Ed Boal
Academic collaboration through the Centre for Legal Technology will explore how visual modelling and AI-era legal skills can support the future of legal education, professional practice and responsible innovation.
Ulster University has today announced a new research and educational collaboration with StructureFlow, the platform for mapping, modelling and managing complex legal structures.
Led through Ulster University’s Centre for Legal Technology, the collaboration will explore how visual modelling and AI-era legal skills can support the future of legal education and professional practice. Through the initiative, StructureFlow will be integrated into teaching, research and applied legal innovation activity, helping students develop the technology proficiency and structural intelligence needed to navigate the growing complexity of practising law.
The research-led partnership forms part of Ulster University’s wider drive to rethink legal education for the age of AI, ensuring students are prepared to enter the legal profession and help shape its future.
AI-enabled legal technology platforms are already transforming how lawyers conduct research, review documents and generate legal analysis. However, as the scale and complexity of the legal, business and regulatory environment grows, students and practitioners also need new ways to organise, interpret and present that information in a form that can be trusted and acted upon.
Through the collaboration, students will explore how visual modelling tools can support the interpretation and communication of complex legal, regulatory and organisational information. In practice, this means breaking down legislation, mapping legal relationships, presenting complex arguments and understanding how changes in one part of a structure affects the wider picture.
Dr John McCord, Senior Lecturer and Research Lead for the Centre for Legal Technology, said:
“StructureFlow gives students a powerful way to cut through complex and often fragmented information, analyse their legal arguments, and present them in a way that can be understood, challenged and verified.
“That matters because law is built on trust, and trust depends on being able to provide clear advice, while showing how conclusions have been reached. This partnership will help our students build the practical proficiency and confidence they need for the future of legal work.”
Professor Liam Maguire, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at Ulster University, said:
“Partnerships between higher education and industry are increasingly important in helping universities respond to the pace of technological change across professional sectors. By working collaboratively with innovative organisations, we can ensure our research, teaching and student experience remain closely connected to emerging challenges and opportunities. Initiatives such as this support the development of future talent while also helping drive responsible innovation across the wider legal and technology ecosystem.”
Through the partnership, the Centre for Legal Technology will explore how StructureFlow can support students across legal education, including advocacy, presentations, legal clinic work and industry-linked projects. The Centre also intends to evaluate how students use the platform, including its impact on efficiency, understanding, communication and the development of professional skills.
Tim Follett, CEO and Founder of StructureFlow, said:
“The Centre for Legal Technology at Ulster University is taking exactly the kind of forward-looking approach legal education needs. As legal, business and regulatory environments become more interconnected, the challenge for future lawyers is not simply more information, but compounding complexity: understanding how different obligations, structures, relationships and risks interact.”
He added:
“AI platforms are becoming incredibly powerful, but their outputs still need to be interpreted, tested, structured and explained. StructureFlow helps students and practitioners move from information to understanding by making complex legal and structural relationships visible. We are excited to work with Ulster University to help prepare the next generation of lawyers for a profession where legal knowledge, technological fluency and visual reasoning will all be essential.”
The research-led approach is central to the Centre for Legal Technology’s wider mission. The University aims to help create a new generation of savvy professionals who can act as ambassadors for responsible legal technology adoption inside law firms, in-house legal teams, public bodies and other organisations.
Notes to editors
For further information or interview requests, please contact: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk
About Ulster University
Ulster University is a forward-looking institution, uniquely placed to drive economic, social and cultural development through our three campuses at Derry~Londonderry, Coleraine and Belfast.
Student experience is at the very heart of everything we do and our high-quality teaching, informed by world-leading research across key sectors, boosts the economy and makes a positive impact on the lives of people around the world.
- Ulster University was UK and Ireland University of the Year 2024 (Times Higher Education)
- Ulster University is ranked Best UK University for careers services and job prospects, as voted upon by students. It is also ranked in the top five for value for money, course content, campus and facilities, personal tutors and teaching quality. (StudentCrowd, 2024).
- Ulster University is ranked in the top 25 universities in the UK (Guardian University Guide 2025)
- Ulster University is in the top 10 for course quality rankings across the UK (University Compare 2023).
- 93% of Ulster University students are in employment or further study 15 months after graduating (Student Outcomes 2020/21)
Research and innovation at Ulster University:
Ulster University was ranked in the top 10% of UK universities for research impact in the (latest) 2021 Research Excellence Framework. Headline results for Ulster University include:
- In the top 10% of UK universities for research impact
- 97 % of Ulster University’s research impact having outstanding or very considerable impacts in reach and significance
- 80.1% of Ulster University’s research outputs have been assessed as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.
For more information, please visit www.ulster.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter @ulsteruni
About StructureFlow
StructureFlow is the structural intelligence platform for legal, tax, accounting, and finance professionals. In a world of increasing complexity, it turns disconnected information about business structures into a living, connected model that teams can see, navigate, analyze, and act on.
Trusted by leading global organizations, StructureFlow supports high-stakes decision making across complex structures as they evolve — from deal structuring and tax planning, to fund optimization, estate planning, and trust management. By making ownership, obligations, governance requirements, and dependencies explicit — and visible in context — the platform reduces cognitive load, accelerates decision-making, and helps organizations move faster with confidence. The result is better outcomes and sustainable competitive advantage.
Real-world impact
If there's one thing you need to know, it's everything.
Sam Whitman
Director of Knowledge Management
Holland & Knight LLP
StructureFlow significantly reduces the amount of time taken to create diagrams, making it easy for our lawyers to pivot and adapt a structure based on our clients' needs.
Walter Clark
Partner
Pinsent Masons
StructureFlow stands out because it is genuinely fixing a real problem making it so much easier for our lawyers to generate top quality group structure charts, which our clients love as well.
Nick Grandage
Global Head of Banking & Finance
Norton Rose Fulbright
The biggest benefit from StructureFlow is how it has improved our discussions with clients. It makes us a better law firm.
Nick Pryor
Director of Knowledge & innovation
Freeths
We use StructureFlow as a communication tool, a collaboration tool, with the third parties we work with - clients, accountants, private equity. There is so much room to grow and put StructureFlow in the centre of that.
Greg Baker
Global Head of Practice Innovation
Linklaters LLP
StructureFlow is now an integral part of our text workbench, enhancing the client and lawyer experience and driving efficiency.
