FlexFest: Legal Work, Unbundled.

A half-day, nine sessions.

12:00 - 12:15
EDT

We open the day with takeaways from our upcoming 2026 Flex Compensation Benchmark Report — what's growing, what's slowing, where rates are landing. Then a candid take on what else has shifted, what hasn't, and where the leverage is moving in 2026.

Basha Rubin, CEO + Co-Founder at Priori

12:15- 1:00
EDT

What does a high-performing legal team look like when scale is no longer the primary advantage? This session explores how leading legal departments are rethinking team composition in an era of AI, automation, flexible talent, specialized service providers, and smarter systems—and what capabilities will matter most as traditional staffing models evolve.

Mark Smolik, Chief Legal Officer at DHL
Mike Haven, Global Head of Legal Ops at Meta
Rishi Varma, Chief Legal and Ethics, Compliance Officer, and Corporate Secretary at Cargill
Basha Rubin (moderator), CEO & Co-Founder at Priori

1:00 - 1:30
EDT

Most legal departments have accepted that work should be distributed more intentionally. Far fewer have built the systems to actually do it. This session examines what execution looks like inside a leading global legal department: how work gets routed, how those decisions get measured, and what the shift means for the legal professionals who operate within it.

Ava Guo, AVP - Senior Legal Counsel at AT&T
Brendan McMurrer, VP, Associate General Counsel - LegalEdge at AT&T
Mirra Levitt (moderator), Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder at Priori

1:30 - 2:00
EDT

Many legal departments treat alternative resourcing as a solution to a temporary problem. Others think about it more intentionally: where different types of legal work belong, how legal teams can remain agile, and how alternative talent models fit into a broader operating strategy. This session walks through how one team built that approach: the decisions they made, what they learned, and what's transferable.

Aaron Boersma, Spend Innovation Lead, Policy & Legal Ops+ at Ford 
Matthew Wheatley (moderator), Chief Commercial Officer at Priori

2:00 - 2:45
EDT

AI is changing what legal departments expect from law firms, ALSPs, and legal service providers. This session explores how AI agents, intelligent workflows, and unified legal systems are reshaping legal service delivery — and what it will take to lead in the age of AI.

David Lat, Founder at Original Jurisdiction 
Sabastian Niles, President, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary at Salesforce
Basha Rubin (moderator), CEO & Co-Founder at Priori 

2:45 - 3:15
EDT

More attorneys are exploring flexible and independent career paths than ever before. As the legal market becomes more comfortable buying services from independent lawyers and specialized providers, questions around positioning, client development, and repeat work matter more than ever. This discussion explores how two experienced solo attorneys have navigated those questions while building practices designed to endure in a changing legal market.

Anjali Sareen, Flexible Legal Professional at Uncommon Counsel
Odini Gogo, Flexible Legal Professional at Gogo & Moore
Matthew Wheatley (moderator), Chief Commercial Officer at Priori 

3:15 - 4:00
EDT

Legal departments have more options than ever before, including AI-native law firms, ALSPs, flexible talent providers, increased insourcing, and highly specialized boutique firms. But are legal teams actually changing how they source legal work? This session explores whether legal work is beginning to shift across a broader set of providers, which work is most likely to move, and whether new delivery models are creating meaningful change—or simply adding new options alongside traditional law firms.

Eric Dodson Greenberg, EVP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at Cox Media Group
Keir Gumbs, Chief Legal Officer at Edward Jones
Basha Rubin (moderator), CEO & Co-Founder at Priori 

4:00 - 4:45
EDT

If AI compresses execution, what happens to the traditional advantage of large law firms? This session explores how smaller, tech-enabled providers and independent lawyers can compete for work that once defaulted to scale, creating new opportunities for flexible and specialized talent.

Mark Pike, Associate General Counsel at Anthropic
Zack Shapiro, Founder/Managing Partner at Rains Law
Basha Rubin (moderator), CEO & Co-Founder at Priori

4:45 - 5:00
EDT