Bristol-headquartered national law firm TLT is ramping up its transformation agenda with a Future Law initiative designed to drive change more rapidly in the way it delivers legal services and products to clients.
The initiative will focus on developing new solutions to client challenges in areas such as LegalTech and near-legal consulting. Digital sector head James Touzel will lead the initiative across the business with support from a team of business services professionals and fee earners. 
The firm has ring-fenced a £500,000 investment fund to support the initiative and enable a more rapid approach to testing and scoping of ideas in the business and, where suitable, with clients. Those ideas with potential will then be supported through the firm’s normal business change process to secure longer-term investment and support.
Head of digital and the firm’s FutureLaw initiative James Touzel, pictured, said: “Transforming how we approach and solve the challenges our clients face is not a new thing at TLT. What is new is the speed at which we now want to evolve our services and the approach and financing that we have put in place to drive that forwards.
“Tech and new market entrants are clearly disrupting the sector. We are thinking differently about how to solve the challenges our clients face as an intrinsic part of what we do every day. Ramping up our innovation programme will ensure that we continue to have a sustainable and valuable proposition for our clients in the future.”
TLT has successfully launched a number of service innovations in recent years as part of its ongoing transformation and investment programme. In the last year, this has included the hire of ex-BT regulatory affairs director Stuart Murray to launch a regulatory consulting service and a partnership with LegalSifter on a ‘combined intelligence’ solution for contract negotiation combining powerful AI technology with in-built legal advice.
The firm also launched a captive shared services centre in 2015 to improve delivery in two areas: first, around document review and collation with a particular focus on disclosure in litigation. Also, to centralise some elements of its real estate services to support in areas such as estate management and large due diligence project work for real estate transactions.
