Artificial intelligence, or AI as we know it from Hollywood movies, has made the jump from fictional film drama and is now having a huge impact on the legal sector.
At Pinsent Masons our own team of computer scientists and legal engineers have devised a suite of tools which has brought AI to life for our lawyers and clients by driving efficiency, reducing billing time and fast-tracking decision making.
In project management AI adopts a consistent approach to complex matters which creates more certainty of process and outcomes for clients. Greater transparency is provided on the status of a case or ongoing litigation, allowing clients to monitor progress in real time, and AI is used to provide procedural prompts at important junctures and to present lawyers with the relevant legal knowledge, so minimising the risk of lost time.
Our SmartDelivery suite of tools can make an incredible difference to businesses in any sector by using process and reasoning rules engines to automate the routine. Adding data tools gives us the power to mine, extract and present meaningful insights from overwhelming levels of data which is otherwise locked away in seemingly endless pages of clauses. And by using predictive data analytics, we can identify patterns in previous matters to map likely outcomes in future ones and prevent potentially costly mistakes.
A great example of AI in action is the work being done by Pinsent Masons’ teams involved in reviewing tens of thousands of different documents and loan agreements for some of the major UK clearing banks as part of the “ring fencing” requirements introduced following the financial crisis.
To manage this exercise and to minimise client costs, SmartDelivery is being used to review and process those documents far quicker than is humanly possible. In the past, we would have deployed a team of highly experienced lawyers to work their way through thousands of files, but by using AI technology we can quickly identify issues and so free up lawyers to take on more challenging duties which require more complex legal analysis.
Law should never hold business back and our aim is to make things faster and better. Using technologies to automate the day-to-day is the first step, but AI also helps uncover insights into how we can help businesses tackle challenges.
The legal profession is not one which can usually claim to be in the vanguard of the adoption of new technologies but that is quickly changing, and with Pinsent Masons consistently ranked among the top most innovative legal firms in Europe, it underlines our credentials in being open to change and to finding new ways of delivering smart solutions to clients which minimise risk and deliver efficiencies.
We can free up lawyers to take on more challenging duties.
By Katie Williams, Partner and Head of Aberdeen office at Pinsent Masons.
