Legal Aid App With an AI Agent at the Core Helps Solicitors Deliver a Better Service
After collecting information, the chat is able to recommend the ideal solicitor from the database, and create a summary report about what needs to be discussed during the meeting.
The result is a huge optimisation on both sides. The user does not waste time explaining their case at the start of the meeting. The solicitor, on the other hand, is briefed what the case is about prior to the actual conversation. As a result, the entire legal consultation lasts 12 minutes and yields better results than a regular in-office session during which the solicitor needs to collect all information before giving legal advice.
The investor saw potential in AI but lacked the skills to develop a specialized app around it
The founder was searching for a technological partner who could bring this app to life, and stumbled on DAC.digital. Having AI experts on the team and proven app development experience, DAC.digital was the right choice.
The initial goal of the project was to prove key business assumptions of the project. To do this, it was crucial to confirm the ability of AI to optimise the provision of legal advice.
As with the development of any platform of this type, there were many potential ideas for features, but the key was to select the most important ones that confirm the business hypothesis and reflect the potential of a full solution, which can be used in discussions with potential partners and early adopters.
The client began its collaboration with DAC.digital with an AI workshop that clarified requirements and roadmap
Before jumping into work, DAC.digital suggested a proven approach to the discovery process and research, setting the project up for success from the outset: a dedicated AI workshop. This is the most effective way to plan development for the client that prioritises use cases and features, design the solution architecture and come up with a roadmap of activities that can be reliably priced.
For the client, the workshop gathered legal experts, technologists, and business strategists to tackle these challenges. The team evaluated potential solutions and technical approaches, discussing which features would have the most impact and which technologies would support them. This process led to a prioritized set of features for the platform, but it also helped the client understand what agentic AI is and how it can support their vision for the app. You can read the full story here: AI Workshop that defined the plan to develop the app with AI agent at heart.
The next step was building an AI chat assistant which framed the user’s legal issue before meeting the lawyer
After the workshop, it became clear that when looking at the two main user groups, that is people seeking advice and solicitors. To confirm the business model that the investor envisioned, DAC.digital’s team needed to focus their attention on the user path of people seeking advice first. That’s why the work at this stage centered around developing an AI-based chat.
The chat was based on an LLM wrapper, yet the work of DAC.digital’s AI engineers didn’t stop there. They added an agentic AI layer, so the chat could understand and process user needs, select the right solicitor for the case, and translate all this information into an easy-to-digest brief. Therefore, they developed an AI chat assistant.
The AI chat assistant served three key functions:
- It prepared a structured summary for the advisor, so consultations could begin with actionable advice rather than preliminary explanations.
- It framed the client’s legal issue through a structured Q&A.
- It provided context-aware guidance based on the knowledge base within the scope of UK employment law.
The team also implemented scope controls and user authentication systems, and introduced guardrails to prevent the AI from offering guidance outside its focus area. For security and privacy reasons, the entire solution was designed so that no sensitive information could escape the conversation.
To deliver the entire experience, DAC.digital comprised a cross-functional team of UI, frontend, and backend developers and DevOps engineers
The next stage was the developing all the necessary features of the application to enable it to fulfil its full purpose: connecting users with solicitors and facilitating consultations.
The solicitor received a panel where they could upload all documents, complete their profile with their experience, and the semantic capabilities of the AI agent also allowed for a free description in a natural language, which would be then contextualised.
The client, on the other hand, after chatting with AI, got a solicitor recommendation, and if they were happy with the choice, they could pick a date on the calendar that was designed by DAC.digital’s developer and proceed to payment that was handled with a secure integration with Stripe.
From a technical perspective, the frontend was built with React while the backend, developed in Kotlin and Spring, managed user authentication, data handling, and API integrations.
DAC.digital’s product designers created a custom style guide for the platform, built user flows, and designed the app UI, providing a responsive and user-friendly interface.
The founder spotted a larger opportunity for their innovative business model and requested more features
At the same time, the founder, already confident that the project met their technical expectations, began to optimise the business side. Many potential opportunities appeared on the table, like opening up the platform to individual clients, law firms, as well as the creation of a platform for enterprise companies for internal legal advice.
Therefore, in addition to the part created for individual solicitors, we created a separate administrative area on the client’s side, allowing for the support of multiple users on both sides of the process, as well as the tokenisation of the service, the addition of payments and invoice processing.
At this point, the application supported personal use accounts and a subscription model for B2B companies. It also had a review application mechanism for new solicitors applying to join the app. This gave our client a wide range of options for expanding the solution with new use cases and business models.
The app allows for continuous expansion of the knowledge base and improvement of responses
The team introduced capabilities of AI agents to constantly improve based on stored knowledge and additional databases. This makes them easily adaptable once the investor decides to tackle a different branch of law or go in a completely new direction like improving onboarding for other types of consulting services.
The final solution is constantly being developed with new features, as well as expanding its capabilities for individual clients.
The service is scheduled to launch in 2026.