Setfords, the UK’s largest platform law firm, has been shortlisted in five categories at the 2026 Legal Geek Leaders in Tech Law Awards as the firm continues to receive recognition for a series of major technology products it has launched this year.
Setfords is shortlisted for:
- Best Bespoke Legal Technology Development
- Most Innovative Alternative Legal Service Provider
- Change Management Leader for Gervais Carlton-Blake, Group CIO and CISO
- Innovation Trailblazer for Chris Olivier, Director of Data, AI and Engineering
- Rising Stars of Legal Tech for Ben Shaw, Director of Product and Platform
The firm is shortlisted for Best Bespoke Legal Technology Development for Halo, the legal intelligence platform it designed and built in-house. Halo combines case, accounts and practice management in a single system and is now used by all 650+ of its consultant lawyers. The category shortlist also includes Bird & Bird, Norton Rose Fulbright, and PwC Legal.
Setfords is also shortlisted for Most Innovative Alternative Legal Service Provider for how it has used technology to continue to evolve the platform model it has spearheaded over the past twenty years. The other firms in the running for the award are AirCounsel, Ambar, ClearyX, EY and Sweet Legal Tech.
Both entries reflect the firm’s decision to build its own technology rather than buy it. Setfords Technology Solutions Limited (STSL), the group technology company established by Setfords a year ago, now employs more than 30 specialists across software, data, AI, security and UX.
STSL builds and deploys the technology that underpins the whole platform, as part of a strategy to operate as a vertically integrated business – a law firm, a technology company and a data specialist in one. Alongside Halo, it has developed Helix, Setfords’ data foundation, which consolidates nearly twenty years of matter, financial, client and compliance data into one of the UK’s largest proprietary legal datasets.
Three of the firm’s technology leaders are shortlisted individually: Gervais Carlton-Blake, Group CIO and CISO, for Change Management Leader; Chris Olivier, Director of Data, AI and Engineering, for Innovation Trailblazer; and Ben Shaw, Director of Product and Platform, for Rising Stars of Legal Tech. Across those three categories they are shortlisted alongside individuals from firms including CMS, DLA Piper, Harbottle & Lewis, Pinsent Masons, and Simmons & Simmons.
Chris Setford, co-CEO of Setfords, said:
“This is independent validation of our strategy and, more importantly, deserved recognition for the people delivering it. We made a deliberate decision to build our own technology around the way Setfords works rather than adapt our business to systems designed for somebody else. To be recognised across five categories, covering our products, our business model and our people, is a significant endorsement of what the team has built.”
The awards dinner takes place on 14 October, immediately after the Legal Geek Conference 2026.
