Flexible teams are key to enabling in-house attorneys to share expertise

As Asia-Pacific companies navigate an increasingly uncertain business world, their legal teams are expected to advise on increasingly complex developments, from geopolitics to generative AI.

How to respond is a priority for Chee Kin Lam, chief legal and compliance officer at DBS, Singapore’s largest bank. “Internal legal teams need to stay up-to-date on areas like artificial intelligence, blockchain, the metaverse and ESG. But we couldn’t train more than 700 of our legal and compliance professionals at the bank all at once.”

The speed of change has prompted legal teams to look for new ways to learn, share expertise and allocate resources. In doing so, an increasing number of in-house legal teams are drawing on so-called “Agile” management techniques to get things done. The Agile method first emerged among software developers about 20 years ago as a way to achieve goals faster. It has its own manifesto and set of principles, which include: delivery for customers; be collaborative; respond quickly to change; and work in multidisciplinary teams.

One of the first major legal teams, globally, to reorganize itself in an Agile working model, creating a new structure and changing lines of reporting, was the Australian telecommunications company Telstra, which this year is at the top of the list of FT Innovative Lawyers internal legal team for second place. In addition to this, other legal teams have adopted Agile approaches to work more informally over the years, to be able to adapt more quickly to economic or industry shocks.

“Attorneys tend to be in greater demand than available supply, and the challenge it creates is an imbalance and an unsustainable pace,” explains Craig Emery, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Telstra.

Driven by growing demand for its services, Telstra’s 130-strong legal team adopted a new structure in 2022, organizing members into groups called “missions.” Each person belongs to at least one of the approximately 15 missions through which they carry out their daily work. These groups support specific projects, transactions or parts of Telstra’s business.

Groupings are temporary and quarterly reviews bring out new missions, others are closed and team members move between them as priorities change. “We can be much more flexible about the needs of the business,” Emery says. For example, a mission was formed last year to support Telstra’s corporate restructuring. After nine months, the group was disbanded and its members redeployed.

At DBS Bank, Lam needs a quicker and more flexible legal team to address the specialist subject areas the bank faces. “We’ve brought in very good lawyers from across the organization and formed a group of about 10-12 people whose job it is to become profound experts in these emerging areas,” she says. They will share and transfer knowledge to their colleagues. “So, over time, I’ll get an upskill effect on 700 people.”

Perhaps there is less predictability, especially like you. . . move attorneys based on skill and experience needs

At consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, the legal team has created “focus squads” whose job is similarly to quickly learn about new trends and events. Subsequently, other teams focus on sharing these niche areas of expertise within the legal team or improving the functioning of the legal team. Topics range from sustainability, to China’s new data laws, to work-life balance.

General counsel Ulrike Schwarz-Runer says: “If you develop a new framework for responsible AI, you obviously do it in an agile way. You don’t let your team deal with it for a year. You have to constantly adapt and learn.

The teams enable attorneys to develop deep expertise in specialized subjects coupled with broad knowledge of other areas important to BCG’s practice. The model encourages collaboration within new groups, along with learning and building new relationships. Preliminary training on the ongoing development of new skills and attitudes also helped prepare BCG’s legal team for adaptation.

However, this way of working comes with some challenges. “It can feel creepy to people,” acknowledges Schwarz-Runer. “Perhaps there is less predictability, especially as you change team constellations and move lawyers based on skill and experience needs.”

Flexible teams are common in consulting firms, where consultants join a new group of colleagues and new leaders as they move on to the next client’s project, while reporting to the same manager on career issues. This is less true in other businesses.

In Telstra’s legal team, a staff member’s manager is responsible for career development, compensation and well-being, but her current mission leader is now accountable for her own work. This separation has been well received, says Emery: “Create a dedicated space to talk about career and performance, health and wellness.”