Austin Allan Named Finalist for CTO of the Year in D CEO’s 2027 Innovation Awards

Angel Reyes & Associates Technology Leader Recognized Among North Texas Innovators

Austin Allan, Chief Technology Officer at Angel Reyes & Associates, has been named a finalist for CTO of the Year in D CEO’s 2027 Innovation Awards. The program, now in its eighth year, honors the companies, executives, and entrepreneurs driving innovation across North Texas, and D CEO’s editors reviewed more than 300 nominations before selecting this year’s class of finalists.

Finalists will be featured in the January/February issue of D CEO Magazine, and category winners will be announced at a private awards ceremony in January.

A Factory Floor Approach to Law Firm Technology

Austin initially came to Angel Reyes & Associates in a contractor role before being brought in full-time to become Director of IT. He stepped into the Chief Technology Officer position in 2025. Before legal technology, he spent roughly a decade in apparel manufacturing, where the working vocabulary was throughput, production lines, and bottlenecks.

He brought that vocabulary and mindset with him, using established methods to look at each stage of a case, find where work piles up, and fix the largest constraint. This “Kaizen” philosophy promotes a continuous improvement approach built on steady, strategic gains rather than one-time fixes. It produces a sequence most organizations run backward: understand the process and the problem first, then decide what technology supports it, instead of instituting technology and changing the service to fit what it can do.

Our pre-litigation team used to handle case withdrawals by hand, and each one took an experienced paralegal about 75 minutes. Austin and his team spent roughly six months redesigning the workflow. It now takes about 10 minutes, with automation handling the physical mail, the routing between teams, and the data capture.

The hours saved are the easy thing to point at, but they don’t always tell the story of what kind of impact this has for our clients. Software does not get to dictate how we serve injured people. Austin deliberately targets administrative work that creates nothing of value for a client so our attorneys and staff can spend that time answering calls, returning messages, and keeping clients current on where their cases stand.

Building Infrastructure That Could Keep Up

When Austin took on technology leadership, Angel Reyes & Associates was growing faster than its systems could follow. Tools had been patched together to meet each new stage of expansion, and they were running out of room.

He audited the firm’s technology end to end, ranked the gaps by urgency and business impact, brought in outside development expertise, and built internal technical capability so the work would not depend on outside help forever. Angel Reyes & Associates now employs more than 700 legal professionals across more than 30 offices in Texas, up from only two office locations in early 2024. Growth at that pace does not hold together on patched-together systems.

Recognition of a Consistent Record of Innovation

Nobody calls a law firm to talk about its case management system. People call because they are hurt, the bills are arriving, and no one has told them what happens next. Austin’s work does not answer those calls, but it clears the way for the people who do.

D CEO’s editors recognized the size and scale of his contributions from a stack of nominations. We see it every day, in how quickly our teams can get back to the people counting on them.

If you or someone you love has been hurt in an accident, we are here to help. Contact Angel Reyes & Associates for a free consultation. We can review what happened, walk you through your options, and help you work toward a positive resolution.