Time to meet the judges, who we have selected because of their long experience and understanding of legal industry media and marketing matters. In strictly alphabetical order we have Melissa Davis, Jobst Elster, David Gilroy, Kate McKittrick and Kim Tasso, with Insider editor Charles Christian (in strictly non-alphabetical order) acting as the chair of the judging panel to count up the votes and break-up any fights.
• Melissa Davis – is the managing director of MD Communications and leads the agency’s PR, social media and directories teams. She has a proven track record of delivering high level brand and PR strategies for over 14 years in political, legal and commercial environments. Before setting up MD Communications Melissa used her skills as Head of Media and PR for the English Law Society to deliver a focused and integrated PR drive to its 130,000 members.
• Jobst Elster – is InsideLegal’s Head of Content & Legal Market Strategy at InsideLegal, one of the leading PR and marketing consultancies operating in the US legal sector. He has extensive experience in market analysis, market research, PR and technology marketing to the legal industry. Jobst has spent the last 15 years advising companies entering Legal, involved in M&As and expanding overseas.
• David Gilroy – is the Director of Stuff & Things at Conscious Solutions. He is one of the company’s founders and has personally worked with over 250 law firms on their digital marketing strategies including website design, email marketing, lead conversion, social media, SEO, PPC and CRM. David has many years sales and marketing experience, both in Europe and America and he regularly blogs on digital marketing issues affecting law firms.
• Kate McKittrick – is the managing director of Charlton Grant and the driving force behind the company’s Modern brand portfolio of magazines and events. Kate directs the growth and development of Charlton Grant, has a strong addiction to shopping on Amazon and, not known for her organisational skills, has the ability to unknowingly keep an email trail dating back to the 1990’s.
• Kim Tasso – is the managing director of RedStarKim Ltd. She is an independent management consultant, specialising in the professional services sector, with over 30 years’ marketing and business development experience. After qualifying as a psychologist and working for several years in the technology sector she worked for a number of leading professional service firms (Deloitte and Nabarro) before starting her firm in January 1994. She advises on and provides training and coaching in the strategic and operational aspects of management, change, marketing, selling and client relationship management. She has published a number of books (on selling, media relations and growth strategies) and hundreds of articles and blogs.
• Charles Christian – if you don’t know who he is, you have come to the wrong site! However, just in case you were wondering, along with running the Insider newsletter and website (and writing sci-fi bestsellers) he has been involved with various video production and web-TV initiatives, both as a presenter and behind the scenes, for over a decade.