As we enter the second month of 2026, one of the recurring themes for Legal IT Insider already is how the corporate world will be taking more legal work in-house this year, leveraging AI. Based on conversations with in-house teams, I’ve been quite bullish about that trajectory this year.
I recently had time to reflect back on conversations that took place at a UnitedLex summit towards the end of last year, which add some interesting nuance to the dialogue.
The summit featured 50 industry leaders from organisations such as Rio Tinto and GSK – plus a number of private practice lawyers – to discuss the power of partnership. This is a theme close to all of our hearts, and, unsurprisingly, there was a significant amount of focus on the role that AI will play in defining the roles of inside and outside counsel roles going forward.
On reflection, what was interesting – albeit not wholly surprising – was how much the conversations revolved around human-centred change.
Strategic partnerships
While private practice law firms have good reason to feel that the sand is shifting beneath them, it was interesting to hear a reminder at the outset of the conference that what in-house teams need more than ever are strategic partners. Speaking on the first panel at the summit, Emma-Jane Tritten, head counsel for brand protection at Richemont International, which owns 23 luxury goods and jewellery brands, said: “We can’t do everything, we need help and guidance in forming our strategy and what to prioritise.” In-house teams have to fight for budget, headcount and the expertise they want to use (no change there). While Richemont has a global presence, Tritten pointed at that they can’t be everywhere, observing: “It’s very valuable to leverage partnerships where we don’t have boots on the ground.”
The focus is on creating trusted ways of working. One of the key things for the in-house legal team, Tritten says, is that advisers are proactive and have a diverse network.
Strategy, relationships and empathy
For law firms, AI presents opportunities to provide a faster and arguably better service. Jonathan Ball, an intellectual property partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, said on the first panel: “It’s incredibly positive being able to get to an answer more quickly.” Rather than drafting a document from scratch, AI will be able to draft it “in seconds”, although Ball noted, in response to a question from the audience around risk, “You will always need a human to check the output; there is no question that it has to be reviewed.”
But when it comes to what future proofing a law firm looks like and should look like, tech is not the only answer. Rob Jacob, a partner and head of trademark litigation at Stephenson Harwood, who is involved in Stephenson Harwood’s AI taskforce, noted that while it is often difficult to ‘crystal ball gaze’, what is required is flexibility of strategy, relationships and empathy.
What is needed, added Sue Bence, founder and director of SBP Consulting and a former Leigh Day partner, is enlightened leaders to develop new ideas. “What is your business strategy and the value you’re seeking to deliver to clients?” she asked. “How can you work together to create an operating model to service the client?” Firms say they have a strategy, but it’s often left to the practices to execute it.
In a ‘people’ theme that raised its head more than once among speakers, there is an urgent need to focus on the path for juniors. Ashley Winton, founder of The Data Protection Forum and a former BigLaw partner, said that there is a risk of ‘AI eating our lunch.’ “How are juniors going to learn?” he asked. “We need an urgent correction so that we have the senior partners of the future.”
Speaking to Legal IT Insider during the summit, former HSBC general counsel Richard Given who most recently was GC of OpenPayd, said that it is beholden on law firms and corporate counsel teams to make choices about how they are structured and who they instruct to ensure that there is a viable pathway for great successors. “We can’t kill that by chasing zero cost solutions,” he said.
HSBC was a sponsor of past prime minister David Cameron’s ‘big society’ youth scheme, which included teaching children to code. Earlier in the day, responding to a keynote by author and economist Daniel Susskind, Given said: “We need to go back to basics, looking at literacy, numeracy and problem solving. Teaching people to use technology is essential as is making sure that young people have a sufficiently flexible concept of the work they will do, because the labour market will change radically.”
It was interesting to note from one legal counsel I spoke to that they are already using AI to train lawyers, with the counsel observing, “You probably get a better lawyer as a result.”
Anthony Kenny, assistant general counsel for corporate and CBS at GSK, a speaker at the conference who talked to me in the break, observed that the downside of the traditional model is that it’s very hit and miss as to who you get as a coach, whereas AI can give you a higher degree of quality. It may also help with social mobility. However he asked: “What are the skills that juniors now need to master in those first few years, I’m not sure we have thought enough about that.”
An AI Toolkit
When it comes to the tech stack the in-house teams should be building, there is a temptation – budget questions aside – to buy legal AI tools that people then can’t or use.
Given spoke during the day on a panel with Mo Ajaz from Lex360 and Tilly Lange from Interactive Brokers about the need for an AI toolbox.
While I couldn’t stay for the session, I spoke to Given and Ajaz in a break, with Ajaz observing that lawyers are often being required to use legal AI platforms without the skills or motivation to do so. One in-house team was told they need to save a day a week by using AI, and given access to three AI platforms. “The lawyers are concerned that they can’t distinguish between the three. Any technology or transformation piece needs to bring people along with it, it’s not helpful to just impose it on lawyers who aren’t ready,” Ajaz said.
Given added: “The vast majority of work that the legal function does is not reserved business but supporting the business to be successful. You have responsibility and accountability as a solicitor but you are also a member of the business and we have to ask if we’re looking in the right place and what problems AI can solve. Often it’s a case of what is the outcome we need and what tools do we already use that can help. Most businesses already have Copilot and we can use mainstream tools.”
Agreeing with Ajaz too, Renee Meisel, CEO of UnitedLex, told me: “It’s really important that people look at what technology they already have and what IT has. Corporations often don’t have the budget for new technology; historically there has been a fight for budget and bigger companies are starting to invest more but the smaller ones are not necessarily going to.”
One corporate counsel at the conference who is working with UnitedLex described ditching expensive external contract management solution one leveraging SharePoint.
Kenny said: “In our organisation we strongly encourage the use of AI that everyone else is using. Copilot is a big part of that and we are using an internal form of ChatGPT for some things. We leverage the same tools as the business.”
A word of warning came from Alessandro Galtieri, deputy general counsel, VP corporate law, regulatory and government affairs at Colt, which is creating a data lake. “The issue is data quality,” he warned. “It’s the old ‘garbage in, garbage out’ issue. You need to identify how you can get the datasets that you need.”
On a panel about evolving litigation leadership, Jomaire Crawford, global head of litigation at mining giant Rio Tinto, echoed: “You need to make sure your data is in good order. Is it in one platform and centralised or is there ground work you need to do? There is excitement and promise around AI but sitting down with the experts in your institution is essential for managing expectations and having a defensible plan.”
However, in-house teams acknowledge that they are already in many cases doing more work in-house leveraging technology, with one counsel telling me: “Before if I had a project I would go straight to a law firm but now we’re expected to do more in-house. Before, we had a language barrier, but now, everything is very accessible using technology.”
Change management and future gazing
There is absolutely no doubt that technology will radically alter the way that legal work is delivered and there is no one answer as to how to prepare for the future. Chris Fowler, COO for legal, governance and corporate affairs at Rio Tinto, observed during the day that two of the biggest questions for legal teams to look at are what percentage of your resources focus on strategic priorities, and how engaged your people are. That applies to private practice and corporate legal teams alike, and will help to shape their partnerships of the future.
With AI developers making claims that their systems will be able to outperform humans in 10 years, it is time to focus on training people to be ready.
Susskind may have opened the conference, but I’d like to end with his key takeaway for the summit. he said: “The best response for now is training. We either train people to compete with machines or to use them. We need to spend time in schools training people to use technology properly and understanding its strengths and weaknesses.”
We need to take AI-driven unemployment seriously, Susskind said. And training isn’t a panacea for everything. But it will help with a current mismatch of skills and vision.
“There is an instinct to want to protect traditional ways of working, but that is a mistake,” Susskind said. “Black and Decker takes its executives and confronts them with a slide of a power drill. ‘This is what we sell, isn’t it?’ They ask. But the right answer is, ‘No, we sell holes in the wall and your job is to find even better ways to make them.”
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