The Evolving Role of In-House Counsel: In Conversation with Simran and Kai Hsiang
As the use of AI becomes more widespread and the Workplace Fairness Act is set to come into effect in late 2027, the business landscape is becoming increasingly complex. In-house counsel are now expected to go beyond their advisory role to help shape policies that enable organisations to attract and retain talent, while ensuring these policies align with existing and emerging employment regulations.
Ms Simran Toor, partner at Tanglin Law LLC, and Mr Ang Kai Hsiang, counsel at Vantage Chambers LLC, shared their perspectives on how in-house counsel should work with Human Resources (HR) on the use of AI in hiring, the implications of the upcoming Workplace Fairness Act and how both legal and HR teams can collaborate more effectively to protect the organisation’s interests.
When an organisation deploys AI tools for recruitment or performance management, what should HR be watching out for from a fairness and liability standpoint?
Simran: AI tools that are used in recruitment or performance appraisals may reflect historical biases in the data on which they were trained. They may also rely on seemingly neutral factors that act as proxies for protected characteristics such as age, gender, or race. This could disadvantage candidates with non-traditional career paths, such as employment gaps, or those with disabilities that affect speech or facial movements.
As such, if an AI tool produces a discriminatory hiring, appraisal, or promotion decision, saying “the system decided” will not be an adequate explanation. Organisations should be able to show that the decision was based on legitimate, job-related criteria and applied consistently.
Organisations should use AI responsibly in employment matters and not as a risk-free HR efficiency tool. Before deploying AI, HR, legal, data protection and technology teams need to work together to ensure that the AI tool has been tested on the organisation’s workforce and candidate population, and that an organisation can reconstruct the basis of a decision made by AI and provide a meaningful review should a candidate or employee contest it.
A rule of thumb is this: if the organisation cannot explain, test, and challenge an AI-assisted employment decision, it should not rely on that decision.
Kai Hsiang: Many organisations are adopting AI faster than they are putting proper oversight in place. HR should not treat governance as something that slows deployment down. Investing in AI governance as a strategic enabler helps the organisation use AI confidently while maintaining fair processes and employee trust.
From a fairness and liability standpoint, HR should recognise that under the Workplace Fairness Act (WFA), an adverse employment decision based on a protected characteristic (e.g. age, nationality, sex, caregiving responsibilities, disability) is discriminatory.
Should an AI model replicate systemic bias from historical data, liability under the WFA may be triggered. It is imperative for HR to be aware that:
- The adverse decision would be discriminatory even if the protected characteristic was only one of multiple grounds; and
- Compliance with the WFA cannot be outsourced, contracted out or disclaimed by relying on third-party software developers. Accountability for justifying an adverse hiring or appraisal decision still falls squarely on the employer.
The Workplace Fairness Act, which will come into effect in end-2027, introduces new statutory obligations around grievance handling. What does good compliance look like in practice and where are organisations falling short?
Simran: One area where organisations can fall short is in bridging practice with policy. Many organisations have grievance-handling processes on paper, but in reality, the person receiving a complaint may minimise it, seek an informal resolution without understanding the allegation, promise confidentiality that cannot be maintained, or start gathering evidence without a clear scope.
In practical terms, good compliance should encompass, among other things:
- More than one reporting route, especially when the complaint concerns the employee’s superiors or HR itself;
- Impartial and appropriately trained investigator(s); and
- Active protection against retaliation.
Organisations should also consider stress-testing their grievance arrangements before the Act takes effect. This could include running a desktop simulation to assess whether escalation routes work when senior personnel are implicated, and confirming who has the authority to appoint an independent investigator.
Kai Hsiang: Many large enterprises and unionised firms have already adopted formal grievance frameworks, but empirical data from the Ministry of Manpower’s Fair Employment Practices Survey 2023 revealed that employees still do not trust internal channels enough to use them.
The most common reasons cited were the fear of being marginalised or causing awkwardness in work relationships (24.4%), concerns about possible harm to their careers (18.2%), and a lack of trust in management’s impartiality (13.6%).
Under the WFA, grievance handling will shift from being a voluntary best practice to a statutory duty. To move beyond paper-only policies that fail to generate employee trust, organisations should invest in grievance-handling processes that are transparent, timely and empathetic.
This involves setting clear timelines for each stage of the process, establishing multi-tier escalation paths so complaints do not stall, and providing channels for employees to bypass their immediate supervisor if that supervisor is the subject of the complaint.
HR and legal teams don’t always speak the same language. How do you build a working relationship with in-house counsel that protects the organisation when things go wrong?
Simran: While HR understands the workforce, organisational context, and operational realities, in-house counsel bring an understanding of legal risk analysis, procedural discipline, and an enterprise-wide perspective. In my view, the relationship works best when the legal team is involved in designing the system, not when it is called in only after a problem arises.
HR and legal teams should also be clear on their roles and responsibilities by asking questions such as who should decide whether an investigation is required, and who should appoint and instruct the investigator.
After a matter has been concluded, HR and legal should conduct a brief post-incident review to determine whether internal policies and protocols reflected what actually occurred. The lessons learnt can then be used to strengthen existing policies, manager training, and controls.
Kai Hsiang: Building an effective partnership between HR and Legal requires moving beyond transactional interactions. Instead, both functions should align around creating shared enterprise value:
- Find common ground in how both functions drive commercial success and workforce capability within a resilient, compliant, and ethical framework;
- Develop an understanding of how each function operates to deliver its mandate. For HR, it means understanding how inconsistent decisions or undocumented actions can create long-term enterprise risk and limit the organisation’s ability to defend its position. For Legal, it means understanding the human dynamics, organisational friction, and real-time operational pressures that HR needs to navigate; and
- Articulate a shared value proposition that neither function can deliver alone, such as the co-creation of a high-integrity, high-trust workplace culture. Embedding fairness and psychological safety into daily operations boosts talent attraction and engagement, while ensuring workplace practices remain robust and defensible.
Simran and Kai Hsiang will be sharing more insights on how legal professionals can partner with HR in building better workplace cultures and policies at the upcoming Navigating AI, Workplace Fairness and Workplace Investigations: HR Risk Management for In-House Counsel module: https://store.lawnet.com/navigating-ai-workplace-fairness-and-workplace-investigations-hr-risk-management-for-in-house-counsel-oct-2026.html