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Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/1544922
38 www.canadianlawyermag.com INHOUSE INTERVIEWS FEATURE RAHIM ESMAIL Company: TELUS Title: Associate general counsel, TELUS agriculture & consumer goods Why this vibe-coding AI project at TELUS exemplifies the future of legal services At TELUS, the work started with a concrete problem: a complex portfolio of contracts and a legal team that needed real insight, not just faster summaries. Instead of throwing more junior lawyers at the work, Rahim Esmail stayed up late developing an AI-powered software application designed to apply senior-level legal reasoning at scale. He then put that tool, now known as the Document Analyzer, into his colleagues' hands. Esmail, who is associate general counsel and co-chair of TELUS's AI Think Tank, was "vibe coding," using a new wave of AI tools to build software without writing traditional code. The process uses natural-language instructions and AI coding tools to assemble working software without a computer science background, enabling people with no coding experience to design applications tailored to their specific needs. Because these tools have removed barriers to software development, Esmail predicts that early adopters in the legal industry will start moving away from one-size- fits-all, expensive SaaS platforms toward highly specific, custom-developed tools. "On a one-off basis, LLMs are at the point where a user could upload a document, ask a question, and get the output needed," says Esmail, but that still meant prompts, re-prompts, and manual checks, all on a small-batch basis. The Document Analyzer is his answer to that bottleneck. The app ingests large folders of unstructured files, strips out the text, and feeds it into a large language model using company standards and prompts tuned to the issues that matter to TELUS. It then compiles the answers into a table that shows relationships between documents, flags issues, and sets out the key fields the business needs to track. A legal team that once had to choose between superficial sampling and unaffordable full-scale review can now see the whole landscape and decide where to act. JILL DALEY Company: Eli Lilly Canada Inc. Title: General counsel and VP, corporate affairs Championing pharmaceutical sector transformation Canada's pharmaceutical sector is at a crossroads, says Jill Daley, vice president of corporate affairs and general counsel at Eli Lilly Canada. "The time is now to make change, [to ensure] Canada remains competitive and we are in an... innovation economy," she says. Daley's role places her at the intersection of economics, innovation, and health – a vantage point she calls "extraordinary." Initially general counsel, she handled legal and policy matters such as Patented Medicine Prices Review Board work and pharmacare. Three years ago, she expanded her remit to include corporate affairs – advocacy, policy, government relations, and communications. "Some of that is a bit of a stretch assignment... but all somewhat related to the work that we do as lawyers," she says. Now, she leads both legal and corporate affairs teams through complex regulatory and commercial challenges. The legal environment for pharmaceutical innovation is evolving rapidly. Daley sees an urgent need for reforms in how medicines are reviewed and valued in Canada. "That's ensuring that the way in which medicines are reviewed at Health Canada remains competitive internationally," she says. Her team's work is shaped by the realities of a post-COVID world and increased government scrutiny. "The pharmaceutical industry has been of interest to our government and govern- ments around the world." She notes a gap in Canada's domestic ecosystem for innovative pharmaceuticals and life sciences – a gap that has drawn more attention since both Canada and the US elected new governments. Daley approaches external counsel pragmatically, focusing on high-risk and unfamiliar areas such as patient privacy and novel business practices. She values candid and proactive legal partners, especially those who share industry-wide insights and flag emerging risks early. Internally, Daley's pharmaceutical back- ground lends credibility. "It's having a famili- arity with that business channel, so that we are speaking with the same nomenclature," she says.