HFW Appoints First Head of Legal Technology Adoption

International law firm HFW has appointed

Ashleigh Ovland

as its first Head of Legal Technology Adoption, a newly created role reflecting the firm’s increasing use of AI and legal technology to support clients and lawyers across its global network.

The firm, which is well-known in areas such as energy, transport, insurance, and construction, said that Ovland will ‘identify where AI and other legal technologies can enhance client outcomes, strengthen relationships, and improve the efficiency and quality of legal delivery’.

Her remit includes embedding technology into day‑to‑day practice and ensuring the firm maximises the return on its legal technology investments across its sectors. She will work closely with the firm’s Chief Technology Officer,

John Court

, and the firm’s AI Committee, they added

She was previously an aviation Partner in the firm’s Hong Kong office and led the development of HFW’s ‘Flight Deck’ technology platform for airline industry clients, a client role she will continue actively to support.

Giles Kavanagh

, Global Senior Partner, and

Jeremy Shebson

, Managing Partner, HFW, commented: ‘Technology and AI are increasingly important to how we deliver value to clients, but success depends on thoughtful, lawyer‑led adoption, rather than technology for its own sake. This new role underlines our focus on embedding technology into day‑to‑day practice across the firm, supporting our lawyers and ensuring we achieve real returns from our legal technology investments.

Ashleigh’s background as a Partner and knowledge leader, together with her deep, hands-on legal technology experience, makes her ideally placed to help us continue on this journey.’

And Ovland added: ‘This is very much a team effort, and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with our lawyers to understand where AI and other legal technology can make a meaningful difference to our offering at HFW, and then making sure that these tools are embedded in a way that delivers real value – to our clients and our people.’

Congrats to Ashleigh.

More about

HFW here

.

—

A Legal Tech Conference For All of Europe

Legal Innovators Europe

– Paris – June 24 and 25.

There will be more news about the conference and key speakers as we get closer to June.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Richard Tromans, Founder, Artificial Lawyer and Legal Innovators conference Chair.

Note

: the conferences are organised by Cosmonauts – please contact them with any queries.

If you would like to be a speaker at Legal Innovators Europe, especially if you are at a law firm or inhouse legal team in Europe – whether based in France, Belgium, Spain or Germany, or beyond…..then please contact Phoebe at Cosmonauts:

phoebe@cosmonauts.biz

Note: if you are a legal tech company, please contact Robins:

robins@cosmonauts.biz

or Anjana

anjana@cosmonauts.biz

–

And if you’re in the US and looking for the next major event to join after Legal Week, then see you in California this June!

Legal Innovators California


, the landmark West Coast legal tech event, will take place on

June 10 and 11,

in the heart of the Bay Area, the home to many of the world’s leading AI businesses – and plenty of legal tech pioneers as well! More


information and tickets here


.