Team size: 14

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

First, adopting Agile working methods like Kanban and Scrum to boost the information flow within the team and the adaptability of the organisation. Second, creating a strong focus on the much broader diversity of skills that are required to drive an innovation agenda. Third, establishing a process orientation when analysing the service delivery of the department to create a solid and transparent basis for embracing automation and AI.

The common denominator is influencing the DNA of the legal department, as change becomes a constant rather than a project, and an AI-driven legal department requires project management skills and tech-savviness.

AI has been taken seriously as a potentially revolutionary technological change in the legal world for a number of years now. Has it had a meaningful impact in how your legal team works in this time?

AI is a gamechanger – and this applies to legal departments as much as for any other business function. As always, the relevance for our clients has initially driven our focus. AI has become a core element of the company’s strategy and, to be able to fulfil our role as business partners at eye level, we had to become AI-savvy ourselves. Over the last 3 years, we created awareness sessions, a lunch & learn format, and a project framework to explore test and ultimately implement our first AI-based solutions.

As we develop and refine our strategy and our roadmap, we keep our focus on innovating how we serve our clients. Our guiding question is: How can we make our knowledge and general guidance accessible 24/7 and integrated into our clients’ processes?

Of course, we have also embarked on projects around leveraging AI for our own work process. Our starting points are the AI-solutions that the company provides to avoid reinventing the wheel. In parallel, we continuously scan the market and test the wave of Legal AI-tools that are entering the market. Whenever possible, we test the solutions in a targeted operational pilot – there is no better guide than practice!

Which legal tech organisations or products are helping you in your role?

The Liquid Legal Institute, a global thinktank that I co-founded and support pro-bono as member of the executive board. The inter-professional, international and innovation-minded scope is extremely helpful to sense trends early and to discuss with and learn from likeminded colleagues.