In-House Lawyers Adapt to Uncertainty with Cross-Disciplinary Skills and AI

Strategic Insights -

As business leaders worldwide navigate uncertain economic prospects, global conflicts, and trade wars, they are forced to adapt quickly. In-house legal teams are playing a critical role in this adaptation, doubling down on innovation to improve risk management, control operating costs, and remain strategically nimble. In the FT Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyers 2025 report, a growing theme among in-house teams is their efforts to increase efficiency, control costs, and broaden their perspectives to track new and unpredictable risks.

Key Takeaways:

  • DBS Bank's Project Alpha pilot program, which trained four people from across the legal and compliance team to handle tasks outside their usual roles, showed that a more multidisciplinary approach can handle work more efficiently and respond to new legal or regulatory demands quicker.
  • The experiment was extended to 80 of the nearly 300 legal and compliance team members in Singapore, with the goal of making the team more versatile and equipped to cope with the rate of change.
  • HSBC's legal team has helped launch a number of "firsts" in the field of tokenised bonds and other digital assets, and the bank is investing in broadening its lawyers' skills and experience through a job swap program that gives them experience of working in other departments at the bank.
  • The winner of the most innovative legal team in the Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific awards this year is HSBC, which is investing in a job swap program to give lawyers experience of working in other departments.
  • BHP's legal operations team has expanded to support corporate affairs and communications, including helping managers to improve how they manage budgets and report financial information on different categories of work.
  • Australian insurance company IAG's executive manager for legal operations, Anna Golovsky, notes that 85-90% of the company's legal team believes that generative AI will improve efficiency and productivity.

Statistics:

  • 80 of the nearly 300 legal and compliance team members at DBS Bank in Singapore will participate in the extended pilot program of Project Alpha.
  • 85-90% of IAG's legal team believes that generative AI will improve efficiency and productivity.
  • It takes six months to get a view on legal spend at IAG, but new AI tools are helping to accelerate this process to real-time oversight across the business.

Sources:

  • "Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific 2025: Those that adapt will thrive in a era of global uncertainty" by FT Asia-Pacific Magazine.
  • "HSBC's lawyer are at the forefront of the bank's journey into tokenised bonds and digital assets" by the same source as above.
  • An interview with Chee Kin Lam, general counsel at DBS Bank in Singapore, on the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in the face of global complexity.
  • An interview with Anna Golovsky, executive manager for legal operations at Australian insurance company IAG, on the impact of generative AI on legal teams.