Last year, as ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence chatbots were taking the world by storm, ASML, a Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment maker, saw an opportunity to hire an “agile engineer” to implement the technology in its in-house legal department.
Douwe Groeneveld, deputy general counsel at ASML, said in a LinkedIn post that the company envisioned “a new potential role that can bridge the gap between AI and legal teams.” The position called for a candidate who could write generative AI prompts — queries that need to be fed into an AI tool to generate a desired output — and train colleagues.
The only problem was, the job didn't exist.
As Groeneveld later explained, the goal of the post, which garnered more than 200 likes and around 30 comments, was to contribute to the debate about the future of the role of the legal profession in the age of generative AI.
But this month, that job became a reality: ASML announced a bona fide vacancy for a legal prompt engineer in its in-house legal department, the first position of its kind. The company concluded that the rapid development of its AI tools meant it needed a dedicated position.
And the creation of the role signals that in-house legal professionals are transforming themselves to embrace generative AI, as companies around the world explore the risks and opportunities the technology presents.
Sandrine Auffret, chief legal counsel at ASML, said generative AI will be a “game changer” for the entire legal industry.
Lawyers have been using other kinds of AI for years as a tool for contract management and e-discovery, but generative AI is different and “it seems like it has the potential to really transform the legal services delivery model and have a much bigger impact,” Auffret says.
The large-scale language models that generative AI uses are “really good at automating and augmenting any text-based activity,” she says, “and the reality is that a lot of legal activity is largely text-based.”
ASML expects the technology to save its in-house legal team significant time — more than any other tool the company has deployed to date, Auffret says — but it also improves the effectiveness and quality of its service.
Groeneveld said his team was one of the first to test the ContractMatrix tool released by law firm A&O Shearman late last year, and now about 15 of the group's roughly 100 in-house lawyers use the AI-powered generative tool to write and review contracts.
“Early feedback to the team has shown that the tool not only saves time on drafting, but also improves the quality of drafting,” Groeneveld said. The tool can be asked to suggest alternative clauses, which also “enhances legal creativity,” he added.
Groeneveld says more experienced lawyers get out of the tool than junior ones, who may be more easily impressed by initial results and less inclined to pressure test it. He stresses that “human oversight is still essential.”
Other corporate legal teams are focusing on experimenting with generative AI in-house rather than hiring experts.
For example, Conduent, the business-services company spun off from Xerox in 2016, explored the possibility of hiring an AI-only position for its in-house legal department — a subject matter expert who would review AI use within the division and across the business. But it quickly realized this was the wrong approach for the group, because generative AI touches many sensitive areas of the business, says general counsel Michael Krawitz.
So rather than hire a single person, the company formed a working group of in-house experts with various areas of expertise, including intellectual property, regulatory compliance, privacy and risk, to consider how to apply the technology and appropriate safeguards.
Like ASML, Conduent, which has about 50 in-house lawyers, has been experimenting with how generative AI can be used in contract work.
“we [a contract tool] “In the pilot, we thought the technology would help us identify clauses that didn't meet our standards, but the technology didn't meet our standards,” Krawitz reports. He explains that he was concerned because the pilot marked contract clauses as “compliant” when they weren't.
Still, Krawitz says he's “hopeful that it will start to work,” but for now, “it's a distraction and an expense.”
But Conduent's experience using the generative AI-powered translation program has been more positive, speeding up contract review and approval when working with clients around the world.
Krawitz remembers that when ChatGPT started to gain popularity in 2022, some legal departments were considering banning its use.
“I think that's the wrong tone,” he argues. A better approach, he says, is to “show that we're working on generative AI, and we're doing it in a way that protects our ideas, our data, and our people.”
According to the PwC report, there are also financial incentives for legal professionals to adopt AI.
The professional services firm's “AI Job Barometer,” published in May 2024, found that the wage premium for lawyers with AI skills will rise by 49% in the US and 27% in the UK.
“This points to the growing importance of AI capabilities in the legal sector,” says Sandeep Agrawal, partner, legal business solutions at PwC UK. “The future of in-house legal teams will be characterised by a diverse mix of roles, with AI-trained lawyers working alongside engineers and computer scientists.”
But today, many in-house legal departments are just starting to explore the technology, says Amy Yoon, a former deputy general counsel at US student loan company Sallie Mae who has held senior in-house legal and executive roles.
Because generative AI relies on large amounts of data, it comes with risks, she explains. “For example, any implicit bias that exists within a dataset or within a process will be amplified by generative AI.” Yeung says a comprehensive understanding of data governance is essential to mitigating these risks.
However, as more in-house legal teams begin to embrace collaboration between lawyers and technology experts, the benefits should become more widely recognized within organizations.
“Integrating AI into internal teams not only changes the composition of those teams, but also redefines the value they deliver,” says Agrawal.
