While most people turn to AI for quick answers, LexisNexis’s APAC head of legal shared that in-house lawyers are discovering that its true power lies not in what it tells you – but in what it makes you question.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Corporate Counsel Show, Ali Dibbenhall, LexisNexis’s APAC head of legal, stressed the value of in-house legal teams using AI platforms as a sounding board – or even as a personal devil’s advocate – to challenge their thinking and approach situations from fresh perspectives.
In the same episode, she explained the critical importance of in-house legal teams adopting a structured approach to AI governance to ensure the technology is harnessed safely and effectively.
When it comes to unlocking AI’s full potential, Dibbenhall emphasised that actively probing the platform for what it might have missed allows legal teams to test ideas, challenge assumptions, and uncover alternative solutions alongside the technology.
“In terms of using it as a sounding board or devil’s advocate, my number one suggestion would be never leave a conversation with an AI [platform] without asking it what it’s missed,” she said.
While AI is highly effective at quickly analysing information and generating responses, Dibbenhall warned that its predictive nature can create blind spots, limiting the range of insights compared with a human conversation.
“Just like a person, it can get focused on ‘this is the question that I’m answering’. This is the answer that it’s a predictive text model. Right. So it’s actually looking at what’s the next most likely word that should go into the answer that I’m producing for the user,” she said.
“So it can’t go down some of those paths that you might go down conversationally if you were genuinely having an interaction with someone.”
Because of this limitation, she urged lawyers to treat AI as a debate partner rather than a definitive authority with a single answer.
“So it’s always worth asking if there’s something that’s missed, or using it as a straw man and asking it, OK, what’s the other side of this thing that we’ve just agreed is a brilliant idea?” she said.
Dibbenhall identified that one key reason AI should be used as a sounding board is the risk of confirmation bias, where the technology may simply reinforce the user’s existing thinking.
“Sometimes I think the risk can be that there is a confirmation bias that you say, I’ve just had this thought, is this a good idea? It says, yeah, that sounds like a great idea,” she said.
For in-house lawyers, who often face ambiguous business scenarios rather than clear-cut legal questions, Dibbenhall explained how AI can be transformative – acting as both a thinking partner and devil’s advocate to challenge assumptions and explore new perspectives.
“One of the things that happens in-house is that people come to you with a scenario. They’re not coming to you with a request for a specific piece of legal advice. They’re not identifying the legal issue or anything like that,” she said.
“They’re just saying, this is the thing that I want to do. Can I, and you have to take that complex set of facts and what you know about the business and pull out what the legal issue is in here.”
