Ashurst Advance partners with Nesta Challenges for LegalTech competition

Four finalists will be awarded £50,000 each and develop their concepts over a six month period with one winner going on to receive a further £50,000 in April 2020. The technologies used could include guided pathways, expert systems, chatbots, automated document assembly, natural language processing, machine learning and online dispute resolution platforms. The Challenge also aims to bring people together to help build new networks and opportunities for collaboration to help widen access to legal services.

As technical assessment supplier, the Ashurst Advance team, comprising lawyers, legal technologists and IT specialists, will support the judges in their assessment of the applicants by reviewing the top applications for technological feasibility of their solutions and team capability. The information will be fed into the judging panel to help their decision making process.

Tara Waters, co-CEO of Ashurst Digital Ventures, the in-house development arm of Ashurst Advance, commented:

"We are delighted to have been invited to support this important initiative and to work with Nesta Challenges to explore how new technologies can be used to provide greater access to legal services. With eight in ten respondents, according to a new research report from Nesta Challenges, stating that access to legal guidance and advice needs to be improved, this remains a key challenge for the industry. The Legal Access Challenge provides a fantastic opportunity to identify promising new digital solutions to address this."

Chris Gorst, Head of Better Markets, Nesta Challenges, said:

“For too many people, legal support and advice seems out of reach. Technology is not a panacea, but in many areas of our lives it has transformed the choice, convenience and quality available to us, and this could be true in legal services too. The Legal Access Challenge will demonstrate what technology can do and bring these new solutions to market. We are delighted to be working with Ashurst Advance on this Challenge and believe their expertise will be invaluable during the judging process."