How do you see the general counsel role evolving in Thailand over the next five-ten years?

To remain relevant, general counsel will need to strive to be the role or function that fits and supports the ever-changing needs of the enterprises. Acting merely as the legal advisors that the business seeks to consult when they have questions or run into trouble, or worse, hide the problems from, is no longer enough. General counsel need to encourage their teams to leverage all resources available these days and deep dive into learning more. With greater understanding of the business, legal teams will be able to anticipate risks and provide preventive measures and certainly offer tailor-made solutions to business colleagues. Nonetheless, general counsels’ encouragement to the business to engage with the legal function early in matters rather than at the tail end, will expedite and ease the working process. It will allow cross functional teams to design ideas together to meet business needs while maintaining integrity and compliance with the laws. Communication and leadership skills are also key for general counsel and their respective legal teams to be strong, trusted, and indispensable partners to the enterprise. All of us shall embrace the use technology/AI to simplify the high volume, low value day-to-day work. With that, the legal team can develop their skills and focus more on impactful strategic work, enabling them to stay relevant and not replaceable by AI.

How do you motivate and manage your legal team well?

The most important elements I have learned over the years, especially here at Novartis, are trust, respect, and compassion. When a team member has the right attitude and mindset, the same comes back. In my opinion if teams are free to manage their work at their own pace, speak their minds without fear of retaliation and take accountability, and subsequent rewards for their own work, the work is done efficiently. Open communication between team members is another key factor which contributes to the team’s energy, and it can also improve collaboration and productivity among different teams within the organisation.

Are the effects of AI on the legal world overplayed, or underplayed?

Assuming that we are referring to the often-mentioned concern of the doomsday scenario where lawyers will be replaced by AI. While we cannot deny the impact AI could have on legal professionals, the notion of whether AI will replace lawyers is, in my opinion, overstated and the effect is overplayed. AI can help with manual repetitive low value tasks. However, for the matters that count on skillful lawyers’ wealth of experience and fitting legal positions to the enterprises’ needs, I believe this is something AI has not managed to replace. AI may be able to provide an initial draft advice on a legal question, but the responsible lawyer will not rely completely on such draft and will perform fact or law checks and possibly rewrite the parts that require changes to befit the purpose of the advice. Moreover, successful legal professionals do not just possess legal skills but also leadership and communication skills, ethics, integrity, accountability, and trustworthiness. Until AI can take accountability of its work products and people can trust their businesses and more importantly their personal liability with AI, skillful lawyers will not be replaced by AI. On the other hand, lawyers that are open to explore the possibilities of the help that AI can bring will be successful in the legal world.