Women in Tech: Accessible Intelligence — AI at the intersection of accessibility and Legal Ops

Denae Erasmus:
Hello, my name is Denae and welcome to our Ashurst Perkins Coie Women in Tech podcast. In this series, we share the stories of inspiring women working at the intersection of law and AI innovation. Now, if you've been tuning into our podcast, you may have noticed something slightly different about my introduction. It's been an exciting moment for our firm, bringing together two legacy firms with a shared passion for technology and forming a global law firm that is built for what's next. We're stepping into an increasingly complex world, and as Ashurst Perkins Coie, we're well placed to support clients at the forefront of global economic transformation to navigate change and unlock opportunity wherever they operate.

In today's episode, we're joined by Luisa de Gouveia, head of legal operations at Sky, who I talk to about the evolving impact of AI on legal operations. Luisa also shares her very personal story about the impact of her repetitive strain injury on her career and how she navigates her everyday life. Here's our conversation.

Denae Erasmus:
Luisa, welcome. Thank you for joining us today. It's great to have you.

Luisa de Gouveia:
No, no problem. Thank you for having me. It's nice to come to the city. It makes a nice change for me.

Denae Erasmus:
So let's make a start. I met you and got to know you when we were both young tech transactions lawyers. And while I'm still a tech transactions lawyer at heart, you've since pivoted. Can you share a bit about your career path and your shift from tech transactions to legal operations?

Luisa de Gouveia:
Yes. So it's probably not too unusual or dissimilar from other stories that others have, but like you said, my background was a commercial contracts lawyer focusing on technology and media transactions. I did that for a while. That kind of led me to move in-house at Sky where I've been for almost 10 years, which is quite wild and I can't believe how fast time goes, but for almost 10 years. And within Sky, had a great opportunity to work in different commercial contracting teams. Sky's large organization, has lots of different products and services. So there was an opportunity to really broaden and get some good exposure, which was great because I was a more junior lawyer at the time when I moved into that role.

Yeah. So very much commercial contracts. I had, before joining Sky, spent some time at an alternative legal service provider, which focused on helping corporates with streamlining their processes, in particular contracting processes. So I had a bit of background into operations, but at that stage, I don't think we were really calling it legal operations. It was more sort of process management and streamlining. So I had that background, but very much day-to-day at Sky, my role was commercial contracting and getting contracts over the line. And alongside that, and I would say it was up until 2020, I developed a quite severe repetitive strain injury.

And I'd had it actually in my later 20s, but I just tried to work with it. I tried to just kind of push through, make adjustments where I could, but it got to a point in 2020, I remember I was working on a really demanding deal and doing this transactional work as we know lawyers that do this work, it is demanding. It's physical, you're at a desk, you are typing out contracts. And if your hands aren't working, you are in a bit of trouble. You can't really manage the role too well. And I used dictation where I could, but it wasn't easy. And I remember that point in 2020 when we finished that deal and I thought this is not actually going to be sustainable. Physically, you actually can't really carry on. You need to find another way in which you can work in this industry.

nd around the same time, I was really lucky that a position opened up at Sky. They were looking to expand the legal operations capability. And actually at that stage, the focus was very much on contract lifecycle management. How can we improve this for our teams? And it was a very natural fit. So I moved into that role into 2021. And since then, like things tend to do, the remit just expanded. So we moved on from contract lifecycle management. We then focused on other areas like outside counsel management, knowledge, learning and development and all other kinds of operational areas.

And that's the thing with legal operations is it's still fairly undefined. So the remit got quite big. We built out the team and then in 2022, towards the end of 2022, I then stepped into the Group Head of Legal Operations role. And it's been great. I've been very thankful that I've been able to continue working in the legal industry and kind of marry up my experience as a commercial contracts lawyer, process management, but then also find a new way of working.

Denae Erasmus:
I think you make a very good point or very interesting point about transactional work being physically demanding. And I wouldn't have thought about it that way, but I think it underlies why I think the story about your repetitive strain injury, your RSI, is such an inspiring story. So I want to talk a bit about or want you to talk a bit about the impact the RSI has had on your professional life and how you've had to adapt the way you work as a result.

Luisa de Gouveia:
Yeah. And I think it's actually quite important to talk about it because for a long time, especially when I was younger, when it started, it started quite early in my career, no one else really... If anyone else was experiencing the same challenges, I certainly didn't know because you keep it quiet. You're not going to be the person that says, "Oh, you want me to type today? I can't do that." I mean, that's not possible in the way we work. It's very text-based. And when people aren't talking about it, then you don't know where to go. So for a long time, I just persevered really because I wasn't too sure what I could do. I didn't see anyone working in a different way.

So it's good to talk about it. And the legal industry, as we know, especially transactional work, it is physically demanding. I know people think you're sitting there at a chair and you're just typing away. That is very physically demanding depending on your physical makeup. And even if you've been doing Pilates since you were nine, you are still going to struggle sitting at desks for a long period of time doing that type of work. So I definitely think it's something that we should be talking about. But for me, repetitive strain injury, for those that may not know, it's a chronic nerve condition. You get nerve pain in your hands, mostly in your arms and your hands. And it can be triggered by various things. Mine was obviously extended laptop use and mobile use. And for me, it reached that point where I just really couldn't do it anymore.

So the first step for me was just to really understand you've got to make a change. It's not going to work. Then to discuss with my manager, what are the options that are available for me? And the first thing, the natural one was, well, use dictation software, that should be able to help. And that sounds great in theory, but if anyone has had the pleasure of using dictation software… I then moved on to trying more dedicated dictation software tools, a little bit better, not great. And once you get the technology, so once I got the tool, I thought, "Okay, I will use this and it will be fine." But when you are dictating versus typing, it's very different mental processes to communicate.

Denae Erasmus:
Yes, yes, yes.

Luisa de Gouveia:
So I had to relearn how to communicate in that way and make sure that my emails weren't too long and wordy. And also when you're trying to then mark up contracts, you add that layer of using voice commands for marking up a contract. Space here, backspace, strike a line through, add a comma. It's not natural. And particularly when you're working with contracts, you have to be accurate and precise. We all have heard the case of a misplaced comma can spell doom depending on what your interpretation is. So it was challenging to figure out how to use the technology, make that shift in terms of how I then communicate, but then apply that to contracts.

But I did it and it's absolutely doable, but it does make things take a bit longer. And especially as a lawyer, when your identity is wrapped up in delivering accurately and to delivering quickly, when those two things become more challenging to do, you have to then think... It's very hard to remain confident because whenever you're given something, you're thinking, "How am I going to do this?" But also I've got to be confident that I'm going to do it. So I would say there's a bit of an internal mental struggle a bit that I had to work through to know that I'm still really good at my job.

This might take me a little bit longer. I might not be able to draft on screen or in a Teams call wherever it might be, but I'll still get the job done and I will do it well and there's other value that I add. So that was a bit of an adjustment. And over time, I just built up a set of practices that worked for me. So I templated to repeat content where I needed to. So I had set of predetermined emails that I could just drop in answers for things that I knew would often come up. And I worked from home a lot more. So if I needed to dictate, I had a quiet space because if you're working in an open plan office, it's funny how it won't pick up your voice when you wanted it to, but it picks up everyone else's around you and that can be hard.

And then also just putting in some breaks in my day because I think, and I didn't realize it at the time, but I actually spent my entire day talking because you'll be on calls where you're talking and then you'll stop a call and then you will dictate an email and you'll be talking and then you'll move on to a document and you'll be talking. And by the time I would get to the end of the day, I mean, I just didn't want to talk anymore because my voice was just so tired of talking. So I had to learn to build in some breaks and communicate those breaks to people that I was working with if I needed a couple of minutes just to not be talking, maybe just to read.

So there was the logistical adjustments of getting the technology, learning how to use it. Then there's the mental load of still trying to be confident in your output and working in a different way and then just physically making sure that you build in the right breaks. And if I got a cold, for example, first thing to go would be my voice, which then would impact how I would work for the rest of the week. So just being mindful of how I manage that. But on the positive side, it's definitely made me much kinder to myself, certainly kinder to my team members. I'm very aware of where people may need to work in a different way because I know I do.

And because I want to remove as much manual work from my life as possible, that lends itself quite nicely to legal operations where we are trying to streamline and remove work that you don't need to be doing. So it's completely shaped my career, I would say in a good way. Could I have done without having it? Yeah, I don't particularly love it, but it's certainly probably led me in a good direction.

Denae Erasmus:
As I said, I think it's a very inspiring story because I think what's clear to me listening to you tell the story is that there was... Something happened. You went through this phase, I suppose, where you had to make sense of what was happening to you. You reached a point where you had to find a solution because you couldn't continue in the way you were at that point in time. And that in and of itself is coupled with presumably fear, a lot of uncertainty, and then having to find the courage to actually have a discussion with a manager, working with a manager to find a solution and reasonable accommodations, thankfully finding something that can help.

But then also presumably thinking, okay, my problem is now solved and then realizing, no actually this new chapter is just starting. There is a lot that needs to be figured out and still a lot that needs to change to get me to where I want to be. And I mean, I think that is a very relatable story in many respects. And, as I said, a story I find very inspiring.

Luisa de Gouveia:
Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, and that's just my circumstances, but everyone will have different circumstances where they will need other adjustments. And thankfully, technology has improved so much that there's a lot we can do. And with GenAI in particular, I would say since having access to better tools at my disposal, I've really been able to work in a much more productive and efficient way and that's made me feel much more positive and excited for work. So it's definitely up, but I think when we're looking at the way we work and when we're designing new tools, we really need to think about the accessibility features.

And there's potential to open up industry to a range of individuals that may have felt that they couldn't do it before because it just wasn't accommodating for a different working style. So that's a nice something to think about when we're looking at new technologies. Does it improve our existing work? Yes. But can we open this up? Does it enable those that struggle to do a particular type of work? Does it open the door for them? It's something that I feel quite strongly about.

Denae Erasmus:
So that segues us nicely into the next question. You've posted some great content on LinkedIn about the potential of AI in the legal ops space. And in a recent post, you've made the point that with the growth of AI capabilities, the value of lawyers is shifting from the doing of a task to defining how a task gets done. I'd love to get your thoughts on legal design, systems thinking and AI's potential in that context.

Luisa de Gouveia:
I mean, it's a big question. Yeah, I think legal design's been around for a while, the concept, and it's definitely having a moment now because whilst these new technologies that are powered by generative AI are enabling us to think about, oh, there's so many different types of tasks that we could apply this to, we do need to think about the task in relation to the entire process and actually what are the outcomes that our business or our clients may be wanting to achieve. So legal design and systems thinking is really important. And for lawyers, you, especially from an in-house perspective, which is the seat that I sit in, the question is not, well, how am I going to do this particular task.

It's how should this be done across the business? How am I going to enable it so that it can be done at scale? What is the role that I play? I can't review a hundred contracts in one go, but there might be a system that can, I need to check the output. So it's just a different way of thinking. And using the contract review example, and this is why design and process mapping I think is so important and leaving AI for a second. But if you think about a contract review exercise, often business might come to you and say, "I want to do X, and can I go ahead and do that?" And that will often require reviewing a certain number of contracts to see, can we do that?

That happens. I think that scenario comes up in so many different ways. So you would think the task is, well, to review the contracts. And that is a big part of the task, but the task starts before then. It's actually first refining what exactly is the question that I'm being asked by the business, really understanding that well. So making sure you've got the space and the time to do that. The second thing is then designing, okay, what is that report template that I need to pull together so that when I'm reviewing contracts, I've got something standardized and consistent that I can put the information into. And then you've got to find your contracts and it'd be great if they're in one place. More often than not, they're not.

So everyone's got to find them and pull them together into a data room so that you can start looking at them. And then you start reviewing the contracts, then you populate your template. And this is all very manual. I'm specifically not referring to using AI, but then you populate your template and then you don't just hand that off to the business and say, "Great, off you go." You've got to review it, you've got to interpret, you've got to add a bit of nuance and inference sometimes into what you're reading and then give a summary. So that whole what sounds like just review some contracts, it's quite a big process. There's a lot going on.

So whilst generative AI in particular can absolutely help you with the extraction of data and populating and creating your report document, there's a whole layer of steps in between where it can also help you. But you've got to think about the whole process. And especially when we're moving to a world where everyone, you would've heard of AI agents or agentic AI where different agents will be able to do the task, do particular tasks. In order to know what tasks you're going to automate, you have to have them set out. You have to have them mapped and you don't automate a bad process.

So there is an element of redesigning certain workflows, thinking about what is the ultimate objective that we're trying to achieve? What is the ultimate outcome that needs to be met? We've always done it in this way. Maybe we don't have to do it this way because we've got some technology that can enable it to be done in a different way. But then I need to really understand what information would an AI agent, if that's what we're talking about in this context, need in order to do the task.

If we're using the contract review example, if I'm looking for a specific data point or if I want to ask a particular question about a contract, what context would the AI tool need in order to understand the question? Because the question may not be something simple like find me an assignment clause. It may be something a bit more nuanced. So what context is needed?

Denae Erasmus:
And I think you make a very good point in that I sometimes feel AI is described as this silver bullet that's going to solve all our problems, and the legal industry included, right? But I think your point being that there is still a lot of thought that needs to go into designing a process, understanding the steps in the process and how everything interlinks within the bigger system and AI being the technology to certainly make that more efficient to enable, I suppose, the outcome that you're trying to achieve.

Luisa de Gouveia:
Yeah, exactly. Just as you said, it's powerful. It's exciting because there's so many different use cases that people are thinking about and it is prompting a lot of thought around redesigning how we work. But you still have to do the hard work of getting what's sitting in heads out on paper and documenting it and then working out, okay, what part of this process can we just eliminate because actually it's not really needed anymore? And then you can think about, okay, what part can be automated? What can be done in a different way? And then where will the lawyers sit within that? Because lawyers are going to have to maintain this. Rules will have to be maintained, output will have to be verified. Lawyers have actually a very big role to play in ensuring that these systems that we design work well.

Denae Erasmus:
All right. So for our last question, what advice would you give to other legal operations leaders to position themselves as strategic enablers of AI transformation in large organizations?

Luisa de Gouveia:
It's tricky because I think legal operations as a function, it's still a bit undefined in some organizations, and that's if you're lucky enough to have one in particular in the UK and Europe. U.S., I think it's much more defined. And it does take some time for you to move from being a reactive role to a strategic role. That is a journey that you want to go on. I do think the AI hype is re-energizing legal operations. People are turning to legal operations professionals and saying, "Okay, this is important. We need to do something here. What does it look like? Help me build a plan for the team."

And that invariably lends itself to a more strategic position in your function. But I think for leaders in legal operations who want to position themselves as that strategic enabler and that partner, there are a few things that I think work well and that I think are fundamental that you need to have. And the first thing is you need to know your teams really well. So you need to know the work that your legal team or legal teams, if there are sub-teams, are doing. Because the only way to offer up suggestions and solutions is to understand what it is that they're doing.

So know the teams really well, know the personalities, understand where you've got people that are very enthusiastic, those that are just so busy they don't have time, or those that maybe aren't that enthusiastic. Figure out the landscape. And then also I think be incredibly realistic about what results you can give. Where is the technology? What is actually possible today, maybe next year? Because lawyers, and you will know this, lawyers are people that are trained and designed to spot problems. That is what they do. So if you say, "Oh, this is what we're going to implement and it's going to remove all of this friction, it's going to solve all of these problems," and then it invariably doesn't because there's always a bit of learning after you implement something new, you may lose the room a bit.

Not always because people are understanding, but especially when you're dealing with lawyers, if there's a problem, they're going to find it. They're going to let you know about it. I don't mean that in a negative way because it's a great opportunity for you to learn and improve.

Denae Erasmus:
And redesign, right?

Luisa de Gouveia:
And redesign. So you've got people that will really give you good feedback so that you can get better, but you have to be realistic about what is possible. And then along with that, especially if you're in maybe a new function or you're new into your role is try to identify those areas. And this will sound very cliche, but those quick win areas. Something that you can deliver on because what you don't want to do is be talking about all the great things you can do and then not delivering on them.

Denae Erasmus:
Deliver, exactly.

Luisa de Gouveia:
So you have to find that thing, especially early on where you can deliver. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be a big implementation of some kind. It can be there's this process here that's not very clear. People aren't sure how to instruct a law firm if you're working in-house. There's a bit of an uncertainty on what to do there. Okay, here we go. Here, let's find out what people are currently doing. Let's map it out. Let's make it somewhere available so that if there's any additional questions, they've got a place they can go to. It can be something quite small but impactful. So think about those quick wins.

I would say don't get too distracted by a lot of noisy things that will come at you because especially within an in-house team, anything that isn't legal work, and I'm using that sort of quotation marks, then suddenly becomes legal operations. It may not be something for legal operations. It might actually be, "This is actually an IT thing. You should probably go to the IT team," or this is actually a procurement thing or whatever it might be. So you might need to direct traffic a little bit. So it's really important to not get too distracted with some of the noisy bits and really understand what your remit is.

And then hand in hand with that is sitting down with your leadership team, depending on what that looks like and setting out a plan for the year. Where are we going as a department or a function? What is the strategy? What do you need from me? What are your priorities? And do that early. Do it a couple of months before your year starts, set out a plan, then come back and say, "All right, I've heard what the plan, what we need to do. This is what I think is reasonable and realistic to deliver in the next 12 months, considering the resource and budgets that we have." And get everyone's buy-in, everyone agrees this is the right thing. And then you have to report back. So every quarter, just make sure, it doesn't have to be a big thing, but report back on what you're doing, what may have changed, because your work is internally driven.

So you have to report back and show where you are. Otherwise, you might be doing a lot of work, but if no one knows about it, that's not helpful either. But setting up that plan I think is really important and working hand in hand with your leadership team to deliver on what that plan is and really understanding from them why it's important, what's important to them. I think that goes a long way. And then the last part of this, which links into building out your plans for the year and what your team will focus on is just respecting the change management curve because it is, and anyone knows when you try to do something new, whether it's a process or putting in some new technology, change management is big.

There's a lot that goes into implementing something and then there's a lot that goes into monitoring it afterwards to make sure that it works and never underestimate how long that will take. So if you've got a roadmap, depending how big your team is and you've got lots of different projects on that, if you're changing a lot for the people that you're changing things for, there's going to be a bit of time for them to get used to it and then you're going to have to be on hand to help, which will then impact the resource you have to do other new things. So respect change management. They'll probably put this on my gravestone, things will take longer than you think because sometimes they just do.

So be realistic about that. And then once you've done those things, you'll begin to be known as the team that is honest about what's achievable, will deliver and do things and does it in a way that isn't too much for the team they are supporting. You can't throw a hundred different implementations or changes at a team in one year. You have to be realistic about how much change others can take on.

Denae Erasmus:
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and want to catch up on previous Women in Tech episodes, please subscribe to Ashurst Perkins Coie Legal Outlook wherever you get your podcasts. Whilst you're there, feel free to leave us a rating or review. If you'd like to find out more about the Ashurst Perkins Coie Technology Transactions team, please visit ashurstperkinscoie.com. You can also connect with me, Denae Erasmus on LinkedIn. Goodbye for now.