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Legatics collaborates with Herbert Smith Freehills and DLA Piper to deliver AI microservices

Logos for Innovate UK, DLA Piper, and Herbert Smith Freehills

Legatics has been awarded funding by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, for a two-year project to increase the adoption of artificial intelligence (“AI”) technology by the UK legal services sector. This project will be conducted in conjunction with leading international law firms DLA Piper and Herbert Smith Freehills, as well as academic experts in the fields of machine learning and behaviour science. 

AI technologies have the potential to significantly increase productivity in major UK-based law firms by automating repetitive and low-value tasks, allowing lawyers to focus instead on high-value, technical legal work. However, current rates of adoption of AI solutions across the legal industry are low. This is primarily a result of the time required and associated cost of identifying suitable AI applications, configuring software, training the AI model, training users, and managing model output. This is further restricted by necessarily risk-averse working practices within firms that make the introduction of new technologies more challenging.

Legatics, in conjunction with DLA Piper and Herbert Smith Freehills, aims to overcome the first of these challenges by developing a new architecture of highly specific and pre-trained models called ‘AI microservices’. These are designed to be incorporated into Legatics’ existing deal management platform that is currently being used extensively in the legal industry. Legatics will develop these microservices in collaboration with machine-learning researcher Peter Harrison of Queen Mary University of London. Legatics also seeks to overcome behavioural barriers to adoption through the design and implementation of new adoption and training strategies, incorporating tested behavioural change methodologies in collaboration with leading behavioural scientist, Professor Stephen Rollnick.

Daniel Porus, Head of Business Development at Legatics, said:

“We are delighted to have received this stamp of approval from Innovate UK for this collaboration with DLA Piper and Herbert Smith Freehills. Increasing productivity through effective adoption of cutting-edge technologies is at the heart of Legatics’ vision for the UK legal services sector and we are excited to be embarking on this journey with partners in academia and the legal industry to unlock the power of AI for everyday use in legal practice.”

Dominic Judge, Senior Technology Manager at DLA Piper said:

“We are constantly assessing new ways of delivering better solutions for our clients and welcome the opportunity to create and test technologies with suppliers, such as Legatics, that improve the efficiency of our legal work.”

Jason Ricketts, Global Head of Practice for Finance, Real Estate and Projects at Herbert Smith Freehills, said:

“We are always looking to innovate to meet clients’ changing needs and to find new and improved ways of working for our lawyers. Collaborating with suppliers and other law firms is a key part of that.”

About Herbert Smith Freehills LLP

Operating from 27 offices across Asia Pacific, EMEA and North America, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP is at the heart of the new global business landscape providing premium quality, full-service legal advice. The firm provides many of the world’s most important organisations with access to market-leading dispute resolution, projects and transactional legal advice, combined with expertise in a number of global industry sectors, including Banks, Consumer products, Energy, Financial buyers, Infrastructure & Transport, Mining, Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare, Real estate, TMT and Manufacturing & Industrials.

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is a global law firm with lawyers located in more than 40 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, positioning the firm to help clients with their legal needs around the world.

About Legatics

Legatics is an online deal platform that improves the efficiency and client experience of legal transactions. It transforms traditional legal processes into simple and highly automated software that free lawyers of administrative tasks.

For more information, see www.legatics.com.