Published by the Law Society, ‘Capturing Technological Innovation in Legal Services’, details the innovation in products, processes, and strategies used across the sector, including technology and new ways of working, which are making big changes.
Demonstrating ‘technological innovation in practice’, Taylor Vinters and ThoughtRiver are featured for developing legal technology with artificial intelligence (AI) through a novel incubation model.
Matt Meyer, chief executive of Taylor Vinters explained in the report: “We are an investor in it (ThoughtRiver), we have a shareholding and we’re incubating it. It’s in our building, but it also has venture capital backing and it’s not 'ours' in that sense.
“To have complete proprietary control over any new technology can be a huge resource investment. It’s much better to have access to new technologies through collaboration and investment than not do it at all."
ThoughtRiver’s Contract Intelligence software uses AI to scan and interpret information from written contracts used in commercial risk assessments, and produces visualisations of the potential risks and other issues.
Users can upload a document that the AI will read, compare against the company protocols and risk positions, identify where it is difficult and if it can’t work it out, will ask the user some questions and provide a risk score.
Matt continued: “It’s effectively a triaging mechanism, so the risk score will identify whether that document needs to go back to the business for them to continue dealing with, or if it’s got sufficient complexity and problems to go to in-house legal or somewhere else.
“The level of interest there has been in that software from companies and businesses that we would never have been able to have a conversation with because of where we sit in the market, has been amazing, so the tie-up really is a valuable thing.’
Summarising the report, Robert Bourns, President of the Law Society of England and Wales, said: “The legal profession is sometimes characterised as resistant to change. This is unfair. We change to provide value to clients, but preserve essential elements of professional behaviour.
“This report shows us a very different profession, one with energy and ideas, ready to promote a revolution in how we deliver legal services.”
Capturing Technological Innovation is part of a series of publications and events produced by the Law Society to help share innovation practices and examples among members.
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Contact:
Anna Marsden, Media Relations at Luminescence, [email protected] or call 01223 850 359.
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