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MC Innovation
MC Innovation
At McInnes Cooper, innovation is so much more than a buzzword. Innovation is ingrained in the very way we approach our business.
For us, innovation means challenging the way law has traditionally been practiced by taking a futurist mindset to the way we work, and finding new and improved ways to bring value to our clients.
That’s why we’ve created a Chief Innovation Officer role: to champion innovation in our firm and further capitalize on the opportunities to enhance our operational efficiencies, productivity enhancements and service delivery to clients.
How we’re embracing innovation:
Customized Project Solutions
A trusted partner to our clients, we provide different ways of thinking through project requirements and leverage innovative approaches. Clients dealing with defined-scope or high-volume projects come to us for customized, efficient solutions. These innovative approaches often translate to an accelerated delivery schedule and guaranteed outcome for a guaranteed price.
We have successfully applied innovative service delivery models to insurance, real estate and contract work for clients in the government, energy, transportation and health and safety sectors. We are continuously exploring ways we can leverage these models for other clients.
Depending on the nature of the file, our delivery models can include: project dashboards, outcome certainty and/or fixed fees.
Integrating Technology
We understand the importance of leveraging cutting-edge technology to better serve our clients. By incorporating advanced case management systems, artificial intelligence for legal research and contract drafting, technological solutions for lawyer/client collaboration, dashboards for real-time monitoring of work by clients and secure cloud-based platforms, we aim to enhance efficiency and streamline processes. Embracing technology is our way of staying ahead in the ever-evolving legal landscape to better meet your needs.
- AI. Our team is regularly engaged in pilot projects using software that incorporate AI and is actively engaged with AI software vendors on upcoming opportunities so that we can identify enhanced approaches to providing legal services. We are also deliberately exploring the incorporation of AI with other professional service providers because we believe that collaborating with others helps us further understand all developments that leverage the technology for both our firm and our clients – in a safe, beneficial way. One example is an internal pilot project using AI contract drafting software. This has the potential to radically improve productivity for us and our clients.
- Casepoint. McInnes Cooper is the first Canadian law firm to use Casepoint, an end-to-end legal discovery platform for litigation, investigations and compliance. Through Casepoint, our litigation files are now more accessible, accurate and affordable for our clients.
- Virtual Minute Books. Our firm is transitioning to virtual minute books, making it easier and more efficient to access important corporate information for our clients.
- Lexis+ AI. McInnes Cooper is proud to be one of the legal collaborators with LexisNexis on Lexis+ AI, a new AI legal research tool. Our input will help refine and enhance the offering, while giving our firm early access to an industry-leading technology.
- Ask BlueJ. McInnes Cooper will be particiapting in a trial of Blue J Legal’s new generative AI tax advice tool, ask BlueJ. Ask BlueJ uses generative AI to answer tax questions allowing faster research and automated outputs to help summarize findings.
- Office 365. McInnes Cooper leverages the vast capabilities of the Office 365 platform, including its embedded AI software, Microsoft Copilot, to quickly deploy solutions for various projects that include data management, automation, dashboarding and client collaboration.
Flexible, Value-Based Pricing
Committed to bringing value to our clients, our pricing team works to deliver transparent, fair, creative and predictable fees. We are consistently collaborating to find alternative fee and value-based pricing arrangements that align with our clients’ goals.
Insights on Emerging Areas of Regulation
Our knowledge goes beyond the law; it extends to global trends and the areas that impact your business. Our team helps clients navigate emerging areas of regulation, including:
- ESG. A global shift towards sustainable living and increased social responsibility have driven ESG to the forefront of corporate priorities. Our team takes a proactive approach to meet your ESG goals, so that as trends become law, your company is set to succeed.
- AI. We are closely following developments in this rapidly growing area. We provide advice to clients on developing their own AI policies and help them understand the legal risks associated with the adoption of AI software.
- Renewable & Sustainable Energy. Our leading energy team has significant experience in renewable energy, including wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, solar, co-generation and tidal developments. We keep close industry connections, ensuring we stay informed of the opportunities and changes that are shaping the future of energy.
Innovation Task Force
Our firm has established a cross-functional internal innovation task force whose mandate is to apply a futurist mindset to our work. The task force collectively asks the question, “if I were to do this work today using the most advanced technologies/solutions, how would I do it?” They keep a pulse on opportunities that exist/are being developed and collaborate to improve the ways we work.
Taking on small and large projects, we apply customized approaches that incorporate input from the multi-faceted team and other stakeholders, with a collective goal of improving internal productivity and outcomes for clients.
Using this approach, we have many projects in various stages of development and increase firm-member engagement for taking on innovative projects. During 2023, we were able to more than double the number of completed projects using this approach.
