The board of the European Legal Technology Association (ELTA), founded just over a year ago, is expanding. Its four board members will now be joined by María J. González- Espejo García (Spain) and Jeroen Zweers (The Netherlands). This expansion is the next step for the ELTA in achieving its goal to become the European platform for the technological future of the legal market.
María studied law at the Complutense University of Madrid, as well as European Law at Amsterdam University. She is an expert in corporate and professional #branding and is passionate about #innovation and #legaltech, as well as being a founding member of Madrid #LegalHackers and President of the Latin American Legal Professionals Women’s Association (AMJI). María has successfully built up and positioned many brands, such as Isofoton (renewable energy); Pérez-Llorca (law firm) as well as helping establish the Madrid region as an investment hub. She is a founding partner of the Instituto de Innovación Legal and a managing partner at Emprendelaw, which advises many professional service companies, law firms, and consultancies in areas such as strategy, marketing, communication, and people and knowledge management.
Jeroen is Innovation Director for Kennedy Van der Laan, a law firm based in Amsterdam and Eindhoven. He is responsible for a team of legal tech consultants and developers who help in-house counsels to use legal tech to overcome challenges. Jeroen is also co-founder of Dutch Legal Tech which is one of the oldest legal tech communities in Europe, with more than 900 members. Last year Jeroen was nominated as European Legal Innovator of the Year by the Financial Times.
Hariolf Wenzler, co-founder and president of the ELTA: “We are really delighted that with María and Jeroen we have found two new board members, who are equally excited and motivated as the rest of the board. The changes and developments, and new tasks that we face in the legal market are humungous and we try to keep up with all of it, worldwide, in order to enable our members to get the best insights and information. The board extension was the perfect next step to gain new perspectives and input from other European countries.”
María, who has been a member of the ELTA since it was founded in 2016, says: “A European platform was exactly what was needed to bring together all of these smart ideas and innovations that make the legal market so exciting and bursting with opportunities. I am looking forward to working with the board and with all the legal tech users and developers who are already connected via ELTA.”
“The Dutch legal tech scene is pretty agile and busy, but as in every country, the focus today rests mainly on national contacts, with the exception of the usual glance to the US. With ELTA Connect, we bring together European legal tech players, it is fantastic to be able to connect with peers in a mouse click”, says the new board member, Jeroen Zweers.
The “European” aspect of the ELTA is one of the issues that has been a main priority for the association right from its conception. Accordingly, after the success of its first conference in Berlin last July, the ELTA established the ELTA Ambassador Program, a group of handpicked well-connected legal tech pioneers from all over Europe and beyond, who volunteered to act as “swinging doors” between their particular country or region and the international level of the ELTA.
