LawTech in the West Midlands
The LawTech sector is quickly gaining momentum in the West Midlands
Here, companies are leveraging the region’s technological expertise and established legal industry. By integrating technology and software into legal services, we enable law firms, legal professionals, and the public to access and deliver legal services more efficiently, enhancing or replacing traditional methods.
The West Midlands is playing a growing role in the UK’s digital transformation of legal services, a shift accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Currently, the region accounts for 3.1% of the UK’s LawTech sector (according to LawtechUK). This share continues to rise as more firms address industry challenges such as legal and compliance risk management, improved documentation automation, and AI-driven process improvements.
Notable LawTech companies in the region include Lexverify, Clarilis, Contract Genetica, HyperLaw, Infringement.Report, Lawtech 365, and SpeechWrite Digital. These firms offer technology-driven solutions across finance, operations, rights management, risk, conveyancing, contracts, and more, positioning the West Midlands as an emerging hub for legal tech innovation.
Next-Generation Services
Never been done is what we do in the West Midlands.
For over two centuries, the global economy has been shaped by West Midlands-borne technologies. The next generation of modern business services, green power and digital tech is being built right here.
LawTech companies set up in the region to benefit from the educated talent pool in our young population. Working with entities like SuperTech helps companies thrive when entering the UK market.
The West Midlands LawTech Forum
Setting the West Midlands apart from the rest of the UK is the emergence of the West Midlands LawTech Forum – the first of its kind in the UK – established in January 2023 to support growth and enhance the exciting developments within the sector.
Bringing together some of the largest firms from across the region, such as Eversheds, Pinsent Masons, Shoosmiths, Gowling, DWF, and Gateleys, the forum focuses on knowledge exchange, providing a setting for legal professionals to discuss their experiences and insights of utilising technology to innovate, including the challenges they face and what they need to overcome them.
SuperTech then works to support these needs by establishing the relevant connections and designing activity programmes such as workshops, working groups, and lab challenges, that provide practical solutions.
Furthermore, SuperTech helps shape the future of the West Midlands’ legal curriculum by bridging the knowledge gap between academic partners and law firms. There are now increased tech requirements for graduates and young professionals looking to get into the legal sector, and it is imperative that academic institutions are aligned with legal firms and legal tech developers.
Clarilis
Clarilis is a West Midlands-based Lawtech company that helps law firms and various in-house legal teams automate complex legal document suites, using their innovative generative AI platform.
Located in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire after being founded in 2011, Clarilis is now ranked in the UK’s top 10 LawTech companies by Beauhurst and Verify 365. Co-founded by brothers, James and Kevin Quinn, the vision for Clarilis developed from their experiences within the legal sector. Previously a corporate tax lawyer, James believed existing solutions to capture best practice drafting methodologies weren’t sufficient, and worked with Kevin, to develop an intelligent software solution that would fully meet the needs of transactional legal work.
Clarilis now offers companies a market-leading drafting automation platform to help law firms and in-house legal departments draft consistently high-quality documentation across complex legal matters. The tech platform uses deep automation to do this, which can model entire legal matters instead of handling documents on an individual basis. Reducing the time this takes by up to 90%, Clarilis offers huge opportunities to drive operational efficiencies and enhanced service delivery.
Since its founding, Clarilis have received further rounds of funding and has quickly scaled to become one of the UK’s leading LawTechs. This growth has seen the company build on its UK success to expand internationally, with a Singapore launch and office opening in 2015. Today, Clarilis’ platform is trusted by leading law firms and other organisations globally, with the company now serving customers across Ireland, Canada and the USA.
SuperTech’s Connector Series
Connector Series was absolutely brilliant and we need more initiatives like this. It’s critical for start-ups to get feedback on what they’re building as early as possible. You might think you have a great idea but you need to validate your assumptions.
Customer feedback is absolutely crucial to ensure you are building a product that solves a real problem.
SuperTech’s Connector Series links startups and SMEs with large corporates across the West Midlands, providing free access to discussions that uncover opportunities, promote collaboration, and encourage technology sharing. This initiative is helping to grow the region’s LawTech sector.
A prime example is Lexverify, a Birmingham-based LawTech startup, which partnered with Unity Trust Bank through the Connector Series to pilot new technology. Lexverify’s AI assistant uses natural language processing to help identify and mitigate legal and compliance risks in real-time, covering areas like competition law, anti-bribery, GDPR, and sanctions.
After a Connector Series meeting, Unity Trust Bank COO Mark Clayton was impressed by Lexverify’s technology, leading to an offer to pilot the product, driving further growth for the startup.
Next Gen Services in the West Midlands
The West Midlands is officially recognised as the UK’s largest regional Business, Professional, and Financial Services sector, and is the UK’s fastest growing technology cluster. Combined with an established legal sector that is home to some of the biggest names in the country, it is little surprise that LawTech has now emerged as a fast-growing sector in the region.
The knowledge and expertise across these areas have converged, allowing founders and companies to identify gaps in the legal market and build the next generation of services for this sector that not only deliver services more effectively but also help organisations in meeting their business objectives.
