What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The Manila legal services team scaled up its operations, expanded and diversified its work portfolio to include contract review and end-to-end contract lifecycle management, large-scale legal review projects, privacy compliance, regulatory and litigation support, research and business intelligence.

Due to the rapid expansion of our scope of work in 2022 until the first half of 2023, and despite the downturn in recruitment elsewhere in the tech industry, we have more than doubled our Manila legal team.

With a collaborative company culture, executive sponsorship, and regular communications and business reviews, our global legal team has embraced this new model of working.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?

AI is already changing the business landscape. At Zendesk, our AI technology and recently announced collaboration with OpenAI are transforming the world of customer experience. With the development of large language models and other types of generative AI, we are seeing the same impact on legal practice and operations. I think we will see the most concrete impact in a number of areas.

For contract drafting, review and contract lifecycle management, the optimal use of AI-powered CLM can free up time for lawyers’ analytical review, risk management and decision-making for legal and business teams. They could help us deploy transaction or matter playbooks with increased efficiency, accuracy and adoption rates.

For knowledge and data analytics, with the LLM and other generative AI technology available now, we can create and maintain better repositories, establish single dynamic sources of truth for knowhow and precedents. We can better manage the intake of requests to our legal teams, spot opportunities for process improvement, pivot to new legal approaches, and enhance strategic decision-making.

In terms of legal process automation, AI-enabled no code or low code workflow automation can help in-house teams to execute and innovate legal processes without purchasing very expensive and complex systems or hiring highly specialised legal engineers. In small to medium-sized organisations where new types of legal work are constantly emerging, this could be a game-changer.

Awareness of the limitations and pitfalls of these tools and platforms is vital. It would be a mistake for any in-house team to either ignore this phenomenon or adapt any legal technology without careful consideration.

As we live in a fast-paced world today, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

First, we need better ways to have a deeper, more dynamic knowledge of the business – as a team. This could involve more investment in collaborative tools that help keep everyone on the same page, as well as long-term learning acceleration programs for legal and business skills.

Secondly, legal teams must be agile and adaptable. We should be able to quickly identify, recognise and address issues and challenges with the limited information and resources at our disposal. We must pivot quickly and deliberately to ensure we remain trusted legal advisors. In industries with rapidly changing economic and regulatory conditions, it is critical for in-house teams to be able to spot and address emerging challenges and opportunities.

More importantly, leadership should champion and exemplify agility and adaptability to the team and foster a psychologically safe environment for members to raise issues and pivot to new ways of thinking and working.

Finally, we should work more collaboratively in increasingly diverse teams to innovate and successfully handle large-scale legal work or complex multi-jurisdiction transactions. This means bringing the most relevant knowledge and skills onto a matter, regardless of the profile or background of the legal team member.