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3 case studies for in-house lawyers

As we come into the busy Christmas period, many of us are taking stock and looking at refining strategies for the year ahead. Our in-house legal team have interviewed many stand-out industry professionals over the years. Below, we have chosen three interviews for you to store and enjoy as you prepare over the coming weeks.

1.  LexisNexis In-house: An interview with Ben White, Founder of Crafty Counsel

LexisNexis In-house: An interview with Ben White, Founder of Crafty Counsel

Ben launched  Crafty Counsel  to address many of the pain points he himself experienced when he made the transition from a law firm to an in-house corporate counsel role; a transition which many others have struggled with, whether due to a lack of resources or understanding.

Crafty Counsel is a new online platform for video, training, and development for in-house lawyers, which aims to provide technical updates alongside interviews with legal professionals on career development, comfortably slotting in amongst the existing vital tools and databases, like LexisNexis, that aim to support and guide the in-house lawyer.

The full interview is available in the link above, and excerpts are also available as follows:

• Key competencies for success
• How to succeed as an in-house lawyer
• The evolution of Crafty Counsel
• The vision behind Crafty Counsel
• Key tech for in-house counsel
• Legal Ops and Legal Tech
• Top trends defining in-house
• Demonstrating value    

2.  Adopting a three-rung model for technology - an interview with Rob Booth, General Counsel, The Crown Estate

Adopting a three-rung model for technology - an interview with Rob Booth, General Counsel, The Crown Estate

The Crown Estate is an independent commercial business, created by an Act of Parliament, with a diverse and commanding portfolio of UK buildings, shoreline, seabed, forestry, agriculture and common land.  

As you can imagine with a portfolio of this nature, there is a significant demand for sophisticated legal advice.  As General Counsel, Rob Booth oversees a modern, progressive and efficient in-house team that is resolved to manage the legal affairs of the corporation in the most effective way possible.

Sophie Gould sits down with Rob and talks about his scientific background, the “three rungs of technology” and the role of that law firms should take as collaborative partners.

3.  #LegalDesign. The real impact of technology for in-house legal teams - an interview with Richard Mabey, CEO, Juro

#LegalDesign. The real impact of technology for in-house legal teams - an interview with Richard Mabey, CEO, Juro

Richard Mabey is the CEO at  Juro , a company focused on end-to-end contract management systems. Combining a legal pedigree from Freshfields, in-house secondment experience, commercial acumen from an MBA and a legal product role, Richard founded Juro in 2016. Richard is also a contributor on our Future of Law and In-house blogs - you can find his profile  here .

Both he and his company are dedicated to ending some of the frustrations and tedious process-driven work of in-house lawyers. 

Sophie Gould talks to Richard about his career journey, how he is a self-described “legal design obsessive” and what the real impact of technology can be on in-house legal teams.

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Amy is an established writer and researcher, having contributed to publications, such as The Law Society, LPM, City A.M. and Financial IT. Her role at LexisNexis UK involved writing content and research reports, including "The Bellwether Report 2020, Covid-19: The next chapter" and "Are medium-sized firms the change-makers in legal?"

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Crisis management for in-house lawyers: how to turn panic, fear and confusion into control, coordination and reassurance

• Nick Watson
• In-House Counsel

Patrick Lagadec succinctly described a crisis as an “abrupt and brutal audit” in his book, “Preventing Chaos in a Crisis – Strategies for Prevention, Control and Damage Limitation”.

That’s pretty accurate. A crisis will place your organisation well outside its comfort zone (and you along with it). It is the antithesis of business as usual.

In my related article , I discussed the role of a lawyer in a crisis management team (CMT) and the critical importance of planning. Here, I look at that plan in more detail, explore how a CMT operates, who it comprises and consider the challenges it faces. I also share some tips, watch words and acronyms that can help you to work and prioritise under pressure.

When a crisis hits, it is important to remember that you and your colleagues have the tools and resources at your disposal to help you deal with the situation. So don’t panic. Identifying, in advance, what those are and knowing, when the time comes, how to make the best use of them will help you to deal with the situation calmly. This all needs thorough planning and requires you to practise the plan.

It has been said that the role of a good in-house counsel will satisfy two complementary objectives: first, enabling sustainable, profitable business growth and second protecting value. It logically follows that you should be intimately involved in planning for and working on your organisation’s response to a crisis.

It is easiest to approach this subject chronologically. In any crisis, there is the period before a trigger incident, there is the incident itself, and there is the period after the incident. (Of course, when I say ‘incident’ that is just shorthand – you may in fact be looking at a sudden, ‘big bang’ crisis or a more protracted, evolving scenario/series of connected events that is often termed a ‘rising tide’ crisis.) Successful crisis management relies on doing the right things at the right times. It is axiomatic that you have more time in the pre-incident period than during, or in the immediate aftermath of, the incident itself. So make the most of that fact and plan ahead.

For those of you who are more visual, this diagram illustrates the ways you should be spending your time in the pre- and post-incident crisis management world:

Planning for a crisis

Review the state of health of your organisation today. How prepared is it for a crisis? Is it resilient? What areas are most vulnerable and where would the greatest impact be felt? Do you already have a clear view about what sorts of events might trigger a crisis? And do you know what the internal response would be to any particular incident and the resultant crisis?

To be able to respond effectively, you need to anticipate and plan ( see Effective planning ). To start this process you must identify the key stakeholders from strategic, operational and support functions and any relevant specialists (some of whom may be external to your organisation) and gather their input.

Invite your stakeholders to speculate as to what could go wrong: weather, disease, contamination, government action, military coup, civil unrest, natural or manmade disasters, explosion or fire, corruption, terrorism, security incidents, kidnap, extortion, cyber-attacks, data breaches, regulatory investigations or press exposés etc. This process must not be restricted to matters that logically fall in the usual operating parameters of your business or industry. You need to think more broadly – this is a time to invite colleagues to indulge in the colourful clichés of ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘black swans’.

Once that is done, think about what the impact of those triggers might be on your organisation.

Effective planning

To be effective, planning must encompass the following elements.

• Consultative – Local teams must be involved in planning. A crisis must be managed, operationally, at the crisis location; HQ can support and guide but it cannot ‘do’.
• Up-to-date – A plan without correct information is worthless.
• Accessible – here, technology can be your saviour. Indeed, the deployment of appropriate technology is rapidly coming to represent best practice. Control Risks and others offer online solutions that support global access to real-time information (e.g. locations and status of people), allow remote communications and log-keeping for dispersed teams, and give access to current (not out of date!) prepared statements, corporate policies and data.
• Rehearse – A plan won’t work unless people are familiar with it – you must practice. We recommend periodically running your board and senior management through a vivid scenario.

It helps you to stay ready and drives home the importance of preparedness.

Moreover, you must verify, once you have gone through this process that what you have before you will serve its purpose. To be useable, your crisis management plan must adhere to the four Cs – it must be:

• Communicated (i.e. shared with all who may need to access it)

It may also be sensible at this time to think about how your response would alter depending on whether or not you are the ‘victim’ or the ‘villain’ in the scenario: is your organisation an innocent bystander caught up in a terrible situation or is it the author of (or a contributor to) the crisis. This will hugely affect the way you handle the public communications side of the crisis. It will also affect your legal liability. It may also not be entirely obvious at the planning stage – unless you take a step back – which sorts of trigger event may end up placing you in the former or the latter category.

Responding to a crisis

Once a situation arises, what should you do first? Use RACER as your guide:

• Report the facts to those who need to know.
• Assess the situation.
• Convene the CMT.
• Execute the plan.
• Resolve the situation.

This is a widely-adopted framework within which to initiate the crisis response protocols of an organisation.

The first step (the ‘R’) is to get the right people sighted and involved. Whether literally or figuratively, you need to ‘wake people up’. So who are those people?

The Crisis Management Team (CMT)

Bear in mind you will need a local team at or near the site of the crisis with support (experience, resources, money, a broader view) provided from HQ. Regardless of location, your CMT will need to comprise a number of core members. The composition can be cut back if some skill-sets prove superfluous but note that downsizing is much easier than scaling up – as the adage goes: “better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it” – so try to start with all bases covered. Therefore, I suggest you will need initial representation from:

• Business leadership (not necessarily the CEO)
• PR/communications
• Specialists (sometimes imported if you lack the skill-sets internally)

You also need a scribe to keep a log (see my article and also the notes on keeping a written record in the Crisis management agenda ).

In the CMT, even more than in your day-to-day role as in-house counsel, you must act as part of a coherent team. You cannot stand apart from your colleagues; nor can you allow yourself to be shut out from the discussion. Your role is, in many respects, the same as it always is: provide wise counsel, avert legal liability and help to safeguard your organisation’s future. But be warned, lawyers who engage in crisis management will immediately face a series of competing priorities – one of the hardest tasks is deciding what’s most important and what is less so. As events unfold, you will have to work out how to blend and balance prudent legal advice with pressing operational and PR considerations. In a crisis the final call on any particular decision may not be up to you; you may not agree with it, even. But your involvement in the process is what counts. It will make for better outcomes.

Assessing the situation and, if you have planned well, convening the CMT should take very little time. Indeed they can happen simultaneously so that, once assembled (physically or virtually – see the discussion of accessibility above in Effective planning ), your CMT can be briefed and immediately start to execute the plan.

Executing the crisis management plan

When it comes to execution, take the advice of FEMA, learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: “go big” and “go early”. Don’t play around the margins or hesitate. Your organisation needs to own its part in managing the situation and must do what it can as soon as it can (see Case study below).

The case study is, essentially, concerned with execution. Executing the plan is the bit that many people worry most about; you are in the spotlight and you don’t have much time. It will be less stressful if you have done your homework. But let’s not kid ourselves that this is easy. In a fluid situation with, nowadays, 24/7 coverage and video and photography not restricted to mainstream media, you feel like you cannot afford to miss a thing.

A simple (and widely reported) case study illustrates the merits of a fulsome response rather than a more trusting ‘wait and see’ approach.

In the early 2000s, a lightning strike caused a fire at a silicon wafer plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The plant supplied two of the global leaders in mobile phones. Nokia quickly picked up on a blip and escalated the matter internally. Ericsson believed the manufacturer had things under control and did not immediately appreciate the potential scale of the issue. It later transpired that far more than just the initially-affected 8 trays of silica had been damaged. In fact, millions of wafers had to be discarded due to smoke and water damage. By the time this was discovered, Nokia had already taken steps to secure back-up from other manufacturers and had pressed the affected supplier to reallocate resources at its other manufacturing centres around the world to support Nokia’s demands (and, most importantly, those of its customers). Ericsson had missed the window of opportunity to take similar steps. Ericsson reported a $600-700m adverse impact on its financial performance, attributed directly to the impact of the fire. By contrast, a few months later that same year, Nokia reported over a 40% hike in profitability due to growth in its market share.

Timely reporting and a ‘prudent internal over-reaction’ can not only salvage a situation but can even position your organisation to capitalise on an opportunity.

An agenda for the CMT

To execute the plan successfully, each person must know what they are there to do; you need good information that is up to date; and the CMT must be able to communicate clearly (both internally and with affected external stakeholders – including the media). That requires a clear agenda that allows you to capture the necessary inputs and outflows. So how can you hardwire such an agenda into your plan before you know what the crisis actually is? You need to build in flexibility to create an adaptive framework. And then, when the crisis arises, you need to apply bright, focused minds – exercised by credible, calm people – to that framework (see Crisis management agenda ).In the framework agenda, you will see a reference to ‘PEARS’ (People, Environment, Assets, Reputation, Stakeholders). It is worth exploring for a moment what this means and how you would use it from a practical perspective.

The concept was advanced in the aftermath of the explosion and intense fire that ensued on the Piper Alpha North Sea oil platform in 1988. 167 people were killed; only 61 workers survived. The flames were 100 metres high and visible from a distance of over 60 miles. The disaster was terrible and resulted in a number of lessons learned. One of these was the importance of prioritisation in any rescue and crisis management efforts. To enable organisations to make sensible decisions under pressure, the acronym aims to remove the hesitancy or misjudgement that could otherwise take over by establishing a clear, preordained hierarchy:

• People – save lives and think about the human consequences.
• Environment – care for the immediate environment and mitigate any lasting impact.
• Assets – salvage physical assets next; together with people, these are the key resources that drive your business.
• Reputation – communicate effectively with media and others to preserve goodwill; by acting on the first three items, you will find you have already taken significant strides in this direction.
• Stakeholders – you have a responsibility to a broader community of stakeholders; this could be local communities, employees not directly affected, shareholders or regulators.

PEARS reflects both what is the right thing to do from a moral standpoint and what, also, is most likely to result in a sympathetic reaction from the outside world – i.e. what makes good long-term business sense. For example, a commercial organisation would be unwise to emphasise the preservation of its own assets over the lives of those caught up in the incident. That would reflect a materialistic mentality for which it might attract serious criticism. By contrast, one that shows its humanity and care for the territory in which it operates will be more likely to emerge, if not unscathed, then at least less bruised than might otherwise be the case.

Crisis management agenda

Here are a few items for your standing agenda.

• Roles and responsibilities – Know, in advance, who is on the CMT. And in a live situation define their roles in relation to the present crisis.
• Facts and assumptions – Separate what you know from what you think you know. Assumptions are not necessarily to be ignored, but you must weigh them carefully before taking a decision based on what could be false or incomplete information.
• Objectives – It may sound strange, but it will not always be clear what the immediate objectives are. Long term, your goal is to return to business as usual. But short term you need to set clear goals. Bear in mind, these may change as events progress.
• Priorities – Identify priorities that promote the objectives. It is also useful to think of PEARS to establish a basic order of priority: People, Environment, Assets, Reputation, Stakeholders.
• Scenarios – Develop best case, worst case and most likely scenarios. Avoid misplaced optimism.
• Response options – Consider your options and select the best one on the facts as known at that time.
• Stakeholders – Identify all stakeholders (employees, families, media, public, shareholders, government etc.) and prioritise according to their interests and influence.
• Messaging – Establish the key messages to communicate to stakeholders.
• Review – Check how you are doing, regularly and frequently (initially, at least hourly).
• Record – you should document pertinent information in a real-time log. This will help you to manage the crisis by relating new information to what you have previously learned and will assist in relation to any future criticism of your actions by ensuring you can defend your decisions. You need to apply non-linear thinking to these activities and, in fact, many elements of managing a crisis. Don’t simply do A, then B, then C; many work streams need to progress in parallel and certain points may need to be re-visited with greater frequency than others.

Final thoughts

Lastly, no matter how much you plan, bear in mind the military’s observation that “no plan survives first contact”. That being the case, you have to remain flexible and be prepared to innovate to overcome the evolutionary challenges of a crisis.If all else fails, remember the wise words of Anne Mulcahy, former head of Xerox, who pithily summarised the management of a crisis thus: first, get the cow out of the ditch; second, find out how the cow got into the ditch; and third, do whatever it takes to stop the cow getting into the ditch again.For a more concise consideration of some crisis management issues and, in particular, the role of the in-house lawyer in a crisis, see my related article on this topic.

This article was first published by Practical Law in December 2017.

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This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. It should not be used as a substitute for legal advice relating to your particular circumstances. Please note that the law may have changed since the date of this article.

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Leadership in Corporate Counsel

PROGRAM DATES: June 2-5, 2025

PROGRAM FEE: $14,500

APPLICATION DEADLINE: April 11, 2025

The Leadership in Corporate Counsel program is specifically designed for lawyers to gain the knowledge and tools to be an effective leader in your in-house department.

The Leadership in Corporate Counsel program offers in-house leaders insights into the challenges they face and the frameworks, concepts, and tools they need to succeed in their increasingly complicated roles. General counsels of leading organizations encounter challenges unlike those faced by law firm or other external-client facing, professional service firm leaders. Through our highly interactive case-study method, contextualized specifically for lawyers in key in-house roles, we will develop your capabilities around building an effective legal department, creating a culture of innovation, interacting with boards, managing through crises, and understanding the disruptive forces that are changing the global market for legal services.

About the Leadership in Corporate Counsel program

Leadership in Corporate Counsel’s curriculum will provide you with perspectives, concepts, management tools, and skills that will help you be a more effective leader of your corporate legal department.

The program aims to prepare you to:

• Identify and apply personal leadership strategies to better balance your complex responsibilities as a lawyer and leader within your organization and legal department.
• Elevate your department within your organization and lead more effectively by building your team leadership skills.
• Position yourself as a “trusted advisor” within your organization and understand the approaches to implementing key organizational changes as part of developing an organizational strategy.
• Make better strategic decisions and manage crises.

The Learning Model

Case studies, lectures, classroom discussions, and small group discussions afford participants the opportunity to consider multiple pathways to sustained success for their teams and organizations. Learning by case method allows participants to work through possible approaches and solutions to real-world problems in a classroom context.

Participants will develop a holistic understanding of the challenges facing, and the skills and perspectives required of, effective Corporate Counsel leaders. The course will explore topics such as:

• Balancing professional responsibilities
• The power of alignment among corporate strategy, functional strategy, the organization of the corporate counsel office, and the professionals that constitute legal departments
• Drivers of superior quality of service to internal clients
• The motivation drivers of professionals
• Incentive systems, including promotion and compensation
• Managing and leading change
• Leadership and Diversity

Participants in this program should be currently active as leaders in an in-house legal department. Roles include:

• General Counsel
• Associate General Counsel
• Chief Legal Officer
• Vice President
• Head of Legal

At the time of attendance, participants should have teams of professionals reporting to them. Those planning to transition into an in-house leadership role should apply for the program once they are active in that role. In-house legal leaders from government and not-for-profit organizations are also welcome to apply.

To ensure a collegial, small group setting, class size is limited. We encourage a broad cross-section of participants across geographies and industries.

Visit the  Admissions page  for information on the process.

Our core faculty are members of the Harvard Law School faculty – distinguished academicians, educators, researchers, authors, and practitioners in their respective fields. Representing various disciplines, they are close to practice through relationships with law firm leaders and through personal involvement as consultants for top firms around the world.

Teaching Team

David Wilkins, Harvard Law School – Co-Faculty Chair

Hillary Sale, Georgetown Law

Scott Westfahl, Harvard Law School – Co-Faculty Chair

“ Participation in Leadership in Corporate Counsel was an intense intellectual experience. I appreciated the content of the program, the use of the case study method, and the excellent selection of discussion topics. However, the biggest advantage was the interaction between experienced lecturers and participants from all over the world. This extraordinary atmosphere of academic discussion, and constructive exchange of views produced amazing results. Everyone was fully engaged and was willing to share their knowledge, comment on cases and listen to others.

These were ideal conditions to strengthen my leadership competences, to benefit from many experiences, to get to know different ideas for solving problems characteristic only for corporate counsels. What is interesting, in my opinion, the program in fact does not finish at the moment of receiving the certificate. My group keeps in touch and we still support each other in the exchange of professional experience. This is exactly what I expected when I chose Leadership in Corporate Counsel. ” Wojciech Bartnik Regional Legal Counsel Northern & Eastern Europe A global leader in heavy lifting and engineered transport

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531 In House Law Practice

This course explores the substantive and procedural aspects of inhouse law practice. Class sessions often include guest general counsels to survey in-house legal topics, engage with real world challenges, discuss current relevant events, and distill best practices for the role. Students will have team-based interdisciplinary project assignments that draw from topics discussed in the class, reflecting real-world scenarios and providing legal representation experience. Guest general counsels are typically leading practitioners who engage with the class from a variety of perspectives, ranging from Chief Legal Officers of Fortune 50 companies to general counsels who helped grow entrepreneurial startups into household names.

The course is designed for any student interested in inhouse practice – those who wish to work in a law firm or governmental role and interact with inhouse counsel, those who would like to practice inhouse, and those who are interested in exploring different career paths.  It is intended to provide law school students with an understanding of and practical skills for inhouse practice, legal issues unique to that role, and practical issues that face inhouse lawyers. 

20%: Reflection Message Board Posts Each student will publish five brief message board posts during the semester reflecting upon insights or thoughts of interest from guest general counsel presentations.

30%: Memo Student assume the role of attorney with an inhouse legal department and prepare a 5-page memo responding to a fact pattern and scenario; the memo provides an opportunity to demonstrate legal analysis and practical approaches to the issues.  They will also record and upload a five-minute presentation of their memo's findings to the "general counsel" of the company.

40%: Project Halfway through the semester, students divide into teams of 4 persons. Each team will receive a fact pattern for a significant business-level-event problem which they will analyze and present their findings, legal analysis and recommendation to the CEO and board of directors for said company.

10%: Class Engagement

No prerequisites are necessary.

Spring 2024

Spring 2023

Spring 2022

Spring 2021

Spring 2020

Spring 2019

Spring 2018

Spring 2017

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• Student Scholarship
• Bar Application

*Please note that this information is for planning purposes only, and should not be relied upon for the schedule for a given semester. Faculty leaves and sabbaticals, as well as other curriculum considerations, will sometimes affect when a course may be offered.

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The question for many legal professionals isn’t whether to embrace AI — it’s how to do so safely and effectively.

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How will new interpretation of bribery law affect case against ex-Illinois House speaker?

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Attorneys on both sides of the federal corruption case against former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan didn’t agree on much this past month, but they are aligned on one thing: they’re prepared to go to trial on Oct. 8 in Chicago.

The agreement to keep the already-delayed trial date in place kicked off a month otherwise full of arguing over how the case should proceed, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court in late June narrowed the scope of a key federal bribery statute central to the case.

Madigan’s original trial date was moved from April to October in anticipation of the high court’s decision in Snyder v. United States. After months of waiting, the court handed down its ruling on June 26, finding the federal bribery statute – referred to as “Section 666” – does not criminalize “gratuities” given to a state or local public official after he or she has already performed an official act.

The decision set off weeks of legal jockeying in three separate cases in which prosecutors allege electric utility Commonwealth Edison and telecommunications giant AT&T Illinois gave jobs and contracts to Madigan allies in exchange for favorable legislation in Springfield.

But while defense attorneys for Madigan and his confederates facing related corruption charges argued the high court’s ruling should mean the dismissal of charges or acquittal of convictions, prosecutors have maintained the decision has no bearing on the cases.

“This dog will not hunt,” prosecutors this week wrote in a filing responding to Madigan’s motion to dismiss the majority of the indictment against him, bolstered by the high court’s ruling.

That sentiment followed the feds’ notice to U.S. District Judge John Blakey last month that they had no intention of either dropping or altering the bribery charges against Madigan in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.

Prosecutors already won unanimous convictions in the case of the so-called “ComEd Four” last spring, but their sentencings were delayed indefinitely while waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling. The court’s ruling spurred new activity in that case as well, with defense attorneys asking for a new trial given the new interpretation of the bribery law.

And next month, former AT&T president Paul La Schiazza is scheduled for his own trial in the lead-up to Madigan’s, accused of similar bribery charges that were brought against the ComEd Four.

Quid pro quo?

Common to all three cases is the feds’ narrative that longtime influential lobbyist Mike McClain acted as an emissary between Madigan and the two utilities in order to secure jobs and contracts for the speaker’s allies.

In addition to his conviction as part of the “ComEd Four,” McClain will also stand trial with Madigan in October as his co-conspirator in what the feds have dubbed the “Madigan Enterprise,” an allegedly criminal shadow structure through which the former speaker amassed power. The “enterprise” included Madigan’s positions as the longest-serving legislative leader in the U.S., chair of the state’s Democratic Party, local Democratic committeeman in Chicago and as partner in his real estate law firm.

McClain, whose friendship with Madigan stretches back to the 1970s when they were young legislators in the Illinois House, was ComEd’s leading contract lobbyist for decades. Prosecutors alleged McClain’s actions on the speaker’s behalf greased the wheels for passage of several major bills benefitting the companies.

But defense attorneys for McClain, his ComEd co-defendants, La Schiazza and Madigan himself all argue that legislators – even the powerful speaker – are often asked to help connect people with jobs in the normal course of business.

“These kinds of requests are commonplace, and they persist to this day,” La Schiazza’s attorneys wrote in a filing last month. “Moreover, it is not unlawful for a constituent to generally seek to generate goodwill.”

During the ComEd trial, defense attorneys argued the utility was simply engaging in legal – and effective – lobbying, and the company even made significant concessions throughout the extensive negotiating process. They also leaned on evidence that ComEd ignored several of McClain’s requests to hire people with connections to Madigan.

Under that theory, the jobs and contracts that did materialize for Madigan allies should be classified as “gratuities,” because defense attorneys argue there was never an explicit quid pro quo agreement. And as gratuities, they’re no longer covered under the federal bribery statute after the Supreme Court’s decision in the Snyder case.

“These counts were gratuities, and any suggestion to the contrary is hogwash,” Madigan’s attorneys wrote in a filing last month. “Their dismissal in light of Snyder is required.”

Prosecutors, however, argue they’ll have no trouble proving an implicit quid pro quo existed under a legal theory known as “stream of benefits,” wherein a pattern of corrupt exchanges over a long period of time is proof enough of a quid pro quo, even if there’s no smoking gun evidence of a handshake deal.

“The allegations of the indictment demonstrate that ComEd’s efforts to bribe Madigan in exchange for his official action were in fact successful; after ComEd started showering Madigan with valuable benefits, ComEd’s legislation began to move,” prosecutors wrote in a filing this week. “Indeed, the fact that ComEd continued the payments for years strongly suggests they were satisfied with the agreement they had struck with Madigan.”

Government lawyers also pointed to an alleged deal between Madigan and former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis in which the speaker agreed help the alderman get appointed to a lucrative state board position in exchange for steering clients to the speaker’s property tax law firm.

But Solis ended up being a government mole, spending several years as a cooperating witness secretly recording conversations and is expected to testify at Madigan’s trial.

In one such recording in 2017, Solis and Madigan were discussing an apartment project in the alderman’s ward. The feds allege the developer understood that Solis – in his capacity as chair of the City Council’s zoning committee – would receive approvals for the project contingent on hiring Madigan’s law firm.

“I think they understand how this works, you know, the quid pro quo,” Solis allegedly told Madigan, to which he replied, “Okay…Very good.”

But as the pair prepped for a meeting with the developer the following month, Madigan allegedly advised Solis to not use the phrase “quid pro quo,” instead encouraging the alderman to develop a false pretext on how to gently sell his legal services.

“You’re just recommending…because if they don’t get a good result on their real estate taxes, the whole project will be in trouble…So you want high quality representation,” Madigan allegedly coached Solis.

Prosecutors this week also hit back at La Schiazza’s demand that his bribery charges be dropped in light of the Snyder ruling, arguing the federal bribery statute still “does not require a meeting of the minds between the bribe payor or bribe payee; at trial, the government is only required prove that defendant intended to engage in a quid pro quo.”

The feds say they’ll have no trouble proving that through evidence of “extensive internal discussions about ensuring that AT&T would receive “credit” from Madigan in exchange for agreeing to his request” to put an ally of the speaker on a lucrative contract for which he performed little to no work.

In the case of the already convicted ComEd Four, defense attorneys argued in a hearing last month that their clients deserve a new trial in light of the Snyder decision. Prosecutors disagreed, in part because the defendants were also convicted on counts unrelated to Section 666, according to reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times . However, the ComEd jury was told it was not required to specifically prove a quid pro quo existed.

At that same hearing, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah laid out a filing schedule that will leave the ComEd defendants in limbo until at least mid-November, nearly four years since they were indicted.

Other pre-trial decisions

Judge Blakey, who will preside over Madigan’s trial, is also considering whether to honor a last-minute request from McClain’s attorneys that their client’s case be severed from Madigan’s.

In a filing last month, McClain’s legal team revealed it believes Madigan may seek to throw the former speaker’s longtime confidant under the bus. While the former speaker’s alleged defense strategy was redacted from the document, McClain’s attorneys said Madigan’s lawyers will act as “second prosecutors,” unfairly forcing McClain to not only defend himself from the government charges but also his co-defendant’s accusations.

“Therefore, Mr. McClain will be in effect prosecuted by ambush by a team of prosecutors who will be able to spring otherwise undisclosed testimony, witnesses, and exhibits against him throughout the trial,” McClain’s attorneys wrote.

During the ComEd trial, McClain’s defense team occasionally leaned into the idea that the lobbyist sometimes acted without Madigan’s knowledge in an effort to maintain the mystique that he was both a gatekeeper and dealmaker for the powerful speaker.

Blakey has still more decisions to make before Madigan’s trial gets underway, including whether to allow two former Chicago aldermen to testify.

Former Ald. Dick Simpson, who served in the Chicago City Council for most of the 1970s, is a longtime political science professor who has written extensively and advocated for what he sees as “good government” policies. Prosecutors want to use his testimony to educate the jury on the history of the political patronage system in which Madigan grew up under legendary Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Simpson was barred from giving similar testimony in the ComEd trial after the judge agreed with the defense that it would be prejudicial. McClain attorney Patrick Cotter made the same argument last month, telling Blakey that Simpson is a longtime Madigan critic and that his testimony would be irrelevant and only confuse the jury.

“He is gonna come in here and talk about Hinky Dink and the Daleys and the jury’s gonna think that’s what this case is all about,” Cotter said, according to reporting from the Chicago Tribune, referring to the Daley political dynasty and powerful early 20th century Chicago Ald. Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna. “And it’s not.”

Defense attorneys also want to stop a more recent city council retiree, Ald. Michele Smith, from testifying. Prosecutors indicated they want to use Smith to establish a basic working knowledge of the politics and practices within City Hall.

Decisions on whether they can testify will come at a later date.

Blakey will also have to decide on whether to allow Madigan’s attorneys to hire a third-party firm to examine potential jurors’ social media profiles to flag biases. In a filing last month, the former speaker’s legal team noted an unnamed firm has done similar research for two recent cases in Chicago federal court and has been hired for cases in other jurisdictions across the country.

But prosecutors maintain that might backfire, writing in a filing that potential jurors’ knowledge that attorneys are looking at them through a microscope may prompt them to do their own research on the case, thus ruining their utility as a blank slate.

But Blakey has agreed to keep the identity of jurors anonymous throughout Madigan’s trial due to the high-profile nature of the defendant. Judges made similar calls in both the initial corruption trial of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich that ended in a hung jury and the re-trial that resulted in Blagojevich’s conviction and 14-year prison sentence.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

ACLU, Firms See Fifth Circuit Gains in Abusive Policing Suits

By Caitlin McLean

The ACLU of Louisiana reports unforeseen success teaming up with pro bono attorneys to challenge qualified immunity, including cases before the federal appellate court viewed as the nation’s most conservative.

Since its creation in 2020, the ACLU of Louisiana’s Justice Lab pilot program says it has won over 80 legal victories in state and federal courts, including 34 qualified immunity challenges. In total, the program has dealt with 59 qualified immunity cases. Qualified immunity wins, according to the group focusing on allegations of racist police practices, means a court ruled that law enforcement actions violated established rights, allowing a suit to proceed.

Nora Ahmed, the legal director for the ACLU in Louisiana, said the rights group notably has been “pleasantly surprised” at the “movement we’ve made” at the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. “Getting reversals on qualified immunity—that has been something that we did not necessarily anticipate.”

The doctrine of qualified immunity created by the Supreme Court shields government officials from suits alleging violations of constitutional rights. In the law enforcement context, it has come under scrutiny since the 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer prompted a nationwide reckoning over race and policing.

But a 2024 report by the public interest law firm The Institute for Justice underscores the difficulty in overcoming qualified immunity defenses. The study, which analyzed all federal qualified immunity appeals between 2010 and 2020 found that 59% of the time courts, ruled solely in favor of public officials. Courts resolved appeals in favor of accusers 24% of the time.

The Fifth Circuit, a more conservative court, resolved appeals solely in favor of accusers least often among all circuits, just 16% of the time.

But Justice Lab has prevailed in seven qualified immunity challenges before the Fifth Circuit. Four others are pending, and three were losses.

Potential Shift

Joanna Schwartz, a professor at UCLA School of Law who teaches and writes on qualified immunity, isn’t surprised by Justice Lab’s success before the Fifth Circuit as it could indicate a broader shift in how courts look at the issue.

“It seems that the tide is turning to some degree. And in fact, there are some real skeptics about qualified immunity on the court, and there have been a number of pretty passionately written reversals of lower courts on qualified immunity,” Schwartz said.

Notable Justice Lab wins at the Fifth Circuit include a ruling in June in which the court confirmed the denial of qualified immunity in the police shooting of a man who the group said was having a mental health crisis.

And last August, the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court decision in the case of a man Justice Lab says was “illegally frisked” by police during an “unnecessary traffic stop.” The ruling allowed the case to move forward at the time.

‘Resources, Brainpower’

Schwartz credited Justice Lab success to the skill of the ACLU and its lawyers in arguing cases.

Fifty law firms, 19 legal clinics, and five community partners helped the Justice Lab litigate cases, securing $500,000 in settlements for clients’ families, according to the ACLU of Louisiana. Big Law partners include Linklaters, White & Case, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Noelle Williams, a Freshfields associate, said support for projects like the work being done at the ACLU of Louisiana is important to change “unfavorable law” in the Fifth Circuit.

“Putting all of that time and effort and resources and brainpower behind some of these social justice issues, is really the way to move the needle,” Williams said.

Ahmed said achieving Justice Lab goals will require similar efforts nationally.

“For the actual change that we’re looking for to occur across the country, a pilot program like this effectively needs to be running in every state with a distinct commitment to bringing these types of cases because it’s these types of cases that we strongly believe prevent the murders,” Ahmed said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Caitlin McLean in Washington at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Seth Stern at [email protected] ; John Crawley at [email protected]

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Georgia superintendent says black studies course can be taught after legal opinion.

Associated Press

ATLANTA – Georgia’s Superintendent of Schools Richard Woods now says school districts may teach a new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies after all, now that Georgia's attorney general said the state's law against teaching divisive racial concepts specifically exempts such college-level courses.

Woods said Wednesday that a letter from Attorney General Chris Carr to a Republican state lawmaker “completed the clarification process” for him. Woods had cited the law in refusing to recommend the course be added to the state's course catalog.

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Woods, an elected Republican, said the state will now consider all AP and similar college-level courses to be automatically adopted. This means that after weeks of controversy, Woods won't have to recommend the African American studies course be officially adopted, and members of the state Board of Education won't have to vote on the question.

“In compliance with this opinion, the AP African American Studies course will be added to the state-funded course catalog effective immediately,” Woods said, although he said there would be a disclaimer saying the state hadn't reviewed the material.

Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, confirmed Friday in a letter to state Rep. Will Wade that Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and dual-enrollment courses are explicitly exempted from the law, which Wade and other critics of Woods’ decision had pointed out. Wade, a Dawsonville Republican, wrote the 2022 measure.

“I'm excited that students who want to seek challenging and rigorous courses will have the ability to do so,” Wade said Wednesday.

Woods' evolving positions on the question led some districts to drop their plans to teach it without formal state approval. A lack of state approval could influence state funding and the credit students get when applying for college scholarships.

Woods also faced pointed questions from Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, but the most withering fire came from Democrats and others who called it a racist attempt to keep public schools from teaching the full history of African Americans.

“Big picture, I am glad we have finally gotten to this point, even if the journey was long, convoluted and consequential,” said state Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Lilburn Democrat. But she said Woods had still done damage. “The disparate treatment of a course of study about Black history and the message it sent to Black students and families is still disheartening.”

The Advanced Placement course drew national scrutiny in 2023 when Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would ban the course . South Carolina followed this June, refusing state approval while saying that individual districts could still offer it.

The College Board is a nonprofit testing entity that offers Advanced Placement courses across the academic spectrum. Students who score well on an exam can usually earn college credit. The board has said the course is based on academic scholarship and doesn't seek to indoctrinate students.

Carr's letter notes that the law requires teachers to instruct “in a professionally and academically appropriate manner and without espousing personal political beliefs.” But other than that, he noted the law's text specifically exempts AP courses.

“Other than those limitations, the statutory language as enacted excludes advanced placement, international baccalaureate and dual enrollment coursework by its express terms,” Carr wrote.

Woods had been saying that districts could teach the AP material and get state money by listing it as an introductory African American studies course approved by the state in 2020. Woods took that position after earlier saying districts would have to teach the course using only local tax money . But he also declared that he believed the course was illegal and that districts could expose themselves to legal challenges by using the introductory course to teach the AP material.

Georgia’s 2022 ban on teaching divisive racial concepts in schools, based on a now-repealed executive order from former President Donald Trump, prohibits claims that the U.S. is “fundamentally or systematically racist." It mandates that no student “should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of his or her race.” So far, 18 states have passed such bans.

Opponents of the divisive concepts law said the episode proves how harmful it is. Andrea Young, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said other public school students who don't take AP courses “should also have access to robust, accurate curricula without politically-driven interference.”

Woods, who is white, said he was particularly concerned about how the course presents the concept of intersectionality. That's a framework for understanding the effects of overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. For example, Black women may face compounding disadvantages because of their race and gender. Intersectionality is one of 74 required topics in the course.

The Atlanta, DeKalb County and Cobb County school districts have all said they will offer the course in some high schools with or without Woods' approval. Gwinnett County, the state's largest district, had said it wouldn't offer it. After Woods' ruling Wednesday, Gwinnett County said its six high schools that had planned to teach the course would try to readjust schedules to allow the course to go ahead. School started Monday in Gwinnett County.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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We’ll start with understanding what is meant by “critical thinking.”  While in-house counsel needs to be strategic about legal matters, the business is not really asking you for that. They want something broader. Critical thinking is the process of systematically analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information, involving both (a) the ability to think in a reasoned and logical manner and (b) a willingness to question and reconsider your assumptions, beliefs, and conclusions. In the context of working in-house, it means that you are thinking strategically about the company and its business goals and objectives while you work, looking to do more than just spot “legal” issues. Critical thinking requires that you become a businessperson with a law degree – not just a lawyer working for a company.   

Here are the steps to help develop your critical thinking skills:  

1. Learn the business

It is impossible to engage in critical thinking without a solid understanding of the business and a) how your company makes money; b) its products and services; c) its important customers and vendors; d) its competitors; and e) its business plans and strategy. Here are some ways you can start to master these topics (depending on what you have access to):  

• Read company strategy documents and business plans.  
• Read all company press releases and public filings (if any). Read the public filings of your company’s main competitors.  
• Read board slides.  
• Ask for demos of company products and services.  
• Meet with the heads of different business units and staff groups and ask them about the marketplace, their competitors, strategy, etc.  
• Identify and read industry publications, newsletters, blogs, etc.  
• Ask someone in finance to walk you through the most recent financial statements and share their thoughts about how the company has positioned itself in the marketplace and what they think it should be doing to become more profitable or a more viable competitor.  
• Be well-read generally, i.e., read for fun and knowledge. Read several reputable newspapers every day (not word-for-word, but at least to scan for stories that might be of interest to your business).

2. Sharpen your financial acumen

Critical thinking in the business context requires a basic understanding of finance . You don’t need an MBA, but you need to be comfortable around numbers and you must understand your company’s numbers, in particular the company’s:  

• Profit & loss statement.  
• Cash flow statement.  
• Balance sheet.  
• Any measurements the company uses to gauge success, for example, “EBITDA.”  

3. Make time to think

To be a critical thinker, you must pull away from just ticking things off your to-do list and managing the operations of your team. You must carve out time each day (or at least once per week) to think – 15 to 30 minutes blocked out on your calendar to just churn on a new problem, something you have read, or whatever the case may be. As you ponder , you want to think about the business generally and about generating or protecting shareholder value.

When a new issue or problem arises, making time to really think about it and its impact on the company (good or bad) is a critical step in the process.

What is involved? Who is involved? What are all the options? What are the risks and benefits of any particular path? These types of questions help you develop deeper insights into the issue at hand.  

4. Seek out strategic roles

Try to take yourself out of situations where you are only working on legal problems, i.e., seek out roles in strategic projects . Every company has some cross-functional strategic projects going on at any one time, i.e., important projects that involve people from different parts of the business. Get yourself assigned to one of these at the next opportunity, especially if you can find one focusing on long-term planning or company strategy. You will absorb a lot just being part of such a team. Remember to work hard to go beyond your role as just a pair of eyes from the legal department looking to weigh in on legal issues. That should be part of what you are doing, but you are also trying to get looped into the business discussion/strategy as well. Be prepared, diligent, and deliver on what you promise. This will likely mean some extra work on your part, along with a willingness to raise your hand and volunteer.   

5. Stop communicating like a lawyer

Start talking and writing like a business person . This means ditching the complicated and arcane language many lawyers love to use. If you want your colleagues to think of you as more than a lawyer, then figure out how best to communicate with them. In a nutshell, you must learn to keep things simple, get to the point quickly, use charts and graphs, and back up your thinking with numbers and analysis. Most importantly, be practical. Live in the world of what is doable and what is most likely to happen and not the worst-case scenario. The sky is rarely falling and resources are not unlimited. A critical thinker understands the reality of the world around them and balances risks appropriately.   

6. Ask the right questions

To be a critical thinker, it helps to have a list of questions that you can apply to just about any problem to help you think about and consider it as more than a legal issue. Here are some questions to get you started (and you can create your own list):  

• Who does this impact?  
• What is the business trying to accomplish here? How can I help?  
• Does this maximize value creation or minimize value destruction?  
• How does this fit into the company’s strategy?  
• If we do this, what happens in the short term and long term?  
• What are the benefits and risks of doing this? How much will it cost?  
• Is this something that will make customers or vendors upset?  
• Is this something that if it becomes public or goes “badly” could damage the reputation/value of the company?   
• Who in the company needs to know about this?  

 ____________________________________________________________________

Not everything above is easy to accomplish. But you must start somewhere. If you have a framework to work against, then over time you will be able to pull in more of the concepts and steps set out above. Start by looking at how to solve legal problems within the context of the company’s overall business strategy rather than just looking at them as purely legal issues in a silo. When you begin to think like this, you are on your way to becoming a critical thinker.

If you have access to Practical Law, you have a ready set of tools to get you started down the right path.  

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Generative AI for legal professionals: What to know and what to do right now

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In House Solicitor Case Study - BT (Julia)

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We were lucky enough to chat to Julia Mansi, an in house solicitor at BT . Julia shares her reasons for becoming a lawyer, what a day looks like during an in house training contract at an leading communications company and the best piece of advice she’s ever heard.

When did you decide you wanted to become a solicitor?

Although I enjoyed my law degree (honestly – insert geek emoji!), it wasn’t until I got the opportunity to actually experience the job in practice that I decided I wanted to be a solicitor, and it was my time as a paralegal in BT’s Employment team that really cemented my decision.

The team gives advice on all aspects of employment law to BT and its group companies, which meant I got the chance work closely with and learn from colleagues across the business from HR to our engineering teams in Openreach.

I also really enjoyed the variety of work, which included keeping up with upcoming legal developments and helping to assess the impact on BT as a business. This was ‘real-life’ application of the law and required a deep understanding of how BT operates as a business.

Want to Know More About Working In House?

Read our guide on in house training contracts for more information

What was your journey into becoming a lawyer?

It was quite a long journey to be honest as I strayed a few times and took the scenic route.

I graduated from the University of Kent in 2011 with a first class honours in law. After spending a few months in the world of legal recruitment and temping as an admin assistant, I finally landed a job as a legal assistant in a small firm based in London, specialising in personal injury and employment law.

I worked my way up in the firm and spent a year working as a fee earner in the Employment team managing my own caseload and clients.

However after a year and a half, I realised that I still wasn’t sold on a career as a solicitor and didn’t want to self-fund my LPC until I was 100% sure about my decision. 

So I took a detour and went to work at the Financial Ombudsman Service as an adjudicator in the insurance team. In hindsight, it was a great move as I went from working for a small company of about 30 to an organisation with over 3000 employees. I developed a number of skills including customer service, stakeholder engagement and project management, but the biggest take away was learning how to communicate in ‘plain English’. I’m still working on it but it’s been the most invaluable skill during my training contract .

Whilst I was at the Ombudsman, I realised that I needed a new challenge and took on some work for the Employment team at BT through an agency, Paralaw. That led to a full time paralegal position at BT, which led to my decision to apply for an in-house training contract.

In 2015, I applied for and secured a position on BT’s Legal Graduate Scheme, which has a unique structure.

It’s a 3-year scheme, where trainees spend the first 2 years completing the LPC part time on the weekends. The scheme has 3 mandatory seats which you complete in the first 2 years, commercial, competition & regulatory law and commercial litigation. You can then spend the final year in a seat of your choice; I’m splitting mine between the Innovation and Strategic Partners Consumer team and the UK Commercial Litigation team.

I completed the LPC (MSc in Law and Business Management) in July 2017 and will be qualifying into the UK Commercial Litigation team later this year.

What does a day as an in house solicitor for BT look like for you?

I’m currently completing my last seat in a commercial team in our Consumer division. I usually start my day at 9am, but if I’m busy I’ll try and get into the office at 8am whilst it’s quieter.

I’ll then check my emails and diary, and pull together a to-do list for the day. We work quite closely with our colleagues in procurement and the product teams, so it’s not unusual to get questions or requests for support over instant messenger or for a colleague to wonder past your desk and ask a question.

As a trainee in BT you get a lot of responsibility and the opportunity to lead on matters with the appropriate support from your supervisor. So a typical day will involve drafting and reviewing contracts, legal research, internal calls with colleagues and if I’m working on or supporting a colleague with a deal then an external call with a supplier to negotiate the terms of the contract.

The team also works on a number of internal projects and if I’m supporting then my day will include diarising calls, meetings with internal stakeholders, pulling together agendas, drafting and circulating actions, and general research tasks.

Why would you recommend working as an in house solicitor over private practice?

Essentially, you’re much closer to the detail and you have a stake in the business achieving its overall strategy.

Being an employee gives you a better insight into how the business operates so you learn to give commercially pragmatic advice and more importantly, answer the question you’ve been given.

This is a much harder skill to grasp, especially when our educational training teaches us to set out all of our research giving all the possible options and listing all the potential risks. I learnt this the hard way when a supervisor cut down my advice note from 3 sides of A4 to a few sentences in an email.    

Working in-house does come with its challenges though, I would only recommend it if you have a genuine interest in the company and its products and/or services.

Although you’re ‘legal’, you’re seen as part of the team and should have a deep understanding of the business’ commercial objectives and be prepared to challenge your colleagues where appropriate to protect the business’ interests.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever heard?

Learn when to accelerate your career and when to brake. It’s great to have ambition but sometimes it is better in the long run to pause and evaluate your goals, reflect on how far you’ve come and most importantly, ask yourself if you’re happy.

For more insight into in house solicitor roles, why not take a look at our other case studies:

• Warren Little – In House Solicitor at BT
• Karen Kerrigan – In House Solicitor at Seedrs
• Simon Swain – In House Solicitor at Certas Energy

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In-house lawyers: case studies

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The case studies below, featuring the most innovative legal teams in the Asia-Pacific region highlight examples of their work in the following areas:

Operational transformation

New product and services

Sustainability and impact

Commercial and strategic advice, digital solutions, using generative artificial intelligence, people and skills.

All the case studies were researched, compiled and ranked by RSGI. “Winner” indicates that the organisation won an FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific award for 2024

Read the other FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific ‘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

Winner: Telstra Originality: 9; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 25 The legal team at the Australian telecoms company has built on previous improvements to the way it prioritises work from the rest of the business. It created a tool that measures capacity and provides the team with a system for discussing its scope to take on work — deciding how to prioritise tasks within the team, or justifying putting them out to external counsel. The resulting transparency on capacity and costs has enhanced relationships with the rest of the business.

HSBC O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 In 2023, the bank’s regional legal team built and deployed several tools, including a digital portal to receive legal requests from the business, a centralised system for approving marketing campaigns, and a chatbot to handle responses to routine queries. They are, so far, used by the digital legal team, the litigation department, and one of the banking teams.

Highly commended

Boston Consulting Group O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23 As part of BCG’s strategy to increase artificial intelligence and digital consulting fees significantly by 2026, its legal department in the region is collaborating with counterparts across the firm in initiatives such as overhauling risk and contractual frameworks. Internally, it is adopting workload management software and trialling generative AI automation tools.

IAG O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 In 2023, the Australian insurance company’s legal team improved its operations by automating the generation of complex contracts and by extending its programme for managing external spending to its teams in New Zealand. The team also introduced a dashboard that displays quarterly and monthly reports on legal expenditures and how external law firms perform.

Zongteng Group O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 Lawyers at the Chinese logistics business built a database that collects details of global legislation, legal commentaries and cases, and names of recommended external counsel in countries where the business operates. The resource helps the small legal team, mainly based in China, to provide global legal advice.

WiseTech Global O: 6; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 21 To gain support from the business for several operational changes, lawyers recorded precisely how they spent their time — an unusual practice for in-house teams. The scrutiny helped identify where alterations, such as introducing a contract management system, would help improve efficiency. The improvements have saved the team hundreds of hours in answering routine queries.

BHP O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20 In preparation for making use of generative AI, the mining group’s legal team has upgraded its systems to store documents in one place and to collect structured data. The team estimates that the move has already cut lawyers’ time spent on administrative tasks by a quarter.

Toll Group O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20 The legal team at the global logistics business introduced an automation tool to speed up contract approval. Some 3,000 requests have been yielding valuable insights, such as how often negotiators deviate from standard contract terms.

Dentsu O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19 The Japanese-led global advertising group’s Asia-Pacific legal team worked with the chief technology officer and other departments to improve and extend oversight of new products’ commercial viability and any potential data privacy questions, as well as other legal risks.

Equinix O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19 The regional section of the data centre operator’s global legal team has centralised and streamlined several processes to enhance its contract management systems.

New products and services

Joint winners: Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and HSBC Both legal teams: Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 9; Total: 25 Launched in May 2023, the stock exchange operator’s Swap Connect programme allows offshore investors access to China’s $5tn interest rate swaps market, and is similar to existing programmes in Hong Kong that allow offshore investors to trade mainland bonds and stocks.

At Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), the legal team helped structure the link-up, backed by the Shanghai Clearing House and the China Foreign Exchange Trade System, and worked to secure regulatory approval in the territory and mainland. At HSBC, lawyers drafted the contracts used by both the onshore and offshore investors.

DBS Bank O: 7; L: 9; I: 7; Total: 23 In 2023, the Singaporean bank set up a group to improve its handling of customer safety, led by a senior member of the legal team. It created an enhanced anti-malware tool for DBS to prevent users of its banking app logging in remotely if it detects signs of fraudulent activity. The bank says this change has stopped S$14mn ($10.3mn) being taken fraudulently from accounts. Another product enables digital deposits but only in-person withdrawals.

CIMB O: 6; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 21 Lawyers at the Malaysian banking group advised it on the rollout of online business loans and personal loans to domestic customers in the country.

Westpac O: 6; L; 7; I; 8; Total: 21 Lawyers at the Australian bank supported the product team in redesigning its mobile banking app, advising on new features, consumer rights and data protection.

Winner: Asian Development Bank Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25 The bank is working with UN agencies to send aid to people in Afghanistan without money passing through the Taliban. Usually, ADB works directly with governments to provide funding but, because the Taliban is not generally recognised as a government by the international community, aid had to be delivered through other channels.

The legal team successfully argued to stakeholders that, because Afghanistan does not exercise jurisdiction over UN agencies, those organisations are appropriate entities through which to deliver aid.

The lawyers negotiated with the UN agencies to ensure the arrangement met ADB’s strict transparency requirements, such as it being able to inspect any suppliers the UN contracted with as part of the collaboration.

DBS Bank O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 Since 2020, the legal and compliance team at the Singapore bank has run “hackathons”, alongside other organisations, to try to address wider social problems. The 2023 edition focused on mental resilience. Some 27 ideas were generated, two of which are being explored for further development.

MTR Corporation O: 6; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 21 The Hong Kong railway operator’s legal team helped it to execute its environmental, social and governance strategy. This included developing a new corporate structure and working to secure a patent for a product that uses cameras and AI to prevent damage to escalators from discarded objects.

Standard Chartered Bank O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20 Sustainability experts in the Apac region’s legal team developed a process whereby the bank can assess and mitigate competition and antitrust risk when working on sustainable projects with counterparts in the banking industry.

Klook O: 7; L: 6; I: 7; Total: 20 After the travel company came under criticism over animal welfare standards at wildlife attractions, it took action to improve them. The legal team piloted a programme, working with accreditation business Asian Captive Elephant Standards, to help five elephant visitor attractions that sold tickets through Klook to meet the new standards. Some venues listed on Klook may still offer close-quarter wildlife experiences, but these are not promoted or sold through the Klook site itself.

Winner: SoftBank Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 9; Total: 26 The legal team advised the Japanese investment group on last September’s initial public offering of its UK chip designer Arm in the US. To expedite the deal, lawyers also helped SoftBank acquire an additional 25 per cent of Arm from its Saudi-backed investment partner Vision Fund, the $100bn vehicle that is managed by SoftBank itself.

The lawyers negotiated with investors and dealt with scrutiny over this related-party transaction. The legal team also dealt with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for Arm’s IPO, which saw the Japanese company raise nearly $5bn while retaining 90 per cent of the business — making it the largest US listing in almost two years.

Asian Development Bank O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 The legal team at the Manila-based institution advised on the arrangement, structuring and syndication of a $692mn financing package signed last March to fund the construction of Monsoon Wind Power Project — the largest wind power plant in south-east Asia. Electricity generated from the plant under construction, the first wind farm in Laos, will be sold to neighbouring Vietnam. Features such as a $50mn concessional financing package, in case of delays, provide additional reassurance for commercial lenders.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) O: 6; L: 9; I: 8; Total: 23 Lawyers at the stock exchange operator advised on narrowing the period between pricing and the start of share trading in an IPO from five days to two, via its new settlement platform Fast Interface for New Issuance, which was launched last year. The team worked with different stakeholders to digitise the previously paper-based system.

Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The public research body’s lawyers worked with Australian legal design firm Inkling to improve the project agreements it uses when collaborating with a range of industry and academic partners. New contracts that clearly set out expectations and undertakings of projects are designed to improve the relationships between the organisation, including ANSTO scientists, and external researchers when working together on collaborations.

HSBC O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 Lawyers designed the documentation for HSBC’s role as sole settlement bank for a scheme to link Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System with PromptPay in Thailand. Nine banks and payment providers have so far signed up to use the scheme.

Recruit O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 Legal and data teams at Japan’s biggest recruitment agency, which has been expanding AI services for job searches and matching, have developed a new governance and review process to ensure compliance with AI and anti-discrimination laws globally.

Winner: Tencent Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 9; Total: 25 The legal team at the Chinese technology company has set up a platform to simplify and speed up the review process when artificial intelligence features are added to Tencent apps. Product developers answer a series of questions about how they plan to use AI in an app and where the data will come from, which allows the legal team to say within a day if it should go ahead.

UBS O: 8; L: 9; I: 7; Total: 24 A tool devised by the Swiss bank’s lawyers in collaboration with the IT team assists in approval for data-transfer requests. It saves an estimated 1,000 hours of lawyer time annually and allows for faster approval of outsourcing projects at the bank.

Flex O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22 To comply with the US-based manufacturing company’s data-security requirements, the China legal team bought a licence outright for a contract lifecycle management platform in order to be able to customise it. The tool works on English- and Chinese-language documents and has cut the review time required for procurement contracts from days to hours.

Fazz O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The legal team at the Singaporean fintech is collaborating with police and government agencies in the city state to help prevent cyber crime. The lawyers have created a tool that streamlines responses to requests for information from the police.

AS Watson O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20 The group legal team at the Hong Kong-based global health and beauty retailer has customised a legal operations management platform to act as a contract management system. The new system automates document drafting, streamlines the approvals process and cuts contract review times by up to 50 per cent.

Klook O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20 The legal team at the Hong Kong-based travel company adopted a contract management system, for both sales and procurement, to handle a year-on-year doubling in contracts without adding more lawyers.

Winner: DBS Bank Originality: 9; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 25 As a proof-of-concept exercise, the legal team used an application to retrieve news articles about customers that it wished to scrutinise over potential illicit or illegal activities. It then used generative artificial intelligence to summarise the items to highlight relevant coverage. The full version of this tool went live earlier this year and the team is piloting several other uses for generative AI in detecting money laundering and fraud.

Telstra O: 9; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 24 The legal team at the Australian telecoms business is testing a generative AI tool’s accuracy for translating laws, such as those regarding billing, into obligation statements for the business. The AI assesses Telstra’s processes for ensuring compliance and suggests measures to improve them.

Westpac O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 In collaboration with law firms, technology companies and other professional services businesses, the legal team at the Australian bank tested several generative AI tools in different scenarios. The team says it is already seeing productivity gains. One of the most promising tools links the bank’s underlying regulations and policies to its supplier contracts, which allows users to better understand the reasoning behind certain contract clauses.

Lazada O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 The legal team at the south-east Asian ecommerce business used generative AI to accelerate its contract review process and to identify common risks across different agreements. The team estimates that contract review is already 20 per cent to 30 per cent faster on its standard work.

GLP O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The legal team at the Singapore-based international logistics company worked with colleagues, including the chief financial officer and the IT team, to store financial and legal documents centrally. This will give the business’s generative AI tool better access to data.

LG Chem O: 7; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 21 The legal team at the South Korean chemical company is using generative AI tools on Chinese and Korean-language documents, to help review the contents of contracts and redraft clauses more easily. It is currently used for simple contracts, such as non-disclosure agreements.

McKinsey & Company O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 Asia-Pacific lawyers at the consulting business are using its internal generative AI tool, Lilli, to help craft responses to external counsel, to critique their own legal arguments, and to assist in translation as the business uses more than 10 languages in the region.

Winner: Boston Consulting Group Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 9; Total: 26 The US-based consultancy is aiming to double the proportion of fees it gets from AI and digital consulting to 40 per cent of its global revenues by 2026 (last year, revenues were $12.3bn). To help with this, BCG’s legal team in the region has hired a range of experts in technology, intellectual property, the metaverse, and AI ethics. To keep abreast of the latest developments in the field, the team has designated individuals to gather and update information across their practice areas to feed into different parts of the business.

Nanyang Technological University O: 7; L: 8; I: 9; Total: 24 At the start of 2024, the Singaporean university’s 22-person legal team established a “360” structure that expects all its lawyers to have a working knowledge of all areas that the institution may need advice on. There are still specialists, but most queries can now be answered by anyone in the department.

DBS Bank O: 8; L: 9; I: 6; Total: 23 The legal and compliance team at Singapore’s biggest bank has developed a strategy for coping with the anticipated disruption of generative AI in its business. It plans to move those doing work that becomes obsolete into new areas, while other jobs will be redesigned to create pooled resources that can better serve multiple business teams, assisted by AI tools. As many as 80 per cent of the legal team now use generative AI tools regularly.

HSBC O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 The bank’s legal team in the region centralised its training programmes on a single platform that allows lawyers to track their progress, view past materials, and create a customised development plan. Topics range from sustainability to digital and personal banking.

FedEx O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22 Ten lawyers at the package delivery business used their training in more flexible working to introduce new practices to the rest of the region’s legal team.

Another 20 team members joined a workshop to help develop a chatbot that can assist in answering routine legal queries and accessing template documents.

Telstra O: 6; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 22 The legal team at the Australian telecoms business launched a training scheme for new graduate recruits and paralegals, where successful applicants rotate through several areas of Telstra’s in-house department and can spend six months to a year on secondment at an external law firm.

Uber O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22 Members of the ride-hailing app’s regional legal team are now obliged to work as taxi drivers or food delivery riders one day per quarter, and share feedback with operations and product teams on how the business can be improved.

Airbnb O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The holiday rental website set up a training scheme to prepare lawyers with skills required for senior roles. It comprises a dozen training sessions on key areas of legal expertise. Sessions include role-playing a presentation to a board of directors.

Macquarie O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 Lawyers at the Australia-based financial services group created an intranet for the business. It provides regularly updated resources about various areas of legal advice and identifies the best person to contact for each topic.

MSD (Merck) O: 7; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 21 The multinational pharmaceutical company’s legal team in China has launched a diversity and inclusion programme for five law firms it works with. The programme pairs in-house counsel and private practice lawyers at different seniority levels to discuss ideas and challenges in the field.

Jera O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20 The legal team at the Japanese power company has adopted a new system for the intake and allocation of work. It uses the resulting data to identify skills gaps and shape training and hiring.

McCain Foods O: 6; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 19 The Asia-Pacific legal team at the global frozen foods company rebranded internally, with the aim of making its communications, such as legal notifications, more immediately noticeable to the rest of the business.

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Reporting by David Shepardson and Mike Scarcella in Washington and Jody Godoy in New York; Writing by Chris Sanders; Additional reporting by Arsheeya Singh Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Henderson, Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler

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