CLC part of new advisory AI Growth Lab to support responsible AI adoption in legal services

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers is joining the government’s AI Growth Lab, a new advisory sandbox designed to accelerate the development and deployment of AI products and services by helping innovators navigate existing regulatory frameworks with greater confidence.

Legal services will be the first sector to participate, driven by strong industry demand and recognition that clearer, more joined-up guidance within existing frameworks can help accelerate development. This is also supported by the evidence gathered through the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Call for Evidence.

As well as the CLC, and building on existing collaboration between legal services regulators, the Lab will bring together the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Information Commissioner’s Office and the Legal Services Board. Together, they will work with innovators and adopters to surface and address cross-regulatory challenges, identify any novel questions about compliance with regulators’ rules, and build a clearer picture of what good regulatory oversight of AI looks like in practice.

By providing greater clarity, the AI Growth Lab will support responsible innovation, boost economic growth and help improve access to justice for the public by enabling faster and more affordable services, while maintaining the quality and standards of legal services. Applications for AI innovators — including LawTech companies, legal services providers and providers and conveyancing firms — will open later this summer.

Milton James, Chair of the CLC’s Technology and Innovation Working Group, says: “I believe the Legal Sector AI Growth Lab has the potential to accelerate innovation and drive growth across the UK legal sector, and I am delighted that the CLC, as a forward-thinking, pro-innovation regulator, is helping to shape and deliver this important pilot.”

Etienne Pollard, Juno Legal (CLC regulated practice) “This is a great example of how the CLC enables safe, responsible and pro-consumer innovation in the regulated legal sector. We look forward to engaging with the AI Growth Lab.”

Sue Bence, COO, Farringdon (CLC regulated practice), says: “The AI Growth Lab is a genuinely important step for the UK legal sector. As an AI-native law firm, we know first-hand that the most exciting opportunities to improve client outcomes often sit at the edges of existing regulatory frameworks — and that what innovators need most is a route to test those ideas safely, with their regulator alongside them. The CLC has been exactly that kind of partner for us as we prepared to launch Farringdon: clear-eyed about consumer protection, but genuinely curious about what new technology can do for clients and the wider home buying and selling industry. Seeing the CLC partner with DSIT, the SRA, LSB and ICO on the AI Growth Lab is hugely encouraging, and we’d encourage other innovators in legal services to engage with it.”

Kindly shared by Black Letter Communications