As the legal industry embraces technological transformation, law firms increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline operations and enhance client services. While incorporating AI tools is becoming a strategic move for many law firms, Sorainen has embarked on an ambitious journey to develop its own.
Meet AiVar: Sorainen’s very own AI tool
Whether automating routine tasks, enhancing content creation, or supporting strategic planning, Sorainen’s custom-made AI tool, AiVar, offers a versatile solution for all challenges.
AiVar was launched for Sorainen’s employees this autumn, and already, in its first month in use, it has proven highly efficient. Its integration into daily workflows has led to significant time savings, increased productivity, and more consistent, high-quality outputs across the firm.
An ambitious journey: from concept to reality in one year
The goal was to create a robust and versatile tool that could seamlessly integrate with Sorainen’s existing IT ecosystem.
August 2023: The AI@Sorainen workgroup was formed by the Knowledge Management and Innovation and IT team, bringing together 20 AI enthusiasts from diverse professional backgrounds within the firm. Their collaborative spirit and expertise were crucial in the project kick-off phase when evaluating various external providers and ultimately deciding to develop an in-house AI solution.
November 2023: Sorainen embarked on a proof-of-concept project with Microsoft to explore the potential of custom-made AI, which has proven successful.
March 2024: the concept of AiVar, an AI solution tailored to Sorainen’s unique needs, had taken shape.
April 2024: the team dived into prototyping, focusing on Microsoft-based AI solutions.
June 2024: a promising prototype was made alongside a pivotal shift to the Azure OpenAI GPT-4o Model. This transition ensured high-quality consistency and a natural communication language, setting the stage for the next phase.
July 2024: the first version of AiVar was deployed to Sorainen’s internal network. This enabled the team to gather real-world data and feedback to fine-tune the system. Feedback on the user interface and user experience was collected, leading to several improvements. The testing phase was instrumental in ensuring that AiVar was user-friendly and met the high standards expected by the firm’s professionals.
August 2024: AiVar was officially launched for all Sorainen employees. The AI solution is ready to assist the entire firm, providing intelligent responses, automating tasks, and simplifying knowledge searches.
Seamless integration and increased efficiency
AiVar provides intelligent responses, automates tasks, and simplifies knowledge searches. It can answer questions, summarise, restructure, modify, and interact with any data or documents provided.
Its primary advantage is the seamless integration into the Sorainen IT ecosystem, which ensures the complete confidentiality and security of the data we handle.
Key features include:
- Private document upload and review: Users can securely upload private documents. This feature allows for real-time chat about the document content, ensuring that all relevant information is processed swiftly and efficiently.
- Summaries and information search: AiVar can create concise summaries of lengthy documents, making it easier to extract essential information quickly. It can also search for specific information within documents, saving time and effort.
- Content translation: AiVar can translate content accurately, ensuring that language barriers do not hinder understanding essential documents.
- Advanced natural language processing: Equipped with advanced natural language processing features, AiVar can understand and interpret complex legal language. This ensures that it provides both accurate and contextually relevant summaries and translations.
- Integration with Sorainen data sources: AiVar integrates with internal data sources such as our quality management system (QMS) and knowledge databases (online training system, templates, and technical instructions database). This integration ensures that all relevant know-how is readily available and easily accessible.
- Streamlined administrative tasks: AiVar is designed to automate the creation of diverse content, including drafting professional emails, crafting social media posts, and writing in-depth articles. It also excels in developing detailed step-by-step plans, formulating business processes, generating scripts for training and workshops, and helping create various guidelines and instructions.
- Creative support: AiVar is a valuable resource for creative tasks, such as brainstorming sessions, where it can generate fresh ideas or offer unique perspectives. It also plays a crucial role in text editing, helping to refine and polish drafts and ensuring clarity, coherence, and tone alignment with organisational standards.
- Chat history and sharing: AiVar maintains a chat history, allowing users to easily refer to previous conversations. It also supports chat sharing, enabling seamless collaboration among team members.
- Feedback mechanisms: AiVar includes user-friendly feedback mechanisms allowing users to provide performance input. This feedback is crucial for continuous improvement and ensuring that AiVar meets the firm’s evolving needs.
Key lessons in developing an in-house AI tool
Throughout the development and implementation of AiVar, Sorainen has gained valuable insights that can benefit other organisations embarking on similar AI projects.
Five essential suggestions based on our lessons learned:
- Start with a clear vision. A well-defined goal and understanding the company’s specific needs are crucial. This helps prioritise features and ensure the AI tool addresses real challenges.
- Foster collaborative effort. Bringing together diverse experiences from different departments on top of professional developers fosters innovative ideas and ensures the end solution is comprehensive and user-friendly.
- Ensure security and confidentiality. Given the sensitive nature of legal data, ensuring the highest levels of security and privacy is paramount.
- Engage and train end users. To ensure the smooth adoption of AiVar, a comprehensive training program for all employees was developed. Training sessions ensure that all future users are engaged and feel comfortable and confident using the new tool.
- Evolve and improve continuously. AI technology is constantly evolving, and so is AiVar. We continue to explore new applications to streamline the processes further and continuously consider user feedback.
What’s next?
AiVar is a testament to Sorainen’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology to deliver exceptional legal services. Looking ahead, we will explore AiVar’s full potential further to expand its functionalities. AI’s future possibilities for the legal industry keep us excited and committed to staying at the forefront of technological innovation.
Our development team
The solution was ultimately developed through collaboration between internal and external resources. The development team consisted of senior developer Mārtiņš Aldiņš and external expert Andrejs Žilinskis. It was supported by product manager Mārtiņš Stamguts and several colleagues from Knowledge Management and Innovation, IT, and across other departments.
Are you curious to know more? Reach out to our digital product manager, Mārtiņš Stamguts, martins.stamguts@sorainen.com.
