The Lawtech Sandbox from LawtechUK, which will run for three months from December, has been designed to accelerate product and service innovation, including improving access to tailored tools and services for lawtechs.
The initiative, now in the pilot stage, looks to help lawtechs meet the legal needs of its customers.
Five Lawtech Sandbox Pilot projects were chosen through a selection process with the Lawtech Sandbox Steering Board, from 65 applications received. These projects will gain access to tailored tools and services, including:
- access to regulators for advice, support and assurance to aid navigation of regulation and governance issues;
- connections to LawtechUK’s legal, business and public body network, to help drive commercial opportunities and collaboration;
- advice from applied ethics experts in the design and development of lawtech products;
- access to legal data by matchmaking with data sources, with dataset needs further factored into later phases of the Lawtech Sandbox development.
“The Lawtech Sandbox is designed to accelerate digital transformation of the legal sector by providing targeted support to those who are building game-changing lawtech, working alongside them to help raise the bar for business and society,” said Jenifer Swallow, LawtechUK Director at Tech Nation.
“Access to data, cross-sector regulator engagement, and timely input from decision-makers represent shared barriers to growth, all of which we address through the Lawtech Sandbox.
“We are delighted to move forward with five fantastic Lawtech Sandbox applicants, to support not only their development, but the wider sector and beyond, through what we establish and learn during this pilot.
“We thank and encourage all who applied and congratulate the cohort of five as they move into onboarding. We look forward now to the collaboration and work ahead, alongside our great bench of participating regulators, Lawtech Sandbox partners, and Steering Board.”
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Amplified Global
Amplifi looks to clarify the value for customers that can be gained from lengthy, technical legal information.
This is achieved by using natural language processing (NLP) to identify common elements of legal documents, and machine learning to assess the degree of likely comprehension, involving a cognitive risk score.
The Lawtech Sandbox Pilot will help Amplifi to get answers to emerging legal and ethical queries, and source datasets, and source datasets of technical or complex customer-facing legal documents, for improved development and calibration.
“We are delighted to have been selected to take part in the Lawtech Sandbox Pilot,” said Minesh Patel, CEO of Amplified Global.
“Our innovative approach to engaging consumers in simplified versions of complex information raises a number of important legal questions, which we look forward to exploring with the regulators and experts involved in the sandbox.
“We are disrupting the process of communicating with customers, and such a fundamental shift raises many pertinent issues. We also hope to gain access to a range of legal texts, such as terms and conditions, helping us to accelerate the development of our proof of concept.”
Clause
Clause aims to provide an open source library of smart legal documents, and its founder, Peter Hunn, is aiming to demonstrate the practical applicability of electronic document technologies, which can act as a foundation for business and future development.
The unstructured text that tends to be present within legal documents can lead to inefficiencies, costs and revenue issues.
With help from the Lawtech Sandbox pilot, the project can combat this by demonstrating the future for commercial documents, legislation, and digital assets in industry, as highlighted in the Lawtech Delivery Panel’s Legal Statement on Smart Contracts and Cryptoassets.
Clause plans to work with the LawtechUK initiative to build the planned open source library, identifying different use cases as well as facilitating engagement with public bodies and industry, alongside network partners.
“The work of LawtechUK is a real, and much needed, catalyst for the advancement of emerging technologies within the UK,” said Clause founder Hunn.
“I’m privileged to be involved with the work of the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce, and I look forward to extending this important work with government and regulatory stakeholders to build the practical foundations for smart legal contracts.”
Clausematch
Clausematch looks to transform regulation into machine-readable form with an easy-to-use, AI-powered smart document collaboration platform, easing automation and compliance management for businesses, and helping them keep up with regulations.
The Lawtech Sandbox Pilot will connect ClauseMatch to regulators through the Regulatory Response Unit, which will aid egulatory framework digitisation, as well as facilitating access to materials such as impact assessments and risk taxonomies, to further develop their AI.
“We are delighted to be joining the Tech Nation Lawtech Sandbox Pilot,” said Anastasia Dokuchaeva, head of partnerships at ClauseMatch.
“The Sandbox helps to facilitate the development of innovative solutions within the legal industry. As we see an increasing number of regulators around the world rethinking policymaking, communication and monitoring processes, the timing couldn’t be better.
“We’re looking forward to collaborating within the Sandbox in order to better understand the needs and challenges in the industry and help bring better solutions to the market.”
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Deep Tech Dispute Resolution Lab
The Deep Tech Dispute Resolution Lab is working on a dispute and risk avoidance tool based on advanced machine learning capabilities.
The tool sorts and analyses a range of data within organisations to automatically detect warning signs of pending disputes with customers or suppliers.
Through its network, the Lawtech Sandbox will aid collaboration between the lab and in-house teams, as well as securing access to organisational data to further test and train their product, and develop a commercialisation plan.
“I am thrilled to be selected for the Lawtech Sandbox Pilot,” said Dr Mimi Zou, co-founder of the Deep Tech Dispute Resolution Lab.
“In the coming months, I look forward to accelerating the development of our prototype and testing its potential with in-house legal teams and other interested stakeholders in the LawtechUK ecosystem.”
Legal Utopia
Legal Utopia provides DIY tools, and looks to ease access to legal support for SMEs by providing recommendations and information on legal services.
An intelligent diagnostic process is utilised to identify and assess a wide range of legal problems, helping SMEs to review and understand documents instantly.
The Sandbox Pilot will help Legal Utopia get expert advice and data input, to realise its wider data-driven development objectives, whilst obtaining multi-regulator input to support new services and tools.
“It is a great opportunity to be accepted on, and engage with, this government-backed, lawtech focused sandbox to expand and accelerate our on-demand services for SMEs in the UK,” said Fraser Matcham, CEO of Legal Utopia.
“We’re looking forward to sharing the significant ambitions and vision of Legal Utopia during this pilot programme and, of course, collaborating with multiple parties to enable significant progress with maximum impact.”
