We established Advanced Delivery Teams (ADTs) to accelerate the transformation of how traditional legal services are delivered across the firm and to develop and deliver innovative products and solutions to our clients.  The ADTs are made up of lawyers and technologists from a variety of specialist backgrounds which allows for the inter-weaving of specialist knowledge and understanding of what clients really need, with the expertise gained through years of working in legal tech. 

The ADTs coordinate centrally for the sharing of ideas and prioritising of initiatives, focusing in particular on ensuring that large scale strategic investments of time and other resources take the whole firm’s requirements into account. 

The ADT’s recent work includes:

• We developed a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) “assistant” which automates our legal expertise into a self-service question-and-answer process that allows users to enter information and receive legal advice about how CBILS will affect their decisions.  It reduces the burden on in-house legal teams and allows relatively small teams to manage large volumes of CBILS loans with confidence. 

• We designed and built a bespoke end-to-end due diligence and repapering system to execute a client’s LIBOR transition project. Data was automatically transferred between Pinsent Masons and the client and used to automatically generate due diligence reports and transition agreements.  

• We recently rolled out an online transaction management platform across the firm.  The platform streamlines previously manually executed, time-consuming processes.  Documents are shared using a central platform, where parties can view real time updates, provide comments and sign-off, and ultimately execute their agreements.   

• We have built a machine learning model to complete legal due diligence on provisions for which it has been trained.  We will deploy this capability across a range of client projects, cutting out manual review time for provisions addressed by the model. 

Trainees have the option to undertake a 6-month seat in an Advanced Delivery Team, where they will be exposed to the legal tech market and will be involved in processes to develop innovative solutions for clients and for internal teams. Trainees are able to take away the knowledge that they have acquired during their seat and apply it to the work they undertake during the rest of their training contract and beyond.   

Fundamentally, innovation is seen as part of everyone’s job, and at the core of our strategy – trainees do not need to complete an Advanced Delivery seat to be able to get involved in and be exposed to the firm’s innovation work.  Everyone at Pinsent Masons is welcome to submit innovative ideas no matter how big or small and all of these are reviewed against our innovation framework. 

Lawyers will need to be conversant with the many capabilities of legal tech – it is clear that the delivery of good client service requires more than just top quality, commercially focused legal advice.  Trainees and junior lawyers that work with legal tech at the start of their careers will be able to play a crucial role in delivering cutting edge legal services.  Driving efficiencies, delivering more value and finding smarter ways to work will be a key concern for all our clients, and legal technology is a key factor in these areas.