Team size: 105

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

The key challenge faced in 2022 was maximising the efficiency of the legal department and our external legal providers in the context of increased workload, regulatory change, demand for support on organisational growth initiatives and constraints on headcount. To address the challenge, I led a range of successful initiatives.

First, we launched the Legal Service Portal and matter management system which now allows our stakeholders to self-serve through six different chat bots or legal request templates. This has refined stakeholder engagement with legal services, streamlining instructions and automating the allocation of work to the lawyer with the right skillset and capacity to respond. Automating the matter creation process has allowed us to obtain excellent insights into the value and efficiency of the legal team, consolidating information across Australia and New Zealand operations and supporting the tracking of key metrics.

We also embedded our KPIs and data capture with panel law firms to measure benchmark performance on spend per referral, fee estimate accuracy, ROI and matter lifecycle. At the end of the 2023 fiscal year, we will have two years of data to use in informing claims litigation strategy decisions. This will allow us to further manage our external legal spend and consolidate our best-performing firms to deliver significant financial benefit to IAG.

Finally, we continued to leverage ALSPs in eDiscovery, document review, regulatory change implementation and marketing collateral review.

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

The utilisation of data visualisation and data analytics tools will allow teams of the future to make data-driven decisions around how to manage external legal providers, achieve better legal outcomes and engage and leverage the finite capacity of internal legal resources. The ROI is significant, but the real value is in the richer conversations with team members, management and externals about how the legal team can deliver value.

AI and predictive analytics will be the most significant technological advancements to impact legal service delivery over the near term. AI will streamline components of service delivery within the legal supply chain and will benefit in-house teams particularly in the areas of litigation, due diligence (document analysis and review) and contract lifecycle management.

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

Successful in-house lawyers must expertly demonstrate the ability to balance legal obligations and their employer’s strategic objectives. They must understand and align their team’s outcomes to support those objectives, implementing initiatives and leveraging data to support their organisation in achieving its strategy.