Addleshaw Goddard has announced a £4m investment into its innovation & legal technology team (ILT), which has hired former HighQ director of product operations, Elliot White, as head of operations. Alongside Elliot’s hire, the ILT team has also appointed two senior legal technologists and a further six legal technologists, giving the firm one of the largest legal technology teams in the market, at 36-strong.
White’s role will see him work alongside the team’s head Kerry Westland to further develop its strategy, focusing on the future growth and scale of the team and looking at further embedding process to client centric solutions.
Westland, who is a partner at the firm, said: “Elliot’s appointment will enable us to scale and grow in everything that we do. It demonstrates the continued investment we are making in our focus on innovation and ensuring our services are client shaped. His experience at HighQ and the growth they encountered will really assist us in our plans going forward to continue to add value to clients in this space.”
ILT is a client facing team that applies technology to manage large scale projects as well as overcome the daily challenges that clients face. It also continues to appoint those from a non-traditional legal background as a way of bringing in a myriad of new skills and backgrounds – to better develop the offering our clients and the firm receives.
Westland and her team have long used HighQ iSheets to automate tasks and you can read about the work they have done together here in some details: https://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.co.uk/en/products-services/highq/customer-stories/addleshaw-goddard.html
Speaking on his appointment White commented:” I realise that innovation isn’t a new topic anymore and it has become something that clients expect. With that in mind, I have seen that Addleshaw Goddard have embraced this and are committed to the ILT Team, continuing to invest and grow it since its inception.
“I’ve also worked with AG directly for a number of years and have seen their first-class approach to innovation and delivering value for their clients. We had the same approach at HighQ, and it felt like the perfect fit to continue to work in these areas that I am passionate about.”
Caroline.hill@legalitlexicon.com