Employment & Labor Law Committee and former President and current board member of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Northeast Ohio Chapter. He also serves on RAND’s Institute for Civil Justice Board of Advisors. David holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Rutgers University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Amy Walter

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, Washington, D.C.

Session: The Mid-Terms and the State of the Electorate: What Trial Lawyers Need to Know
Date: Friday, October 23

For more than 25 years, Amy Walter has built a reputation as an accurate, objective, and insightful political analyst with unparalleled access to campaign insiders and decision-makers. Known as one of the best political journalists covering Washington, she is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the non-partisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, where she provides analysis of the issues, trends, and events that shape the political environment.

A contributor to the PBS NewsHour, she provides weekly political analysis for the popular Politics Monday segment and is a featured contributor for the network’s election and convention special coverage events. She is also a regular Sunday panelist on NBC’s Meet the Press and CNN’s Inside Politics, and appears frequently on Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News Channel. From 2017 until early 2021, Walter was the host of the weekly nationally syndicated program Politics with Amy Walter on The Takeaway from WNYC and PRX. She’s also the former political director of ABC News.

In her presentations, Walter expertly breaks down the electoral process, congressional culture, and the Washington political scene. Her astuteness, wit, and range of expertise creates an engaging, compelling presentation, and her reliable and accurate analysis has earned her numerous accolades. Amy Walter takes audiences on an insider’s tour of Washington through the eyes of the woman with her finger on the pulse of politics.

Before ABC, she was the editor-in-chief of The Hotline, Washington’s premier daily briefing on American politics. There she served as the political publication’s primary voice for three years, and she provided regular analysis of the national political environment in her weekly National Journal column, On the Trail. Walter has provided election night coverage and analysis since 1998 and was a member of CNN’s Emmy-award winning election night team in 2006.

Named one of the Top 50 Journalists by Washingtonian magazine, as well as one of its 50 Most Powerful Women, Walter was dubbed one of the most powerful people in politics in George magazine for her insights into the mechanics that make the political machine run. She also won the Washington Post’s Crystal Ball Award for her spot-on election predictions and has been frequently quoted as a congressional election expert in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and the New York Times. Charlie Cook, Cook Political Report founder and contributor and political analyst for National Journal and NBC News, said, “Today, her work is trusted and respected by Democrats and Republicans alike. She knows how to get beyond bluster and spin to unearth — and explain — what really matters in a political arena. And, she has a proven track record of success, which is essential for those whose jobs depend on accurate political forecasting.”

Walter graduated summa cum laude from Colby College. She was also honored by her alma mater her with an honorary PhD, and now serves on the Board of Advisors. She is also a member of the Board of Advisors for the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, where she was an inaugural fellow.