Muckle wins national award for debt recovery technology

Muckle LLP has won a national award for innovation after teaming up with University of Sunderland and Innovate UK to develop a new product that automates part of the firm’s debt recovery process.

The Newcastle-based law firm has been awarded with a Legal Practice Management (LPM) Practice Excellence Award for Innovation.

The debt recovery technology, which was developed in-house at Muckle, rapidly speeds up a number of back-office elements behind debt recovery.

It is claimed that the new system can set up a debt 15 times faster than it takes a human to perform the same task.

Muckle was the only North East firm to be shortlisted at LPM awards, which is judged by peers and industry experts, and beat a global law firm to claim the innovation award at a ceremony held in County Hall in London.

Judges cited the law firm’s culture of embracing innovation, most recently through its knowledge transfer agreement with University of Sunderland.

This partnership is supported by Innovate UK and has been a key part of developing the debt recovery system.

Julie Parr, director of business improvement at Muckle LLP, said: “We’re delighted to win and be recognised nationally for leading debt recovery and legal innovation amidst such tough competition from multi-site and global law firms.

“The recognition of our peers is a fantastic endorsement for our broader vision for new technologies that will help us to transform a number of our legal services.

“With nothing more than an idea and a desire to do things differently for the benefit of our clients, we have developed something new that will take our debt recovery team, which is already performing at an industry leading standard, to the next level.

“We’re no longer talking just about human intelligence, we’re also using artificial intelligence to complement our service, giving our debt recovery team more time to develop bespoke strategies and deliver an even more personal service to clients with excellent debt collection success rates.”

The Legal 500 UK rankings currently ranks Muckle top in the North for debt recovery and the system has helped improve its collection success rate to 91 per cent.