We invest significantly in innovative legal technology (including AI) to solve complex problems for our clients and our business. Our dedicated matter delivery experts are always looking for ways to provide value to our clients without comprising on quality. Through Nakhoda, our flagship AI technology platform, we deploy the smartest solutions and ideas in the market, from machines learning, to automate legal logic, to deliver products that make a real difference to our clients.

We have an active LegalTech working group that includes our Heads of Innovation, LegalTech and Technology. The groups works with our Practice Innovation and Efficiency Teams to ensure that we identify, trial and test new and emerging technologies in an agile and delivery-focused way.

We continually evaluate our internal processes and systems via a continuous improvement programme in order to enhance efficiencies in everything we do, including Legal Project Management and Alternative Resourcing.

We have an exclusive legal partnership with Crowdcube to provide innovative start-ups access to cutting edge legal advice while giving us exposure to exciting new tech and fintech companies that have the potential to disrupt their industries. This partnership is central to Crowdcube’s strategy of establishing longer term relationships with clients through the ongoing service delivery beyond initial funding.

TechLinks is our innovative platform, aimed at helping tech entrepreneurs turn their small business into a company with the potential to grow.

We have a strategic investment in, and collaboration with fintech company Nivaura. Founded three years ago, Nivaura’s focus is on the deployment of digital investment banking platforms for banks, exchanges and other financial institutions. These platforms connect and automate fragmented and manual processes involved in the issuance and administration of instruments such as debt, equity and structured notes. This has the potential to significantly reduce time to market and costs.

We are assisting UK Jurisdiction Taskforce in clarifying legal status of cryptoassets and smart contracts.

The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT), one of the six taskforces of the LawTech Delivery Panel, an industry-led group that is tasked with supporting the digital transformation of the UK legal services sector, has published a legal statement on the status of cryptoassets and smart contracts under English and Welsh law.

We played a key role in the project, leading the drafting of the consultation paper published in May 2019 and running a public event in June 2019 which sought input from market participants on the principal issues of perceived legal uncertainty relating to these new technologies, as well as providing input on the legal statement itself.

Richard Hay was a key part of the Linklaters team assisting the taskforce, together with Michael Voisin and Sam Quicke, Associate.

Click here to read more including the legal statement.

We worked with Microsoft to create a cross-industry report highlighting how lawyers can be the enablers of digital transformation in an organisation. The year-long project included a survey of over 900 in-house counsel across APAC and a consultation road-show of the survey results via discussion forums involving 150 leading in-house counsel in Jakarta, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. Click here to view the report.

Recognising that no one person or team has a monopoly on good ideas, we launched a global platform to collectively capture and share ideas from all parts of the firm, enabling us to foster creative thinking at scale. Most recently, our Singapore office ran an ideas campaign to increase agile working in transactional practices – the campaign lasted 5 days and 54% of the office actively participated, 43 ideas were submitted with over 250 comments.

Coding has become an increasingly relevant skill in our industry. We launched the Global Coding Club so that our people better understand underpinning legal technologies and can work with developers to design and build tech-enabled solutions.