[1]Sackman: Legal sector should stay at forefront of digital innovation
The Legal Services AI Growth Lab – the government’s first regulatory sandbox for taking new tech-led products and services to market – has opened its doors to the first round of applications.
The Ministry of Justice has called on law firms, conveyancing companies and AI and lawtech developers to come forward with “real world” AI-led innovations that could “improve legal services for businesses and consumers”.
Applications close on 27 September, when around a dozen ideas will be chosen to go through the lab.
In June, the government chose legal services [2] as the first sector for the AI Growth Lab.
Justice minister Sarah Sackman KC said: “The legal sector is one of the UK’s greatest economic strengths, generating more than £40bn in recent years. It is important that our services industry keeps pace and remains at the forefront of digital innovation.”
The details of the scheme [3] said the MoJ was looking for AI tools that helped legal professionals work more efficiently, technologies that improved access to justice, or tools that assisted conveyancers or helped organisations analyse, manage and process legal information.
The Legal Services Board, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers and the Information Commissioner’s Office are all involved in the lab.
The MoJ said: “Businesses taking part will be able to work directly with regulators to understand how existing rules apply to AI. Used responsibly, AI could help make legal services faster, more affordable and easier to access, while maintaining high professional standards and public trust.”
“The lab is designed to support organisations that are facing regulatory questions or barriers when developing or deploying AI in legal services.
“We are looking for proposals where engagement with regulators could help organisations better understand how existing legal and regulatory frameworks apply to their product or service, enabling responsible innovation.”
Those regulatory barriers could include questions about client confidentiality, legal privilege, data protection, professional obligations and use of client data.
The MoJ said: “We are looking for proposals that have the potential to make a meaningful impact, either for organisations, consumers or the wider legal services market. This might include increased productivity, improved consumer access to legal services or justice or wider adoption of AI across legal services.
“The AI product or service should be innovative. This does not necessarily mean inventing something completely new. We’re interested in genuinely novel applications of AI.
“This could include a completely new product, a significant enhancement to an existing product or introducing new ways of working or practices within the legal services sector through the use of AI.”
Ideas will need to work within existing regulatory frameworks. The MoJ pointed out that the AI Growth Lab “cannot change legislation or create exemptions from the law”.
And law firms, conveyancing companies and AI developers will have to be ready to “participate at pace” in the lab, with the process taking around nine months to complete.
The MoJ said: “We’re not expecting products to be market ready. However, proposals should be sufficiently developed so that, if accepted into the lab, participants are ready to engage meaningfully with the programme.”
AI minister Kanishka Narayan said: “In many ways the legal sector is the exemplar case for just how impactful AI is set to be.
“Smart, responsible use of this technology could make legal services radically more accessible and free up legal professionals to focus on the complex, high-value work where human judgment is irreplaceable.
“But to make that happen, it’s critical that we get the regulation right, and this first AI Growth Lab will guide us all as we start that important journey.”