BidPilot: “designed to aid decision-making”
Carl bokwall, a veteran attorney specializing in advising suppliers to the public sector and EU Public Procurement law and co-founder of Law Off The Shelf, sat down to discuss the BidPilot suite.
BidPilot is an innovative legal tool designed to transform the way bid-managers and in-house counsels navigate the complex terrain of 100+ pages EU Public Procurement tenders.
Carl's connection with BidPilot transcends the professional; it's personal. His inspiration for BidPilot’s circle-shaped, goose logo stems from his roots in Skåne and the deep south parts of Sweden where the goose has its own special place. The lead goose always shows the way the pack flies and, of course, Goose sits behind Maverick and guides the jet. The goose symbol represents an ambition to become a global premier legal navigation tool for public procurement.
Delving into the specifics of BidPilot, particularly the flagship legal insight product 'BidPilot Industry', Carl highlights the unique blend of advanced legal-grade AI and a comprehensive playbook, authored by him, to guide the AI. This combination offers an unparalleled review of procurement regulations or contract forms, in terms of both speed and accuracy compared to in-house review by bid managers or in-house counsels.
When asked about the ideal timing for utilizing BidPilot in the bidding process, Carl emphasizes the product’s effectiveness in the initial stages. It's designed to aid decision-making when responding to public procurements, allowing for informed and strategic decisions on Bid/No Bid and how to seek clarity on the tender terms or point out illegitimate requirements to preserve the right to a potential later legal challenge.
A critical aspect of BidPilot, according to Carl, is its accessibility. The reports generated are crafted to be easily comprehensible to non-lawyers and to address and mitigate common risks and mistakes in the high-volume/core part of the company’s business. In-house counsels are typically not specialised in procurement law and you can’t go asking an specialised external lawyer on all those issues that a tender document presents because time and budget simply does not allow that.
This aligns with Law Off The Shelf’s broader mission to democratize legal insights, making them available to a wider range of companies and users by combining AI for speed and accuracy in a new business model to dramatically reduce cost for a large part of the need for legal insight.
Overall, Carl's vision for BidPilot and its role in public procurement processes is a testament to how legal expertise, that is traditionally expensive, can open new horizons for efficiency and inclusivity in an often-complex field when combined with innovative AI technology.