pressuretest & timenarratives
Two skills I built for the LegalQuants contribution to Astra for Law, developed through testing and peer review with other lawyers.
The tools and their purpose →
James Cockburn · Solicitor advocate
Advice and training for legal teams changing how they work.
I help legal teams decide where AI is useful, train the people using it, and test whether it works. My approach comes from commercial litigation and from building systems myself.
Based in London. Working with law firms, chambers, funders, in-house teams and other professional services.
Legal practice
Commercial litigation & international arbitration
Solicitor since 2010Building
Two skills in the Astra for Law launch
LegalQuants Litigation plugin · 2026TeachingProgramme director from November 2026
What I do
Where I can help.
01
Advice on technology and change
Decide where to start, compare products on your own work, and account for the changes to process, supervision and pricing.
02
Training and education
Workshops and individual mentoring for people using, supervising or building AI tools. I also help run the LegalQuants AI Residency, LegalQuants’ programme led by Jamie Tso. My teaching and mentoring →
03
Verification and assurance
Test outputs against known answers, check sources, and keep the records needed to explain how a result was produced.
04
Specifying what to buy or commission
Work out what existing tools can do, when to buy or commission, and how to specify the work and assess what comes back.
The experience behind the advice
A lawyer’s judgment.
Practical knowledge of the tools.
I qualified in 2010 and have worked in London and Dubai on commercial disputes, civil fraud, group actions and international arbitration. My experience includes the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and international arbitral tribunals.
That work taught me to examine what an answer rests on and explain it clearly to a client. Building software lets me apply the same scrutiny to the systems producing it.
How I think → · Full experience →
Claude Certified Architect, August 2026. Pre-release consultant on Claude for Legal with LegalQuants, May 2026.
“Exceptionally bright – a really good lawyer.”
Selected work
Built, tested and explained.
The projects are how I develop and test my understanding. Each has a different purpose.
Clint and the Spire
A local agent used in real groups and now in Slack, and a shared venue for LegalQuants. The development pages explain their architecture and limits.
Clint → · The Spire →Games and family projects
Worlds with interacting rules, resources and characters, alongside projects made with my children. A demanding way to learn how software behaves.
See the games →My journey
From disclosure to building with AI.
From large disclosure exercises after qualifying in 2010 to building software in spring 2025. The development is recorded in my own posts:
Early experiments →
Local language models and document retrieval, tested in a home-hub project.
Learning by building →
What AI-generated code revealed, including a model replacing supplied facts with dummy data.
Tools tested with other lawyers →
How testing and peer review changed pressuretest and timenarratives before release.
Read my journey → · Follow the full timeline → · Selected projects →
Contact
Start a conversation.
Book a free fifteen-minute introduction or email me about advice, training or assessing a tool.
- Emailjames.a.cockburn@gmail.com
- LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/james-cockburn
- Mobile+44 7966 523 191
- BasedLondon, working internationally