Hosted by UQ Law School and King & Wood Mallesons, the #TransformLaw KWM Prize encourages student entrepreneurship in the legal industry.
A record number of teams competed over the eight-week incubator-style program to develop creative and unique solutions to address topical problems in legal practice.
In the end, four UQ students took out first place and $10,000 with their winning solution, Unbezzle, which aims to streamline the process of breaking down the financial circumstances of parties to a divorce.
Using an AI-powered bank statement analysis, the algorithmic platform extracts and categorises transaction data to detect suspicious transactions, providing an intuitive interface for querying potential irresponsible purchases or the embezzlement of shared funds.
The existing financial disclosure process is manual and costs family lawyers nearly $12,500 annually.
After validating the problem with numerous family lawyers, barristers and judges, the team of four cross-disciplinary students developed the innovative platform to help family lawyers make more informed decisions for their clients with greater efficiency and transparency.
UQ economics and law student Diane Nguyen explained that despite the prevalence of the problem, there was no existing comprehensive solution that could perform transaction-level analysis.
"The solution appeared self-evident once we engaged in a dialogue with family lawyers, who could articulate precisely the type of platform they needed," she said.
During the program, the students engineered a fully functional platform that enables clients to upload their bank statements.
The software then uses AI to confidentially extract a range of useful information from the statements, analysed by the custom-built algorithm.
It then produces a range of useful insights, such as flagging standout transactions, grouping transactions by merchant, location and category, and tracking changing spending trends before and after the couple’s separation.
Not only is the automation designed to significantly enhance efficiency, but also to facilitate greater transparency in the settlement process.
For the 5 years the annual #TransformLaw KWM Prize has been running, participating students have benefitted from the invaluable support of industry experts, mentors, and the dedicated UQ Ventures team.
This guidance empowers them to craft innovative proposals that have market potential and feasibility, as well as capabilities to revolutionise how technology is leveraged in the legal profession.
UQ computer science and law student Matthew Duff expressed his gratitude for the exceptional mentorship the team received during the competition.
"The calibre of mentors we were exposed to during this program was truly remarkable,” he said.
“UQ Ventures provided us with stellar guidance, from initial ideation to the final pitch, which proved instrumental in our team's success."
2023 #TransformLaw winning team members
- Matthew Duff: Bachelor of Computer Science / Bachelor of Laws (Honours)
- Victor Pham: Bachelor of Computer Science
- Phillip Virgona: Bachelor of Computer Science
- Diane Nguyen: Bachelor of Economics / Bachelor of Laws (Honours)
