For the fourth consecutive year, Womble Bond Dickinson will hold a firm-wide Innovation Week on March 22-26. The week-long event includes a number of sessions designed to examine innovative technology, evaluate transformative business practice, and discover new ways to engage with clients.

Team members from all 27 U.S. and UK Womble Bond Dickinson offices are invited to attend, debate and create via open invitation webinars, virtual roundtables and small group discussions. Events being held throughout the week will include:

  • Monday, March 22—WIRED Magazine Executive Editor Jeremy White will kick off Innovation Week 2021 with a keynote presentation on “That was Only the Beginning: How the Next Decade’s Technological Advances Will Change Business”.
  • Tuesday, March 23—Mini-Hackathon. Team members will gather in small virtual rooms to introduce and consider ideas that would benefit the firm, its team members and its clients. 
  • Wednesday, March 24—Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University Professor Gary Marchant will discuss “Billing for Bots:  The Upsurge of Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law”. (For more on this topic, click here to read “Artificial Intelligence and Patent Law: What Happens After DABUS?” co-authored by Womble Bond Dickinson’s Chris Mammen and Brent Babcock).
  • Thursday, March 25—Mini-Hackathon. Round Two of this open forum/small group activity, designed to promote big, bold ideas.
  • Friday, March 26—While the Mini-Hackathons are intended to provide a grassroots approach to innovation, Womble Bond Dickinson’s innovation focus reaches the very top of the firm. With that in mind, Co-Chairs Betty Temple (US) and Jonathan Blair (UK) will present a joint session on the firm’s innovation efforts in 2020 and a look ahead to new ideas planned for 2021 and beyond.

“Innovation Week has been a truly unifying event for our firm in years past, and this year, with people still working remotely due to the pandemic, that is more important than ever. This week gives all team members the chance to collaborate and learn, regardless of geographic location, practice area or job title,” said attorney Steve Clinton, Chair of the firm’s U.S.-based Innovation Board. The Innovation Board, along with its UK counterpart, organizes Innovation Week.