Why Contract Ownership Is Your Most Expensive Blind Spot (Presented by Above the Law)

Hal studied law at the University of Michigan Law School and is a licensed attorney. His combination of legal practice, in-house general counsel service, and product leadership underpins his work translating complex legal technology for corporate, government, and law firm audiences.

At DocuSign, Hal served as the company's Global Legal Evangelist and acted as subject-matter expert for the launches of Docusign Click and Remote Online Notarization. He briefed senior Capitol Hill staff in Washington, D.C. in support of the passage of the 21st Century IDEA Act. Earlier, as EVP and General Counsel of LiveNote, he opened the company's new San Francisco headquarters, recruited its first COO, devised a licensing strategy that secured control over a key IP portfolio, and helped the company acquire a top competitor.

Hal is a frequent presence in the legal technology community, having delivered hundreds of webinars, user conference sessions, advisory board briefings, podcast episodes, and industry presentations over the course of his career. He has advised general counsel, law firms, and government agencies on eSignature legality, and he writes regularly for industry publications. His podcast, Meeting of the Minds — The Legal AI Podcast, is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Hal joined Workday through its acquisition of Evisort, the pioneering AI-native contract intelligence and lifecycle management provider, where he was VP of Product Marketing. At Workday, he led product marketing for Workday Contract Management — including Workday Contract Lifecycle Management and Contract Intelligence, powered by Evisort AI — guiding Evisort's post-acquisition assimilation into Workday and its global go-to-market expansion. In his current role, he leads product marketing for Workday AI agents, including solutions leveraging Workday CLM and Flowise.

Before Workday, Hal spent more than four years at DocuSign as Senior Director of Product Marketing, holding progressive leadership roles across AI, security, and admin products and the ISV ecosystem, leading go-to-market strategy for the acquisition of Seal Software, and launching Docusign Insight, Monitor, and Analyzer. Earlier, he headed product marketing for legal and security products at OpenText, covering Recommind and Guidance Software following their acquisitions, including the EnCase forensics suite, and consulted with litigators and litigation-support teams from AmLaw 100 firms and Fortune 500 companies as a litigation consultant with Evolve Discovery (now FRONTEO).

Hal's earlier career includes eight years with Thomson Reuters, where he was VP of Product Management & Marketing for litigation products and, prior to the acquisition, EVP and General Counsel of LiveNote, a leading adopted litigation software provider. He also held sales and business development leadership roles at Law.com (American Lawyer Media), LegaLink (now Merrill Legal Solutions), iCyte, and LexisNexis, where he managed a 27-person team selling across nine law schools, including Stanford and UC Berkeley Law. He began his career as a litigation attorney at Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon in New York, practicing IP and antitrust litigation for the firm's top client team and drafting appellate briefs, pleadings, and jury instructions.

Lisa's path to the law was anything but traditional. After six years of Army service, she attended law school at night while working full-time during the day as a paralegal for a mid-size law firm in Louisville, Kentucky — an experience that shaped her view that becoming part of a community is the fastest way to propel one's purpose toward success.

Lisa left Kentucky State University in 2022 after receiving an invitation to serve as Ohio Northern University's second Vice President and General Counsel in the institution's history. At Kentucky State, she served on the President's Senior Leadership team and stepped in as Acting Chief of Staff and Acting Director of Veteran and Military Student Affairs. Earlier, as an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, she served as Acting Executive Director of the Civil and Environmental Division, managing five branches comprising twenty attorneys and sixteen legal support specialists. During her Army service, she was nominated by her BNCOC instructor for a Distinguished Leadership Award.

Lisa is an adjunct instructor in Transactional Skills (Contracting) at Ohio Northern University's Claude W. Pettit College of Law. As an author and speaker, she helps others strengthen their purpose and recognize that applying C-Suite thinking at the intersection of law and business is the path to success as an in-house lawyer.

As Vice President and General Counsel of Ohio Northern University since 2022, Lisa oversees the provision of all legal services to the University, has general charge of all legal matters pertaining to the University and its governing board, and advises the Board, its committees and officers, and the President on opportunities, risks, and the range of topics that confront the institution.

Before Ohio Northern, Lisa spent more than five years as General Counsel of Kentucky State University, a public HBCU, providing legal advice to the President, Board, faculty, and staff. Her portfolio spanned employment law and strategic human resources initiatives, management of federal and state civil litigation and administrative proceedings, oversight of outside counsel, responses to actions initiated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor, and legal support for procurement, contracts, and brand protection.

Lisa's nine years with the Commonwealth of Kentucky included service as General Counsel for the Education Professional Standards Board, its Executive Director, and its staff; as Assistant General Counsel for the Kentucky Board of Education, its Commissioner, and Kentucky Department of Education staff; and as an Assistant Attorney General representing state agencies and officials in civil and administrative actions before state and federal courts and administrative tribunals, including defending the Commonwealth against constitutional challenges to Kentucky's statutes.

Lisa spent a total of nine years at Woodward, Hobson & Fulton, LLP in Louisville — first as a senior litigation paralegal and then as an associate attorney specializing in insurance defense, professional malpractice, and commercial litigation. Her legal career began in the U.S. Army, where she served first as a legal specialist and then as a legal non-commissioned officer, deploying to Bosnia-Herzegovina to oversee legal activities for 1,100 soldiers in ten units and later providing legal support at Fort Knox to Brigade and Battalion Commanders for a training brigade of over 5,000 soldiers, supervising and training seven battalion legal clerks.