- G4S is rolling out the ThoughtRiver pre-screening technology across its legal teams with an initial focus on the US
- Eversheds Sutherland’s consulting arm will support the roll-out to G4S, one of its major clients
- Collaboration will give G4S lawyers early access to new ThoughtRiver technologies
London, UK. 28th June, 2019: ThoughtRiver, the market leader in automated contract pre-screening, has today announced the signing of a strategic relationship between themselves, G4S (global integrated security company), and Eversheds Sutherland (Global law firm). The project empowers G4S’s in-house lawyers with ThoughtRiver’s AI-based platform to drive a faster, more efficient and consistent initial review of all inbound contracts.
Tim Pullan, ThoughtRiver founder and CEO said, “currently all in-house legal teams suffer a drain from ‘legal-ese’; unnecessary variation across commercial agreements caused by the tendency of lawyers to tweak wording. This results in hundreds of thousands of ways of saying the same thing, and millions of hours of wasted lawyer time. The foundation of our technology is the Lexible knowledge tree which solves this problem through AI and standardisation. Forward thinking law firms like Eversheds Sutherland, and minds from some of the UK’s top law schools are working with us to leverage Lexible to deliver increased standardisation and efficiency to the industry. We are lucky enough to work with some of the world’s most exciting brands to challenge the sometimes rather stale status quo within their contract review work, and It is exciting for us to add G4S to that list, we look forward to delivering huge value to their legal team”
G4S’s Group General Counsel, Soren Lundsberg-Nielsen, had this to say about the reason for choosing ThoughtRiver to deliver contract pre-screening work, and Eversheds Sutherland to deliver the services to support the ThoughtRiver rollout.
"G4S has had a global arrangement with Eversheds Sutherland for several years and the close partnership between Eversheds Sutherland and ThoughtRiver was very attractive to us. We are keen to take advantage of technology to support our in-house lawyers and we believe ThoughtRiver pre-screening technology is the cutting edge solution that will provide us with increased quality and efficiency."
Eversheds Sutherland has been a key ThoughtRiver partner for some time now and is providing configuration and administration services to ThoughtRiver clients across the globe. Eversheds Sutherland is also introducing the ThoughtRiver platform into its client base to offer automated contract review as part of a managed legal service, overall it’s a well-balanced symbiotic relationship.
Eversheds Sutherland’s Global Head of client development, Stephen Hopkins had this to say about the partnership with ThoughtRiver and this specific engagement with G4S;
“Our clients are seeking more effective solutions to all aspects of their legal issues. From the most technically complex through to more routine work. The most innovative solutions are not provided just by law firms, so those firms, such as Eversheds Sutherland, who embrace the new options and harness them in an effective wrapper. This delivers in a cohesive way many different several solutions optimising value for the client. This was a key component of Eversheds Sutherland offering which attracted G4S into the strategic relationship.”
This latest high profile deal for ThoughtRiver comes off the back of several strong quarters, including major client signings, new partnerships, key hires into the team, and a USD$4.4M raise to fuel this growth. The recent investment round was led by industry VCs LocalGlobe and Crane Ventures but also involved Guy Laurence, CEO of Chelsea Football Club, Ned Staple, ex GC of Zoopla and Rob Miller, ex GC of Deliveroo.
Pullan concludes by saying “Our mission is to digitise the world’s contracts and that thought gets me out of bed, excited, every single day. Working with amazing clients like G4S and partners like Eversheds Sutherland just makes the journey that much more fun”
