After years of quietly pushing the boundaries of legal innovation in Africa, Webber Wentzel is stepping forward to share a deeper look into its holistic, integrated and people-first approach to legal innovation in Africa – and beyond.

The firm's innovation strategy represents a departure from traditional approaches in the market, in favour of truly embedded transformation that operates at the intersection of client service, internal operations, and market leadership.

Fusion – A 360-Degree Context

At the heart of this evolution is Fusion – an award-winning, dual-mandate division. Fusion bridges two worlds: the high-stakes, client-facing mandates that demand fast, pragmatic innovation, and the behind-the-scenes operational changes that future-proof the firm itself.

Most innovation teams choose one lane. Fusion deliberately works in both, giving it a vantage point that is not easy to match: seeing not just what’s possible, but what actually works in practice. Its track record includes some of the largest, most complex client matters in the market, where solutions are stress-tested under real-world pressure. This same expertise shapes internal initiatives, ensuring they’re grounded, scalable, and commercially relevant.

Inside the firm, Fusion isn’t tucked away in an innovation lab. Its members are embedded – moving between partner strategy sessions, client workshops, process reviews, and tech deployments. One day they’re re-engineering contract workflows; the next, designing AI implementation frameworks or compliance plans. Always hands-on. Always solving problems that matter.

“Our approach isn’t theoretical. Fusion works on the ground and in the trenches – alongside our lawyers, our clients, and our business teams," said Safiyya Patel, Managing Partner at Webber Wentzel. "This integration gives us a 360-degree view of what's actually needed in practice – and it's that context that drives meaningful, durable innovation.”

Strategic Investments

Webber Wentzel has embedded AI and data analytics across its operations, focusing investment on solving real challenges faced by lawyers and clients. Its portfolio approach blends proprietary in-house solutions with strategic partnerships across the legal technology ecosystem – each selected for priority use cases where they can deliver measurable impact. 

“We don’t simply license a platform and call it a day,” explains Aalia Manie, who leads Fusion and made the International Legal Technology Association's global list of most influential women in legal technology last year. “We pilot, refine and integrate. If the vendor product roadmap doesn’t align, we take a step back. If we need to build, we build. That discipline ensures our clients get durable value, not hype.”

“AI investments are never a silver bullet. “Technology decisions are often the easy bit,” Manie continues. “The real work is creating frictionless user experiences, rewiring how lawyers operate as AI takes on greater influence, ensuring data is grounded and confidential, and building governance so AI decisions are transparent and defensible. Every system is pressure-tested until it holds – because in law, it has to perform in the heat of a deal or against a court deadline."

Digital Co-Creation

Building on its track record of delivering digital-first solutions, Fusion is expanding its offering with a new Legal Innovation Lab – an offering that deepens collaboration with clients to co-develop practical, technology-enabled solutions. While participating clients can tap into Fusion’s trusted vendor network – gaining faster technology due diligence, streamlined solution sourcing, and preferential pricing – the Lab remains firmly technology-neutral, selecting tools solely for their fit with each client’s legal ambitions.

The Lab's AI offering is holistic and end-to-end. Any potential AI solutions will go far beyond deployment. Services include legal AI governance frameworks, operational workflow design, people-centred change management, capability building, and risk assessment protocols – ensuring AI is embedded effectively, responsibly, and with measurable impact.

Strategic Partnerships

Emerging from over a year of stealth testing and collaboration, Webber Wentzel has been named the marquee African design partner for Legora – one of the world’s leading legal AI platforms, already deployed by some of the largest global organisations. Following extensive pilots, co-development, and rigorous security-first testing, Legora has been rolled out across the firm at scale and anchors the Legal Innovation Lab’s technology offering.

Through the Webber Wentzel x Legora Lab partnership, clients will gain exclusive benefits, including preferential commercial arrangements and early access to new solutions co-developed for the African legal market. It’s a relationship built on co-creation rather than procurement, resulting in tools that respond to the unique operational, regulatory, and commercial realities of law in Africa.

The firm was also first to market in subscribing to Lexis+AI, an AI-powered legal research platform that is grounded in authoritative content, which delivers value without compromising on accuracy and excellence. 

Innovation DNA

Peter Grealy, Webber Wentzel Board Member and head of the Technology, Media, Telecommunications and IP Practice, helped shape the firm’s innovation strategy more than a decade ago. “Innovation has always been part of who we are – and it’s something we continually refine,” he says. “Our approach combines vision with vigilance, ensuring we push boundaries while staying grounded in what clients, people, and data demand.”

Webber Wentzel’s model blends technological fluency with entrepreneurial agility and uncompromising security and compliance. This holistic lens – from client boardrooms to AI workspaces – ensures that every innovation pairs bold thinking with disciplined execution.