International Law Firm making greater use of Artificial Intelligence 

Addleshaw Goddard has announced its deployment of Kira Systems’ software having integrated it into its delivery model to provide legal services more efficiently, quickly and accurately. The firm carried out an 18 month pilot of a range of artificial intelligence systems which was led by its Transaction Services Team (TST).

Work has been carried out for a number of the firm’s clients with the initial focus being on applying Kira to Corporate, Banking and Real Estate transactional work. To carry out the pilot and the implementation of Kira, the TST worked in conjunction with lawyers from across the firm. The TST has a specialist technology team which was set up in early 2015 and works with the firm’s lawyers and clients to build technology solutions to deliver legal work in a different way.

Kira is an advanced machine learning software that identifies, analyses and extracts provisions and other information from contracts and other documents. It has built-in machine learning models for common transactional needs, and a tool, called Kira Quick Study, that enables users to teach Kira how to identify almost any provision from any document.

Mike Potter, Partner and Head of the TST, said: “We have been focusing on how to make the best use of AI for a long time and were determined to ensure we could use it broadly across our business for our clients. We haven’t looked at AI in isolation, but have built it into our overall integrated approach to people, process and technology to deliver legal work in a better way. There’s no point having great tools like Kira if you don’t use them properly. To do this, we drew on the TST’s technology expertise and knowledge of the legal work carried out across our firm and by our clients. We have 150+ people in our TST, many of whom are from a technology savvy generation, and that’s been very powerful for us.”

Kerry Westland, a Managing Associate in the TST, commented: “We chose Kira because of the quality of the information it extracts and the flexibility of the Quick Study facility which enables us to build our own legal expertise into the system. All of this helps us to deliver work accurately, quickly and efficiently whilst helping us to manage risk. We’ve been able to integrate Kira into our other technology solutions to enable us to continue to transform the way we deliver services to our clients.”

Source: Addleshaw Goddard

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