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

The past year has seen a monumental shift in the way our team is structured with our move to Agile. Navigating the change this has brought about at the same time as managing through a significant corporate restructuring, and the suite of legal issues that confront a company like Telstra, has been no small task. The age-old tension of building the plane while you are flying it was our number one challenge in 2022.

Looking forward to 2023, I am optimistic that we can harness our new ways of working so that we bring greater focus to the issues where, as in-house lawyers, we can have the greatest impact. My sense is that our greatest challenge will be knowing what to prioritise. There is no shortage of demand for the skills in-house lawyers bring to the table, so the trick will be to ensure that we place emphasis on the right issues, and do that in a sustainable way.

Technology will play a role in this. In recent years we have seen the automation of routine legal work deliver productivity dividends for those teams who have chosen to adopt it. The next frontier in my view is the use of technology to streamline more complex legal processes – not to replace the role of the human but to enhance it so that more time can be spent on the application of wisdom and judgment, rather than on complex administration. Lawyers are well equipped to do complex administrative work, and often have to, but this is not where they add the most value. Technology that takes away the administrative side, and creates space for more insight and strategic thought, is critical to the future success of the profession.

The qualities needed to be a leading in-house lawyer continue to evolve, but in many respects remain anchored in what has always made the in-house profession valuable. First and foremost, you must have a commercial mindset and a deep awareness of the context in which your organisation operates. You must understand the appetite for risk and the external environment. Only then can you give advice which is right for your organisation. In the world today, this means having an increasingly sophisticated understanding of ESG considerations as they relate to your business.