Bari Chase

Bari Chase is the Director of the Continuing Legal Education Institute and Programs at the New York County Lawyers’ Association. She has fifteen years of experience developing programs for attorneys at all stages of their careers. Previously, she spent more than twenty years working in the legal information and technology industries, starting in the Editorial Department of Matthew Bender and Co. where she was responsible for such product lines as State and Federal Practice and Procedure, Admiralty, Immigration and Education Law.

For ten years she held various business development and acquisition positions for both Times Mirror Co., and LexisNexis, focusing on acquiring technology companies that would complement the legal content owned by the parent companies. After leaving Lexis, Bari was involved in residential and commercial real estate, and served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Business Law Department of the Peter J. Tobin School of Business at St. John’s University.

She is a graduate of Hofstra University, where she earned a B.A. degree with Honors in Political Science, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and received a J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law.

Harumi Urata-Thompson

Harumi Urata-Thompson is founder and CEO of HUT Consulting. She specializes in leading and advising companies on taking innovative paths to achieve strategic, operational and marketing success in their businesses. Currently, she is consulting to and serving on the board of directors of several companies. In addition, she acts as mentor to a number of people and speaks at numerous events. Subjects include Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Outerspace, Cross-border Business, and Diversity and Inclusion.

Prior to starting HUT Consulting, Harumi was the Chief Operating Officer for CFA Society New York (previously New York Society of Security Analysts), a nonprofit affiliate of the CFA Institute with 10,000 financial professionals. As COO, she was responsible for operating all aspects of the organization, and successfully improved its performance through offering better value to its members, instituting significantly better operating processes, developing corporate partnerships, and establishing a new business model for attracting revenues from sponsors. Before CFA Society New York, Harumi spent 14 years at Thomson Reuters where she held various positions including: Director at the corporate level overseeing innovation and managing a portfolio of mobile products across divisions; Chief of Staff to the CEO of the Healthcare and Science business, where she oversaw all management activities of five business units, including acquisitions, business and product management, and planning for an annual $900M budget covering 4,300 employees; and Product Manager looking after the company’s fixed income business, while launching the most significant product in this division’s history. Harumi began her career in investment banking with Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, working in fixed income derivatives sales and mergers & acquisitions.

Harumi has an MBA from INSEAD and a BA, magna cum laude, in business from Sophia University in Japan. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst, Project Management Professional certified, an Advanced Communicator and Leader of Toastmasters, and bilingual in English and Japanese. Harumi has traveled extensively, plays piano, keenly follows performing arts.

Guy Robinson

Guy Robinson has worked in information technology developing advanced training materials, college level curricula, and taught numerous courses in computer programming languages and information technology. Guy’s first programming job was converting 7080 Autocoder programs to IBM 360 Assembler, he then moved on to easier languages like COBOL, RPG, APL, C and C++, to name a few.

Guy has been a team member or manager of countless software development projects, served on a division board at the ITAA (Information Technology Association of America, later becoming the Cybersecurity Industry Alliance The ITAA merged with the Cybersecurity Industry Alliance and the Government Electronics Industry Association and then in 2009 merged with the American Electronics Association to form TechAmerica). He was a founding member of NYSIA (New York Software Industry Association), set up and oversaw a multi-state paid internship placement program for college students working towards degrees in information technology, and still found the time to manage and work in his own computer software development company. Guy’s clients have included Merrill Lynch, Milbank Tweed, Chase Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, Barclays Bank, Dun and Bradstreet and many other entities in the financial sector for whom he developed “crown jewel” programs.

While process automation and “puzzle solving” have provided a great deal of intellectual satisfaction, something was lacking! In the 1970’s Guy lucked into an opportunity to engage in a long forgotten, but not dismissed, activity that has brought parts of everything he has ever learned together. What could it be? Golf! For Guy, golf is geometry, physics, goal setting, problem analysis, risk/reward evaluation, adapting to human and environmental obstacles, the ability to recognize behavioral patterns which motivate action and much more. Golf sometimes necessitates a level of social interaction that can be uncomfortable. It also demonstrates that a solution is little more than “a point of view that works” and that a working solution does not preclude the possibility of better solutions based on dissimilar or divergent points of view.

Testing this theory has driven Guy to study golf as if it were a programming methodology/language. He has become certified as a Master Golf Teaching Professional® with the United States Golf Teachers Federation, a Level 1 Golf Fitness Instructor with the Titleist Performance Institute, a Level 1 Coach with the First Tee of America, a U.S. Kids Golf® Certified Coach and to author a book for beginner golfers. He has given countless private and group lessons and clinics for golfers of all ages and skill levels.

Guy believes that he path to a positive resolution is an attribute or property of the the solution that gets you to the goal. A notion should not be dismissed out-of-hand simply because it comes from a source whose credentials you believe are inconsistant with creating a positive outcome or because it indicates fault for the contingent you represent. Cross-discipline analytical thinking can often be as helpful to problem resolution as any other method.

Ian Whitehurst, Esq.

Ian is a Leading Junior in Serious Organised Crime, Financial Crime, Confiscation as well as Regulatory Law and is ranked as a leading individual in those practice areas in Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500.

His practice is nationwide and can be divided principally into 3 main areas but there is a considerable overlap between the practice areasthat he specialises in. Firstly, Ian has a heavyweight crime practice where he predominantly defendsthroughout the country with a particular emphasis on homicide, firearms and drugs conspiracies as well as cyber related criminality.

Secondly, in financial crime matters Ian has specialised for many years as Leading Counsel in the fields of MTICVAT fraud, Direct Tax Fraud, Money Laundering, False Accounting and Corporate Misfeasance and is a member ofthe Revenue Bar Association.

With regardsto his regulatory practice, Ian has been appointed to the Specialist Regulatory Panel of Counsel and prosecutes and defends in equal measure in the regulatory field, concentrating in particular upon health and safety, environmental and trading standards prosecutions. Ian’s international practice is concentrated upon advising individuals and companies on international criminal and financial matters with a particular emphasis on public international law and international arbitration matters.

Brian Flood, Esq.

Brian Flood is Vice President Personal Insurance at HUB Northeast at HUB International. He has over 3 decades of experience working with high-net worth individuals, family offices and mid-sized organizations on risk reduction strategies and comprehensive insurance protection solutions. He holds a BA degree in Management from Hofstra University and has earned industry designations as a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Associate Risk Management (ARM).

He holds insurance licenses for property and casualty and life, accident and disability. He is a Board Member of Disaster Tech and a Member of The American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters.

Paul Jang, Esq.

Paul Jang is Director of Operations and Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. He received his undergraduate degree from New York University and a JD from Brooklyn Law School. Before assuming his current position he was also the Audio/Visual and Systems Technician, External Affairs Liaison and Director of Technology at Brooklyn Law School.

A. Michael Weber, Esq.

Michael Weber provides 24/7 service and pragmatic advice to clients – managers, human resources professionals and inhouse employment counsel. He assists clients with human resources issues, including decisions concerning hiring, firing, promotions, compensation, and leaves.

As a highly-experienced employment law trial lawyer, Michael has successfully defended clients in scores of individual, class and collective actions; hundreds of mediations and arbitration proceedings; and achieved multiple defense verdicts in state and federal courts involving claims of:

• Discrimination and harassment
• Violations of wage and hour laws
• Negligence in hiring, supervision, and retention
• Breach of contract
• Negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress

In addition to his litigation practice, Michael counsels employers on effective strategies for avoiding litigation and prepares them for litigation when unavoidable. He represents clients in cases involving:

• Restrictive covenant litigation
• Whistleblower defense
• Alternative dispute resolution
• Arbitrations
• Wrongful termination
• Breach of contract
• Employee benefits
• Wage and hour violations
• Discrimination issues

Michael has extensive experience working with companies in the following industries:

• Insurance
• Hospitality
• Retail
• Financial services
• Staffing
• Healthcare
• Transportation

Michael frequently speaks throughout the country on contemporary labor and employment law topics. He is regularly interviewed by the press and has been published in major national trade publications. His views and opinions are valued by senior management and employee relations professionals throughout the country. Michael is founder of the firm's New York office and previously served as a member of Littler's Board of Directors.