In the news
Government promises to modernise home-buying and selling
The government has cited the lack of digitalisation and join-up in house-buying and selling as one of the key reasons why the current process is long and frustrating. The government hopes its reforms will result in it becoming easier for people to get onto the housing ladder, reducing the requirement to share ID in-person in the long-term and decrease the number of transactions collapsing.
‘Currently, information such as building control and highways information is predominantly paper-based or recorded in non-machine-readable formats. On top of this, where data is available electronically, there are not established protocols for accessing, sharing and verifying that data which leads to more delays’, a statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said.
The department is working with the property market and is supported by the Land Registry on a project to identify agreed rules on data for the sector. This is so the data can easily be shared between conveyancers, lenders and other parties involved in a transaction.
Read more about the government’s plans for the home-buying process
DeepSeek image used under MIT licience via Wikimedia Commons
Disrupter DeepSeek sends shockwaves through Silicon Valley
Chinese-made artificial intelligence (AI) model DeepSeek wiped hundreds of millions off the value of US tech stocks when it launched its latest model last month. It appears the model can deliver generative AI for a significantly lower cost and using fewer resources compared to its state-side rivals, such as OpenAI.
DeepSeek’s cheaper running costs mean it could give the Chinese product a competitive edge, with businesses and developers choosing it as their preferred model on which to develop their own tech.
Bias and job displacements – the AI gender gap in law
A new report has outlined how a lack of checks and balances on how AI is used and distributed could impact women in law and other industries. A skills gap, an increased gender gap in leadership and an unequal impact of job displacement were among the risks cited. On the latter, the co-authored report by The Next 100 Years, She Breaks the Law and Linklaters commented: ‘As AI automates certain legal tasks, job displacement could disproportionately affect women, especially if they are overrepresented in roles most susceptible to automation.’
The ‘No Woman Left Behind’ report also made recommendations on how to tackle these risks
New AI tool promises non-disclosure agreement (NDA) review from £20
The chief executive of a law firm which has developed an AI contract review tool has set out to save clients not just time but cost savings.
LawLink promises a 50% time saving for lawyers when looking at documents, with the cost of reviewing a NDA from as little as £20. The tool has a red, amber and green rating system, where green contracts go straight to clients for signing. Amber and red contracts are flagged for a deeper review by a lawyer.
Robert Taylor commented that: ‘While other firms use AI to save time, they continue to charge traditional rates... We ensure AI benefits our clients and our lawyers, offering transparent pricing and AI services at cost with a modest margin.’
‘Lawyers who use technology will replace lawyers who don’t’, says Shoosmiths partner
Tony Randle, Partner, Client Technology and Service Improvement, commented that the dawn of AI and the use of it within law firms will not result in the end of lawyers themselves.
‘We have been using AI in some form or another now for about seven years and the majority of people in our firm are now using [it]. In all that time, we haven’t found a single role out of 1,500 people that can be replaced by AI. We found many roles that can be more effective when a person uses AI. It’s about people and tech not people or tech.’
Randle also added that there will be new roles added because of the new disciplines AI requires, and that use of AI was a ‘great opportunity of levelling up the playing field. I suspect the larger firms are less agile and they probably struggle to manage [AI’s] implementation across the board.’ The comments were made at the Solicitors Regulation Authority's (SRA) annual Compliance Conference, where the panel also discussed the risks around AI and the cost and accessibility concerning tech.
Watch the session recorded at the conference →
Cyber presents a constant risk
When thinking about the legal sector as a whole, cybercrime is seen by solicitors as the largest risk, research has found. Commissioned by the SRA and carried out by BMG Research with Frontier Economics, the research surveyed more than 500 solicitors and carried out in-depth interviews. It asked participants what they think the major risks are in the market. Concerning cybercrime, one partner in a firm with a £30–£70m turnover commented: ‘Cyber is a big risk because (a) it can shut you down immediately, (b) it costs a lot of money and (c) it is constant.’
The risk of cybercrime was followed by lawtech and AI, with the latter also seen as the most likely to present opportunities to firms. With both of these areas, there was a sense that they pose such a high risk due to the complexity and rapid sophistication of technology which they might not fully understand yet.
Small firms: Invest in technology today for gains tomorrow
A Birmingham-based law firm has secured almost £240,000 in funding from Innovate UK, the national innovation agency. Harper Jones is working in partnership with Aston University to get the law firm’s data more organised so it can be used more effectively. The firm is investing almost £120,000 in the project. Tony Harper, the firm’s chief executive, said: ‘It is a deliberate decision I have made to invest in tech rather than profits today. It’s an investment in our people.’
Closing the justice gap through AI
The chair of Lawtech UK and former Law Society president Christina Blacklaws has said that ‘agentic AI’, where autonomous agents answer client questions, could help to support the justice gap. Blacklaws reflected, however, that while law firms had focused their attentions on using AI tools for contract drafting, ‘only a handful of social enterprises and not-for-profits’ were developing AI tools. ‘I genuinely believe that with the right support from government and others, we can harness AI to turbocharge development in this sector.’