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

Washington H. Soul Pattinson stands out as a unique investment company due to our unconstrained mandate and long-term investment horizon. With over 300 investments, managing cyber security threats and driving initiatives for environmental and social change have remained the core objective. A key challenge has been formulating a legal strategy to adapt to macro changes, while building a resilient platform for future business growth. Effectively implementing the broad scope of change initiatives will require distilling guiding principles to assist with the complexity of embedding enhancements, against a backdrop of rising economic uncertainty in Australia.

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

In-house legal teams advise on multiple aspects of business operations, and legal opinion guides corporate decision making. However, data analytics and Artificial Intelligence now impacts the role of human judgement in decision making.

If we are to implement legal and regulatory obligations in the activities of people, systems and processes, legal teams must be curious. They must partner with tech experts to understand how legal data used in decision making is sourced, stored, retrieved and disclosed. If in-house lawyers don’t engage in this way to assess and use technology to manage key legal risks, we will have lost a valuable opportunity to realise the benefits of technology.

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 at an investment company advises on legal obligations arising from investing and business activities, and also on how to effectively embed legal and regulatory obligations in these activities and monitor for future change. This requires effective risk management and commercial problem solving skills – with a focus on the cost or value proposition of solutions – as well as collaboration with internal and external experts who will guide you to achieve this.