The Microsoft ANZ legal head ended up falling in love with tech law
Clayton Noble didn’t love litigation, and it was in expressing that during a drinks night at work that he was led to what he did end up loving: tech law.
Today, Noble heads up the legal team at Microsoft ANZ – in the first part of this interview, he tells NZ Lawyer what he loves about being in the tech industry, feeling “like an idiot” in his first criminal court defence appearance, and how ANZ lawyers are breaking the stereotype of being slow to warm up to technology.
In high school, I loved debating. I thought I’d like to be a barrister and make brilliant arguments in court. It all sounded like a great way to show off. So, I worked for a judge as associate for a year and then started in litigation at my first law firm job. But I found I didn’t love it. It felt so process-bound, and the cases I worked on felt like they’d never end.
At Friday night drinks at my law firm, I was complaining to other first-year lawyers that I wished we could just resolve the issues faster. A woman over my shoulder heard me and said, “You should come and work with me.” I asked her what she did, and she was a partner in the tech practice group. So, I gave it a shot, and found I really loved it. She is still a great friend and mentor to me today.
What I loved then, is what I still love about working in the tech industry today: things move fast. You have to constantly learn and solve problems fast.
Perhaps not memorable in a good way, but in my first year as a young solicitor I represented a defendant on a guilty plea in the local court. As it was my first appearance in a criminal court defence, I was a bit nervous. I had done so much research and preparation to make the case for her to have no conviction recorded. The magistrate stopped me right away and said there was no way on this earth that the conviction would not be recorded. I felt like an idiot. From the look she gave me, it was clear that the client thought I was too.
Over the last year, my proudest accomplishment has been the way our Microsoft Australia and New Zealand legal team has engaged with so many different parts of the legal profession to help guide them through the new AI opportunities.
With so many new generative AI tools coming out for lawyers over the past year, we decided as a team to focus on reaching out to law firms, in-house legal teams, courts, regulators and others. We just listen, learn where they are at, and help them with some of the information and guidance that we’ve picked up in this area, as lawyers working in the tech industry. It’s been so much fun, and we’ve learnt so much from our colleagues.
Overall, I’d say lawyers in New Zealand and Australia are experimenting with AI tools with so much curiosity. I’ve worked in the technology law field for nearly 30 years now, and I’ve never seen so much enthusiasm mixed with uncertainty in any of the previous waves of tech that lawyers have ridden.
Lawyers have such a reputation for being conservative, resistant to change, and slow adopters of new tech. But our experience talking with lawyers in our neck of the woods has really shown us the opposite is true. When we get to demonstrating what some of these tools can do and explain how lawyers can manage risk and use them responsibly, their eyes light up and the use cases to solve some of their current issues start tumbling out. It’s been a great connection point for us with so many different lawyers.
