PRESS: Lawtech lessons from the Sandbox

Coverage in the Gazette about the R&D initiative the ‘Lawtech Sandbox’, its success in supporting lawtech pioneers, and the lessons shared at a recent ‘showcase’ event.

The Sandbox identified and addresses three of the biggest opportunities to accelerated transformation through lawtech:

  1. Access to regulators and regulatory pathfinding

  2. Access to data, e.g. for training AI in law

  3. Access to collaborators and decision makers through an extensive and government backed network

The Gazette article focused on a breakthrough regarding data:

“Here, Jenifer Swallow (pictured), head of LawtechUK, was able to report a breakthrough – and a dirty secret. She found in-house lawyers ‘very willing’ to share redacted contracts for AI training purposes. ‘What was interesting when we received these documents, 95%-plus were exactly the same,’ she said, accusing the profession of ‘fake bespoke’ work.

Bruce Braude, chief technology officer of Deloitte Legal, agreed that ‘a lot is not bespoke IP’ – but suggested that the obstacle is with clients. ‘Even with data anonymised, they are still our clients’ documents.’ He suggested that more needs to be done to get consent from clients up-front for the re-use of data in this way, including possibly a cross-industry approach.

Access to third-party data will become increasingly important as the emphasis of lawtech innovators evolves from improving the efficiency of legal practices to offering services directly to clients.”

You can watch the Lawtech Sandbox Showcase for the Pilot here.

And the Lawtech Sandbox Showcase for the follow up beta here.

jenifer swallow