Legal tech

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Pinsents tasks 11 teams with genAI testing

Pinsent Masons is appointing AI champions within every office, creating 11 different “communities” of employees participating in data product testing.  The firm wants to make support around AI-related initiatives locally accessible by establishing advanced delivery teams for each practice group, as well as function-focused communities to test the capabilities of Microsoft 365 Copilot. The 11 […]

chatbot genAI

“Prepare for the new world:” Simmons debuts genAI tool

Simmons & Simmons has developed its own generative AI (genAI) tool, with its workforce encouraged to train up and think about how new technologies can help in their daily life. The firm has called its genAI tool “Percy” – named after one of the twin brothers who co-founded Simmons in 1896. While Percy is powered […]

GenAI is an open door for cyber-criminals

Last week’s artificial intelligence (AI) summit at Bletchley Park perfectly highlighted just how rapidly the landscape around this technology is morphing. The headline from the conference was the first-ever international declaration on AI safety, aimed at heading off the risk of “catastrophic harm” caused by AI. The sub-text is that the world, never mind the […]

Microsoft Copilot

Law firm leaders prepare for bumper Microsoft bills

As Microsoft releases its latest artificial intelligence (AI) tool today, law firms are considering whether they should invest in the capability and add to their already eyewatering bills from the technology giant. From today (1 November 2023), law firms and other businesses of a certain size can choose to sign up to Microsoft Copilot – […]

Bridging the gap: Practical AI strategies for in-house lawyers

Increased hype surrounding the intersection between AI and law in the last year is undeniable. In the recent roundtable co-hosted by Thomson Reuters and The Lawyer, the attendees embarked on navigating the practical application of AI to in-house teams. The roundtable began with a call to arms. Discovering AI’s practical use for in-house legal teams […]

Allen & Overy

A&O spins off risk management business with Inflexion deal

Private equity house Inflexion is making a strategic investment into Allen & Overy’s legal risk management division, aosphere. After the deal, aosphere will become a stand-alone entity. A&O will retain a minority stake in the business, while Inflexion will invest alongside US-based Endicott Capital. It emerged in September that financial services firm Lazard had been […]

AI

“Give us some of the upside”: Clients demand benefit from AI cost-savings

Clients could soon demand a share of the financial benefits brought about by generative artificial intelligence, with so-called ‘gainshare’ deals that include discounts in bills likely to become more prominent across the legal sector. Gainshare arrangements are best known in the technology industry where the software underpinning deals can improve markedly during the lifetime of […]

AI

Here’s what you think about Gen AI

Generative AI and its likely impact on the legal market has been one of the themes of 2023 but as we close in on Q4, at least we can all take solace in the fact that substantive structural change is years away. Right? Well, maybe. This year’s UK 200 report, available now on the City […]

Frankfurt, Germany

Bird & Bird hits Big Four firm for legal tech head

Tech-focused Bird & Bird has bolstered its client offering by creating a new role at the firm and hiring a legal tech expert from one of the Big Four to fill it. Hélder Santos joins his new firm from KPMG where he spent 18 months as the firm’s head of legal tech Solutions, having previously […]

Travers and AI: How we built our chatbot

Over 100 organisations have now cloned code shared online by Travers Smith that is intended to help businesses develop ChatGPT-style systems. When ChatGPT launched last November, Travers’ technology heads took a look at the product and decided – along with many other innovation professionals in law firms – that they were not comfortable with the […]

AI

Macfarlanes rolls out Harvey after firm’s largest-ever pilot

Macfarlanes this week pushed the button on its roll-out of generative AI tool HarveyAI, following the largest pilot ever carried out in the history of the firm. Around 15 per cent of Macfarlanes’ fee-earning population across every practice area and all levels of seniority spent time this June using the tool. The results were then […]