Crowell’s new innovation leader: ‘technology does not solve all problems’ – Reuters

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• Alma Asay leaves “evangelist” role at Litera Microsystems
• She founded cloud-based litigation platform Allegory Law

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(Reuters) – Crowell & Moring has recruited legal technology and innovation veteran Alma Asay for a new client-facing role at the firm, where Asay said she plans to apply a decade of experience founding and working at legal tech companies.

“The same way that owner-operators become successful investors in Silicon Valley, I think it’s valuable to have people who have actually built legal technology and really lived in the legal innovation space to then come back to the firm side and help with innovation from within,” Asay said.

She joins Washington, D.C.-based Crowell as senior director of practice innovation and client value, reporting directly the firm’s executive committee.

Asay, a former Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher litigator, founded cloud-based litigation management platform Allegory Law in 2011. She became chief innovation officer at Integreon when it bought Allegory in 2017, and then moved over to legal workflow and workspace tech company Litera Microsystems in an “evangelist” role in March 2020. Litera acquired Allegory in August 2020. Litera didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on her departure.

Her position at Crowell has a broad reach. Asay will work with lawyers and the firm’s client development, pricing, legal project management and information technology teams, as well as with clients to get a sense of their needs, the firm said in a statement announcing her hire Monday.

Asay said her role is “not technology-driven.”

“Technology absolutely is one type of innovation, but it’s not the only type of innovation,” she said. Asay will focus on the challenges clients face and what they want to see from Crowell, and on finding solutions to meet those specific needs. That could include changes of all sorts, from having people perform different roles, implementing new processes or bringing in technology, she said.

“In a weird way, being so deep in legal technology has made me better understand that technology does not solve all problems,” Asay said. Technology “only works and only gets adopted if you have the right set-up for it, and if it’s actually what’s needed to solve the challenge, and it isn’t always.”

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Sara Merken

Sara Merken reports on privacy and data security, as well as the business of law, including legal innovation and key players in the legal services industry. Reach her at sara.merken@thomsonreuters.com

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