The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) will be holding its annual meeting virtually this year (July 19-23, 2021), and the Private Law Librarians and Information Professional section will once again offer a pre-conference Summit (Friday, July 16). This year’s Summit, Hindsight is 2021: Responding to Chaos and Change, will explore change, our response to change, change management, and finding opportunities and happiness in change.
The Summit Planning Committee has gathered an excellent lineup of speakers. You can read more about each speaker below. To register for the 2021 Summit, please visit the AALL registration page here.
April Rinne- Keynote Address
April Rinne has been weaving her own story about how to thrive amid flux, personally and professionally, for as long as she can remember.
Today April is an acclaimed speaker, thinker, advisor and writer. She is known for her many keynotes each year to business, industry, investment, policy and educational audiences around the world, and for her role as a bridge: between startups and governments, between developed and developing countries, between those excited about change and those resistant to it. She is also an impact investor, mental health advocate, yoga teacher and insatiable handstander. April’s handstands underscore her upside-down perspective on the world: they help her see differently, stay flexible, and bring joy (and occasionally amazement) to others. Earlier in her career she served as a global development executive, microfinance lawyer, and hiking and biking guide.
April holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.A. in International Business and Finance from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a B.A. in International Studies and Italian (summa cum laude) from Emory University. She is a Fulbright Scholar and studied at Oxford (University College; one full academic year), the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the European University Institute. April was a practicing attorney at Allen & Overy in London, UK and at O’Melveny & Myers in San Francisco. Her practice focused in corporate, banking, international capital markets, development finance. Like many of our members, April has had an atypical legal career, harnessing legal skills in unconventional yet future-forward ways.
David Lat
David Lat is a lawyer turned writer. He publishes Original Jurisdiction, a newsletter on Substack about law and legal affairs, and he writes for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Prior to launching Original Jurisdiction, David founded Above the Law, one of the nation’s most widely read legal news websites. He is also the author of a novel set in the world of the federal courts, Supreme Ambitions. Before entering the media and recruiting worlds, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. David graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Brianna Leung
Brianna Leung draws from over two decades of experience in leading human-centered organizational change in professional and legal services firms. An engaging presenter and facilitator, Brianna is driven to help people succeed and realize their goals by gaining a better understanding of the human factor. As Director of Strategy and Marketing for Much Shelist, a full-service national law firm, Brianna serves as the centralized point of leadership dedicated to driving client-centric growth by aligning strategic planning, marketing and business development efforts across the organization. Prior to joining Much, Brianna consulted for GrowthPlay, a marketing and sales enablement firm. She also founded Red Bird Strategy, LLC, a firm specializing in leadership training, team building and change management strategy. Throughout her career, Brianna has held multiple national leadership, sales and marketing positions which give shape to her perspective on managing the people side of change.
Brianna received her MBA and graduated with honors from Thunderbird School of Global Management and is certified in the Prosci change management methodology. A native Southern Californian adopted by Dallas, TX, Brianna now resides in Chicago, IL with her husband Dean, daughter Sophia (age 7), son Karson (age 5) and blue-eyed mutt Skyler (age 11).
On Firmer Ground 