A team of academics are close to developing an artificial intelligence-based tool that would identify legal disputes before they even materialised.
The initiative is one of the first announced by the Deep Tech Dispute Resolution Laboratory, which has been set up at the University of Oxford’s Law Faculty to carry out multi-disciplinary work.
And Kim Cross, one of Vine’s founders, has welcomed the major development, saying: “I love the idea of AI providing the capacity to ring an early alarm bell.”
This AI-enabled system will examine business data in an attempt to identify early signs of dispute - such as changes in the tone of email correspondence or differences in a supplier’s contract as it gets sent to various individuals within a company – and, as the lab says, “nip it in the bud”.
The lab claims the tool could save an organisation time, energy and money as it has the potential to “nip a dispute in the bud”.
Kim, who specialises in employment law, HR & disputes, added: “It’s a pretty exciting idea that a computer program could watch what is going on within a business and give management an early heads-up when it sees trouble brewing.
“Anyone involved in a business dispute will tell you how much time and money it can take to resolve.
“At the moment, I work with clients to manually check that their legal documents are in order and to intervene as early as we can if problems arise.
“But it relies on someone on the ground spotting the problem or reporting it.”
However, there is a snag. To develop the tool the lab needs real legal data, which is where they hope in-house lawyers will come to their rescue.
An invitation has been issued for legal teams to collaborate by sharing organisational data relating to past disputes, and Dr Mimi Zou, the lab’s principal investigator, said: “We envisage our researchers working with an in-house team and their IT team.”
However, the Oxford team – a core of researchers involved in law, computer science, finance, economics, political science and psychology - are keen to stress they are not asking any potential collaborators to break any professional confidences.
In an attempt to soothe any concerns, the invitation assures interested parties: “As academic researchers, we must also comply with the strictest standards of research ethics that go beyond the General Data Protection Regulation.”
The initiative is one of the first announced by the Deep Tech Dispute Resolution Laboratory, which has been set up at the University of Oxford’s Law Faculty to carry out multi-disciplinary work.
And Kim Cross, one of Vine’s founders, has welcomed the major development, saying: “I love the idea of AI providing the capacity to ring an early alarm bell.”
This AI-enabled system will examine business data in an attempt to identify early signs of dispute - such as changes in the tone of email correspondence or differences in a supplier’s contract as it gets sent to various individuals within a company – and, as the lab says, “nip it in the bud”.
The lab claims the tool could save an organisation time, energy and money as it has the potential to “nip a dispute in the bud”.
Kim, who specialises in employment law, HR & disputes, added: “It’s a pretty exciting idea that a computer program could watch what is going on within a business and give management an early heads-up when it sees trouble brewing.
“Anyone involved in a business dispute will tell you how much time and money it can take to resolve.
“At the moment, I work with clients to manually check that their legal documents are in order and to intervene as early as we can if problems arise.
“But it relies on someone on the ground spotting the problem or reporting it.”
However, there is a snag. To develop the tool the lab needs real legal data, which is where they hope in-house lawyers will come to their rescue.
An invitation has been issued for legal teams to collaborate by sharing organisational data relating to past disputes, and Dr Mimi Zou, the lab’s principal investigator, said: “We envisage our researchers working with an in-house team and their IT team.”
However, the Oxford team – a core of researchers involved in law, computer science, finance, economics, political science and psychology - are keen to stress they are not asking any potential collaborators to break any professional confidences.
In an attempt to soothe any concerns, the invitation assures interested parties: “As academic researchers, we must also comply with the strictest standards of research ethics that go beyond the General Data Protection Regulation.”
