Finalists: HFW (highly commended).

Macfarlanes was the deserved winner in the knowledge management innovation category for its info-sharing tool, designed to give lawyers access to real-time insights when negotiating complex transactions.

The system – called iDeal – distils commercial and market information into an easily digestible format that can be shared across the organisation and dialled up instantly from a desktop, phone or tablet. Led by senior solicitor Jamie Macpherson and partner Kirstie Hutchinson, the project recognises that a significant part of any negotiation involves the commercial aspect of the deal, rather than just black-letter law.

The interface provides an overview of the key deal teams, with a more detailed analysis that lawyers can interrogate when necessary. And results can be sorted and filtered so that lawyers can just pull up the information they actually need.

The system therefore avoids having to engage in time-consuming consultations, with team members trying to pin down information on previous deals that might be relevant and then having to analyse that data from scratch. The team is now working on a second phase of the system which will use AI to harvest deal-term information from financial documents automatically.

"A solid, well-thought-out, well-integrated, well-executed project," remarked a judge.

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