Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance creates new Research & Development Hub, as Covid-disruption expected to boost demand for digital products

International law firm Clifford Chance today announces that April Brousseau has been appointed to lead its newly-created Research & Development Hub (R&D Hub). The hub will accelerate and scale the development of digital products, both for sale to clients and to help transform the firm's operations though the firm's Best Delivery team.

The newly formed R&D Hub brings the firm's product research, design and development capabilities together in one place, including the product development expertise developed within subsidiary Clifford Chance Applied Solutions. By pooling this collective expertise in one place and working with Clifford Chance lawyers and other key teams, the R&D Hub will focus on the rapid and effective development of new digital solutions for the firm's clients and its lawyers.

Clifford Chance Applied Solutions will continue to exist as a subsidiary of the business, dedicated to delivering client solutions to market.

Bas Boris Visser, Global Head of Innovation and Business Change, comments: "The business of law is changing faster than ever, and pandemic disruption in the wider business world has set the stage for accelerating demand for digital legal products. By bringing together the research and development capabilities that we have developed both within the firm and in our successful subsidiary Clifford Chance Applied Solutions, we can boost the speed and scale to our digital product capabilities. Together they are greater than the sum of their parts, and I am excited to work with April and the whole team to build the digital legal products of tomorrow."

Newly-appointed Director of Research & Development, April Brousseau, will have responsibility for the selection, design and development of all new digital products through the Hub, as well as for the sales of all client solutions via the dedicated sales team in Clifford Chance Applied Solutions.

She comments: "It's an exciting time to be working in legal technology and innovation, and I can't wait to start collaborating within our new R&D Hub, across our firm, and with clients to invent the legal products and services of the future.

"We have learned a lot from the start-up culture of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions in recent years, and it is great to be able to bring the exceptional product development expertise we have established there right into the heart of the business. We believe we can do more by doing it together in one, single, collaborative team."

April joined Clifford Chance in May 2020 and has a wealth of experience in product development and change management through innovation and product development roles at Norton Rose, Simmons & Simmons and, over the last year, at Clifford Chance.