Farrah Pepper, chief legal innovation counsel at Marsh & McLennan/photo courtesy of Sunshine Harmon Portraits

Today's legal departments look markedly different than they did in the past. Among the usual in-house attorneys, for example, are now legal operations staff, data scientists, and knowledge management analysts who focus not on traditional litigation work, but on enabling legal services in the innovative ways.

Such tech-centric in-house professionals are not only becoming more of a staple in-house, but evolving their roles in unique new ways. Just ask Farrah Pepper, a former executive counsel at General Electric. Pepper recently joined Marsh & McLennan Cos. as its chief legal innovation counsel, a new role that is part e-discovery manager, part legal operations director and part legal tech evangelist.

Pepper sat down with Legaltech News to discuss what being chief legal innovation counsel encompasses, how she hopes to change e-discovery at Marsh & McLennan and what she thinks is the most misunderstood modern legal innovation.

Legaltech News: Why did you decide to move to Marsh & McLennan as its chief legal innovation counsel?

Farrah Pepper: I was simply electrified by the opportunity to join Marsh & McLennan Cos. as their chief legal innovation counsel. This is a new role and one we are building together. I'm a builder by nature, and so I could not pass up the chance to create something new and forward-thinking at such a great, historic company.

My move to Marsh & McLennan is a great illustration of the power of your personal network. Our GC, Peter Beshar, and I first met many years ago when I was a junior associate at Gibson, Dunn [& Crutcher] and he was a partner. So Marsh & McLennan really feels familiar to some extent, as I'm rejoining former colleagues from my prior lives at GE and Gibson Dunn.

What does a chief legal innovation counsel do?

I would say my role as chief legal innovation counsel has a dual nature. On the one hand, I remain a leader and the subject matter expert on discovery and will be driving the discovery program. On the other hand, we have the new innovation landscape where discovery is just one of the areas ripe for experimentation.

And because I am a sucker for cute acronyms, I will share that the chief legal innovation counsel in its short form is CLIC. So what do I in short is I make things click. To me, that means at its heart, I simplify the way we work and reach better outcomes, whether that means reducing cost or reducing risks, finding more efficiencies and producing better quality and substantive results. Oftentimes, these outcomes can be unlocked or enhanced by harnessing the power of legal tech, and that is certainly a huge element of the role.

I would also add the role of chief legal innovation counsel is an in-house variation of the chief innovation officer role that has started to take root at law firms but is still fairly fresh and new in the in-house world. Part of the role right now is defining the role.

How closely will you work with the legal operations team?

I have a natural synergistic partnership with the legal operations team at Marsh & McLennan. Think of it as the interplay between operations representing current state—“keeping the lights on,” as they say—and innovation ushering in the future state, like an R&D lab. I remain the subject matter expert on discovery, but I also offer the broader innovation vision: the why, the what, and also elements of the how.

The operations team helps with the how and also does the blocking and tackling, but there is an element of give and take across these generalities, meaning the operations team may be the source of great innovative ideas, and I will roll up my sleeves to get in the weeds.

What types of e-discovery strategies will you be implementing?

I remain so jazzed about early case assessment (ECA), and a holistic approach to ECA is one of my first initiatives at Marsh & McLennan because I feel so strongly about empowering our team to harness the full power of its data.

Anecdotally, I am seeing all sorts of growth in this area among the available tools, and I am looking forward to the day when it is simply baked into every review tool and native applications. There is a huge opportunity to be transformative if we move ECA as early as possible in the life cycle to drive real-time strategy; they say knowledge is power, and that's very true in this situation.

In terms of other technologies, the sky is the limit. To succeed in discovery and innovation more broadly you must be a lifelong learner. If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you already have. My advice to my fellow lawyers is to embrace the inevitable changes and be part of the innovation journey. This is not optional.

What do you believe is the most misunderstood legal tech innovation today?

The buzzword du jour is still AI. I had [the] pleasure of participating in a panel on AI at Legaltech in January, and my observations then still hold true. You have legal professionals out there, overusing and misusing AI as a term, broadly using AI as a verb and talking about how they will “AI it” and all sorts of different technologies are being lumped together.

That said, I'm not sure it really matters, because if the goal is to foster an innovative culture and to get legal teams that were previously resistant to embrace what automation technology and true AI can do for them, then I don't care if they call it “Princess Buttercup.” The point is that they are talking about it and open to exploring what technology can add to their practice. And that is a culture win.