Speaking on a recent episode of the Corporate Counsel Show, produced in partnership with LegalVision, Giuffre discussed the evolving role of the in-house lawyer against the backdrop of AI and delved into how best legal teams can be managing their legal ethical and professional concerns as they adapt to new tech.

This conversation is particularly important to be having at a time when there is “a lot of concern out there”, according to Giuffre.

“People are acknowledging that AI is here to stay, they’re acknowledging that there are so many benefits that they can derive from using the technology, but there is still some concern around these ethical and legal implications. And they need assistance in navigating them,” he said.

“The sentiment has shifted from one of scepticism, which was absolutely the sentiment that was resonating from the industry or from the market, I would say, two years ago. It’s now certainly shifted from scepticism to now accepting AI is here to stay, but also having this cautious optimism, again, recognition that AI has so much potential to completely transform in-house practice for the better.

“And a lot of in-house counsel and in-house leaders are looking at AI as being a tool that can free them from some of that routine legal work and therefore lean into the more proactive and more strategic work that is really going to be value-adding for the business, which is really exciting. And then some of the caution is certainly coming from those legal, ethical and professional responsibility concerns, but also around being left behind.”

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This is especially true for smaller in-house teams, who Giuffre said have more concerns around not having time to invest in AI tools, as well as not being able to invest in additional education or training around AI.

“There are going to be some people who have very positive experiences, other people have very negative ones. But I think we can all rest assured that this is the worst the technology is ever going to be,” Giuffre added.

“The model that you’re seeing today is only going to get smarter, faster, cheaper, more reliable, and so we can all rest assured that, yes, what we’re using now may not be necessarily perfect, and there may be these legal and ethical implications. But it will only get better and our knowledge of it will also get better.”

In terms of key concerns for law departments, there are a number of ethical considerations and professional obligations Giuffre has uncovered during conversations with in-house counsel.

“Duties to courts, duties to clients, upholding the integrity and confidence in the profession, all of those things just naturally come up, but at a really high level. And then there are issues around how you maintain confidentiality and privilege. But by far the most common ethical concerns raised by more senior in-house lawyers falls within two issues,” he explained.

“And the first – every time we’ve had one of these sessions, this topic has come up – how do we ensure that junior lawyers are getting the experience and the technical training that they need in the age of AI. And the second, which I think is super interesting, is at what point will it become almost unethical or negligent to not be using AI in the delivery of legal services?”

While this pace of technological change can sound like a lot to keep up with, Giuffre said there “has always been areas of transformation” in the profession – and the changing nature of in-house legal roles is part of that evolution.

“Realistically, the role of the in-house lawyer and in-house practice is going to significantly change. I believe that the role of in-house lawyer will be certainly more strategic, more proactive, less about being bogged down in the routine,” he added.

“And therefore, the skills of tomorrow are not going to be about how effectively you can Boolean search or how effective your cross-referencing skills are, but more likely to be around prompt engineering and stakeholder management, and negotiation, and then how you can look at a legal problem, identify the legal issues, and then come up with really intelligent creative solutions.”

Looking to the future, in-house lawyers should be educating themselves on the plethora of legal AI tools in the market, as well as getting familiar with key use cases and staying on top of ethical considerations and legal compliance questions.

“Ensure that you’re playing with it now, but also getting familiar with the types of use cases and what the technology is good for and what it doesn’t do so well. But acknowledging that that will change, and I’ll mention it again, this is the worst that the tech is going to be. It’s only going to get better from here,” Giuffre added.

“I think that the legal team of the future as well is going to have a very different relationship with their external legal provider. I’ve already seen a shift that GCs are coming to legal vision and saying, ‘I like what you do. I know that you can do this piece of work at the same quality, but at a fraction of the cost as traditional law.’ And so, I would suspect that in the future, that relationship with external law firms is also going to dramatically change.”

To listen to the full episode with Emmanuel Giuffre, click here.

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