Sarah Mitchell, Managing Partner at Mitchell & Associates Solicitors in London, meets with her former colleague Richard Hayes, Senior Partner at Hayes Legal in Manchester, at a Law Society conference to discuss technology in modern conveyancing.
The Conference Meeting
Richard Hayes: Sarah! It's been ages. I heard Mitchell & Associates has been absolutely crushing it in the conveyancing space lately. What's your secret?
Sarah Mitchell: Richard! Good to see you. Honestly? We bit the bullet on AI about eight months ago. Completely transformed how we handle document review.
Richard Hayes: AI for conveyancing? I've heard the pitches from various vendors, but I'm sceptical. Most of these tools seem like glorified search functions.
Sarah Mitchell: I was sceptical too. We tried two different solutions before finding one that actually worked. The difference with Big0's platform is it produces solicitor-quality reports, not just highlighted keywords.
The Problem with Traditional Review
Richard Hayes: What do you mean by solicitor-quality?
Sarah Mitchell: Think about what your junior associates actually do when they review a title bundle. They identify missing documents, generate enquiries based on what they find, and flag risks—restrictive covenants, short leases, easement issues. The AI does exactly that. Same output format we'd produce ourselves.
Richard Hayes: That sounds too good to be true. Our document review is still eating up enormous amounts of fee earner time. Every bundle takes at least 45 minutes of focused attention.
Sarah Mitchell: That's exactly where we were. And during busy periods, things were falling through the cracks. We had a near-miss last year on a commercial transaction where a restrictive covenant wasn't flagged. That's when I knew we needed to change something.
Richard Hayes: We've had similar situations. The volume just keeps increasing, and quality associates are hard to find and expensive to train.
Finding Big0
Sarah Mitchell: I found Big0 through a recommendation from another firm actually. What impressed me was their validation process. They didn't just demo the product—they tested it against 50 of our real transaction bundles.
Richard Hayes: Wait, your actual files?
Sarah Mitchell: Yes. They wanted to prove the system could match what our experienced conveyancers would produce. Miss too many issues, and it's not trustworthy. Too many false positives, and solicitors waste time checking non-issues. They had to hit both targets.
Richard Hayes: And it passed?
Sarah Mitchell: Across missing documents, enquiries, and risk identification. The quality matched what we'd expect from someone with years of conveyancing experience.
How It Actually Works
Richard Hayes: Walk me through the workflow. How does it integrate with your existing processes?
Sarah Mitchell: It's surprisingly straightforward. Document bundle comes in—PDFs, scanned images, whatever format. The system ingests everything, classifies each document, extracts key data points, and checks against a standard conveyancing checklist.
Richard Hayes: And the output?
Sarah Mitchell: A comprehensive report covering three things: what's missing from the bundle that should be there, standard enquiries based on what the documents reveal, and legal risks requiring attention. Every finding is traced back to specific pages in the source documents.
Richard Hayes: What about when it's uncertain about something?
Sarah Mitchell: That's actually one of the things I appreciate most. When it's not confident, it says so explicitly. No guessing. In legal work, a confident wrong answer is worse than acknowledging uncertainty.
The Real Impact
Richard Hayes: So what's the actual time saving you're seeing?
Sarah Mitchell: Document bundles that took 45 minutes now take about 20. Sometimes less. But it's not just speed—it's consistency. Every bundle gets the same thorough analysis, regardless of workload pressure or who's available.
Richard Hayes: That consistency piece is interesting. We definitely have variation depending on who's doing the review.
Sarah Mitchell: Exactly. And the AI doesn't have bad days. It doesn't get tired at 6 PM on a Friday and miss something obvious. The quality is uniform.
Richard Hayes: What are your associates doing now that they're not buried in document review?
Sarah Mitchell: That's the best part. They're focusing on judgment calls, client communication, the complex legal analysis that actually requires their training. Job satisfaction has gone up noticeably. They're doing real legal work, not administrative processing.
Addressing the Concerns
Richard Hayes: I have to ask about data security. We're dealing with sensitive client information. Where does everything sit?
Sarah Mitchell: All processing happens in UK data centres. That was non-negotiable for us. Big0 understood that immediately—they've clearly worked with UK legal services before. Full compliance with our regulatory requirements.
Richard Hayes: And client confidentiality between matters?
Sarah Mitchell: Complete isolation. The platform serves multiple firms, but each firm's data is strictly separated. We did our due diligence on their security architecture before committing.
Richard Hayes: What about the cost? I imagine this isn't cheap.
Sarah Mitchell: It's not trivial, but consider the alternative. What does it cost you to have qualified solicitors spending hours on document review that could be done in minutes? What's the cost of missed issues or delays? For us, the ROI was clear within the first quarter.
The Recommendation
Richard Hayes: Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
Sarah Mitchell: Without question. In fact, I wish we'd done it sooner. The conveyancing market is only getting more competitive. Clients expect faster turnaround. They expect thoroughness. This lets us deliver both without burning out our team.
Richard Hayes: Who should I talk to if I want to explore this for Hayes Legal?
Sarah Mitchell: Contact Big0 directly. They'll do a proper assessment of your current workflows and show you exactly what the system can do with your types of transactions. The initial consultation didn't cost anything, and honestly, even that conversation was valuable—it helped us articulate problems we'd been struggling with for years.
Richard Hayes: I think I have to look into this seriously. The status quo isn't sustainable.
Sarah Mitchell: It really isn't. The firms that figure out how to leverage this technology are going to pull ahead. The ones that don't will be stuck competing on price alone, and that's a race to the bottom nobody wins.
Richard Hayes: Sarah, thank you for being so candid about this. I know you didn't have to share your competitive advantage.
Sarah Mitchell: Richard, we've known each other for fifteen years. And honestly, better technology benefits the whole profession. If AI helps law firms deliver better service to more clients, everyone wins—except maybe the firms that refuse to adapt.