Hogan Lovells’ head of innovation, Stephen Allen, has joined leading new law outfit Elevate.

Allen makes the move less than six months after being appointed to the role of head of innovation and digital at Hogan Lovells having headed up the transatlantic giant’s legal operations team since 2016.

He is joining Elevate’s executive leadership, reporting to chairman and CEO Liam Brown with responsibility for consulting, enterprise solutions, strategic pricing and account management.

His full job title is being described by Elevate as 'vice president, enterprise solutions and get sh*t done'.

Brown said: “Stephen will help us integrate our many consulting, technology, and service offerings to deliver expert-led, multi-disciplinary ‘jobs to be done’ solutions to address the business of law problems that law departments and law firms face.”

Allen is credited by Hogan Lovells for developing its Engage: LIBOR product, which was devised in collaboration with FTI Consulting and Cognia Law and uses artificial intelligence to help clients prepare for the phasing out of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) in 2021.

He also worked closely with Elevate during his time at Hogan Lovells having overseen a flexible lawyering deal in February 2018 for it to provide the firm’s UK business with access to its pool of lawyers.

In January, the firm signed a deal with Elevate to launch a document review centre in Phoenix to handle US-sourced legal work staffed by a core team of 20 Hogan Lovells lawyers with Elevate on hand to provide additional personnel.

Allen said his time at Hogan Lovells had been the best of his career, but he had been offered an “irresistible" role.

 “It is a unique opportunity to assemble the Elevate experts, tools, and services to design solutions that truly address the problems that legal professionals face,” he added.

Allen is co-founder of the Bionic Lawyer Project, a cross-profession initiative that aims to address critical issues affecting the legal profession, including the challenges associated with ensuring AI-powered decision making is ethical.

He joined Hogan Lovells after spells at DLA Piper, where he was head of global legal service delivery and quality, and PwC, where he was head of global legal services transformation.

Elevate was founded in 2011 by Brown after legal process outsourcing specialist Integreon, which he set up in 2001, was sold on to private equity investors.  

In June last year, Elevate secured a $25m minority investment from private equity firm Kayne Partners, bringing the amount of capital deployed to nearly $60m.

Previously it had made a series of acquisitions, namely legal AI technology and consultancy LexPredict, contract management specialist Sumati Group, UK legal resourcing firm Halebury, law company Yerra Solutions and Hong Kong-based flexible legal resourcing business Cognatio Law.

Further reading

Stephen Allen: 'Lawyers using the technology will triumph over those who do it the old way' — Q&A: Hogan Lovells' innovation head on the power of AI to enhance decision making and his obsession with quantum mechanics