Clifford Chance (CC) has hired April Brousseau from Simmons & Simmons to act as global lead for the firm’s innovation practice, Clifford Chance Create.

Brousseau, who was head of innovation and new business at Simmons, will work with CC’s lawyers and clients to develop new systems and processes that improve the delivery of its services.

The Clifford Chance Create unit was created by the firm in July 2018 with a brief to ensure the firm ‘stays at the forefront of the advances that will shape the sector and the firm's future client service model’.

Its responsibilities include the Singapore-based Create+65, a legal tech incubator supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board, which is in turn part of the firm’s Best Delivery Hub for Asia Pacific and Singapore.

The unit also ovesees CC's participation in Barclays' legal tech incubator Eagle Lab, which was launched in partnership with the Law Society of England and Wales.

Bas Boris Visser, global head of innovation and business change at Clifford Chance, said: "I am delighted to welcome April to Clifford Chance, where her experience, skills, and cultural fit will make her an invaluable member of the team driving innovative client solutions at the firm."

Brousseau joined Simmons in August 2018 and, working with director Ben Finnis, played an important role in forging its innovation and business change programme, where she led on new business matters.

Before joining Simmons, she worked at Norton Rose Fulbright for four years, leading on knowledge management, having previously held a similar managerial role at leading Canadian independent firm Stikeman Elliot.

In July last year, Simmons bought legal tech start up Wavelength, itself having benefited from Eagle Lab's support.