Crowell & Moring Taps Alma Asay as Senior Director of Practice Innovation and Client Value

Client-facing role to focus on developing innovative solutions to drive efficiency and solve complex challenges

Washington – June 28, 2021: Crowell & Moring has tapped Alma Asay, an experienced innovation leader in both the legal and technology industries, to serve as the firm’s Senior Director of Practice Innovation and Client Value. Asay will focus on driving efficiency, delivering measurable value, and creating customized innovative service solutions in partnership with the firm’s clients.

Asay was a lawyer for more than six years at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher before launching Allegory, one of the first cloud-based litigation management platforms, used by Fortune 500 companies, AmLaw 100 law firms, and top litigation boutiques. When Allegory was purchased by Integreon Discovery Solutions in 2017, Asay became its chief innovation officer. Most recently, at Litera Microsystems, she increased the company’s visibility and brand development through the delivery of live content featuring industry leaders, strategies to strengthen relationships with global law firms, and insights into the development of technologies focused on lawyers as end users.

"Alma brings a holistic approach to our client-facing efforts, drawing on her unique breadth of experience and valuable perspective recognizing the different legal and corporate roles she has held,” said Ellen Dwyer, chair of the firm’s Executive Committee “She has a keen understanding of what clients need and some of the challenges they face having been on the business side as a founder and CEO of her own company."

Asay will collaborate with lawyers, as well as the firm’s client development, pricing, legal project management, and information technology teams to deliver high-value, customized solutions to the firm’s clients in areas including matter management, process improvement, knowledge management, and technology applications. On the client front, Asay will partner with clients’ legal departments and legal operations teams to understand their priorities and challenges and deliver cost-effective and valued solutions.

“I’ve learned a lot as an entrepreneur that I’m excited to apply to my new role, including the power of listening and what it means to deliver actual, sustainable innovation. I look forward to working with Crowell & Moring’s exceptional team to find new ways to deliver the highest level of service to clients and create innovative solutions to strengthen the firm’s already top-notch legal service offerings,” Asay said. “Something that I’ve come to realize from my ten years in legal technology is that we need to focus less on technology as the solution to fix all things and more on the specific challenges that clients are facing in real time.”

A prolific writer, Asay has published an array of articles about innovation in the legal industry and has appeared on podcasts, at conferences, and hosted her own series on Litera TV. She has been repeatedly recognized as a legal innovation leader, including by the American Bar Association, which named her a “Legal Rebel” in 2017, an honor that highlights lawyers who are “finding new ways to practice law, represent their clients, adjudicate cases and train the next generation of lawyers.”

Asay earned her law degree from New York University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University.