Episode 218: A Conversation About Rewriting Tomorrow: Women as Architects of the AI Future

This powerful closing plenary fireside chat with Terri Mottershead, Director, Digital Enablement, Ashurst Advance and Sue Keay, Director, UNSW AI Institute , Secretary and Board Member Women in Robotics and Chair of the Board of Directors, Robotics Australia Group discussed how women are making unique contributions to AI leadership while charting a path forward. The session delved into Sue’s work and experience, and it is a testament to women's leadership, collaborative, ethical, and human-centered approaches to reshaping the new world of work. of insight—but as a launchpad for long-term leadership, impact, and collective transformation. This episode was part of the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 program on 29 July 2025 with Vanderbilt Law School in collaboration with Gilbert + Tobin. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

This forward-looking episode featured women who have successfully led workforce transformation initiatives, showcasing approaches to skilling, reskilling, upskilling, recruiting, and retaining AI talent.  Ann-Maree David, Executive Director, College of Law Queensland, Fiona Anson, Director of Enterprise Learning Strategy, University of Technology Sydney, Jan Christie, Director, Capability + Organisational Development, Gilbert + Tobin and Jemma Hirst, Head of IT Training, Grant Thornton explored how women leaders create learning cultures that embrace technological change while maintaining human-centered values. Participants developed personalised capability-building roadmaps they could immediately implement, ensuring their teams are prepared to excel in an increasingly AI-driven professional services landscape. This episode was part of the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 program on 29 July 2025 with Vanderbilt Law School in collaboration with Gilbert + Tobin. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.  

In this episode, women leaders in AI ethics, governance, and compliance Gabrielle Lyons, Deputy General Counsel, Gilbert + Tobin,  Annie Haggar, Partner, Head of Cybersecurity, Australia, Norton Rose Fulbright, Dr Bernadette Hyland-Wood, Research Fellow, Centre for Data Science, Queensland University of Technology and Ilona Meyer, General Counsel & Company Secretary, Nuix shared frameworks for responsible AI deployment that protect both organisations and clients.  The panel showcased women's leadership in developing ethical guidelines, governance frameworks, and risk mitigation strategies addressing data privacy, regulatory compliance, and ethical considerations that impact enterprise reputation. Attendees gained practical risk assessment and compliance insights tailored to professional services contexts, ensuring innovation remains principled. This episode was part of the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 program on 29 July 2025 with Vanderbilt Law School in collaboration with Gilbert + Tobin. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.  

This implementation-focused episode moved beyond cultural readiness to explore the tactical execution of AI projects. The panel of women implementation and operations leaders Katrina Gowans, Legal Ops professional, Co-Chair CLOC Australia and CLI Advisory Board member,  Helen Henderson, Director and Founder, Board Impact, Deborah Hook, Director, Legal Operations, University of Sydney, Robyna May, Chief Information Officer, McInnes Wilson Lawyers and Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer, Gilbert + Tobin and CLI Advisory Board Co-Chair, shared frameworks for project management, technical integration challenges, workflow redesign, and measuring outcomes.  Discussions highlighted women-led approaches to cross-functional team building, addressing technical debt, and managing the transition period between legacy and AI-enhanced systems. Participants left with practical models for phased implementation, staff transition planning, and ROI measurement frameworks they could apply immediately to their own AI initiatives. This episode was part of the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 program on 29 July 2025 with Vanderbilt Law School in collaboration with Gilbert + Tobin. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

In this episode, female technology leaders Kelly Addison, Director, Women in Technology, Kate Clark, CEO, eDiscovery Collab, Anna Golovsky, Executive Manager, Legal & Company Secretariat, IAG and Jaysee Sunapho, Data Architect, Magentus broke down complex AI purchasing and integration decisions through case studies highlighting both successes and instructive failures.  This episode emphasised women's collaborative approach to vendor assessment and how diverse perspectives lead to more holistic technology evaluations and lasting professional relationships. Participants worked through a decision matrix they can immediately apply to pending technology choices, ensuring strategic alignment with organisational goals and values. This episode was part of the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 program on 29 July 2025 with Vanderbilt Law School in collaboration with Gilbert + Tobin. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

This foundation-setting episode focussed specifically on overcoming psychological and organisational resistance to AI, female leaders Kim Trajer, Chief Operating Officer at McCullough Robertson and CLI Advisory Board member, Orla Glynn, Data & AI Specialist, Liza Greenwood, Head of Innovation Services, Allens and Professor Selena Bartlett, Faculty of Health (Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity), School of Clinical Science, Queensland University of Technology shared strategies for addressing fear of change, combating misconceptions about AI, and building organisational buy-in at all levels. This interactive discussion explored how women's collaborative leadership approaches help create psychological safety, encourage experimentation, and shift traditional hierarchies to embrace innovation.  Participants developed targeted communication strategies to gain stakeholder support and create the receptive cultural environment essential for any successful AI initiative. This episode was part of the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 program on 29 July 2025 with Vanderbilt Law School in collaboration with Gilbert + Tobin. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

In this episode, Cat Moon, Professor of the Practice and Founding Co-Director of VAILL, the Vanderbilt AI + Law Lab, Vanderbilt University Law School opened the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 with a powerful invitation to step into our collective potential to shape the future of AI through intentional action, meaningful connection, and bold leadership. Grounded in the core mission of Women+AI—Action, Community-building, and Empowerment—this keynote explored what it means to lead with clarity and courage in a world where technology is evolving faster than our systems, norms, and imaginations. Drawing from real-world examples across law, policy, education, and innovation, Cat illuminated how women are uniquely positioned to lead in this moment—not despite uncertainty, but because of our capacity to navigate it. Through a brief, participatory experience, each attendee began to articulate their personal “why” for being in the room and set an intention for the day ahead. This session laid the foundation for the conversations to come, framing the Summit not as a single day of insight—but as a launchpad for long-term leadership, impact, and collective transformation. This episode was part of the Women + AI APAC Summit 2025 program on 29 July 2025 with Vanderbilt Law School in collaboration with Gilbert + Tobin. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.  

In many respects, generative AI has impacted few roles as directly as legal operations. These professionals sit at the epicentre of tech experimentation, deployment, adoption, evaluation and change. As the tech has evolved, so too has their role to right now, being part tech interpreter, teacher, multidisciplinary relationship builder, enterprise-wide and legal function collaborator, and connector. That’s been layered into what they have always done, practical problem solving to ensure the legal department responds to organisational needs with timely, measured, candid and practical solutions for the day-to-day business at hand. With GenAI, some of the problems are new and/or have become more complex. Solutions have had to evolve as the tech has evolved at an unprecedented pace, scale, and level of pervasive impact not seen before. And, old issues have also remained and have changed too like corporate responsibilities for data governance, privacy, ethics, cybersecurity, all culminating in an expanding portfolio of compliance and risk management. We discussed all of this and much more with CLOC Australia’s co-leads: Katrina Gowans, Legal Operations Professional; Anna Golovsky, Executive Manager Legal and Company Secretariat Operations, IAG; and Matt Duncan, Legal Operations, Australian Retirement Trust. In addition to their thoughts on the topics above, their passion for their work and for the community that CLOC has created globally and locally was clear. In their view the big impact of GenAI on the legal ops role is one of expansion – more opportunities to support, assist, and connect legal to what is happening in our ecosystem but also to the critical and changing role of legal departments within their own companies. There is a discernible opportunity, identified in this discussion, for digitally literate professionals with human skills in influencing, persuasion, adaptability, flexibility, relationship building and more than anything else, curiosity, to join and enhance a career in legal ops. We concluded our chat with a preview of what those curious professionals can expect from two CLOC Australia amazing events in Sydney in August 2025: CLOC Academy (19 August) for new and immediate next level legal ops professionals – you’ll find registration details here; and  CLOC Australia Summit 2025 (20 August) for everyone interested and working in legal ops – you’ll find registration details here. If you want a glimpse into how GenAI is impacting legal ops today and in the future, you’ll want to spend a little time listening to this podcast or watching the video – you’ll find the video here.   About the Future 50 Series In the Future 50 Series we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].

Prompt engineering has captured our interest, been at the core of our frustration and continues to find its way into our new way of working in the post ChatGPT era. But like the tech it is so integrally tied to, generative AI, knowing you need to be good at prompting is not the same as being good at it – it requires context, application, refinement and education at a pace, scale and continuous engagement like we have never seen before. The Centre for Legal innovation launched its Distinguished Fellowship in Emerging Technologies with this in mind. Our Fellow, Dr. Mitchell Adams, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne Law School, focussed his highly successful Fellowship on legal prompt engineering and, through the many discussions, clinics, research and significant amount of work that followed, collected together the learnings and experience sharing in an amazing publication – a comprehensive, free Legal Prompt Engineering Guide. In this session, we spoke with Mitchell about his Fellowship: what he learned; the impact of the tech on the legal industry; how prompting has changed the way we work…forever; and how he is incorporating all of this into his work as a legal educator. It’s a journey best undertaken as part of an ever and rapidly evolving global community of generative AI fans who understand the strengths and limitations of the tech, but also know that what is coming next, is already in the pipeline! This is a Spotlight not to be missed! You’ll find your free copy of the Legal Prompt Engineering Guide ready for download here. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.   About the Future 50 Series In the Future 50 Series we’re chatting with legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging and transforming legal BAU all around the world. If you would like to recommend people for this Series, please contact us at: [email protected].

On 7 May 2025, in the fourth podcast in CLI’s Legal GenAI Conversations Series Terri Mottershead, Executive Director of the Centre for Legal Innovation was joined by three amazing guests to discuss The Lawyerless Law Firm – Myth or Reality in 2030? Miriam Rihani, Head of Transformation and Legal Operations (OGC), PwC Australia Laura Vickers, Founding Director, Nest Legal Dominic Woolrych, CEO and Co-Founder, Lawpath Topics covered in this session included: Whether or not we are close – technologically, culturally, and commercially - to a truly lawyerless law firm and what key barriers stand in the way If we are likely to see lawyerless business models emerge in certain sizes of practices or areas of practice, while others remain lawyer-led If the promise of broader access to justice via AI can be reconciled with the safeguards lawyers have traditionally provided If the future of legal practice is less about lawyering, more about tech, or a complete redefinition of legal roles Where human lawyers can add the most irreplaceable value in a tech-enabled legal system Who should build and enforce the guardrails in a world where legal professionals are integrally intertwined with the tech and, how we guard against self-interest If the lawyerless law firm will be a positive or negative addition to the legal ecosystem You’ll find details about the other topics we’ll be discussing in this series here. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you’ll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.  Don’t forget to join CLI’s free Legal Generative AI Community here – it’s a lightly curated daily news feed on all things legal GenAI.