International law firm Bird & Bird has chosen Luminance’s artificial intelligence platform to assist with its contract review for M&A due diligence. The announcement of the deal follows a successful trial of the technology across the firm’s London and Stockholm offices.

Luminance uses machine learning algorithms developed by mathematicians from Cambridge University that accelerates and enhances legal contract review. The technology instantly sorts and classifies documents while highlighting possible anomalies for lawyers’ review. Uniquely, due to the advanced nature of Luminance’s platform, it learns as it is used, so that it adapts to Bird & Bird’s expertise and specialisms with no training required.

Bird & Bird is well known for its technology-led approach, and has deep expertise in advising major clients across the technology and digital industries. This innovative outlook made Luminance a natural fit, explains Mårten Willamo, partner and Nordic Head of Corporate at Bird & Bird.

“Bird & Bird has always been at the forefront of adopting cutting-edge technology, and Luminance is no exception. We identified a clear opportunity within the firm to reduce the time and resources spent on manual document review in due diligence. Luminance’s ability to expose potential issues and anomalies within documentation – as well as easily adapt to new projects and languages – will help us get to the vital work of analysis, much faster.

“Ultimately, Luminance will enable our lawyers to spend more time on the creative and analytical thinking, informed by deep industry knowledge, that our clients value so highly.”

Bird & Bird selected Luminance after completing an extensive trial. The firm’s first project using the technology was run in direct comparison to manual review methods on a live transaction with a mixture of document languages: English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and French. The deal team were impressed by the easy to use interface – including a seamless upload process enabled by Luminance’s virtual data room integration – and language-agnostic nature of the technology.

As an international firm with 1,200 lawyers across 29 offices, it was also important that Luminance’s intuitive workflow tools helped Bird & Bird’s team collaborate in real time across multiple offices. The results of the trial were extremely positive, with Bird & Bird concluding that Luminance enabled their team to work faster and more effectively in any language.

“We are thrilled to be working with one of the world’s best-known technology-focussed law firms,” said Emily Foges, CEO of Luminance. “With increasing numbers of elite global firms like Bird & Bird signing up to use Luminance, it’s becoming clear that artificial intelligence is no longer a choice – it’s simply the way large-scale contract review is now done.”

About Bird & Bird

Bird & Bird LLP is an international law firm which supports organisations being changed by technology or the digital world. The firm combines exceptional legal expertise with deep industry knowledge and refreshingly creative thinking, to help clients achieve their commercial goals. Bird & Bird has over 1,200 lawyers in 29 offices across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, as well as close ties with firms in other parts of the world. If you want to find out more, visit twobirds.com.