How can in-house counsel use AI to improve efficiency while maintaining quality, governance and integrity within legal teams?

Legal departments should adopt AI gradually, allowing them to identify opportunities without jeopardising the legal function. For example, efficiencies can be achieved in repetitive tasks or research activities, while always maintaining control and verification of the outputs proposed by AI. To achieve this, it will be necessary to implement protocols that respect confidentiality, integrity and corporate values that enable the use of technological advancements, but with oversight and validation by the organisation. In this way, responsible and efficient use of AI is guaranteed.

How do you manage situations where legal advice and commercial objectives conflict?

I particularly appreciate this question, as it provides an excellent opportunity to explain the role of the corporate lawyer.

To align the objectives of the commercial area with legal advisory, it is essential to actively listen to all stakeholders and clearly identify their respective interests. Once these interests are defined, the lawyer must leverage knowledge, creativity and innovation to design the appropriate legal guidance that can satisfy the greatest number of interests. As a result, value is generated not only for the company, but also for its clients and other stakeholders.

How can general counsel help drive responsible governance and ethical decision-making across an organisation?

The legal department fosters responsible governance within the company primarily through consistency, empathy, industry expertise, rigorous analysis and creativity. This means addressing the challenges imposed by business dynamics and identifying solutions that positively impact the organisation, while always respecting ethical and legal boundaries. In this way, internal clients who rely on the legal department’s services can be assured that the solutions proposed to their problems will consistently align with both ethics and the law.