How a multidisciplinary team used machine learning to make claims easier for clients

In this episode no. 18 I was again fortunate to interview 2 people who’ve been part of a team working on an online tool to make it easier, quicker and cheaper for people to sort out claims arising from motor vehicle accidents. One of the guests is an expert in personal injuries law having represented people in some high profile and serious claims of sexual misconduct etc. and the other has a PhD in physics and before her current role was a post doc research fellow with the institute for bioengineering and nanotechnology.
Jodie Willey joined Shine Lawyers as a 16 year old articled clerk, keen to work with people to make a difference. For almost 25 years at Shine, Jodie has helped to shine a light on injustice and helped many thousands of clients and now, drawing on her blend of experience, Jodie is now focussed on innovation and how technology can transform the delivery of services in the legal sector.
Ann Bui joined Shine last year to work on the development of Claimify. Prior to this, Ann was a computational physicist, answering questions ranging from ‘how does malaria change the behaviour of red blood cells?’ to ‘how should conservationists classify the quality of sperm used in endangered animal breeding programs?’. You will hear in the interview exactly how a physicist has helped in developing Calimify suffice to say that using her computational modelling skills, Ann is keen to disrupt the legal industry so that there is greater transparency and access to justice for everyone.
In this episode you will hear about:
Key features of the online tool and how having 10 years of data about a particular type of claim can more efficiently generate advice with the assistance of machine learning. In fact Ann draws parallels between how lawyers learn and how AI works; which begs the question of whether a lawyer could be replaced by a set of equations?
How original assumptions about who might use the tool was challenged when the target was a youthful online user, but first client was a 62 yo woman.
What’s critical if you’re in an established organisation doing “innovation”.
The make up of the very multidisciplinary team and their process.
Whether this type of tool could be approp for other types of claims including where the evidence is sensitive, and
What has surprised Claimify about how and when people have used the platform.
You will especially enjoy this episode if you are interested in project management of a legal tech solution and what’s critical to success. What is quite unique about this online tool is the fact that it isn’t a legal tech start up or new law firm basically running a virtual law firm and providing a very client centric solution; but a very established Queensland law firm.
Links: 
Claimify
ALTA
Max Kelsen  

Andrea Perry-Petersen – LinkedIn - Twitter @winkiepp – andreaperrypetersen.com.au
Twitter - @ReimaginingJ
Facebook – Reimagining Justice group