Shoosmiths builds Microsoft-led AI tool for junior lawyers

TL;DR:

• City firm Shoosmiths has launched Project Apollo, a generative AI contract-review tool built with Microsoft after a year-long pilot.
• Trained on the firm’s own dealmaking expertise, it shows junior lawyers not just what changed in a contract, but why.
• A senior lawyer will always review and sign off the AI’s outputs.

City law firm Shoosmiths has rolled out a generative AI tool, built with Microsoft, to help junior lawyers across the firm review contracts. Known internally as Project Apollo, the system was trained on insight from the firm’s own lawyers — including its M&A practice — and follows a year-long pilot. The firm, which acts for clients including Mercedes-Benz, Travelodge and Blackstone, described it as “a key part of a multi-million pound investment in our AI capability”.

Teaching as well as reviewing

Shoosmiths is pitching Apollo as a development tool, not just a productivity one. Chief executive David Jackson said the software lets “developing lawyers learn more, faster”, deploying the firm’s “collective dealmaking expertise at scale” so juniors can see “not only what amendments have been made, but most significantly, why”. He argued it would cut review time while improving the consistency of advice and accelerating deal delivery. Crucially, the firm confirmed a senior lawyer will always review and sign off any output.

That guardrail is no accident. As City firms adopt AI, many are tightening oversight of how juniors use it — and the risks are not hypothetical. City AM recently reported that lawyers for Lush’s former chief executive were raising fees partly to deploy senior staff training a case-specific AI model, while top firm Pinsent Masons was criticised by a High Court judge after a junior sent the court false information in AI-generated letters. The episode rhymes with another recent UK legal-AI milestone Resultsense covered, in which an AI law firm won an English court case in a legal first.

Looking forward

Apollo crystallises the central tension in professional-services AI: the same tools that accelerate routine work also reshape how juniors learn their craft. Shoosmiths’ answer — embed the firm’s reasoning in the tool and keep a senior signature on every output — is a credible template. The open question for UK firms is whether AI that explains “why” genuinely accelerates training, or quietly erodes the hard-won judgement that comes from doing the work unaided.