Legal Ops at Microsoft with Lydia Petrakis and Tom Orrison

Microsoft is one of the most innovative and widely recognised companies in the world. How does an organisation with this level of scale and success think about legal operations? What are its strategic initiatives and thought leadership that the legal ops community can learn from? To what extent is its legal department leveraging AI and other cutting edge tools to drive efficiencies and optimization?

These are among the topics we discussed with Lydia Petrakis and Tom Orrison. Lydia is a Senior Corporate Counsel and Digital Strategist focused on issues of strategy, innovation and planning as they affect the legal team. Tom is a Senior Director of Legal Operations focused on contracting, procurement, productivity solutions and support services. Both work in Microsoft's Corporate, External and Legal Affairs (CELA) department, one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Other topics we discussed with Lydia and Tom include:

* How the legal team is leveraging AI

* The vital importance of data

* The importance of understanding, and documenting, process

* How to prepare lawyers and legal teams for change

* How automation is adopted differently across three major work types: transact, comply and advise

LINKS

Lydia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lydiapetrakis/

Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-orrison-873ba04/