Our team

As leader of the Kennedys Liability Division, Richard has always been interested in how technology can impact the legal and insurtech sector. He believes that lawyers need to adapt and change, embrace technology, or risk becoming obsolete.

Over the last 10 years Richard has been investigating the potential to bring technology into law. His first success was an early version of KLAiM, Kennedys’ virtual defence lawyer. This led to him working alongside clients to develop more technology products, and he was able to prove the value of creating ‘self-serve’ tools. As a result, he defined a radical divisional strategy of “helping clients use lawyers less.”

He set up Kennedys’ Innovation Group in 2017 and tasked the group with creating innovations that clients could use to improve the way they worked, rather than to improve internal Kennedys processes.

Today, the expertise in the Innovation Group spans technology research and development, reporting and data insights, and corporate and public affairs – a combination of skills that reflects Richard’s belief that true innovation thrives when technology innovation combined with expert and human intellectual innovation work together.

He sponsors Kennedys global Ideas Lab which is designed to give everybody at Kennedys the chance to develop new innovative solutions to solve the challenges our clients face.

Richard and his team have won several legal/tech and innovation awards for the tools that they have produced for our clients. He leads the team responsible for winning the ‘FT Innovative Lawyers 2019: Innovation in the business of law – new products and services’ award. And was named by The FT as one of the top 10 Innovative Individuals, who are “Leaders of revolutions in legal practice” in Europe.

With the launch of Kennedys IQ, Karim and his team will continue to focus on the development of innovative new tools, that combine human and machine intelligence, to help support our clients through the claims journey.

Bringing together a team of lawyers, data scientists, analysts and claims experts has helped Karim and his team to win several legal/tech and innovation awards for the tools that they have produced for our clients. He is part of the team responsible for winning the ‘FT Innovative Lawyers 2019: Innovation in the business of law – new products and services’ award.

His proudest moment at Kennedys is leading the recent consortium – made up of Kennedys, a major global corporate client, a data science business and a university – that won a government grant to develop an AI claims handler . This was a first for Kennedys and a situation without precedent in the industry.

Karim regularly contributes and is invited to write articles for industry publications around the topics of insurtech, innovation and technology trends. And is regularly invited to speak at conferences around the world.

He was part of the team lobbying for Kennedys to embrace an innovation mindset, with a particular focus on developing products for clients.

This mindset means that Mike’s role today is less about technology and more about improving business processes and business transformation, often enabled by technology

His aspiration for Kennedys is to go beyond being a classic law firm, embracing technology to help clients to use lawyers less – and to encourage a consultancy mindset that makes Kennedys a trusted advisor to clients.

He is a core member of Kennedys’ Innovation Group, a team that has been recognised with several legal and technology innovation awards for the tools that the team has produced for our clients over the years, including the ‘FT Innovative Lawyers 2019: Innovation in the business of law – new products and services’ award.

Suzanne is also Global Managing Partner at Kennedys, a member of the firm’s Global Strategy Board and a member of the firm’s Innovation Group’s leadership team.

Suzanne has extensive knowledge of the insurance industry. During her career as a practising lawyer, she built a practice that saw her working with insurers, self-insured corporates and local authorities, and specialising in employers’, public and motor liability claims, as well as health and safety advice and prosecutions.

She describes her role as being ‘the conscience of the client’ in all innovation activities – the connection between clients and the technical and R&D experts in the business.

To stay focused on client challenges, Suzanne regularly meets with clients to listen to their problems, understand the issues they face in their markets and sectors, and bring this intelligence back to the group to shape the development of our tools.

As Global Managing Partner, she sees the potential to spend even more time with a broader range of clients around the world, enabling the Innovation Group to gain an even greater perspective on the issues, challenges and opportunities our clients face today.

Suzanne was recently named in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 list for 2020 – a prestigious annual list which gathers together the profession’s brightest stars.