Judges
Peter Ambrose
Managing Director, The Partnership
Karen Babington
Co-Founder, Collaborative Conveyancing
Simon Brown
Founder and Director - The ESTAS Group Ltd
Simon started his career in national newspapers, specialising in creating and managing awards events. In 2003 he launched The Estate Agent of the Year Awards which quickly gained the nick name ‘The ESTAS’ (The Oscars of the property industry). The ESTAS established themselves as the most important and valuable awards for agents as winners were decided purely on service ratings from customers. Recently The ESTAS Group has accelerated its development into a customer review and insight solution for conveyancers, agents, mortgage brokers and suppliers. The ESTAS Awards celebrated their 21st anniversary in October 2024 when over 1,000 of the UK’s top property professionals gathered at London’s prestigious Grosvenor House Hotel. With the arrival of other key directors Simon’s role in the business has changed to concentrate on PR and marketing and provide support and advice to all areas of the company.
Monique Burroughes
Head of Marketing, Watkins Solicitors
Guiding strategic marketing, digital presence and sector engagement across Conveyancing, Family Law and Education Law, Monique supports client acquisition and experience through data-led activity and clear communication that helps clients understand both the process and the value of skilled legal work. Previously Marketing Manager at one of the UK’s largest specialist conveyancing firms, Monique contributed to the early design of the Conveyancing Association website, and managed marketing for a national property-industry charity that has raised more than £1.2 million. Her earlier career includes senior FTSE 100 roles delivering digital strategy, analytics and customer-focused marketing. Monique has written multiple award-winning submissions for leading legal industry awards, giving her a clear and informed understanding of what genuinely distinguishes outstanding firms.
Sam Burrows
Head of Growth & Development, Gilson Gray (England) Ltd
With over 20 years of experience in Property and Conveyancing, Sam has built a career starting as an office junior at a law firm in Leicester and is now Head of Growth and Development at Gilson Gray (England). Sam has a strong commitment to training and mentoring the next generation of legal professionals and dedicates considerable time to developing young talent, helping them thrive in a fast-paced legal environment. She places a high importance on building relationships and working collaboratively with colleagues across the industry. Sam is also proud to be Chair of Women in Conveyancing and actively supports initiatives that promote diversity, inclusivity and other opportunities for women in the industry.
Paul Coombes
Director & Founder, Legal Marketing Works
Paul Coombes is the Director and founder of Legal Marketing Works, a specialist consultancy supporting both law firms and suppliers to the legal sector. With over 20 years of experience, Paul provides practical, results-driven support across marketing, business development, and partnership building, helping clients strengthen relationships and achieve sustainable growth.
Since establishing Legal Marketing Works in 2016, he has delivered tailored strategies that enhance visibility, drive client engagement, and create meaningful collaboration opportunities within the legal community. Paul holds a BSc and a postgraduate diploma in Marketing. His approach is practical, commercially focused, and shaped by a deep understanding of how the legal sector operates.
Owen Davies
Head of Searches & Affinity Partnerships, Severn Trent Services
Chris Harris
Co-Founder, Collaborative Conveyancing
Chris is well known across the conveyancing sector for his work at LMS, creating Today’s Conveyancer and Lawyer Checker. He presently helps advise a number of firms regarding their strategy and is also working on two projects that bring either new technology or information to the conveyancing sector. Despite all the changes and challenges conveyancers and conveyancing faces Chris is passionate about helping law firms build better businesses. Today, Chris is a co-founder and owner of Collaborative Conveyancing, a legal tech company.
Maria Harris
Chair, Open Property Data Association
Maria Harris is the Chair of OPDA, Director of Digital Cat Consultancy Ltd, and Non-Exec Director at United Trust Bank and GenH.
Through her commitment to digitisation, Maria is driving the transformation of the homebuying and mortgage experience for consumers and industry. Previously the Director of Lending at Atom bank where she designed, built and launched the first fully digital mortgage in the UK.
With over 30 years’ experience in management, Maria has held roles across a number of sectors including travel, utilities and more recently in financial services where she was awarded the inaugural Women in Finance Award for services to banking by HM Treasury. She also acts as a board advisor to FinTech North and Plotify.
She is a vocal advocate for equality, diversity, and the role of technology in improving financial wellbeing and the customer experience.
Angela Hesketh
Head of Government & Public Affairs (UK), PEXA
Angela is Head of Government & Public Affairs at PEXA and a dual-qualified conveyancer with extensive experience across residential property law, legal practice, and market reform. She brings a strong understanding of the operational and consumer challenges facing the conveyancing sector. After beginning her career in practice, Angela transitioned into consultancy, advising startups and established organisations on digital transformation and the modernisation of conveyancing processes, with a focus on improving efficiency, transparency, and security. In her current role, Angela works closely with government, regulators, and industry bodies to support the continued evolution of a secure, efficient, and trusted property market.
Angela holds several senior industry and independent roles, including Executive Member of the Open Property Data Association, Co-Chair of the Digital Identity Working Group of the Digital Property Market Steering Group, and professional member of the CILEX Disciplinary Tribunal. She is also an active participant in the Home Buying and Selling Council.
Sally Holdway
Director, Teal Legal
Sally is the founder and director of the Home Owner’s Passport at Teal Legal proving material information, digital sale ready packs and logbook technologies to lawyers and estate agents. She has been a conveyancing solicitor for over 20 years, working on the boards and management teams of some of the largest legal services firms in the UK.
She is a regular contributor to Government and industry working groups looking to embrace technology in the legal sector. She is also an author for the Law Society on technology and transformative change.
Alex Holt
Director of Business Development, The Cashroom
Alex’s background is in the legal profession. He is a qualified solicitor, having been a litigation Partner at Hill Dickinson. He then founded and ran an executive search business, before joining a global outsourcing company to head up their strategic move into the legal sector. In 2014, Alex brought his expertise to Cashroom, taking on the role of Head of Business Development. Tasked with expanding the company’s reach beyond its Scottish origins, Alex led the launch of Cashroom in England and Wales, growing its client base from 50 firms to over 300 across the UK. In 2022, he oversaw the company’s entry into the U.S. market, further establishing its international presence. Today, Alex continues to lead Cashroom’s business development efforts, ensuring the company remains at the forefront of outsourced legal cashiering and compliance services.
Sarah Keegan
Co-Founder, The CS Partnership
The CS Partnership are change management experts, guiding legal teams and leaders through successful tech adoption, and helping them overcome resistance and fear of change. They also advise on software selection, process map bespoke workflows, and develop tailored solutions to ensure every client’s needs are met.
Rebecca Kibby
Partner, Foot Anstey LLP
Rebecca Kibby is a highly commercial and innovative lawyer at Foot Anstey with over 25 years’ experience in the residential property market. She leads a team of 60 professionals in a business model which is geared to deliver profitable and innovative solutions to clients. Her expertise is immersed deeply in legal technologies bringing together legal, commercial, operational and technology skills that deliver solutions which enhance margins, deliver efficiencies and improve performance. Rebecca’s extensive experience in the residential property market enables her to lead to over 5000 transactions per annum, putting them in the top 30 largest advisors on residential transactions in the UK. Outside of Conveyancing Services, Rebecca strategically advises other legal departments within the firm to deliver efficiencies and improve performance. She is also Chair of Women in Residential Property.
Tracey Longbottom
Co-Founder, Forsyte
With nearly two decades in legal tech sales, Tracey Longbottom has seen every compliance headache law firms face—and knows how to fix them. Now leading business development at forsyte, she helps legal practices ditch the tick-box compliance culture for AI-powered risk assessments that actually work. Tracey’s passion? Translating complex regulatory requirements into solutions that compliance officers and managing partners can implement without the usual pain. She’s on a mission to prove that staying SRA-compliant doesn’t have to mean drowning in admin. When she’s not revolutionizing how law firms approach risk, she’s building the partnerships and sales strategy across the legal compliance ecosystem and reminding everyone that good compliance is good business.
Tom Lyes
Founder & CEO, Tom Lyes Consultancy Limited
After more than 15 years working across the legal and technology sectors, Tom now focuses on helping law firms and legal suppliers make sense of an increasingly crowded market, building clear sales strategies, meaningful partnerships and real momentum.
He believes success comes from good people, honest conversations and doing the right things consistently with a bit of TLC along the way.
John McAuley
Chief Commercial Officer, Nexa Law Limited
John is Chief Commercial Officer at Nexa Law, a Consultancy-model firm which supports over 180 lawyers in every sector of law, including high-end Residential Property. John has been involved in Nexa as a board member from day one, and joined Nexa full-time late in 2023 to help develop Nexa’s offering and drive the recruitment of high-calibre lawyers. John’s also previously been CEO of Veya, which gave him extensive insights into the Conveyancing sector (the tech subsequently acquired by TM Group early in 2025).
Ben Mills
Commercial Director, Minerva
Ben Mills has been working in the Legal Technology industry for over 25 years, having spent almost 15 years at a globally successful software company helping develop products and strategies to help the business grow. Joining the team at Law Firm Services in 2019, his role is to help promote and grow Minerva’s client base across the UK and develop its partnerships. Minerva is now a market leading Client Onboarding Solution used by many Mid-Tier Law Firms helping them win new clients faster whilst providing excellent customer service.
Connor O'Dell
Consultant Licensed Conveyancer
James Owusu
Founder & CEO, Checkboard
James Owusu-Agyemang is a founder transforming compliance and payments for regulated UK industries. As CEO of Checkboard, he built a unified platform enabling fast, secure client onboarding, biometric/ID verification, open-banking financial checks and compliance, plus embedded payments all tailored for law firms, conveyancers, estate agents, automotive services, and other regulated sectors. Under his leadership, Checkboard raised institutional funding, gained FCA authorisation, and now processes compliance and payments for a growing network of firms across the UK. With a background as a landlord and property investor, he created Checkboard to solve real problems he’d experienced personally combining real-world insight with technical ambition to bring simplicity, trust, and efficiency to complex onboarding workflows.
Lorraine Richardson
Solicitor and Legal Trainer, Adapt Law
Lorraine is an experienced property solicitor and trainer who is a popular conference and CPD speaker. Lorraine is now freelance but when in practice she ran a branch office and was a partner and the COLP for her firm. She also designs and delivers property and legal skills related courses and on-line materials including Conveyancing Quality Scheme training for the Law Society. Lorraine has developed a skill for writing and delivering webinars and aims to produce work that is both interesting and accessible for the viewer. Lorraine is the major writer for the monthly update journal for practitioners, the ‘Practical Lawyer.’ Lorraine is delighted that Law Brief Publishing have published the second edition of her book: ‘A Practical Guide to Document Signing and Electronic Signatures for Conveyancers’. They have also published ‘A Practical Guide to Residential Freehold Conveyancing’ by Lorraine which got a great review in the Law Society Gazette: ‘I like that it tells you what needs to be asked and why it needs to be asked. The quality of the information is exceedingly good. The section explaining how to read registers of title is a great table … this portion of the book alone might be worth the ticket price’. Lorraine has set up her own company and offers property related courses and webinars and a membership scheme for firms to access her webinars and personalised conveyancing training at a discount – www.adaptlaw.co.uk
Jo Robinson
Associate Solicitor, Irwin Mitchell
Jo qualified as a Legal Executive in 1995 and went on to qualify as a Solicitor in 2001. She has over 30 years’ experience in Residential Conveyancing and has seen many changes over the years. Jo enjoys working on complex and challenging matters and loves mentoring newly trained conveyancers. She has worked in both high street firms and large corporate firms throughout her career, which she feels has enabled her to gain a wider knowledge and understanding of clients’ requirements. Jo has been at Irwin Mitchell for the last four years and she enjoys working as part of a successful team.
Travis Scholes
Commercial Director, LMS
Catherine Shiers
Customer Engagement Director, Groundsure
Catherine joined Groundsure in 2011 as a GIS Technician and became Customer Engagement Director in March 2025. She leads strategies to enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and brand advocacy, overseeing all marketing, communications, events, and customer support. Catherine manages a team of 13 and has driven key initiatives, including the launch of Groundsure Explorer, innovative products like ClimateIndex, and flagship events such as the Thames Cruise and Golf Day.
Kayleigh Smale
Director, Smale Compliance
Kayleigh Smale is a self-confessed AML geek and compliance specialist with over 13 years’ experience in risk and compliance within the UK legal sector. She is the founder of Smale Compliance, where she helps law firms strengthen their AML and regulatory frameworks through practical, engaging, and down-to-earth support. Known for making AML accessible, practical, and even fun, Kayleigh turns complex rules into clear, workable processes that fit the realities of law firm life. She is passionate about helping others feel empowered and supported in getting compliance right, bringing energy, clarity, and a touch of humour to everything she does.
Julie Williams
Head of Service Delivery, Complete ASAP
Julie brings over 35 years of wide-ranging residential conveyancing experience, from managing transactions to overseeing volume operations. She co-founded ConveyAssist, an early UK-based outsourced title checking business, after moving from frontline conveyancing. Today, she’s responsible for the conveyancing partner network at Complete ASAP. Julie thrives on delivering great customer service, driving results and growth, and fostering personal development. She’s excited to support the BCA in 2026.