Setfords launches Halo, in-house technology platform, as part of vertically integrated strategy

UK’s largest platform law firm has moved all 650 of its consultant lawyers onto a system it designed and built itself.

Setfords has launched Halo, what the firm calls a legal intelligence platform – combining case, accounts and practice management – that it designed and built in-house. Halo is now used by every one of the firm’s 650 consultant lawyers nationwide.

The launch is part of Setfords’ strategy to build a vertically integrated business that combines a law firm, a technology company and data capability in one group. 

The firm built Halo because it believed no product on the market worked for the way its consultants practise or for the platform model that brings them together. Setfords’ consultants range from self-employed solicitors working independently to lawyers with their own small teams of paralegals and legal assistants.

Halo was the largest technology programme in Setfords’ history. Over a single weekend, the firm migrated millions of historical documents from its previous system and moved all its consultants and back-office teams onto the new platform.

The firm said launches of this scale are difficult because they touch every part of the business, from legal work and accounting to documents, compliance, support and client service. Halo is now embedded across the firm, with consultant feedback feeding directly into new features as the technology team continues to improve the platform.

Guy Setford, co-CEO of Setfords, said: “Twenty years ago, we built Setfords around a different model for practising law. We believed if lawyers had more freedom, clients would get a better service.

“Halo is the next stage of that same thinking. The platform model changed the way law firms can work. Now we are changing the technology that sits underneath them.”

Alongside Halo, Setfords has built Helix, a structured data foundation that brings together twenty years of Setfords’ matter data, financial data, client communications, operational metrics and compliance information into a single governed environment. Helix is built on a lakehouse architecture with bronze, silver and gold layers, governed ETL pipelines and curated datasets. 

Because every consultant now works on Halo, the data foundation is growing more valuable with every matter. It also gives Setfords a platform for deploying AI directly into the workflows lawyers already use, rather than relying on separate systems or individual adoption by lawyers and support staff.

Chris Setford, co-CEO of Setfords, said: “Halo did not happen overnight. It has taken years to build the business, find the talent, architect the product and develop a platform that could be deployed across hundreds of lawyers working in different practice areas across the country.

“You learn things from building and launching technology that you can’t from a procurement process. Once hundreds of lawyers are working on the same system every day, their feedback becomes very specific, very practical and very valuable.

“That is now flowing straight back into our software. Our technology team is improving Halo rapidly and continuously based on what our consultants are telling us and what the data is showing us. That feedback loop is something very few legal businesses have.

“Halo was just the first step. We now fully control the technology that underpins how we operate, and that will allow us to keep improving how our lawyers work and the service our clients receive.”

Halo was built by Setfords Technology Solutions Limited, the dedicated group technology company established by Setfords last year. The in-house technology team has grown from eight to more than 30 specialists across software, data, digital, security and UX over the past two years.

Halo and Helix are the first major products in Setfords’ wider technology roadmap, with further tools and software already in development. The firm says the combination of a shared platform and governed data foundation are the key to rolling out automation and AI capabilities across the firm. 

For further information please contact media@setfords.co.uk