Tom Dunlop

Tom, tell us about your career history and expertise

Originally, my whole focus growing up was sport. I genuinely thought I was going to the Olympics and become a professional badminton player for Great Britain. That was my entire world. I went to university to study law alongside that, and over time I realized the badminton career might not have been as illustrious as I’d imagined.

I shifted my focus to law, but because of my sporting background my aim was always to combine it with sport in some way. I started out working for a sports agency that represented footballers and Olympic athletes, which was my first taste of the legal industry and its application to a specific vertical. I quickly realized through training at that firm that I didn’t just enjoy giving the advice, but also working closely with management teams, taking a holistic approach and actually being involved in business decisions, not just legal advice.

That led me in-house, working primarily for technology companies. Even though my background was in sport and law, I had a real affinity with tech businesses – the culture, the focus on innovation and constant improvement felt very similar to elite sport. Over time, I developed a bit of an entrepreneurial bug, and I was constantly writing ideas down in a little black book. Many of those ideas were completely irrelevant. But that mindset eventually led me to Summize.

Why did you start Summize?

The idea for Summize came from a very real frustration. One of the companies I worked at was being sold, and I was responsible for reviewing contracts to identify risk before the transaction. I was literally printing contracts out and highlighting them by hand.

It felt like such an obvious use case for technology, but initially I dismissed it. I thought the problem was too specific to me and that nobody else would understand it, but it wouldn’t go away. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was a shared pain for in-house legal teams everywhere.

That was the moment where it became more than just an idea. I’d worked with David Smith, Summize’s now Chief Development Officer, and trusted his technical judgment, so I started talking to him about the problem and whether it was something technology really could solve. Those early conversations quickly turned into working sessions, meeting up at the Birchwood Starbucks (our first office) and exploring what might be possible.

Once we started building prototypes and saw that this could actually work, it gave us the confidence to pursue it properly. It wasn’t about building a huge company at that stage – it was about solving a problem that genuinely mattered.

What does it mean to be CEO at Summize?

My role has changed significantly as we’ve scaled, but today I see it as setting the vision, the mission for the business and our contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution. I probably underestimated early on how important it is for people to feel a sense of purpose and direction, so a big part of my role now is making sure the team understands where we’re going and how we plan to get there.

I also spend a lot of time on hiring. We learned early on that one poor hire – especially in leadership – can have a huge impact on the culture and how the business operates. Making sure we bring in the right people, especially at senior levels, is something I’m very focused on.

Day to day, my role varies. I stay very close to customers, prospects and the product itself. I started Summize because I was obsessed with solving a specific problem, and that hasn’t changed. Being involved in the product, listening to customers and staying close to the market is still a core part of how I operate.

What do you find most interesting about the legal tech space?

Legal services is one of the few trillion dollar industries. And at the same time, it’s one of the last major industries to fully adopt technology. That combination alone makes it incredibly interesting.

What really excites me is the return on investment that technology can deliver in this space. You’ve got highly paid specialists solving complex problems with very little automation. When you start thinking about how technology can augment – not replace – legal expertise, the opportunity is enormous.

I genuinely believe the legal services market could grow tenfold through better use of technology, and that’s what motivates me. It’s not just about efficiency, but enabling lawyers to deliver better outcomes at scale.

What does the future look like at Summize, and what are you most excited about?

Summize started as a workflow and automation tool, but with AI it’s become something so much more. We’re now focused on augmenting intelligence – helping legal teams productize their knowledge and apply it consistently across the business.

That shift opens up a huge opportunity. It’s still an untapped market in many ways, and the way clients and prospects are approaching technology has changed dramatically. There’s a real enthusiasm now, not just for adoption but for innovation.

I’m also excited about our growth as a business – scaling into the US, opening new offices and continuing to build a strong team. The run up to our $50m investment in particular has been an incredibly exciting period, and it genuinely feels like we’ve built a solid foundation that we can now build on properly.