Leading law firm Slaughter and May has adopted ‘Proof’, the new NLP-powered proofreading solution from drafting specialists Definely.
Slaughter and May is the first law firm to onboard Definely Proof. It enables the firm’s lawyers to produce ‘clean contracts in less time’, they explained.
Emma Walton, Senior Knowledge and Innovation Manager, commented: ‘The Definely Suite proved popular during the pilot phase with clear benefits to the firm’s lawyers. We are looking forward to seeing how it develops as it begins to be used around the firm.’
All well and good, but what is ‘Proof’, how did Definely win this elite firm as a client, and how is the legal tech startup doing? Artificial Lawyer spoke to CEO, Nnamdi Emelifeonwu, to ask him some more.
- First, congrats – can you tell us some more about the new product, how is this different to what you offered law firms before? What benefits does it bring to lawyers who use it?
Definely has been fortunate, since the launch of our first product (which we remain the only software vendor in the market providing), to have onboarded some of the world’s largest and most prestigious firms. Through these customers, we received feedback on how existing proofreading solutions contained a high number of false positives and utilised outdated UI/UX that made them difficult to navigate. This resulted in these solutions being poorly adopted across the firm and limiting the efficiency gains compared to existing, manual methods.
As a result, the team has worked extremely hard on building our latest product, and we’re all very proud of what we have achieved. Definely Proof is our AI-powered proofreading solution customised specifically for legal documents to help lawyers effortlessly perform final checks on their contracts prior to execution or distribution. Through the use of our proprietary, cutting-edge AI techniques and modern UI/UX focusing on ease of use and adoption, we have overcome the hurdle of false positives and built a product which allows users to perform proofreading checks with a click of a button, in a fraction of the time all whilst ensuring usage across the firm.
Integrating seamlessly with Definely Draft, users can now draft, review and proofread their legal agreements all within a single tool.
- How did you get to know S + M, and how did this product win their support?
We have a longstanding relationship with Slaughter and May and they recently completed a pilot of our Definely Draft solution which received widespread acclaim from the pilot users. We were also able to show them early iterations of our Definely Proof product and receive invaluable feedback from their lawyers and innovation team about which features they would most value in a proofreading product as well as how to design it in a way which would best integrate into existing workflows. After a successful pilot plus demonstration of the final proofreading product incorporating that feedback, we then proceeded to formalise the relationship.
- How are things generally? You seem to be expanding the offering, and also looking at other markets outside of legal?
Definely Proof is Definely’s third product offering (in addition to our original product, Definely Draft and, more recently, our Definely for PDF solution) with our fourth product set to be released in less than a month (more on that soon). We are currently working with the largest law firms and in-house teams in the UK, US, Canada and Australia and will be welcoming many more customers into the Definely family before the year is out.
We were also one of nine InsurTechs to be accepted in the Lloyds of London Innovation Lab and have now built a bespoke Insurance Product for brokers and underwriters with input from the London market. As a result, we are now piloting this product with one of the largest brokers in the world, the third largest insurance underwriter amongst a host of others. It is an exciting time to be at Definely and we are continuously energised by the traction and feedback we continue to receive from the market, both Legal and Insurance.
Thanks Nnamdi!