With Clint Tan, Senior Legal Counsel, Nunchi Marine
Nunchi Marine scales its lean legal team with CoCounsel
A lean legal team now expands capacity across Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East—using CoCounsel legal AI and Practical Law to speed research, drafting and contract review.
About the company
Nunchi Marine is a homegrown, independent energy and commodities company headquartered in Singapore, with operations spanning Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East. In a sector where commercial velocity and regulatory complexity intersect daily, legal precision is foundational to sustainable growth.
The legal function is led by Clint Tan, Senior Legal Counsel, who oversees all legal matters for the organisation. With more than 40 employees supported by a single in-house legal counsel, the team operates with a deliberately lean structure designed to scale alongside the business.
The challenges
In the competitive energy and commodities market, legal work spans contract negotiation, regulatory interpretation, claims review and cross-border considerations. A single legal counsel must navigate both specialist matters and day-to-day commercial demands at once.
Cost discipline is equally critical: every investment must demonstrate practical value at a sensible price point. As Clint Tan explains, “We are a growing player in a highly competitive and fast-moving industry. Any solutions we adopt must deliver real value at a sensible price point.”
The goal was clear — increase speed, consistency, accuracy and confidence, without increasing headcount.
“Practical Law is the gold standard for legal research, and having firsthand experience with it made adopting CoCounsel the next logical step. CoCounsel provides an easy and effective way to access Practical Law’s massive knowledge base, while offering innovative features such as drafting, translation, playbooks, and management of our company’s legal literature.”
Clint Tan
Senior Legal Counsel, Nunchi Marine
The solution
After a deliberate evaluation, Nunchi Marine selected Thomson Reuters, whose legal depth and platform maturity best matched the legal function’s demands. The pairing was intentional: Practical Law — widely recognised as the gold standard for legal research — delivers authoritative, jurisdiction-aware content, while CoCounsel adds AI-powered drafting, translation, playbooks and document management that make that knowledge faster and more accessible.
The rollout process was straightforward and well-supported. Access was granted almost immediately, and Thomson Reuters' team provided structured onboarding, including guidance on advanced prompting. While CoCounsel's interface is intuitive, this targeted support accelerated adoption and confidence. Within three weeks, CoCounsel was fully embedded into daily workflows.
Today, the team relies on it across four core workflows:
- Context-aware first drafts aligned to the company's commercial position, rather than starting each matter from scratch.
- Automated contract comparison that flags material changes instantly, freeing lawyers to focus on negotiation points and commercial risk.
- Built-in translation and jurisdictional cues that cut through language and regulatory friction across Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East.
- Faster claims triage, with the most material issues surfaced first.
“The Thomson Reuters support team understands the legal context very well. When we need help refining prompts or identifying the right function, they are quick to guide us to the right resource.”
Clint Tan
Senior Legal Counsel, Nunchi Marine
The conclusions
For a lean legal team, incremental gains compound. Routine matters close faster, first drafts arrive more aligned with company requirements, and negotiations proceed with clearer, risk-based priorities. The result is expanded capacity without expanded headcount — real day-to-day leverage for a one-person legal function supporting a growing regional business.
After a year of use, three lessons stand out for other lean legal teams:
- Trusted content is the foundation. AI delivers the greatest value when grounded in authoritative, jurisdiction-aware sources, providing speed without compromising accuracy.
- Adoption improves over time. Short, focused trainings outperform a single onboarding day, with new capabilities becoming part of the workflow gradually.
- Better prompts drive better outcomes. The more context and commercial objectives users provide, the more actionable the outputs become.
“Be as specific as possible. CoCounsel handles nuance better than you think.”
Clint Tan
Senior Legal Counsel, Nunchi Marine
For a growth-oriented company operating across jurisdictions, the right combination of trusted content, deliberate training and careful prompting turns a lean legal team into sustained, strategic leverage.
For the complete case study, including implementation insights and key takeaways, download the full PDF version.
At a glance
Industry
Energy & commodities
Headquarters
Singapore
Solutions
Legal
(Cocounsel, Practical Law)
Year founded
2018
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