A researcher, an analyst and a storyteller (not to mention moderator of the CLL Legal Leaders webinar series in collaboration with Thomson Reuters), Lizzy loves lifting the lid on the burning issues in the legal profession. Not least of those is the impact of AI on the in-house community.
Tell us about your career journey so far
My background is in market research and strategic planning. I started my career with Acritas, conducting research among in-house legal departments. I looked at their goals, the pressures they were facing and what they needed from law firms. I analysed and presented my findings to law firms to help them shape their strategy.
For eight of my 11 years with Acritas I was based in New York, growing our client base across North America. Shortly after I returned to the UK, Thomson Reuters acquired the business.
In the seven years since, I’ve been doing similar work, but with my focus on helping in-house legal functions. Both roles have given me deep insights into the challenges and opportunities facing internal legal functions.
My current projects include the Thomson Reuters Institute Value Alignment Toolkit for legal departments and GCO 2030, a partnership with our own Chief Legal Officer Norie Campbell in Canada to envision the future legal department and develop a roadmap to get there.
How have you seen the GC role change in recent years?
The backdrop to the GC role comprises four areas of strategic priority for the GC’s role we call the Four Spinning Plates.
Firstly, the need to deliver effective legal advice to the organisation. Secondly, they’re under pressure to use resources more efficiently. Next, they need to protect their organisations from undesirable risks and, finally, legal teams are striving to help drive broader business strategy.
The need for GC to deliver in all four areas has not changed but with the pandemic, social and geopolitical events and the advent of AI itself, the external environment has changed with increasing uncertainty and complexity in the world. That means CEOs are more than ever looking to their GC to help them navigate this ambiguity.
What’s the current picture of AI in legal from where you sit?
We have seen the pace of adoption double in the last year, around half are planning for agentic AI and in-house legal teams are moving faster than law firms to adopt AI. Yet many are adopting AI without a clear strategy so many GCs tell me that while they’ve trialled several AI technologies with some success, big strategic impacts are yet to materialise.
How can GCs tell if AI is working?
Start by looking at the results you’re getting. If you’re doing the same work faster or cheaper, that’s a great efficiency gain - but it’s not a transformation. So, with GCO 2030, for example, proficiency trumps efficiency. We’re looking to use AI as a capability multiplier and reimagine workflows. The goal is to improve the working environment for legal teams and enable lawyers to do the work they qualified for rather than high-volume, low-value tasks.
I often ask in-house lawyers what they’d do with the time if AI freed up one day every week for them. The consistent answer is that they’d be more proactive. They’d get out across the business more, horizon-scan and spend more time assessing risks. If your team is in a position to do those things then that’s when you know AI transformation is truly happening.
How did the idea for GCO 2030 come about?
At Thomson Reuters, our legal department faces the same pressures as other in-house teams. The volume, complexity and urgency of its workload are increasing, yet the available resources are not. Our department acts as customer zero for Thomson Reuters’ AI tools and in year one, nearly 100 use cases surfaced which is encouraging but the results weren’t going much beyond efficiency.
The question we became most interested in is what would it take for the legal department to meet the business where it’s at and keep pace with it. how AI will enable legal to drive an organisation forward. We know that simply adding tools to existing workflows isn’t going to cut the mustard. Redesigning workflows to get the best out of cutting-edge technology and the talent in the legal team is the rationale behind GCO 2030.
How do the five archetypes of GCO 2030 work together?
The idea is that they’ll all be in play in full-service, multi-jurisdictional legal teams.
So Scaled Enablement embeds automation into the workflow for greater speed, efficiency and consistency in outputs while freeing up lawyers to work on complex issues.
Empowered Peer equips other enabling departments such as sales, procurement or HR to be more self-sufficient through AI-powered legal provision.
With Advisory Plus, the in-house lawyer’s insight and analytical capacity are expanded, thus unlocking strategic counsel.
For teams with an international legal function, Global Leverage uses AI to break down language and other barriers, enabling lawyers to operate at pace.
Seamless Integrator, meanwhile, makes it easy for internal and external teams to collaborate as a single integrated function by way of playbooks and AI-assisted grading.
What are the must have skills for the AI era?
The ability to critically judge AI output is now crucial. AI sounds authoritative and smart, but you've really got to be able to sense check the substance. Communication and influencing skills are also vital.
The in-house lawyer must cut through the noise and get messages across that the business needs to hear. And lastly, adaptability and resilience will be indispensable.
Evolution will be a constant, so we’ll need to be ready for the next transition almost as soon as we’ve adapted to the last one. This means that leaders, more than ever, will need strong change management and relationship building skills.
What’s your one piece of advice for a GC looking to transform the legal function?
Just start somewhere. Don’t wait until you have all the information or the ideal conditions you think you need. There’s never a perfect time to embark on change, so get the journey started and be prepared to learn as you go.
That said, be clear about what you’re looking to achieve so you can measure your progress against your goal. Without a clear objective you won’t gather the data you’ll need to show what you’re delivering,
How do you unwind away from work?
By spending time with my family in Grasmere in the Lake District. Most recently my husband and I went there and climbed Scafell Pike. It’s the highest mountain in England so I’m glad I did it but I don’t think I’d do it again!
We have a six-year-old and together we climb the mini mountains in Cumbria and go on walks. It’s a beautiful part of the world, it’s not far from our home in Newcastle and it provides a real chance to switch off.
