Jen Leonard
Jen Leonard
Jen Leonard founded Creative Lawyers to support law firms, corporate legal departments, and other professional services organizations that understand the urgency to modernize practice, services, and education. Jen works with leaders to cultivate innovative cultures, build nimble and collaborative strategies to navigate a volatile environment, and promote skills and mindsets that drive change. She develops cutting-edge generative AI education focused on law firm business and lawyer formation implications, leads design thinking workshops, facilitates innovation challenges, delivers retreat keynotes, and provides ongoing strategic support for her clients.
Before launching her company, Jen was the first Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director of the Future of the Profession Initiative at Penn Carey Law. In that role, she closely studied changes in the legal industry and translated insights into various curricular and thought leadership programs. She practiced law for ten years after graduating from Penn Carey Law in 2004, including serving as Chief of Staff to the City of Philadelphia Law Department. Following her tenure with the City, she returned to Penn to build the Law School’s Center on Professionalism, which became a nationally-recognized law student professional development program. At Penn, she has taught Generative AI in Law Practice, Design Thinking for Lawyers, Modern Law Firm Business and Innovation Strategy, and Attorney Well-Being as Ethical Obligation. She has also taught design thinking and ideation techniques to industry leaders in Wharton’s Executive MBA program and Penn Nursing’s Summer Innovation Institute.
Jen was named to the 2024 list of ABA Women of Legal Tech, is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, and received Penn’s Beverly Edwards Award for Exceptional Leadership. She volunteers her time to various initiatives that further the legal profession, including Penn’s Inn of Court, NALP’s Driving Inclusion Task Force, and the board of the Pro Bono Institute. She also hosts several podcasts about the legal profession, including 2030 Vision: AI and the Future of Law (co-hosted with American Arbitration Association CEO Bridget McCormack), Law 2030, Future-Proofed (co-hosted with Kirkland’s Chief Innovation Officer Rachel Dooley) and Practising Law Institute’s Fast-Tracked: Emergent Issues in the Legal Profession. She writes and speaks frequently about innovation and the legal industry’s future. Her most recent work appears in Globe & Law Business’s AI and the Legal Profession.
