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A&O Shearman has created an artificial intelligence tool to speed up work performed by more senior lawyers, as the “magic circle” firm attempts to generate revenues from the disruption of the legal industry.
The tool, created in collaboration with AI start-up Harvey, is focused on time-intensive, low-billing tasks including in areas such as antitrust and fund formation that require senior associate or partner input and oversight.
The antitrust element of the model, which A&O Shearman will use itself and sell to other firms for a fee, uses a company’s financial information to assess which of the more than 130 jurisdictions a client might need to make a regulatory filing in for a merger. It then identifies what data is missing and drafts the information requests for each party.
Such exercises often take hours of associate time and input from more senior lawyers because of the high stakes involved when considering a transaction. However, law firms are often expected to do such exercises at low cost, with many using good rates as a competitive advantage to win deals. A&O Shearman said the new tool would allow it to boost margins on such work.
The tool is the second product A&O Shearman has brought to the market as it attempts to make money from the long-term impact of AI on the legal sector. In 2023, the firm rolled out ContractMatrix, a...
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