Verify everything, always

Tech tools are no substitute for human judgement, the In-House and Public Sector Annual Conference has heard. Mary Hallissey reports 

Two decades ago, the in-house sector was seen by many as a route for those who ‘couldn’t quite hack’ private practice. 

So said Kerry Group general counsel Joanne Ross at the Law Society’s In-House and Public Sector Annual Conference at Blackhall Place on 8 October. 

“I love being an in-house lawyer,” she said. “I worked in McCann FitzGerald at the time, and a few partners tried, quite hard, to talk me out of it. But I had this hunch that if I could be dedicated to just one client, that if I could get to know that business and industry really well and get closer to the stakeholders and the decision-making process, I would, over time, be able to add greater value. 

“Looking back 20 years later, it’s been a great choice for me. I’ve really enjoyed my career to date,” she commented. 

Ross draws on that experience when speaking about her five ‘C’s to thrive’ – curiosity, courage, connection, communication, and clarity. 

She advises in-house lawyers to think as business people first, and lawyers second: “There’s often quite a gap between the business people and the external lawyers, and there’s a real opportunity to get in and bridge that gap, by showing curiosity,” she said. 

General counsels should be unafraid to grasp ‘hot potatoes’, Ross advised, instead ‘leaning in’ on dispute resolution with curiosity as to what a good outcome might look like. 

Having difficult conversations or leading an unpopular project requires courage, but can result in very fast learning. 

“Failure is not the opposite of success – it’s the tuition fee,” she said. 

Transformative times 

The in-house and public-sector cohort now comprises 27% of the profession. In-House and Public Sector Committee chair Alison Bradshaw spoke about the work that the committee has undertaken to draw out data specific to the sector from the Law Society’s 2023 survey of the profession. 

“We’re a wide-ranging, diverse group, and what we were looking for were themes that bind us together – and there are a lot of them,” said Bradshaw. 

She outlined recent outputs from the committee to support in-house and public-sector solicitors, including an infographic illustrating sectoral trends, and the Ireland for Law factsheet to promote Ireland as a global legal hub, produced in collaboration with Ireland for Law. 

Others included the Public Sector Careers Symposium held in May, along with enhanced collaboration with the European Company Lawyers’ Association, which supports over 70,000 in-house lawyers across Europe. 

Rising complexity 

The Law Society was also praised for its support of the cohort, including the recent launch of a dedicated sectoral digital magazine. 

Law Society President Eamon Harrington commented: “Over the past 12 months, there’s been enormous growth in the understanding of the needs of the in-house sector by the Law Society, and excellent progress is being made – it’s very much a top priority.” 

Solicitor and AI consultant Donna O’Leary told the conference that adopting AI tools was not the same as meaningful digital transformation, although 98% of organisations have adopted AI in some form. 

“Everyone in this room has ‘adopted’ AI. That tells me absolutely nothing,” she said. 

Transformation doesn’t happen with downloading a tool, she said, but required a solid framework and understanding of organisational needs and the real problems to be solved. 

Despite reported AI efficiency gains of 44%, only 24% of those gains translate to direct profits, she pointed out. 

Generative AI (such as ChatGPT and Copilot) is just one subset of AI, designed primarily to generate content based on statistical patterns, she noted. 

Other forms, like machine learning and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), have equally important roles, especially in enterprise settings. 

O’Leary cautioned that many users still didn’t fully understand how these tools worked or how they could be used safely and effectively: AI is not a “fancy Google” and cannot be relied upon for legal decision-making, she stressed. 

Blind trust in AI is completely misguided and could result in professional misconduct cases, O’Leary warned, citing a matter where lawyers faced a wasted costs order after relying on false information from ChatGPT. 

She drew a clear distinction between general-purpose tools, such as Microsoft Copilot, and ‘vertical’ legal AI tools built specifically for legal use. 

Under the EU AI Act and GDPR, AI literacy and transparency were also becoming legal obligations, O’Leary explained: “You need to provide a safe environment for people to use tools – and people prefer working with people.” 

Over 51% of employees are using unapproved AI tools, often without IT department oversight. 

This is particularly concerning for public-sector bodies, which have been explicitly told to avoid publicly available AI tools that could compromise data security. 

Tech-stack audit 

From August 2026, public and private organisations across the EU will be required to train their staff in responsible AI use: “If you’re using AI tools in a professional context, you are a ‘deployer’ under the EU AI Act and have obligations – even if you’re just a solicitor with a laptop,” O’Leary added. 

The forthcoming NIS2 Directive and the Freedom of Information Act may also have an impact on how AI-generated meeting notes or chatbot records are stored and disclosed. 

For example, internal AI conversations may be subject to FOI requests if used for official decision-making. 

Attendees were advised to conduct an internal audit of their current tech stack, implement AI literacy training and policies, and avoid public AI tools for confidential work. 

AI can streamline operations but, without guardrails, it can just as easily lead to ethical breaches, misinformation, and litigation. 

O’Leary advised attendees to be brave and curious – but to verify everything, always: “You verify everything that you get, and maintain professional judgement,” she said. 

International pie 

Matheson asset-management lawyer Tara Doyle outlined Ireland’s strategic efforts to become a key player in the international legal-services market. 

The Ireland for Law initiative aims to position the country as a hub for legal services in response to changing global dynamics, post-Brexit. 

Set up in 2019, Ireland for Law has the support of stakeholders such as the Law Society of Ireland, the Bar of Ireland, and Government departments. It seeks to boost high-quality legal-services jobs, in both private practice and in-house legal teams. 

Doyle emphasised that Ireland seeks to carve out its own share of the growing international pie. As an example, she noted that attracting investment funds to domicile in Ireland is a key contributor to the legal economy. 

A comprehensive factsheet aims to give in-house and public-sector lawyers a simple, accessible resource for explaining the benefits of Irish law to their colleagues. 

The document was created to help legal professionals advocate for Irish law when negotiating contracts and setting governing-law terms in their agreements. 

In-house lawyers Nicola Curry of BNP Paribas and Margaret Maguire of Fexco told the conference that they already advocated for the benefits of Irish law in their respective industries. 

Evolving landscape 

The evolving landscape of business and regulation was examined in a panel discussion led by Brian Connolly (Accenture), who pointed to the increasing complexity of legal responsibilities. 

Organisations got more complex in direct proportion to the complexity of the environment they operated in. 

“Communication is key,” he said, “and, as lawyers, we can be good at it – but we can get caught up in the detail and the complexity. Sometimes, our internal clients are not as interested in that as we are,” he quipped. 

“So, we need to understand the law and then explain it and apply it in a really practical way to demonstrate our value to the organisation.” 

Joanne Ross said that global firms faced unique challenges in balancing differing cultural expectations with diverging regulatory requirements: “You do actually need to go back to what your values are as an organisation and what you think is important. You need to stick with that, and then do whatever risk mitigation is necessary in different jurisdictions,” she said. 

Audrey O’Hara (head of legal, National Transport Authority) said that a generational shift in the workforce needed to continue in order to reflect the diversity of the public it serves. 

In her role, O’Hara stressed that diversity wasn’t just about ethnicity or gender, but also about diversity of thought. 

Damien Moynagh (Greencore Group) added that lawyers were often asked questions that didn’t have a legal aspect. 

He stressed the importance of communication and stakeholder management in the face of economic and political challenges: “Good communication, when it clearly explains business goals, targets and objectives, can be really effective, and it’s very good for galvanizing teams,” Moynagh said. 

Catherine Byrne (head of group legal, EirGrid) commented that building a strong team of capable in-house lawyers had been an essential part of her work, particularly as EirGrid moved to play its part in securing the country’s energy by developing an offshore electricity network that would connect offshore wind farms into the system. 

Mary Hallissey is a journalist at the Law Society Gazette.