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These systems are already being looked at in other jurisdictions, and it is naive to think that it won’t form part of how law is delivered and consumed in the UK marketable title, free from encumbrances. Blockchain will rely on the same basic principles, and unsurprisingly it is already being explored. Blockchain supported systems are already being built in Sweden to underpin their conveyancing systems. The next step for blockchain is to overlay smart contracts: contracts automatically completed based upon a series of parameters being reached. Can we expect the system of release and exchange of contracts to disappear over the coming years, replaced by smart contracts? Very possibly.
Beware the robot lawyers?
Can we expect to be ousted from our desks by AI? Ultimately the cognitive power of AI will not only be able to data crunch and facilitate client self-service, but it will also be able to interpret that information, take decisions and advise clients of appropriate next steps and outcomes. We are currently developing ‘Buddy’, our AI conveyancer, who will not only facilitate home movers managing the entire process via their smart phones, but will also assimilate contract packs and recognise which enquiries need to be raised and answered based on the contents of those documents. Buddy will also provide home movers with access to services and tools beyond legal services. The emergence of blockchain and smart contracts means that ultimately we expect Buddy to be able to manage the entire endto-end process. The tech will be ready, the question is: will the profession be ready? As Professor Susskind says, the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet. The only question for lawyers is: when are you you going to get on board?
The innovator’s view AI Is already here.
Artificial Intelligence is not something new. The biggest change is the cost of fast computing power has massively decreased, driven by companies such as AWS. This has resulted in cloud computing infrastructure that can support the sort of calculations that are needed for AI to work.
something seemingly impossible even a year earlier. Even with the massive benefit of not needing to carry a ton of books around, we still encountered a lot of reluctance to making this change. Now, the question is not ‘if’ there is an opportunity to revolutionise the legal industry, but ‘who’ is going to take it? My bet is that lawyers will need help seizing the opportunity in front of them.
Applications in conveyancing
As artificial intelligence became the hot topic, I sold my house and bought another. I saw first-hand how broken the conveyancing process is in the UK. This, I decided, is the perfect place to apply this new technology. The first thing I do when looking at an idea in a new industry is to do the research. I talk to the experts and read magazines and laws, and for the conveyancing industry this includes the very exciting Mortgage Lenders Handbook. As I dug into the conveyancing process in more detail, I was told over and over again how complicated it was. That there is no perfect path through a conveyancing process, that there’s always an edge-case. That it always depends on the slowest party in the chain, and most interestingly that several conveyancing firms have already automated the whole process. As an Innovation consultant, this is the same feedback I have always had when suggesting change. That whichever industry I’m looking into is different. Of course, I don’t want to become a conveyancer. And neither do I want to become a service provider to make the conveyancing process 5% better. So, instead I’ll offer an alternative approach. I have an offer for conveyancers. I’ll cut your case work in half, so you can do twice as many cases with the same resources. I’ll deliver to you all the documents you need from the client, including questions answered by the client that we predict as being relevant to the conveyancing. You will then be able to focus on the craft of the conveyancing, rather than the administration. Promise to make customers home moves stress free, and I’ll do this for you.
Will lawyers be able to seize the opportunity?
Join us. If you’re a forward-thinking conveyancer we’d love you to join our trial in 2017, so please get in touch.
People are waking up to legal being the prime use for this new wave of technological implementation.
Hugo Pickford-Wardle is the Founder of FastMove, applying AI to conveyancing.
When I worked with Practical Law to put the UK legislation onto an iPad in 2008, this was highly innovative, using new technology to do
December 2016
Artificial Intelligence Supplement 27