Sdu, one of the biggest suppliers of legal content in the Netherlands and part of the European leader Lefebvre Sarrut in this field, announces the acquisition of Bluetick, an AI based solution for tax and legal professionals, as of 5 January 2023. This means lawyers, tax specialists and other legal professionals can now search better and faster for rulings, commentaries, literature and other legal content in all databases and Sdu legal sources, such as OpMaat and NDFR, as well as Rechtsorde.
Bluetick's AI search technology had already been integrated into the Rechtsorde platform since last year. Thanks to the acquisition of Bluetick, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) in its search technology, professionals can enhance their efficiency by accelerating their search processes from weeks to minutes and find all relevant rulings and other crucial content quickly. The technology will be applied to all Sdu's research solutions and will subsequently also become visible in other Lefebvre Sarrut products at European level.
Lawyers and tax specialists spend a great deal of time sifting through legal information sources and databases. So much digital content is available nowadays that they no longer know whether they have covered everything. “A lawyer's greatest fear is that the counterparty substantiates an argument in court with case law unknown to them, as a result of which their case collapses”, say Sander de Groot, CEO of Sdu, and Koen Aarns, founder and CEO of Bluetick. “Thanks to this acquisition, we can improve the research processes of lawyers across the whole of Europe together.”
Bluetick was founded three years ago by data scientists who specialise in AI and apply that in the legal market. Along with seven law firms, the start-up developed the first search engine with which lawyers could find case law more easily. However, Bluetick could only search public databases such as rechtspraak.nl. That only contains around 4 percent of all rulings.
In search of more legal content, Bluetick joined forces with Sdu to search for rulings, commentaries, Dutch and European law and regulations and case law, the rulings of complaints and dispute committees, and the blogs of leading lawyers. Users will soon also be able to use the same technology to search their own sources, in addition to Sdu's legal databases. The technology goes further than a simple search engine. Bluetick also searches for context and comparable search terms and identifies parallels between rulings, even if words and search terms do not correspond precisely. Lawyers and tax specialists can find all relevant rulings and legal content with the single press of a button.
“That's why we refer more to a digital assistant than a search engine”, say the two CEOs.
In the coming years, the percentage of public rulings published will rise from 4% to basically all rulings. According to Sander de Groot and Koen Aarns, Bluetick will make it easier to search that huge mountain of data. This also applies to tax cases, where tax specialists search for similar rulings. Aarns: ,,We believe technology is better at some tasks than people are. We implement this technology in existing products, so that lawyers can use it themselves.” De Groot: ,,This way, the work of legal users is simplified, while the quality improves. Our goal is to ensure that within five years, lawyers will not have any problems conducting legal research anymore.”
About Sdu
Sdu is the innovation partner for companies and professionals in the legal, tax and public sector and the commercial world. Sdu develops software products and services in co-creation with its clients, which enables them to innovate and be successful. Now, and in future. Within excess of 200 years' experience and part of the international Lefebvre Sarrut network, Sdu possesses excellent knowledge of the developments and needs of the legal and tax field. Lefebvre Sarrut is the European leader in legal, tax and regulatory knowledge, employing 2,500 people and generating €535 million in 2021.
Read more on www.sdu.nl/bluetick
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