Duan & Duan

Duan & Duan, a major Chinese law firm with over 30 offices worldwide, struggled to represent clients in international arbitrations seated outside mainland China and administered by foreign tribunals. Its civil-law-trained lawyers lacked experience with foreign procedural norms (e.g., pleading vs. memorial style), multi-jurisdictional legal research, and identifying suitable arbitrators — a process that previously took one to two weeks per case. General-purpose AI tools the firm tested produced results that weren't specific enough to international arbitration practice.

The firm adopted Jus AI, an AI research platform from Jus Mundi built specifically for international arbitration, to conduct cross-jurisdictional legal research, identify and vet arbitrators, and analyze opposing counsel's submissions. Lawyers also used it to weigh procedural choices such as memorial versus pleading style, summarize lengthy submissions, and translate multilingual evidence into a familiar language.

Arbitrator research time dropped about 80%, from one to two weeks down to one to two days. The tool accelerated the firm's international arbitration knowledge-building and enabled a strategic shift from purely domestic arbitration work to pure international arbitrations seated abroad, strengthening service to Chinese clients facing foreign-seated disputes.

• Domain-specific legal AI outperformed general-purpose AI tools for a specialized practice area like international arbitration.
• AI-assisted research compressed arbitrator vetting from weeks to days, freeing lawyer time for case strategy.
• Multilingual translation and submission summarization helped a China-focused firm operate confidently in multi-jurisdictional, multilingual disputes.