In-house lawyer role broadens in response to technological change
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In July this year, Bridgewater Associates launched a macro fund — one that aims to profit from macroeconomic shifts — that primarily uses machine learning to make its investment decisions.
Precise details of the fund’s operation, investors and initial performance remain undisclosed. But the launch signals a commitment by one of the world’s largest hedge fund operators to move beyond its existing investment systems and embrace more fully the potential of artificial intelligence.
The fund is the result of work by Bridgewater’s Artificial Investment Associate (AIA) Labs, an expanding team of some 20 investors, engineers and technologists, founded in 2023, which aims to harness the power of AI and machine learning in the investment process.
The Bridgewater legal team worked closely with AIA Labs on the legal and regulatory aspects of the design and launch of the fund — studying data science to ensure compliance with regulations and to draft new risk disclosures for prospective clients.
Most innovative in-house legal teams (North America 2024)
Winner: Salesforce *
Accenture
Bridgewater Associates
Citizens Financial Group
Dentsu International Americas
FIS
Flex
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Honeywell
Reddit
* “Winner” of the FT Innovative Lawyers award for “Innovative in-house legal team in North America”. Other organisations are listed alphabetically
For the hedge fund’s lawyers, it is another illustration of how their roles have broadened beyond giving pure legal advice. “The evolution of the business is creating the need for the evolution of the people within the business to be able to not just react, but anticipate what is coming next,” says Tracey Yurko, chief legal officer at Bridgewater.
This is just one example of how new technologies and business models are broadening the scope of lawyers’ roles at the in-house legal teams featured in the 2024 Innovative Lawyers North America report.
Even traditional legal transactions, such as preparing for stock market flotations, can create opportunities for lawyers to lead and contribute in new ways.
When Reddit, the online social media and community forum, was preparing to raise money and list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in March, the lawyers’ role was unusual, argues the business’s vice-president of legal, Milana McCullagh.
“Because Reddit is such a distinct platform, we had this great opportunity to bring its unique, community-based nature into the [initial public offering] process,” she says. Her legal team helped create a “directed share programme” that gave some of Reddit’s unpaid users and moderators, who had built the platform, a chance to profit by buying shares in its flotation.
Innovation across businesses and within their internal legal teams is frequently linked. This year’s winning team at enterprise technology business Salesforce is one such example. Sabastian Niles, the tech company’s chief legal officer, argues: “We are at this really powerful and exciting inflection point for the technology industry as a whole.”
He identifies his team’s three priorities as: helping to accelerate growth for the broader business; strengthening trust; and encouraging operational excellence.
The legal team of nearly 500 staff handled more than 200,000 legal requests last year. It has recently developed a range of technologies and procedures, based on Salesforce’s own evolving enterprise software platforms, changing how it handles those requests. Analysis shows that, using these new systems, around half of all queries can be resolved by the business colleagues themselves, without needing a lawyer.
The team is now beginning to roll out “agentic” AI tools that are increasingly designed not just to answer queries but also to independently carry out other tasks.
Collecting and connecting contract and business data was also the first step for the legal team at the global manufacturing company Flex. It is a “bit tedious” but a “crucially important step for effective AI solutions”, says Justin Schwartz, deputy general counsel.
These AI tools are now assisting the team in negotiating contracts with customers and suppliers, managing risks, and integrating new staff members faster. The changes they enable are delivering measurable financial benefits, he says.
Schwartz aims to change the perception of the legal team from one of narrow legal experts to “a department full of great business people and commercial leaders who happen to have law degrees”.
As in-house lawyers continue to broaden their responsibilities, Yurko believes company legal roles are becoming more distinct from law firm specialists. “The thing that we have been building towards for a while is having people who are comfortable doing a broad set of things — lawyers who are like all-round athletes.”
Read the other FT Innovative Lawyers North America ‘Best practice case studies’, which showcase the standout innovations made for and by people working in the legal sector:
Practice of law
Business of law
Outside counsel management
Standout
Salesforce: Winner
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25
The company’s legal team uses a version of its own proprietary software system to help select outside counsel with the required expertise, pricing, and location from a panel of preferred external law firms.
The platform includes a portal where firms can accept and track work, and engage with the in-house team. The data provided helps the team to save money and to improve dealings with law firms.
Highly commended
The Chemours Company
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The chemical supplier’s team cut 30 per cent of its spending on outside counsel by introducing a software system to handle bidding and feedback and to help rank law firms.
Cardinal Health
O: 8; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 22
The US healthcare group updated its law firm renewal processes by collecting data through its e-billing software and mandating reports from its outside firms.
Citizens Financial Group
O: 7; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 22
The US banking group’s legal team created a “speed-dating”-style event for clients, alongside law firm Holland & Knight. The event yielded new business and feedback to improve customer services.
Commended
Dentsu International Americas
O: 7; L: 6; I: 7; Total: 20
Last year, the US arm of the global advertising group engaged India-based LegaLogic to help manage low-risk contracts. The outside firm has adopted the same contract management tool that Dentsu uses in order to streamline work.
Digital solutions
Standout
Flex: Winner
Originality: 7; Leadership: 9; Impact: 9; Total: 25
The US legal team at the international manufacturing business is using several artificial intelligence tools to improve contract processes. For example, lawyers are working with the IT team to train a tool to answer 100 questions about risk in customer contracts, saving roughly one hour per agreement, with accuracy comparable to human review.
The software provides reasons for its suggestions, allowing the business to advance negotiations with less involvement from the legal team. As a result of these and other changes, the team estimates time spent processing contracts has been halved.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
O: 8; L: 9; I: 7; Total: 24
The legal team at the US tech company has created a generative AI-powered tool to track regulatory changes in various jurisdictions, including the US, EU, UK, Australia, and India. This tool identifies relevant legislation and provides detailed summaries of the changes, which significantly speeds up the review process.
Highly commended
Capgemini
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
Lawyers at the international consultancy created a tool to better manage legal queries from the rest of the business. Most of the lower complexity queries are now answered within a day.
Boston Consulting Group
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The US-based consultancy’s legal team reduced contract review time with its customers using a tailored version of a legal AI tool. BCG then shared lessons learned from using it with the tech supplier to help develop the product.
Exos
O: 7; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 22
Lawyers at the fitness training business developed a tool to handle inquiries from colleagues about insurance provisions in client contracts. They estimate it has halved the number of requests that lawyers handle.
Commended
McDonald’s
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The US legal team of the fast food business collaborated with an ediscovery technology provider in order to expedite information gathering during litigation disputes.
People and skills
Standout
Accenture: Winner
Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 9; Total: 25
The global consultancy’s legal team helped to train staff and put in safeguards against legal and other risks to help it expand its generative artificial intelligence business. It made more than $2bn-worth of generative AI-related sales in the nine months to May this year. The team supported the rollout of mandatory basic training in generative AI among Accenture’s more than 700,000 staff and created a legal guide, which has been downloaded around 20,000 times.
Highly commended
Marsh McLennan
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The insurance group’s legal department created a portal to encourage innovation proposals from within the team. The most promising ideas, such as automated translation services, have been sent to the business’s technology team for testing and design.
The work continues its strategic push to modernise the team with technology that had already helped halve the time the team spends manually reviewing contracts.
Commended
Elastic
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The US-Netherlands technology company’s legal team created a committee of 45 staff below leadership level to give them a say in how the training and development budget is allocated.
Workday
O: 6; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 21
The software group’s in-house team last year launched an annual summer placement scheme for law students from diverse backgrounds. The four participants who took up the places have accepted jobs at Workday.
Commercial and strategic advice
Standout
Bridgewater Associates: Winner
Originality: 9; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 25
Lawyers at the world’s largest hedge fund operator advised on the launch of a new a macro fund that uses artificial intelligence, including large language models from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, to help it make investments. Bridgewater’s legal team worked with in-house AI specialists to provide compliance oversight and to draft new risk disclosures for prospective clients. The group says its fund secured $2bn at its launch in July from undisclosed investors. It aims to advance the existing use of AI in guiding investments across the hedge fund industry and act as a template for future product launches by Bridgewater.
Reddit
O: 7; L: 8; I: 9; Total: 24
The legal team, aided by Latham & Watkins, guided the social media company on its initial public offering in March, which raised $748mn. The flotation involved a portion of shares being offered to 75,000 of the site’s unpaid regular content generators and moderators — as well as large institutional investors — to ensure their continued involvement and support for Reddit as a quoted company.
Highly commended
Calvert Impact
O: 8; L: 7; L: 8; Total: 23
The in-house team of the responsible investing group worked with law firm Morgan Lewis on the issuance of its Cut Carbon Note. The fixed-income product targeted at retail investors aims to provide finance for energy-efficient building projects.
Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The legal team at the charitable organisation helped to establish public-private partnerships for biomedical discoveries, enabling the faster development of new drugs, including a 15-party agreement for drugs that treat nervous system diseases.
FIS
O: 7; L: 8; L: 7; Total: 22
The financial tech group’s lawyers advised on regulation and product design for its new technology platform, Atelio, which enables businesses and software developers to offer financial services.
Commended
Citizens Financial Group
O: 6; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 21
The group’s in-house team created a framework and contracts required to launch a private banking arm for wealthy individuals.
Robinhood
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The team advised on the launch of the online trading platform in Europe and the expansion of its offerings to investors.
Dentsu International Americas
O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20
Lawyers at the US arm of the global advertising group created self-service guides to help sales staff answer common client queries about its services.
Operational transformation
Standout
Honeywell: Winner
Originality: 8; Leadership: 10; Impact: 7; Total: 25
The legal operations team is assisting in the integration of the industrial group’s various contracting, customer relationship, and resource planning systems across more than 100 countries.
The team has also standardised contract terms and templates throughout the organisation. As of October 2024, this initiative is 70 per cent complete, resulting in faster contract review and processing.
Salesforce
O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24
Salesforce is using generative artificial intelligence to evaluate legal inquiries from various departments within the company. This year’s results indicate that half of the more than 200,000 queries received by the legal team annually could be resolved automatically.
Highly commended
BNY
O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23
The US banking group’s legal team applied AI to more than 80 different kinds of tasks, including the use of a company-wide chatbot, to help create customised contract review and summarisation tools.
FIS
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The in-house team at the financial tech group developed a governance framework that endorsed more than 300 uses of AI as safe in the past year and shared its approach with other companies.
Workday
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The software group’s in-house team extended access to its contract management tool to staff working in 10 or so internal business functions, which cut time spent searching for information.
Dentsu International Americas
O: 6; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 22
The US arm of the global advertising group streamlined its contract approval processes to help limit the number of reviews it deals with. The sales team now reviews more contracts without the need to involve in-house legal staff.
Commended
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
O: 6; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 21
The US tech group’s legal team created a business-wide governance platform to manage requests to use AI in products or within the business. The team has reviewed more than 120 projects since its launch in April 2024.
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