Lawyers Weekly's seventh annual Corporate Counsel Summit, held on 8 May at The Star in Sydney, brought together over 400 professionals from Australia's in-house legal community. Throughout the day, several key themes emerged that are reshaping how in-house legal teams operate in today’s complex legal environment. Below are our team's takeaways from the summit.

Reimagining Legal as Strategic Business Partners

A recurring theme throughout the summit was the opportunity to shift the perception of legal teams from risk-averse blockers to proactive, business-enabling collaborators. Shannon Finch, Group General Counsel at Westpac, shared insights on how in-house legal teams can address their “PR Problem”—being seen as always saying “no” to new initiatives. She highlighted the value legal brings through:

• Balanced decision-making with a broad perspective
• Comfort with healthy debate and challenging conversations
• Curiosity and attention to detail without getting lost in complexities
• Navigating uncertainty and bringing calm to high-pressure situations

Quoting Hamilton, Finch emphasised the importance of being “in the room where it happens”—suggesting the following strategies to accomplish this:

• Increasing visibility by scheduling regular coffee meetings with key stakeholders and participating in non-legal meetings. 
• Demonstrating genuine interest in business outcomes beyond legal considerations. 
• Speaking the language of the business by translating legal concepts into terms that resonate with other departments. 

AI in Legal — From Exploration to Responsible Implementation

AI dominated discussions at the summit, with focus shifting from theoretical possibilities to practical, responsible adoption and integration. Tom Balmer, Senior Director for Australia & APAC at TransPerfect Legal joined the panel "AI for In-House: Regulation, Responsibility and Real-World Insights"—sharing experiences from his work across the region. 

Key takeaways from the summit included:

• Define the problem, measure success: Assess the areas you want AI to automate and set a baseline you can measure success against. 
• Low-risk automation: Start small by automating repetitive tasks like contract reviews and document summary to unlock significant time savings. 
• Use your external vendors: Manage the flood of demos and sales pitches by leaning on outside counsel or trusted providers who can screen, test, and deploy AI without your team having to invest too much time. 
• Accountability matters: Legal teams remain responsible for AI outputs—guard rails must be used, verification should be thorough, and audit trails are critical. 
• Self-hosted AI: Hosting AI on internal servers ensures data privacy and compliance, particularly for regulated industries.

Proactive Regulatory Management in an Interventionist Environment

With increased scrutiny from regulators such as ASIC, ACCC, and AUSTRAC, the summit underscored the importance of transitioning from reactive to proactive compliance strategies. Key approaches to accomplish this included:

• Global insights: Adopting a global perspective by monitoring international developments—such as AI transparency laws in the EU and California—to anticipate emerging regulatory focus areas.
• Regulatory collaboration: Cross-regulator collaboration on key issues—including information security, cyber threats, scams and consumer protection—was identified as a growing trend both across global markets and within Australia.
• Governance is key: Strengthening governance frameworks by embedding compliance into day-to-day business operations—rather than treating it as a separate function—was recommended as best practice.
• Adapt to change: Organisations are transforming compliance into a source of innovation by viewing regulatory changes as opportunities to create value-driving solutions.
• Transparency builds trust: Bold steps—such as waiving privilege in cultural reviews to enhance public integrity—were presented as a forward-thinking approach. 

Shaping Organisational Culture from the Legal Department

Culture was a major focus, with in-house teams taking a central role in fostering values-driven workplaces:

• Psychosocial safety: Prioritising civility and inclusiveness in workplace systems—together with early reporting frameworks to identify issues—were emphasised as critical responsibilities for legal departments. 
• Be human: Humanise legal interactions by actively engaging with non-legal teams and participating in company-wide activities. 
• Address burnout: Monitor workloads using simple capacity assessment tools (e.g., below capacity, at capacity, over capacity) to enable more effective work redistribution. 

Four Pillars of a Successful Legal–Business Partnership

The final keynote by Stuart Gregor, founder of world-renowned Four Pillars Gin, highlighted the vital role legal counsel played in his company’s success. Gregor outlined four key principles that guided his relationship with legal advisors:

• Lead — While businesses need bold leadership, bold shouldn’t equal reckless; counsel serves as the essential co-pilot keeping the business on track.
• Focus — Success stems from curiosity, prioritisation, and unwavering focus on strategic goals.
• Trust — Brands live or die by consumer trust, with legal counsel serving as its guardian; trust your instincts but always do your homework.
• Repeat — Good habits build great companies, with repetition creating resilience; never stop sweating the small stuff.

Conclusion: From Legal Advisors to Strategic Enablers

The 2025 Corporate Counsel Summit reinforced that in-house legal teams are evolving beyond traditional advisory roles to become strategic enablers, cultural leaders and innovation drivers. With actionable insights and a renewed sense of purpose, attendees left equipped to navigate complexity and create meaningful change within their organisations.

TransPerfect Legal helps in-house legal teams reduce the cost, time and risk involved in disputes, investigations and regulatory matters by leveraging market-leading technology and AI—enabling legal departments to do more with less.

Ready to learn more? Contact our Australia team to explore how we can support your legal operations.