Case Study: Family Law Partners cuts estimate time and saves £55,000 with IBM Watson Analytics

Managing emotions by steering complex legal cases to successful resolution

Family Law Partners, a UK specialist family law firm, faced the challenge of giving clients clear, accurate estimates of case cost and duration amid emotionally charged divorce proceedings. To improve transparency and reduce non-billable time spent on lengthy initial interviews, the firm turned to IBM, deploying IBM Watson Analytics (part of its IBM Analytics/Hybrid Cloud capability) to mine and interpret its anonymized case data.

Using IBM Watson Analytics, Family Law Partners combined historic case records with outcome and circumstance data to surface drivers of cost and duration and recommend optimal resolution methods. IBM’s solution cut estimate time from 25–40 minutes to just a few minutes, potentially saving about £55,000 annually, helped the firm exceed regulatory fee-transparency expectations, revealed typical case durations (around 12 months) for better client expectation management, and improved client outcomes through data-driven advice.

Family Law Partners

Alan Larkin

Head of Innovation & Technology