Leo Ernesto Thomas G. Romero

For audits, assessments, protests, and compliance programs.

• Position papers, protests, and dispute strategy.
• Tax risk reviews for contracts and transactions.
• Coordination with finance teams for defensible documentation.

For board processes, regulatory filings, and governance hygiene.

• SEC and corporate secretarial support.
• Governance policies and internal controls.
• Board and committee documentation.

For drafting, review, negotiation, and risk allocation.

• NDAs, vendor, and services agreements.
• Risk-focused redlines and negotiation support.
• Plain-English summaries for non-lawyers.

For policy, governance, and internal tooling discussions.

• AI governance and verification workflows for legal teams.
• Regulatory scanning and issue framing.
• Practical guardrails for responsible adoption.

Finalist, FinTech Lawyer of the Year (ALB Southeast Asia Law Awards 2025) (source). Team wins and finalist citations across ALB and IHC.

• ALB Philippine Law Awards and ALB SEA Law Awards team wins.
• Best Practice Management Award (CSR), In-House Community Counsel of the Year Awards 2024.

Op-eds and features on AI, law, and industry. Recent work includes pieces for Inquirer.net and Philippine Resources Journal.

• Warren Buffett\'s Retirement: Lessons in Kindness and Giving (Inquirer.net).
• Like Building Lego in the Age of AI Slop (Inquirer.net).
• The Human Cost of AI Training (Inquirer.net).
• Do We Understand How LLMs Understand Us? (Inquirer.net).

The Feasibility of Developing an AI Bar Helper for Philippine Bar Exam Preparation. A feasibility study across technical performance, user acceptability, and professional safeguards.

• 67 paired comparisons of rubric-aligned answers vs official suggested answers.
• Student usability study using a sources-only workflow.
• Practitioner safeguard expectations and verification-first design.

FinTech Lawyer of the Year, Asian Legal Business (ALB) Southeast Asia Law Awards 2025 (source).

In-House Team of the Year (Construction and Real Estate), ALB Philippine Law Awards 2024 and ALB SEA Law Awards 2025.

Best Practice Management Award (Corporate Social Responsibility), In-House Community Counsel of the Year Awards 2024.

Finalist citations across ALB Philippine Law Awards 2025, including Innovative In-House Team of the Year and related categories.

Selected work on AI, law, governance, and how institutions make decisions.

A short list from my ongoing writing stack.

• The Artists' Plight in the Age of AI Generation
• OpenAI’s Chat.com and the $15 Million Misplaced Priority
• The Banality of AI Judgment
• Lessons in AI Safety from Baymax and The Wild Robot
• All AI Roads Lead to Back-propagation
• The Young, the Old, and the AI Singularity
• Coding with Just Vibes, But Not Really

The Feasibility of Developing an AI Bar Helper for Philippine Bar Exam Preparation (Submitted January 2, 2026).

• Feasibility assessed across technical performance, user acceptability, and professional safeguards.
• Mixed-methods design with three datasets: comparative answers, student usability, practitioner evaluation.

Rubric-aligned answers can be highly acceptable, while hallucination risk keeps verification central.

• Dataset A: 67 paired comparisons with 92.5% acceptable ratings (rubric-aware acceptability).
• Dataset B: 20 student users rated time-saving highest, while hallucination concerns remained material.
• Dataset C: practitioners trusted AI for initial research and drafting, but uniformly rejected unverified use.

Legal Officer and Tax Officer, plus corporate secretary and in-house counsel roles across the Chairman’s companies.

• SEC compliance, corporate governance, BIR audit support, and contract management.
• Advisory on development projects and government relations.
• Internal AI tooling initiatives for legal and HR workflows (LexMina, Project ANA, Project ARA).

Tax and finance roles spanning SGV & Co. (Ernst and Young Philippines), corporate tax functions, and early-stage advisory.

• Tax compliance across SEC, BIR, BOI, BSP, and LGUs.
• Corporate tax filings support for listed company group structures.
• Short-term finance consulting for a startup on investor reporting and COGS strategies.

Part-time professor teaching accounting standards and income tax courses.

• Ateneo de Zamboanga University: Conceptual Framework and Accounting Standards, Income Tax.
• Far Eastern University Makati: Strategic Cost Management, Internal Auditing, Management Consultancy.

Selected memberships and working groups.

• IBP PPLM Chapter, PICPA, Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines (AAP).
• Technical Working Group Member, NCIP-EITI.
• Aquila Legis Fraternity.

Email: leothomasromero@gmail.com
Mobile: (+63) 945 629 0738
Location: Metro Manila, Philippines

Disclaimer: This website is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Engagement requires a separate written agreement.