Kira Systems seemingly inexorable march into the UK top 20 today (13 December) saw Addleshaw Goddard announce that it has incorporated the Toronto-headquartered company’s machine learning-based due diligence and contract analysis software into its client delivery model.
AG carried out an 18 month pilot of a range of artificial intelligence systems led by its respected Transaction Services Team (TST), which incorporates paralegals, apprentices, lawyers and managers focussed on ways to meet clients’ ‘more for less’ agenda. TST incorporates 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.
Work has been carried out by Kira Systems for a number of the 730-lawyer firm’s clients with the initial focus on AG’s corporate, banking and real estate transactional work.
One feature that particularly impressed, according to TST managing associate Kerry Westland, was the flexibility of Kira Quick Study, a tool that enables users to teach Kira how to identify almost any provision from any document.
Westland said: “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.”
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.”
Kira has in the past year won as clients firms including DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Clifford Chance, as well as accounting giant Deloitte, most of which have been testing the software behind the scenes by comparing its review and extract performance against the live results of its due diligence teams.
See also: Field Notes from Across the Pond: A Kira Systems tale