Team size: 3

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

Broadly, technology will allow corporate teams to automate and optimise their legal service delivery with real-time responses through chatbots and AI. Nevertheless, I personally believe that AI coupled with automation evolution and maximising data centers will possibly enable AI to make highly intuitive decisions. This may likely happen in the future. In the future, legal transparency, legal compliance and KPI performance can be tracked by technology. This will enable management to view legal compliance on their business intelligence dashboard via traffic lights. And at the click of the mouse, management will be able to go directly to the root cause and develop risk mitigation in order to address any business or legal risks. Speed and legal precision will be a game changer in the future, backed by data trail and evidentiary support.

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

In principle, I believe that ethics and regulatory compliance will be an important driver in any business and legal decision. Simply put, organisations will need to “think globally, but act locally”. In that context, I believe that a “legally compliant” business, is a safe and good business. As the saying goes, “prevention is always better than cure”. And it is the legal team’s role to provide management oversight and a balanced view using the correct and legit legal lenses when discharging his or her duty of care in providing legal service to the organisation.

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

An in-house lawyer in whichever role, will always need to be agile, flexible yet astute and uphold the rule of law. We must always have a clear and crisp understanding of the legal and commercial framework our business is operating in. In addition, continuously benchmarking, optimising and innovating our service delivery. We must take advantage of technology and have an appetite and readiness to transform our legal service delivery. This is essential for legal teams to drive and create a positive impact on the organisation and its bottom line.