Elevate is bringing aboard Hogan Lovells' global head of innovation, Stephen Allen, to help the law company integrate its growing slate of consulting, technology and service offerings on behalf of clients.

Allen, who will hold the half-cheeky title of "vice president of enterprise solutions and get sh*t done" when he starts at Elevate on July 1, will also sit on the company's executive leadership team. He'll be looking to build bridges across the different wings of the business on behalf of both law firm and corporate law department clients.

"Clients very rarely come to a company like Elevate and say, 'We need a widget.' They come with a problem," Allen said. "My goal is to work across Elevate and work with the best of their offerings to answer clients' problems."

One example from Allen's nearly four years at Hogan Lovells was his work on the firm's LIBOR offering. The product involved four different pieces of technology from four different suppliers, and he established processing capabilities at three different legal service centers to ultimately provide an end-to-end solution.

"We have customers that have a need for a particular solution: a bit of consulting up front, managed services, senior lawyers in London or New York, some paralegals in a more cost-efficient location," explained Elevate president John Croft. "That entails all of the component parts that Elevate has, but actually joining them up and designing a solution is challenge. That's a skill set that Stephen has."

Allen, based in London, is deeply familiar with Elevate, having known chairman and CEO Liam Brown for a decade and Croft for nearly as long. He's been a customer of the company for the last six years, dating back to his time at DLA Piper, where he served as director of service delivery and quality as well as head of market strategies. Most recently, he and Hogan Lovells worked with the company to establish the law firm's new document review center in Phoenix, which opened in December.

"That was a step on the journey," he said. "It's a very warm and long-held relationship."

Earlier in his career, Allen ran PwC's legal market advisory practice, advising and delivering change programs for law departments and law firms. He worked as a lawyer both in private practice and in-house, before becoming managing director of two divisions of Orange-France Télécom in the UK and Continental Europe.

"We are delighted that Stephen will continue to work with Hogan in our partnership with Elevate—including on our HL Elevate flexible lawyering program and our new legal delivery center in Phoenix—and will also support some of our other projects as needed, such as our data science initiatives," a spokesperson for Hogan Lovells said. "We look forward to continuing to work with Stephen. We wish him well and thank him for his contribution to Hogan Lovells over the last four years."