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Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance

Data Science

Turning insights into action

Working with our clients and lawyers, our data science teams use data to diagnose issues and predict outcomes. We will recommend what to do today and tomorrow, exploring and finding new ways to bring actionable insights to our clients.

Using data to diagnose issues and predict outcomes, our data science team finds new ways to bring actionable insights and solutions to our clients.

How to use data to improve service delivery is a big opportunity for the legal profession. As we gain a better understanding of the value of the data we can generate, we are able to use it in new and ever-more innovative ways. Data science helps us surface the insights and predictions available through data to deliver better outcomes for our clients. 

What is Data Science?

Data science is an interdisciplinary field bringing together mathematics, statistics and computer science. It is focused on extracting knowledge from data sets, which are typically large, and applying the knowledge and actionable insights from data to solve problems in a wide range of application domains. 

How does it work?

Data science in a legal context

Ultimately, for the legal profession, data science augments the deep expertise and experience of our lawyers, drawing on mathematics and stats-based techniques to solve problems that our clients and lawyers face, or may face, in the future. These techniques enable us to develop tech solutions that will add real and lasting value to our profession. 

Key benefits

The application of data science techniques to the delivery of legal services represents a significant opportunity for the legal profession; it can help by:

Bringing better operational insights

Verifying the content of our invoices in line with client billing guidelines

Getting improved understanding of the risks within large scale document reviews to enable our lawyers prepare better informed legal strategies

Using applied AI

Creating custom solutions in our legal service delivery such as a machine translation capability that facilitates near-instant translation between many languages

Providing a natural language interface to ask questions and receive actionable responses on specified legal topics

Enabling much more rapid large scale document reviews with the enhancement of scanned images by removing noise and improving text resolution

Applying predictive analytics

Using previous matter data to better forecast fee estimates

Data Science in action

Text analytics

Building advanced machine learning models can help us to enhance labour-intensive processes such as large scale document classification and reviews and extractions of key insights.

Enhanced performance

Data science supplements the expertise of our lawyers: whether reviewing more documents than previously possible to assess risks better or helping us to maintain client confidentiality and reduce human errors.

eDiscovery

An automated discovery system takes less time to review big datasets – finding information faster, with zero loss of quality in that work.

Legal research

Drawing on existing case law data and past experiences, we can better inform our clients on potential risks and issues, and better predict outcomes.

Legal expertise

We can complete deals faster based on our legal expertise and draft better legal documents faster based on precedents.

Legal strategy

Embracing data science for law firms is an opportunity to bring large-scale data into strategic planning. It can help better understand context and issues, pre-empt counter-arguments, and more.

Taking the next step

Are you interested in supporting our vision of data science for the legal profession? Do you have a fresh idea about how we can make the most of the data that exists in our sector? Or have you got a specific challenge that data science could help solve? Get in touch with Anthony Vigneron.

Data Science at a glance

  • A team of eight data science professionals, using data for action-driven change.
  • We supported our client during their Interbank Offered Rates (IBORs) transition process by using existing data, supplemented by specialist sampling of representative documentation
 
 
  • Our proprietary tool to identify, extract and tabulate references to exhibits, witnesses and judges' comments during trials cut manual effort by over 25%, representing significant cost savings for clients.

 
  • We are enabling greater automation of aircraft leases by using a contract analytics and legal document platform to automatically extract data including serial, registration and model numbers, increasing efficiencies for clients.