Lawyers On Demand (LOD), which was bought by Consilio in 2023, is partnering with Wordsmith to deliver AI-enabled managed services to inhouse legal teams. Last month the Scottish legal AI company also hooked up with Morae to extend its inhouse engagement.
Fundamentally, this – and similar moves across the market – is about giving inhouse teams the combined support of AI and specialist legal talent in one package. I.e. AI is great, but for now we still need plenty of good old fleshy human lawyers to make it work at scale. And inhouse groups don’t always have the numbers. Plus, an ALSP + AI combo can mean significant cost savings.
In terms of how it will roll out, they explained that ‘by combining LOD’s expert professionals, governance, and day-to-day management of legal work with Wordsmith’s AI-native workflow platform, inhouse teams using the service will be able to better-handle ever-increasing work volumes without adding to headcount or losing control’.
In short, clients send their stuff to LOD, and LOD uses Wordsmith to help in that work. No need to hire more lawyers. What’s not to like?
And they added: ‘LOD’s partnership with Wordsmith is designed to make AI usable in practice by embedding it at scale within a managed delivery model, so it works inside how teams already operate rather than sitting apart from it.’
Meanwhile, as part of the offering, Consilio will ‘provide technology advisory, implementation support, and ongoing refinement, helping clients configure Wordsmith effectively and evolve usage over time based on real world experience. Feedback from live deployments will also inform how Wordsmith continues to improve its platform for enterprise use’.
Consilio now has around ‘4,500 lawyers, legal operations experts, paralegals, and risk and compliance professionals’ on its books, and works in over 25 countries. So, if this partnership takes off then it should really help Wordsmith to gain more revenue. And it will need to, given they’ve just raised $70m in VC cash.
Meanwhile, it gives LOD / Consilio some welcome additions to its tech stack that keep it at the cutting edge of AI-driven legal review.
Nigel Rea, (pictured), Managing Director of Global Clients at LOD, commented: ‘By delivering legal managed services enhanced by Wordsmith, we help legal departments use AI in a way that is practical, governed, and reliable.’
And, Ross McNairn, CEO of Wordsmith, added: ‘Legal AI needs to work inside real operating models. Partnering with Lawyers On Demand and Consilio allows Wordsmith to be deployed as part of a managed service, while benefiting from deep delivery and technology expertise.’
More about LOD here.
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