Team size: 16

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

2022 has been an absolute rollercoaster of a year, with highs and lows. The team expanded from a 5-person legal and compliance team — starting from only one after an exodus of the last legal, risk and compliance team at the start of 2021 — to approximately 16 legal and compliance professionals worldwide. We merged the Lightnet Group with the Inception Group to create a financial services conglomerate with multiple licenses across multiple jurisdictions. We undertook additional financing and expanded the license capabilities across the group.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

Being part of a department that services all other departments within the company meant we were receiving work requests from multiple parties simultaneously with varying degrees of urgency. As the group grew significantly with the merger described above, a system needed to be put in place to handle work requests efficiently with a dashboard to allow me, as the head of the department, to monitor the current tasks being completed by each team member.

The company had already subscribed to a project management tool called ASANA. After a few simple modifications, we created work intake forms that allowed each individual seeking legal and compliance assistance to upload a request and provide their instructions and the relevant document. Once ‘submit’ is clicked, a new task is automatically created, and as head of the department, I can assign these tasks to individuals based on their workload. Each task allows us to internally monitor (i) who assigned it; (ii) the department which requested it; (iii) the company it is for; and (iv) the expected turnaround time.

Team members can also take tasks from selecting the new unassigned requests and complete those tasks. We can monitor different versions of the document within the task and ensure a complete history of communication is stored within the task in case it is ever subject to a dispute.

Given the size of the current organisation and planned growth, we plan to implement stronger document management systems that the whole group can rely on. For now, this tool has been lifesaving every week. I can sync with team members to see how they are progressing with a given task and whether they require assistance completing it. The tool also allows me to see the number of tasks completed over a given period by any team member to enable management to allocate performance-related bonuses without time-recording software.

Has your team started to utilise AI for your day-to-day work? If so, how useful have you found it?

Some team members have begun using tools like Chat GPT, GPT-4 and Quillbot to develop initial rough cuts of legal advice and contract clauses.

The team members then modify these AI-generated clauses/responses to suit our company’s needs and risk appetite to ensure the customized coverage we expect. From a contract drafting perspective, a database of clauses and agreements could be found online long before the advent of software like ChatGPT. The same “human” element was required to adapt one of those clauses to your company’s needs.

While the AI tools are great in expediting work, it remains quite easy to see when the language in advice or a contract has not come from the team member assigned to a specific task and has been generated by AI.

Even with the functionality offered by AI, from a career development perspective, I need to ensure that junior counsels within the team can develop their own voice in providing advice and drafting agreements. Creating their style will help them carve out their profession and establish themselves as experts in their field within the practice of law.

Once AI can undertake more sophisticated tasks, for example, allowing counsel to upload documents and have the AI review from a legal perspective of a specific jurisdiction, more extensive internal controls will be required to ensure the tool is being used safely.