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In July this year, Bridgewater Associates launched a macro fund — one that aims to profit from macroeconomic shifts — that primarily uses machine learning to make its investment decisions.
Precise details of the fund’s operation, investors and initial performance remain undisclosed. But the launch signals a commitment by one of the world’s largest hedge fund operators to move beyond its existing investment systems and embrace more fully the potential of artificial intelligence.
The fund is the result of work by Bridgewater’s Artificial Investment Associate (AIA) Labs, an expanding team of some 20 investors, engineers and technologists, founded in 2023, which aims to harness the power of AI and machine learning in the investment process.
The Bridgewater legal team worked closely with AIA Labs on the legal and regulatory aspects of the design and launch of the fund — studying data science to ensure compliance with regulations and to draft new risk disclosures for prospective clients.
For the hedge fund’s lawyers, it is another illustration of how their roles have broadened beyond giving pure legal advice. “The evolution of the business is creating the need for the evolution of the people within the business to be able to not just react, but anticipate what is coming next,” says Tracey Yurko, chief legal officer at Bridgewater.
This is just one example of how new technologies and business models are broadening the scope of lawyers’ roles at the in-house legal teams featured in the 2024 Innovative Lawyers North America report.
Even traditional legal transactions, such as preparing for stock market flotations, can create opportunities for lawyers to lead and contribute in new ways.
When Reddit, the online social media and community forum, was preparing to raise money and list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in March, the lawyers’ role was unusual, argues the business’s vice-president of legal, Milana McCullagh.
“Because Reddit is such a distinct platform, we had this great opportunity to bring its unique, community-based nature into the [initial public offering] process,” she says. Her legal team helped create a “directed share programme” that gave some of Reddit’s unpaid users and moderators, who had built the platform, a chance to profit by buying shares in its flotation.
Innovation across businesses and within their internal legal teams is frequently linked. This year’s winning team at enterprise technology business Salesforce is one such example. Sabastian Niles, the tech company’s chief legal officer, argues: “We are at this really powerful and exciting inflection point for the technology industry as a whole.”
He identifies his team’s three priorities as: helping to accelerate growth for the broader business; strengthening trust; and encouraging operational excellence.
The legal team of nearly 500 staff handled more than 200,000 legal requests last year. It has recently developed a range of technologies and procedures, based on Salesforce’s own evolving enterprise software platforms, changing how it handles those requests. Analysis shows that, using these new systems, around half of all queries can be resolved by the business colleagues themselves, without needing a lawyer.
The team is now beginning to roll out “agentic” AI tools that are increasingly designed not just to answer queries but also to independently carry out other tasks.
Collecting and connecting contract and business data was also the first step for the legal team at the global manufacturing company Flex. It is a “bit tedious” but a “crucially important step for effective AI solutions”, says Justin Schwartz, deputy general counsel.
These AI tools are now assisting the team in negotiating contracts with customers and suppliers, managing risks, and integrating new staff members faster. The changes they enable are delivering measurable financial benefits, he says.
Schwartz aims to change the perception of the legal team from one of narrow legal experts to “a department full of great business people and commercial leaders who happen to have law degrees”.
As in-house lawyers continue to broaden their responsibilities, Yurko believes company legal roles are becoming more distinct from law firm specialists. “The thing that we have been building towards for a while is having people who are comfortable doing a broad set of things — lawyers who are like all-round athletes.”
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