This week I'm joined by Helen Fan, a California attorney and chief AI officer at a boutique Silicon Valley law firm, who has spent the last few years at the exact intersection of legal practice and the AI shift most of us are still trying to understand. Helen's path took her from Fangda Partners in Beijing through Columbia Law School, a legal tech hackathon, and into a Silicon Valley firm built to serve AI startup founders, where she found herself reviewing AI-drafted documents from clients who often trusted the AI more than they trusted her.

We talk about her hundred day public experiment building an AI-native law firm with two agents, Morgan and Clio, who challenge and supervise each other's work, and why their disagreements turned out to be more useful than either agent working alone. Helen also makes a sharper argument than the usual billable-hour critique, pointing to the structural economics inside big law partnerships that make shared AI investment genuinely difficult, and shares why in-house adoption of AI is lagging further behind than you might expect from a function built around efficiency.

You'll leave this one with a real framework for what an AI-native law firm actually means, a concrete example of how AI agents checking each other can reduce hallucination, and a provocation about what a lawyer's judgment is for once agents are doing more of the daily work.

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Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Sarah Irwin is a former SaaS General Counsel based in Ireland who built a legal function from scratch inside a rapid scale tech company, and went on to build ITGC, one of the most recognized in-house legal communities in Europe. She joins Mel on the Counsel Podcast to talk about how a business built almost by accident, starting as a cure for loneliness in a first legal hire role, became a full time career built on in-person dinners, webinars and content.

Sarah gets specific about the moments most people skip over, the cringe of her first LinkedIn post, the boss who told her to go all in before she believed it herself, and the no asshole policy that now governs every partnership her business takes on. She and Mel also get into where GCs are actually stuck in 2026, the gap between AI budget finally being assumed rather than fought for and the relentless pressure to keep upskilling that comes with it.

Listeners will walk away with a genuinely useful way to think about mid career stuckness, permission to build something on the side without quitting anything, and a clear example of what it looks like to build a business on refusing to compromise on how people are treated.

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Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

This is a solo episode, which means it's just Mel, a microphone, and a year worth of things she's been wanting to say out loud. Coming up on twelve months since she walked away from a 15-year legal career to run Council Media full-time, Mel uses this episode to take stock of what that year has actually looked like, including the parts that don't make it into the highlight reel.

She covers the NextGen GC Summit in Sydney, a US court decision on AI and privilege that every in-house team should be reading right now, the small business directory she accidentally built in seven days, and what she's learning about building a business that creates value when you're not physically in it. She's also honest about what taking a month off looks like when there's no salary continuing in the background.

Listeners will leave with a concrete legal development to act on, a framework for thinking about the difference between surviving a career leap and building something sustainable, and the unglamorous version of year one that actually helps.

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Nick Brown is the General Counsel of Airtree Ventures, one of Australia's most prominent venture capital firms, and the first lawyer to set up a legal function inside two separate businesses. He spent 15 years as an M&A lawyer before making the move in-house, and this conversation covers the full arc of how that shift actually happened and what it taught him.

We get into the psychology of leaving private practice when you have been told partnership is the only acceptable destination, what the first 90 days looks like when you are building a legal function from scratch, why plain English is a mark of sophistication not simplicity, how AI is reshaping what he does without replacing what matters, and why the lawyers who struggle most in venture capital deals are the ones who bring the wrong energy to the table.

You will leave this conversation with a more honest picture of how legal careers actually unfold and a clearer sense of what it means to add value as a lawyer when the people around you do not care about the law itself.

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Eric Ries changed how a generation of founders think about building companies. Now, with his new book Incorruptible, he is making the case that teaching people how to build something great was only half the job, and the other half, how to protect what they built from the governance structures designed around it, is the part almost everyone skips.

This conversation covers why good companies go bad by design rather than by accident, why shareholder primacy has no democratic legitimacy and is already in intellectual collapse, and what it actually means for lawyers and in-house counsel to be in the room when these structures are being built. Eric tells the Vectura story in full, and it is the kind of story that changes how you read a corporate charter.

You will leave this episode with a clearer framework for what governance is actually doing, what financial gravity is doing to organisations you may be advising or working inside, and why mission primacy is not an idealistic alternative but a structurally coherent one.

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Laura Frederick spent her entire career doing one thing: commercial contracts. From propane agreements to uranium trading to deals at Tesla, she said no to every GC role that would have taken her away from the work she loved, and built one of the most recognisable voices in the global contracts community along the way.

This conversation covers the moment she called her boss and asked to be included in a layoff, what it actually felt like to build a solo practice as a single parent of four with eight months of savings and no plan B, and how three and a half years of daily LinkedIn posting taught her things about community, confidence and legacy that she could not have learned any other way.

Laura is direct, genuinely funny, and has real opinions about what separates great contracts lawyers from good ones, why AI for contracting is overrated, and what freedom actually looks like when you stop waiting for someone to hand it to you.

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Mollie Tregillis spent years building a senior consulting practice inside one of Australia's largest law firms. She had the team, the mandate, the support of leadership, and work she had essentially designed herself. She was also burning out, quietly, while performing at the top of her game.

This conversation covers the year Mollie spent doing the internal work before she left, the nervous system reset, the deliberate dialling back of effort, and the very inconvenient realisation that she would not be staying. She is honest about the pride involved in not wanting to leave broken, about the deconditioning process on the other side, and about what building something new actually looks like when you refuse to take the easy route of consulting in your old field.

If you are in the part of a legal career where the blueprint is starting to crack, this conversation will give you language for what you are experiencing and a few practical places to start.

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Nine months out of a 15-year corporate legal career, Mel Storey sits down for an honest solo episode covering what the transition has actually been like, what she has been building, and what she is watching happen across the in-house legal profession right now.

She talks about the physiological reality of leaving high-intensity corporate work, what it took to rebuild her sense of productive identity, and the AI conversation she thinks lawyers are not having clearly enough, including a framework for thinking about where leverage will actually sit as the profession shifts. She also gets into what she is noticing about the GC role specifically and why mid-career in-house lawyers need to be thinking about their positioning now rather than later.

This episode will leave you with a more honest picture of career transitions, a more useful frame on the AI conversation, and a direct challenge if you have been sitting on a decision longer than you need to.

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Brett Colvin, CEO & Cofounder of Goodlawyer, joined me for a conversation about legal careers, in-house work and what it would actually take to make law a more desirable profession to practise in. We got into the gap between how legal success looks from the outside and how it can feel when you are living it day to day.

We talked about the early structures that push lawyers toward narrow definitions of success, the moment he knew firm life was no longer a fit, and how that experience shaped the business he went on to build. We also got into flexible in-house models, visibility on LinkedIn, the importance of knowing exactly who you serve, and why AI matters most when it removes the drudgery that keeps lawyers stuck in low value work.

Listeners will leave with a more honest lens on legal career design, in-house resourcing, and the kinds of structural changes that could make the profession work better for more people.

Connect with Brett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettrcolvin/

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!

Nada Alnajafi joins Mel for a conversation about contracts, in house judgment and the kind of legal work that actually moves a business forward. This is a grounded conversation about what commercial lawyering looks like when you care about relationships, process and doing the work properly.

They get into collaborative negotiation, AI redlining, legal ops and the reality of buying legal tech in a market full of noise. Nada also shares how she built Contract Nerds alongside a serious in house career, and what it takes to do that without letting your standards slip at work.

Listeners will come away with a clearer sense of how to think about contract work, how to use AI without outsourcing their judgment and how to build a legal career that leaves room for ambition, creativity and discipline.

~

Download the New to In-House Survival Guide: https://www.counselpodcast.com/store/p/newtoinhouse (use code BigSisEnergy for a special discount)

All of Mel's Big Sis Briefings can be found here: https://www.counselpodcast.com/big-sis-briefings

Connect with Mel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melstorey

Counsel Podcast Page on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/67479008/admin/feed/posts/

Instagram & TikTok: @careerbigsis

Subscribe to the Counsel Podcast so you don't miss upcoming conversations with leaders who are redefining what it means to be an in house lawyer today!