Technology

Global investments in legal technology companies are nearing a record £1bn this year, with the £44m raised by London-based ContractPodAI the largest in the UK, a new analysis has revealed.

The Law Society of Scotland has launched a new accreditation for lawyers with specialist technology roles, such as legal process engineer and legal analyst.

A partner at listed law firm Knights has secured a High Court injunction to prevent a former Oxford University student making “false and damaging allegations” against him.

HM Courts & Tribunals Services must collect data on vulnerable users of online courts, on matters such as age, disability, race and sexual orientation, a report by the Legal Education Foundation has said.

A solicitor’s automated email sign-off sufficed as a ‘signature’ for the purposes of a contract involving the disposition of an interest in land, the High Court has ruled.

The use of cutting-edge technology such as AI has become so powerful that legal regulators will have to regulate the tech itself rather than the providers, according to a prominent academic.

A chatbot for people with learning disabilities, tools to help women facing domestic violence, and data-supported advice on employment disputes are among the Legal Access Challenge finalists.

A damning report into legal technology and access to justice has found the advice sector beset by confusion and fragmentation, with most innovation taking place in the commercial part of the profession.

City law firm Travers Smith is giving away free of charge home-grown email management software in the hope of to stimulating greater co-operation between firms.

HM Courts and Tribunals Service has made “good progress” in transforming some services, but there are still “significant challenges” ahead for the court modernisation programme, the NAO said today.

The “hackers, hustlers and hipsters” of legal tech hackathons are “not enough” to solve the “intractable problems” of access to justice, a leading legal researcher has argued.

The government has provided an extra £250,000 in funding for the Legal Access Challenge to double the number of finalists in and winners of the competition.

The Law Commission has paved the way for video witnessing of deeds by calling on the government to set up an industry working group which could consider the matter.

A high-level advisory panel of experts has met to consider the first steps in how to conduct an over-arching evaluation of the government’s £1bn court reform programme, expected to produce an interim report within two years.

A UK-based magic circle practice is among five law firms to be the first to launch a platform aimed at simplifying the job of adopting advanced legal technology by filtering out products that are unproven,  inefficient, or insecure.