In-house Legal in the Era of Generative AI

How are leading General Counsels planning for their team’s future so they can deliver great service to their organisation?

The Legal Talk Podcast Legal Talk: In-house Legal in the Era of Generative AI was hosted Ali Dibbenhall, General Counsel at LexisNexis^® Pacific who welcomed Ian McDougall, Global General Counsel for LexisNexis, and Lindsay O'Connor, General Manager of Content in Australia for an informative discussion.

This podcast explores ways in which in-house legal teams can use artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and in particular, generative AI to improve the efficiency, quality, and value of legal service delivery. The speakers discuss the opportunities, risks, and some use cases for in-house counsel that you may like to consider.  Along the way, they share some practical tips and best practices for managing the risks and expectations of using AI tools, both within your business and with external stakeholders.

How can legal leaders create a high-functioning in-house legal department?

In-house lawyers typically have a great overview of the business and its needs and use their expertise and judgment to provide guidance and recommendations to stakeholders.

Great in-house legal leaders regularly assess their team and their organisation’s pain points, goals, and drivers to decide what kind of work they want to do in-house and what they want to outsource.

Legal teams are often structured as either a team of generalists or specialists. Many organizations operate a generalist model, similar to a family medical practice that handles most legal needs internally and then refers out specialised work. While there's no one-size-fits-all approach - each legal team must align to their business needs.

The importance of having a clear mission statement, a suitable structure, and a range of solutions, tools and processes in place that optimise the legal department's performance can’t be overstated. This might include Lean 6 Sigma, automation, self-help tools or “stop lists” to eliminate low-value work and free up your staff for more strategic and impactful work.

How can in-house lawyers use generative AI tools to achieve the strategic goals of their business?

Generative AI solutions have the potential to improve the efficiency, quality, and value of legal service delivery. Among the most popular use cases are

• Drafting contracts
• Reviewing and summarising documents
• Creating training materials
• Proofreading content

There is an important distinction to be made between open AI models trained on the public web, which are trained on unreliable or biased data and can produce biased or misleading answers, versus closed AI models trained on high-quality, relevant data sets and content such as the data produced by LexisNexis.

Managing the risks of generative AI, like inaccurate outputs must be considered carefully. Being aware of some of the risks such as privacy, data security, currency, accuracy, and bias also requires careful governance within an organization.

Establishing relevant policies, educating staff, restricting sensitive data inputs, and fact-checking AI outputs are some of the practical tips and best practices for managing the risks associated with using generative AI tools.

How can you foster a culture of innovation both within your legal team and the organisation?

In the podcast, Lindsay O’Connor emphasises starting with a specific problem, not just implementing technology for its own sake or expecting generative AI to be a silver bullet. Fostering a culture of innovation by allowing controlled AI experimentation to gather insights and build internal support will be critical to embracing change and bringing your staff along the journey while addressing any knowledge gaps.

Regarding advising business leaders, Ian notes that General Counsels should take a leadership role in business-critical risks like Intellectual Property loss. He says the legal department should advise like with any other risk, depending on the stakeholder relationship.

The key takeaways for in-house lawyers are to understand generative AI's capabilities and limitations, to consider implementing it as one efficiency tool among many, and to take an incremental approach to adoption. Many in-house legal teams are gradually embracing the use of artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency, quality, and value of legal service delivery. Yet the opportunities and risks of using new technologies cannot be ignored.

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