- £4 million to use technology to update the legal system in the UK
- Drive to maintain the industry at the forefront of legal services globally
- Investment to increase accessibility for people and companies
The LawtechUK program’s second phase will be made possible by a new £4 million investment, promoting modernization by fostering the creation of new technologies such as machine learning and data analytics tools.
This would increase access to legal services for consumers and businesses through technology, ensuring the UK maintains its competitive advantage on the world stage, and create jobs.
LawtechUK is a government-backed initiative that was established in 2019 with an initial investment of £2 million to transform the UK legal industry through technology.
It offers resources, programmes, and courses to support new methods of providing and gaining access to legal services through digital solutions.
Justice Minister Lord Bellamy QC said:
A thriving lawtech sector will help ensure the UK continues as a world-leading legal services centre and attracts the very best talent.
This investment will support the market to develop the technology it needs to drive modernisation and deliver first-class legal services.
The Ministry of Justice, the LawtechUK Panel, a board of industry experts, and growth platform Tech Nation have all worked together to produce the LawtechUK programme.
The Lawtech Sandbox, a research and development programme for UK entrepreneurs and start-ups to test and create products or services intending to meet the legal needs of businesses and society, was launched as a result of prior financing for Tech Nation.
Legal Utopia, an app created to assist people in understanding their legal challenges and gaining access to attorneys, is one start-up that will profit from the sandbox.
Director of LawtechUK Alexandra Lennox said:
Technology has the potential to transform business’ and peoples’ experience of law, meet unmet legal needs and support professionals to deliver the next generation of legal services.
We have seen great progress towards this future since LawtechUK’s inception and this next phase of funding will build on those important foundations, helping cement the UK’s position as a global hub for technology and law.
Lawtech Amplified Global also participated in the Sandbox.
Founder of Amplified Global Minesh Patel said:
Accelerators, incubators and sandboxes are a lifeline for start-ups bringing novel solutions into the market. It’s fantastic to hear about the next series of MoJ funding, which will enable pioneering solutions to push the boundaries within the legal space.
Without the Lawtech Sandbox, an organisation of our size and stage would have found it really difficult to be working, or even engaging, with a telecoms giant and the cross section of stakeholders and regulators that we did.
The LawtechUK programme has rapidly accelerated our growth and helped us to get the product to market quicker than we could have ever imagined.
LawtechUK has created a free online learning and research hub as well as a website to enable the sharing of experiences with remote alternatives to conventional court hearings in order to increase understanding and awareness of legal technology.
To guarantee that English law keeps up with technology advancements and to support LawtechUK’s Jurisdiction Taskforce, the investment will also continue to support and promote these efforts.
This will help the UK maintain its position as a global centre for developing technologies.
By demonstrating practical applications of these technologies, this builds on earlier work to improve market awareness of smarter contracts and digital assets.
Up until December 2023, Tech Nation will continue to deliver the LawtechUK programme.
The autumn will see the announcement of the specifics of a competitive procedure to award the subsequent round of funds.
The programme will be run by the new provider from January 2023 through March 2025.
Notes to editors:
- The objectives of the funding will aim to build on the brilliant work delivered so far by LawtechUK in order to:
- Increase innovation and the adoption of lawtech in the delivery of UK legal services.
- Support the growth of the lawtech sector in the UK.
- Enable English and Welsh law and the UK’s jurisdictions to become the foundation for emerging technologies, by supporting and promoting the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce’s work.
- The LawtechUK Panel was established in 2018 by the Secretary of State for Justice and acts as the advisory board to LawtechUK. Made up of senior figures from industry, government, academia, judiciary, regulators and the legal technology community, its members take an active role in LawtechUK’s work programme.