Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has hired Paul Orchard as director of innovation and legal transformation for Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific (EMEAPAC), we can reveal. Orchard was previously head of innovation at Stephenson Harwood, where he helped to deliver the UK top 50 law firm’s GenAI solution testing and implementation programme.
Orchard is no stranger to large law firms: before Stephenson Harwood, he was global head of legal service innovation at Freshfields and before that, director of continuous improvement at Clifford Chance. He replaces Jeremy Coleman, who last summer joined Leah (at the time called ContractPodAi).
In his new role at NRF, Orchard will work closely with partners; clients; the firm’s legal transformation team, NRF Transform; and business services teams. The NRF Transform team includes lawyers, former lawyers, project managers, consultants, legal designers, service delivery paralegals, legal technologists and the full range of dev-ops professionals.
Orchard’s appointment follows the October 2025 hire of Jana Blount as director of client solutions and digital strategy for EMEAPAC. It is anticipated that together, Orchard and Blount will collaborate to accelerate the firm’s innovation agenda, with a stated objective to bring together internal transformation, client facing digital solutions, and region-wide technology strategy.
At Stephenson Harwood, Orchard was notably involved with the firm’s GenAI strategy announced in May 2024, which included the adoption of Harvey for legal tasks and a partnership with Curvestone to help build more custom GenAI solutions.
Peter Scott, global managing partner and managing partner of EMEAPAC at Norton Rose Fulbright, observed: “Paul’s mandate is to help our lawyers further elevate the delivery of legal services to our clients. He brings a rare combination of client centric thinking and deep operational experience across innovation, AI, and legal operations. We are committed to accelerating our transformation and innovation agenda across the region, and we are delighted to welcome Paul to the firm.”
Orchard said that he is looking forward to the opportunity to “reimagine how we deliver legal services, enhancing both client value and internal engagement,” adding, “I look forward to collaborating with teams across the firm to embed practical solutions that create real, measurable impact for our clients.”
Asked what the key trend for this year will be, Orchard told Legal IT Insider: “The focus for many teams will be on driving value from GenAI beyond the initial use-cases served by off the shelf platforms. Building custom solutions for internal and client use, finding the most compelling ways to combine firm’s structured and unstructured data sets with GenAI, and of course – starting to explore agentic use cases.”
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