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Bryony Hurst
Partner at Bird & Bird LLP
Professional Background
Bryony Hurst is a distinguished partner in the Dispute Resolution Group at Bird & Bird, one of London's foremost legal firms, where she leverages her legal expertise to assist clients in navigating complex litigation issues. With a keen focus on technology and media sectors, Bryony's legal practice reflects the ongoing convergence of these dynamic industries. Her considerable experience working with global technology and media companies, as well as fast-growth digital businesses, allows her to provide tailored advice that enables her clients to successfully adapt and expand amidst ever-evolving market challenges.
In her role, Bryony is known not only for her exceptional skills as a trial litigator but also for her proactive approach in working with clients before disputes arise. She utilizes her in-depth knowledge of the industries she serves to help clients identify potential threats and take preventative measures. This foresight enables businesses to safeguard their brand, uphold core values, and achieve commercial objectives—essential components in today's competitive landscape.
Bryony's extensive practice encompasses a wide array of Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) businesses, including broadcasters, publishers, web operators, content owners, IT providers, and software companies. Her expertise allows her to handle all facets of commercial litigation while addressing the unique challenges inherent to each sector.
Education and Achievements
Bryony's academic background is grounded in robust legal training, having completed her Legal Practice Course at the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice, which provided her with a strong foundation in practical legal skills. She further honed her legal acumen by obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Law from the University of Cambridge, an institution renowned for its rigorous academic standards and intellectual rigor.
Before becoming a partner at Bird & Bird, Bryony gained considerable experience at several prestigious law firms. Her career began at Hogan Lovells as a trainee solicitor, where she laid the groundwork for her future in commercial litigation. She then moved on to Olswang LLP, where she served as an Associate in the Commercial Litigation Department, further developing her expertise and gaining valuable insights into the intricacies of litigation.
Bryony's notable professional journey continued at White & Case, where she further cemented her reputation as a skilled litigator. This experience culminated in her return to Bird & Bird as an Associate and ultimately a Partner, allowing her to apply her extensive knowledge and insights into her practice today.
Areas of Specialization
Bryony Hurst's legal practice is multifaceted, with particular expertise in several key areas:
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Data Protection & Cybersecurity: Bryony assists clients in managing data breach incidents and cyber incidents, providing strategic advice and representing them in follow-on litigation. Her deep understanding of data protection law allows her to defend against claims pertaining to breaches, including those related to the right to erasure.
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Content Litigation: As litigation concerning the creation, distribution, and exploitation of both traditional and online content continues to rise, Bryony helps her clients navigate these complex disputes. She regularly advises on notice and takedown requests, as well as post-publication legal matters, ensuring her clients are equipped to handle the legal challenges that arise in a digital-first world.
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Distressed Technology Projects: When technology projects—such as IT outsourcing, telecoms, or software development—encounter delays, defects, or failure to meet Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Bryony leverages her skills to achieve optimal resolutions for her clients. Her ability to identify critical issues and work towards effective solutions reinforces her reputation as a trusted advisor in the industry.
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Corporate Crisis Management: Bryony is also adept at assisting clients in managing corporate crises. Her expertise in reputation management strategies is invaluable to businesses facing public relations challenges, helping them to navigate complex situations while preserving their integrity and public image.
Notable Achievements
Throughout her career, Bryony Hurst has developed a reputation for excellence and has successfully advocated for her clients in various high-stakes litigation scenarios. Her ability to analyze complex legal issues and formulate strategic approaches has contributed significantly to her clients' successes. Bryony's dedication to her practice, combined with her extensive experience, positions her as a thought leader in the fields of dispute resolution, data protection, and technology litigation. Her commitment to staying ahead of legal trends and emerging issues in the TMT sector is a testament to her proactive approach and unwavering support for her clients.
Conclusion
In summary, Bryony Hurst is a highly esteemed partner at Bird & Bird, recognized for her extensive knowledge in dispute resolution within the technology and media sectors. Her academic foundation in law, coupled with her varied experiences at top law firms, provides her with unparalleled insights into litigation and commercial challenges facing modern businesses. As a proactive advisor, Bryony ensures that her clients are well-prepared to handle potential disputes, enabling them to focus on growth and innovation in an increasingly complex marketplace. With a proven track record of success and a commitment to her clients, Bryony continues to be a trusted resource for TMT businesses navigating their legal landscapes.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.