Baker McKenzie to go whole hog to embrace artificial intelligence capabilities

Baker McKenzie to go whole hog to embrace artificial intelligence capabilities

Partnership with SparkBeyond is expected to disrupt the future of all legal services across multiple levels

Chicago-based international law firm Baker McKenzie has decided to go the whole hog and embrace artificial technology (AI) to reimagine the full range of its offerings.

The firm has announced its decision to extend partnership with the New York-based AI specialists SparkBeyond through the firm's Reinvent innovation programme following a successful pilot of the technology that started October last year.

A dedicated team led by the firm's London-based research and development partner Ben All grove will collaborate on projects with SparkBeyond to combine legal expertise with data, data science and machine learning.

The use of artificial intelligence is expected to disrupt the future of all legal services across multiple levels in which Baker McKenzie intends to be at the forefront of technological evolution.

The partnership with SparkBeyond will concentrate on three main areas: AI-powered legal services, boosting the firm's pro bono social impact initiatives through machine learning-driven research and analysis and using data insights to improve the firm's internal operations.

"Five years ago our industry was flooded with hype about AI disruption. Our oft stated view at the time was that this disruption would not happen overnight, but that it was coming. We have spent the last five years preparing for the technology to mature. We have laid the infrastructure foundations, such as our enterprise data architecture, and we have built our innovation muscle and partner and client buy-in through a market leading design thinking and engagement programme," All grove said.

Al grove leads a team of 11 persons which is expected to expand soon with two additional hirings of co-founders to support All grove and his team.

The plan is to design client-focused applications using Spark Beyond's technology with an underlying aim to reimagine the future of legal services.

"This partnership is emblematic of our commitment to innovation and a statement of intent for the future. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence will become an even more essential part of our business going forward and now is the right time to invest in building our capabilities and skills to deploy that technology internally and externally for the benefit of our clients, our business and our communities," Milton Cheng, Baker McKenzie's global chair, said.

Sagie Davidovich, CEO and co-founder of SparkBeyond, said: "Leveraging Baker McKenzie's global outlook and footprint with SparkBeyond's problem-solving technology is poised to disrupt the legal industry across a number of levels."