Oxford: Moorcrofts secures six-figure grant for AI legal project

Corporate law firm Moorcrofts - in partnership with Oxford Brookes University - has secured six-figures of government funding to research the development of a legal contract management system that uses artificial intelligence to simplify the process, allowing individuals and organisations of all sizes, to access legal services.

The grant was successfully awarded from Innovate UK and Research England, as part of a £20 million fund, administered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), to support the development and adoption of AI and data technologies that aim to transform the UK’s services industries.

The grant will enable Moorcrofts and Oxford Brookes University to research a cloud-based application for client legal contract management that operates as a stand-alone product or integrates with the client’s CRM system (eg: Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics).

The new application will enable clients to manage complex contractual arrangements for a customer solution as part of their customer management process. Using Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Augmentation, will reduce the time necessary for contract review and increase productivity in company legal departments and law firms, allowing legal services to be delivered quicker, more effectively and cheaper, than is currently possible.

It is estimated this new technology will reduce the cost of reviewing a 30-page contract from a current £1,000-£3,000 and 2-6 hours of legal work to a price of £500-1000 and 0.75-3 hours work, an increase in productivity of up to 80%, or possibly even better if a human review is not necessary.

Andrew Katz, CEO and head of technology at Moorcrofts, said: “Working with Oxford Brookes University, we identified a real opportunity to innovate the legal industry by developing this AI driven legal contract management system with SMEs at its heart. Currently many SME’s cannot afford legal services, and this leads to signing agreements that are, or could be detrimental to their business, particularly when dealing with larger organisations. By giving SME’s access to more cost-effective legal services, we can help them protect their businesses. Our proposal is to take this process online and create appropriate alliances with legal firms in countries around the world to enable the system to have global reach. Our team are excited to get started and to work with Oxford Brookes University to build an application that has the potential to transform the Legal industry.”

Professor Nigel Crook, head of AI research at Oxford Brookes University, said: “Myself and our research team are delighted to be working with an innovative company such as Moorcrofts’. Moorcrofts have identified a unique unmet need in the legal market where customers are clearly underserved by current legal offerings. The product in development – should it be successful- will greatly help these customers and improve access to high-quality legal services. The development programme uses the skills of OBU’s Ethical AI Institute which has specifically built a strong depth of experience on working on AI/ advanced computing projects for the service sector including law, banking, employment and branding/ advertising companies.”