How have you attempted to bring the legal department closer to your business colleagues?

In my most recent role, I encouraged and mentored emerging legal team members make presentations at senior management meetings as often as opportunities arose; in our case, at the European leadership team based in Switzerland and a global leadership forum based in the US. These environments were multi-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional and multi-cultural, and provided team members the broad perspective of how the global organisation thought and actioned progress in a very fast moving multi-cultural environment.

In previous times, the most senior legal lead might tend to perform this function entirely solo and that to me is lost opportunity for emerging team “stars” to hone their skills “on their feet” in a challenging environment. With the right preparation, it also demonstrates the strength, depth and ambition of the legal group to the senior management teams and builds confidence, collaboration and cohesion with the business.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

This is key. It is important to choose the right firms that align to the company’s values and, also, the particular lawyers in those firms who deliver that alignment. Although I believe stability is important with lead external counsel, I also keep an open mind as regards project-based counsel for specific projects. With all external counsel, I think it is important that both the company and counsel understand each party’s business models, needs and values and have a clear picture of what a win-win relationship looks like for both parties to ensure the relationship starts well and endures.

Have you used AI in your day-to-day work? If so, how useful do you find it?

I am hungry for AI solutions, tailored to our legal needs, that can reliably clear out the more mundane administrative aspects of getting the in-house legal job done and allow lawyers focus on the important. I have used some AI powered contract generation and management systems and find these work best where the required resources internally (legal and non-legal) apply the time needed to tailor the solution optimally at the outset. There is always a narrow window of opportunity to gain the trust and support of the business for AI solutions in areas such as legal, but overall attitudes to change are improving.

Given the risk associated with “almost right” legal work product, general counsel need to continue to work hard with legal team members to engender a culture where enough (but not too much) human oversight is always present to ensure the robots do not “cut corners” in areas where it can hurt. I think lawyers are justified in the rational fear of any potential inappropriate use of consumer-level AI systems, in light of cases such as the Canadian example this year of “hallucinating” AI generating portions of court evidence which lacked accurate precedent. In a nutshell, we need to get the roles and responsibilities right with the right robots!