AI and the law

A potential industry need had been identified for the use of AI in the area of clinical negligence where the complexity of assessing cases might not align with the likely financial value of those cases, leaving a gap in the market that meant justice would be denied to people who were unsure of the viability of pursuing their cases.

The University of Liverpool partnered with medical negligence and serious injury law firm Fletchers Solicitors on a project to develop a digital legal assistant for supporting legal work in the sector.

The goal was not to replace human lawyers but to enhance efficiency and accuracy in handling medical negligence cases. AI tools in this area need to not only provide accurate results but also explainable reasons for their decisions, something that sets aside this research from other similar projects.

The University team extracted legal knowledge from the experts and turned it into AI-based software solutions which could then be tested against real cases to see whether it would achieve similar outcomes as human lawyers had done.

These tools could then be used to assist lawyers by speeding up the triage process and providing advisory support, enhancing efficiency and accuracy in handling cases.

Each case that was put through the system is assessed by lawyers from Fletchers to determine if they agreed with the AI decision and this was demonstrated effective in an overwhelming number of cases, saving tens of thousands of hours in staff time.

The project produced a tool that is in daily deployment within the company and has subsequently led to further expansion of its AI strategy and expertise, to assist both the company in its operational efficiencies and clients in the service and outcomes that they receive.