Our Story

AORA founder Bruce Mennell’s influential early experiences, both as an immigrant to the UK and as a successful entrepreneur, caused him to reflect on the profound difference that fair access to high-quality legal and tax expertise can make.

Ever since Bruce’s student days, he had cultivated a keen interest in how skilfully-modelled systems, backed by well-designed databases, can compellingly improve conventional methods of analysis and reporting. His early career devising trading and investment software then gave him valuable insight at a crucial point in the financial world’s rapid adoption of automation to undertake traditional tasks.

The success of his pioneering financial technology software enabled Bruce to indulge this long-held passion, by funding an extensive 17-year R&D project to automate the preparation of draft advice, opinions and guidance on complex areas of law. Here he could devote his energetic focus to converting an intellectual exercise into a workable reality. Up to this point, the codification of law and tax into a functional expert system had been for many a theoretical ideal, never convincingly executed in practice.

Its initial field of study was UK nationality law, essentially deterministic in nature, but notoriously archaic and convoluted. This only made the challenge, and the eventual achievement, greater. The sheer volume of applicable case law, precedent and government guidance presented the most substantial obstacle. The interpretation and mapping of this data and its behaviour into disciplined rules to enable the polished, documented advice as if a human expert had written it was key. But once these inherent technical hurdles were overcome, the project matured naturally into AORA.

With the patented proprietary software fully established, a team of like-minded experts, not just in programming, but in their respective specialist fields of law and tax, was assembled to take the venture forward. Further development and exhaustive testing refined the technology into an exceptionally capable strategic system in each of its chosen product areas. 

Under the collaborative supervision of this authoritative community, AORA’s tools have each been honed to deliver groundbreaking benefits for users. Automation of this calibre has significant quality and peace of mind implications for the commercial community. This doesn’t just mean the obvious increase in accuracy and productivity. AORA’s streamlined platform brings numerous other improvements across the board.

But it’s in the public domain that AORA has the potential to be most positively disruptive. The disciplined reliability of its patented rules-based AI, in emphatic contrast to the unpredictability of generative models, is ideally suited to automating the administration of regulations in fields of eligibility. 

The adoption of suitable technology by government agencies can only bring more equality and consistency to legislative decision-making processes, as well as reducing their public cost. As society becomes ever more densely regulated, it's when the law is at its most intimidatingly complicated that AORA is most effective. Where the result can have the most crucial implications for an individual, such as the granting of citizenship, it is poised to bring significant improvements.

It’s been a remarkable journey. What started as a bold academic ambition, later realised as an influential innovation, now sets industry standards as a fully-fledged, proven product. The transformative potential now available to both the private and public sectors is inspiring, and only growing. AORA’s time has come.