In a law firm, the most valuable knowledge sits with the lawyers: which claims succeed, which arguments work, which cases to decline.
Fletchers Solicitors, a medical negligence and serious injury firm in England, decided in 2016 to change where that knowledge lived.
What Fletchers Solicitors did
Legal Futures reported in December 2016 that Fletchers, which then employed some 300 people, had formed a knowledge transfer partnership with the University of Liverpool, funded by Innovate UK and matched by the firm. Its then chief executive, Ed Fletcher, said: "What we are hoping to do is harness the brain power of over 100 med neg lawyers, and capture that and make it accessible to everyone within the organisation when considering cases."
The University of Liverpool reports that the partnership ended in 2018, that both computer science associates stayed on and that the firm built its own AI and data science team. It describes a digital assistant that can assess the likelihood of a case's success within seconds. In 2023 Fletchers started a second, multi-year phase with the university, which the firm funds itself.
What it already gives the business
Dan Taylor, Director of Integration at Fletchers, in a University of Liverpool report: "Working with the University through the KTP made us smarter and helped us deliver faster access to justice."
Fletchers kept the people who built the system and made data science part of the firm. Its outcome figures come from the firm and the university and are not independently verified. Fletchers is also much larger than a typical ExValu client.
The ExValu perspective, a hypothesis
Where a Company Brain could take it next
Case assessment models learn from past decisions. A smaller firm can start with the reasons behind those decisions: why a senior lawyer took a case, declined one or settled.
A Company Brain could keep those reasons from daily work, so the firm's judgment builds up even without a data science team. That is our hypothesis for smaller firms.
What an owner and a buyer would look for
Track how consistently different lawyers decide, time to assess a new inquiry and how outcomes compare with early assessments.
A buyer of a law firm values judgment that belongs to the firm and survives partner departures. Client and medical data need strict access control and a clear legal basis.
The problem behind this case
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About this analysis
* The image is AI-generated and does not show Fletchers Solicitors staff. The facts and figures on this page come from the published source named below.
This is an independent ExValu analysis of a published case. Facts, figures and names are as reported in the source below, which our team checked on October 12, 2026. The ideas for next steps are our own perspective and make no claim about conditions inside Fletchers Solicitors. To request a correction or removal, write to [email protected].
Primary source: Independent journalism, Legal Futures, December 2016, with later University of Liverpool reports. Available at www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/injury-firm-teams-university-bid-develop-ai-decision-support.