A few years ago, artificial intelligence was a curiosity in corporate legal departments — interesting demos, more risk than reward. Today, it is the topic on every GC agenda. The truth, in my opinion, is simple: AI will not replace in‑house lawyers. But lawyers who master AI will replace those who don’t.
The legal department of the future isn’t about doing more with less. It’s about working smarter with more– more data, more context, more speed and more discipline around risk. When AI is embedded into daily workflows, contract review, compliance monitoring, risk analysis and knowledge management stop being bottlenecks and become sources of strategic leverage. That shift frees our teams to spend time where human judgment matters most.
This article offers a practical journey for general counsel and in‑house leaders: how to adopt AI safely, how to train people effectively, and an approach to how to redesign processes with AI at the core that can help legal be a force multiplier for the business.
Why This Matters Now?
Pressure on legal teams has never been greater: faster response times, rising regulatory complexity, lean staffing and an expectation that legal will enable – not slow – business growth. AI can help legal move at the speed of business without sacrificing rigor. The risk in 2026 isn’t AI itself; it’s falling behind leaders who are already using it to increase quality and speed simultaneously.
One early tip: You can’t do it alone! But if you’re committed to this change, you will find the right resources — many times lawyers and professionals within your own department or organization — and the right vendors and consultants to help you through this journey.
Principles for Safe, Effective AI in Legal
A plain‑English framework keeps AI practical and safe. Our approach was to focus on three pillars: controls, people and provenance.
- Controls: Keep confidentiality, privilege and regulated data front and center. Use role‑based access, audit trails and clear lines where human review is mandatory.
- People: Maintain a “human‑in‑the‑loop” standard. AI can generate drafts and summarize, but lawyers make the calls — especially on regulatory interpretations and legal advice.
- Provenance: Train your teams on prompting and require sources for assertions. For internal matters, design workflows that call for underlying emails, documents and policies with each AI‑generated summary and search.
High‑Impact Use Cases with Concrete Examples
Start where value is obvious and risk is low or manageable. Four domains consistently delivered good ROI for our department.
- Contract operations: AI can triage contract intake, compare clauses against approved playbooks and highlight exceptions that warrant attention. Drafting assistants map new language to template intent and suggest alternatives. The result is fewer handoffs, clearer risk calls, consistent language and shorter cycle times. There are many specialized vendors in this area. No one is perfect or ready “out the box.”
- Compliance monitoring: Policy checks can be automated against operational data, creating “audit‑ready” packets with evidence trails and remediation narratives. Think less time gathering facts and more time deciding the right corrective action.
- Risk analysis: For complex matters, AI can synthesize communications and files to surface timelines, issues and decision options — always with links to the sources. That turns discovery‑style work into structured, decision‑ready summaries for counsel and business leaders.
- Knowledge management: Legal guidance scattered across inboxes and drives is a great leakage of precious hours of work and potentially inconsistent advice. With retrieval that respects access permissions, teams can find the latest playbook, template or guidance memo in seconds — reducing rework, inconsistency and guesswork. This creates self-service options to clients, reduces low value added touchpoints and lawyer shopping within the organization.
Expand into other use cases as organizational knowledge matures and use of tools become embedded into day-to-day practice.
Process Redesign: Making AI the Core, not the Bolt‑on
AI succeeds when processes are predictable. Standardize inputs, approval paths and outputs so the system can scale reliably. Author AI‑ready playbooks in plain language that describe desired outcomes, acceptable alternatives and red‑flag patterns — then create instrument workflows to measure adherence.
Measure what matters: response time, variance from playbook, error rates and business satisfaction. Replace anecdotes with evidence so you can finetune prompts, templates and governance based on actual performance.
Training and Adoption that Sticks
Adoption fails when training is abstract or boring. Build skill paths and make early wins visible.
- Foundations: Teach data and prompt hygiene, source‑checking and sensitive‑data practices.
- Advanced workflows: Show lawyers how to pair AI with playbooks for review, negotiation and matter updates.
- Risk literacy: Rehearse “red team” scenarios — such as hallucinations, stale sources and overconfident answers — and how to counter them.
- Change management: Appoint champions, publish FAQs and share short demo videos tied to real legal tasks.
Another tip: Involve tech-savvy lawyers and professionals in your organizations and you may be amazed by the results. Our team came up with short videos and tutorials with “low production value” that became the talk of the organization. Talk about training that sticks with clients!
Governance: The GC’s Guardrail Framework
Good governance accelerates adoption because it makes responsibilities clear. Keep policies simple and actionable.
- Acceptable use and confidentiality: Define what may never be entered into AI systems and set rules for anonymization.
- Records and retention: Clarify how AI‑generated work product is stored, tagged and retained consistent with litigation holds.
- Approval gates: Specify where human approval is mandatory (e.g., novel regulatory interpretations, customer-facing and public statements).
- Vendor and IT alignment: Ensure enterprise data boundaries, encryption, and logging.
From Enablement to Leadership
Legal’s north star is value creation. AI lets GCs demonstrate it with clarity. Report its benefits beyond cost savings: show reduced risk exposure, faster decisions, clearer accountability and stakeholder confidence. Frame AI as a leadership tool that moves the enterprise from “busy” to clear, owning legal and business outcomes, not inboxes.
Adapt or Be Replaced
AI won’t replace in‑house lawyers — but lawyers who master AI will replace those who don’t. The mandate for legal leaders is straightforward: embrace AI, train your people to use it effectively and safely, and redesign processes with AI at the core. Do that, and legal becomes a decision engine for the business. Wait, and you risk being disrupted by peers who have already made the shift.
Leo Guglielmi is the global vice president of legal, general counsel and corporate secretary at Indorama Ventures – Indovinya.