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Former DLA Piper and Linklaters chief Tony Angel takes advisory role at legal start-up Tagdox

Tony Angel, formerly Linklaters managing partner and senior partner and global chairman of DLA Piper, has taken on a new role on the advisory board of new legal artificial intelligence (AI) start-up TagDox.

Angel (pictured), who stood down from his role as senior partner of DLA in April 2015, joins Mark Adelson, the former chief credit officer of Standard and Poor’s and Lex Mundi’s director of professional development, Suzanne Fine on the board.

Tagdox, which was founded by Eli Luzac, is described as ‘easy, precise and secure document analysis’ which ‘improves the speed and quality of document review.’

The website adds: ‘Document analysis can be highly industry specific. We give you access to tailored checklists and reporting relevant to your job. This so you can start adding your own layer of analysis rather than reinventing the wheel each time you review documents. Using our proprietary algorithms, TagDox constantly learns from your analysis. This enables Tagdox to predict the most relevant information when you review new documents.’

Law firms are increasingly embracing AI, with Slaughter and May most recently entering the game with new intelligent M&A software Luminance backed by Autonomy founder and tech billionaire Mike Lynch. Slaughters’ acknowledgement of the potential of AI is viewed as a significant development for the legal tech market 12 months after Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) employed a ‘contracts robot’ using AI software. Luminance’s technology uses the input of Slaughters’ lawyers to learn the most probable human decision on due diligence work.

Outside the Magic Circle, Hogan Lovells is one of the latest firms to be working with RAVN Systems and IBM’s ROSS to develop its own AI strategy. The firm said it was exploring several options for implementing AI.

Clifford Chance (CC) and DLA are using Canadian AI firm Kira, with Freshfields announcing its own partnership in September after a year-long trial. In the US, Baker & Hostetler and Latham & Watkins are both trialling ROSS.

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk

For more on Artificial Intelligence see: ‘The rise of the machines: Slaughters latest to join rush to embrace artificial intelligence’