Team size: ~200

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The equal number one challenges on the legal risk front in the past year have been cybersecurity, climate change and scams. Each bring legal, regulatory, and reputational risk and can have an adverse impact on customers. On the people front, it has been monitoring the health and wellbeing of my team whilst working remotely during Covid-19. Whilst by 2022, lawyers were better equipped to work from home, having become expert in Microsoft Teams, the prolonged period of little personal interaction, has impacted resilience and blurred the rejuvenating boundaries between work and home life.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

Artificial intelligence. The current technological advancement in AI that is causing consternation in relation to the role of in-house legal teams is the AI chatbot, ChatGPT. It is feared as an existential threat to the role and value of in-house lawyers. However, whilst its ability to produce near-instantaneous draft documents and answers to legal questions is attractive from an efficiency and cost reduction perspective, I do not see that it will replace in-house legal teams, at least not yet. ChatGPT has some key limitations, including the risk of inaccurate source material and the inability to critically analyse bespoke, complex, multifaceted legal issues. AI will enable automation, but it will not be without risk.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

A successful in-house lawyer in the financial services industry must do more than get the law right and keep their directors and officers out of jail. That is a given. They need to be values-led leaders, not just lawyers, with judgment, courage, curiosity, a strong risk radar and commercial acumen, to build trusted partnerships and deliver outcomes which benefit the customer.