Aston University partners with Birmingham law firm on AI-powered legal services project

Aston University’s digital transformation specialists have announced a collaboration with Birmingham-based commercial law firm Harper James to create an intelligent legal services platform powered by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). The project is part of a three-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) designed to develop new technologies for the firm.

Harper James, which provides support to small and medium-sized enterprises, intends to use the system to automate tasks such as project scoping, proposals, contracting and client onboarding. The platform will apply and extend research on GenAI to create models that can analyse and learn from legal data.

The intelligent system will also track and learn from previous cases to help forecast possible outcomes and legal processes for future projects. Harper James, which operates under a subscription model, aims to differentiate itself within the UK legal sector.

As part of this, the firm is moving away from a traditional billable-hour model and adopting value-based pricing. The efficiencies created by the AI-enabled platform will support this transition while helping the firm improve client service and internal operations.

Toby Harper, founder and CEO of Harper James, said: “The innovation developed through this project with Aston University is a fundamental pillar that will set us apart from the rest of the legal services sector. It will allow our lawyers to focus on delivering exceptional value to clients, who will receive advice and support faster, more efficiently, and with even greater pricing transparency.”

Professor Abdul Sadka, director of The Sir Peter Rigby Digital Futures Institute at Aston University, said: “KTPs like this form a very important part of our contribution to society as academics. By working in partnership, we can extend our specialist knowledge and expertise while being a solution provider to ambitious businesses like Harper James, enabling them to overcome digital challenges faced along their growth and innovation journeys.”

The project will draw on expertise in natural language processing, federated learning and predictive analytics. It will involve Aston University’s Sir Peter Rigby Digital Futures Institute and the Aston Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Application.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships are funded by Innovate UK and bring together businesses, universities and research associates. The national programme supports businesses in improving competitiveness and productivity through the application of knowledge, technology and skills. Aston University is ranked first in the UK for project quality and joint first for the number of active KTP projects.

Image source: by Johand2222, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30703992