Jesse Soslow
Jesse Soslow is a legal technology entrepreneur and former in-house lawyer with deep experience in legal operations and spend management. Before co-founding Poppy Legal, Jesse served as General Counsel at multiple fast-growing tech companies, where he oversaw legal strategy, compliance, and outside counsel management — including during complex transactions such as SEC-qualified digital asset offerings. Driven by firsthand frustration with the inefficiencies and opacity of traditional legal spend processes, he built Poppy Legal to give in-house legal teams clarity, control, and intelligence over outside counsel costs through intuitive software and AI-powered insights. Jesse’s work is focused on simplifying legal spend management, helping legal departments move beyond spreadsheets and manual reviews to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
Katie Dunne
Katie Dunne serves as Senior Director and Assistant General Counsel at Crate & Barrel Holdings, Inc., where she plays a key role on the company’s legal team supporting marketing, eCommerce, and privacy initiatives. Since joining Crate & Barrel in 2019, she has advised on a wide range of legal matters, including regulatory compliance and risk in digital marketing and retail operations. Prior to her in-house role, Katie was a Senior Associate in Litigation & White Collar Investigations at Latham & Watkins, representing global clients in complex investigations and compliance matters
FREE LIVE CLE CREDIT IS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR IN-HOUSE COUNSEL (FRACTIONAL GCs, GOVERNMENT ATTORNEYS, & ALSP ATTORNEYS INCLUDED) AND SUBSCRIBERS TO IN-HOUSE CONNECT ON-DEMAND.
IF YOU ARE A LAW FIRM ATTORNEY YOU ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND OUR LIVE EVENTS BUT UNLESS YOU ARE SUBSCRIBED TO IHC ON-DEMAND, WE WILL NOT BE PROCESSING YOUR CLE REQUESTS.
This program is approved for CLE credit in the following states: New York, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Texas.
This program is pending CLE credit in the following states: Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Wyoming and Wisconsin.
This program is pending CLE and CPD credit for self-application by the attorney or for reciprocal CLE credit in the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Québec, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington.
We do NOT provide CLE for: Mississippi or Arkansas.
This program is appropriate for newly admitted attorneys and experienced attorneys.
Are We Ready for Billing Guidelines? A Practical Roadmap for In-House Teams
Event Description
Billing guidelines can be a powerful lever for controlling outside counsel spend, improving invoice quality, and reducing the “surprise factor” that shows up at month-end—but only if they’re designed for how your legal team and firms actually operate. This session breaks down how to tell whether your team is ready, what “reasonable” guidelines look like in practice, and how to roll them out in a way that drives adoption (instead of friction).
Join us on Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT as Jesse Soslow (Co-Founder, Poppy Legal) and Katie Dunne (Senior Director, Assistant General Counsel, Crate and Barrel) explore a practical, step-by-step approach to billing guidelines—from making the business case internally to communicating expectations with firms and handling the issues that inevitably arise after launch. Attendees will also receive a guide to drafting billing guidelines plus a billing guidelines template to help you move faster.
Key takeaways:
- A readiness checklist: when billing guidelines will work—and when they’ll backfire
- What “reasonable” looks like (and how to avoid overly rigid rules that create noise)
- How to structure guidelines so they’re easy for firms to follow and easy for your team to enforce
- Rollout playbooks: messaging, timing, and how to drive compliance without burning goodwill
- What to do if you’re not fully ready: interim controls and quick wins you can implement now
Who Should Attend:
This program is designed for in-house legal professionals who manage outside counsel relationships and legal spend—especially legal ops leaders, in-house counsel overseeing budgets or high-volume matters, and department leaders looking to standardize billing practices across firms while maintaining strong working relationships.
There is NO COST to attend this program!
This program is FREE, thanks to our gracious sponsor, Poppy Legal! If you can’t make it to the live program, the recording will be available for viewing via our paid CLE library, In-House Connect On-Demand!