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Mariana Olivares

I decided to become a lawyer when I was in high school. I am the very first lawyer in my family, so I cannot say it came from a sense of family tradition. However, my parents instilled in me from a young age the importance of justice and values, to do the right thing, and to always be ethical, no matter the consequences. From my very first class at law school, I was incredibly passionate about it; I knew I was in the right place.

Like many lawyers, I started my career in private practice, and had not really planned to move from private practice to an in-house role. But when the opportunity with Sodexo came about, it was too good to turn down. I remember that when I first started, I felt very strange! I was used to managing many different corporate legal accounts, and not ‘only one’. But I soon realised that, in fact, an in-house legal department also has many different clients – all the company’s other departments!

I believe that as an in-house lawyer it is very important to be involved with the strategy, the company’s business: you cannot be unaware of the core business units and interlinked functions. The legal department’s decisions affect the entire company: our shareholders, providers, employees, and community. Our mission is to provide high quality services – with high ethical standards – in order to contribute to the accomplishment of the corporate mission and the company’s objectives as well.

If we compare women’s progress in the legal industry, we can see that the situation is the same in different countries. In the majority of cases, the positions of equity partner and managing partner are held by men. Is this a coincidence? Absolutely not.

Put simply, the ‘rules’ have been made by men: that is the reason why most of the top positions are occupied by them. I strongly believe that had those rules been established by women (or, at the very least, in consultation with women), the reality would be different.

For me, it is very important that men and women work together in order to achieve gender equality in organisations. But how can this be done? First, review your hiring and promotion process; second, train your lawyers regarding unconscious bias and stereotypes in the legal profession; third, empower your women lawyers; and, finally, always review whether the conditions for men and women are both equitable and equal. This last one is very important because, while the aim of equality is to promote fairness, it really only works when everyone is starting from the same place (equity).

In the case of in-house lawyers, you do see more women in leading positions (e.g. legal director, general counsel) than you do in private practice, however there is still much to be done before there is true gender equality and representation. The individual challenges might be different, but, in essence, we are all supporting the same cause. We are all working to obtain equitable conditions for women in the workplace. We have to ensure that not all the leadership positions are for men. And we must always remember that, just because we do not see women in those positions that there are not talented women lawyers. It means the system is broken, and needs to be fixed. We have to empower women and make visible our capabilities. We must take action.

In my career, I have faced the challenges that most women have – not only because I am a woman, but also because I am a mother of two wonderful children. I got through those challenges with work, work, and more work.

“I feel a responsibility as a woman to help other women reach their full potential and progress in their careers.”

I am also lucky because my husband and my family have always supported my decisions and my career. In addition, my company and my colleagues really do believe that businesses with gender-balanced teams do better, not only for company results, but because it is the right thing to do.

Working in a global company such as Sodexo has given me several opportunities to grow and develop my career in many areas, not just in legal. For example, a few years ago I joined Sodexo’s leadership programme for women, based on development opportunities for women in senior management positions. Then I passed to the second stage of the programme: mentoring sessions.

I am also now responsible for the D&I strategy in my country. Along with other members of our D&I local committee, I work every day to reach gender balance in our company. In August 2019, we launched Sodexo’s ‘So Together Peru’, an internal network that seeks to promote the development and empowerment of women in open spaces, in which women and men participate equally to build a true culture of gender equality.

Sodexo also encourages us to volunteer with a worldwide programme (Stop Hunger) to fight hunger and malnutrition. I am the leader of this programme in Peru, and we work for a hunger-free world in three fields of intervention: support to local communities in need, women empowerment, and emergency assistance. We are convinced that providing women with better education, training, means of production, and financial resources will maximise the possibility of eradicating hunger from the world by 2030. Our commitment with Peru’s gender balance is also as a corporate citizen and this year, I was proud to receive recognition of our work from CONFIEP (The National Confederation of Private Business Institutions). This recognition motivates me to continue working on gender equity.

Beside my role at Sodexo, I am member of WIP Peru (Women in the Profession), an initiative from the Cyrus Vance Center for International Justice. I am part of the leadership committee, and this year I am a mentor in the mentoring programme. This initiative is only for women lawyers. I feel a responsibility as a woman to help other women reach their full potential and progress in their careers , but I also encourage other women in leadership positions to be role models for others.

Sodexo is strongly committed to advancing gender equality. As a world leader in quality of life services, the company fosters an open, inclusive culture where everyone can thrive. The global gender balance strategy is a key driver in ensuring that both men and women have equal access to growth and opportunities in our workplace.

Sodexo’s research shows that gender-balanced teams perform better, and so we are working globally to have women represent at least 40% of our total leadership by 2025. This goal will not be met overnight, so the company has established a specific gender strategy to help to achieve this.

Not only do we have cross-border initiatives, but we also develop many local initiatives. Last year we published an inclusive language manual that we now use in all our communications. We trained our senior management regarding unconscious bias and stereotypes and promote campaigns about gender balance. We also participate in panels, forums, and committees with other companies, and last year Sodexo Peru was considered first in the Aequales Ranking as the company with best practices promoting gender equality (category more than 1,000 employees).

Of course, multinational companies such as Sodexo that have strong D&I initiatives positively influence other companies and they set a good example. However, local leadership is very important to implement D&I initiatives and adapt them to a country’s culture. In our case, the issue of gender equity is balanced against things such as violence against women, which in our country reaches high percentages. So, while the global initiative is fundamental, local leadership is necessary to develop a D&I strategy that is aligned with the country reality.

With every day that passes, I am more convinced that we need quotas to achieve gender equality. Working to a ‘best efforts’ rule is not enough: we need quotas in order to achieve our goals. Once we have equity in leading positions, we can change our mindset, trust in a meritocratic system, and talk about equality between men and women without the need for quotas. In the legal function at Sodexo, we have a diverse team, but we are now working on developing capacities, nurturing talent, and empowering women so we can grow under the same opportunities.

It is important to always follow words with actions. While there are specific challenges faced by women in the legal industry, unfortunately gender imbalance is a global issue and one that needs to change. If I could give any advice to those women who are just starting out on their career path, it would be this: What you see as your weaknesses are your greatest strengths. It is what it makes you unique. Your youth is an opportunity to see the world with a fresh new eye. Never give up, fight for your ideas, and for what you really care about. Be ethical. This is the best gift you can give.

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Maria-Leticia Ossa Daza

GC: Can you tell us a little about your pathway into law. What made you want to be a lawyer?

I knew I wanted to be a lawyer when I was about 12 years old. My parents are both lawyers and their passion for the profession and what they do was a big inspiration. My mother has been a strong role model to me – a hard-working, smart, and successful lawyer with a beautiful family. I knew I wanted to help others through the law and I spent time reading the Colombian Constitution and Civil Code to understand the rights we had. The Colombian Constitution went through an important reform in 1991 granting many social and economic rights to Colombians such as the fundamental right to education and health. During the summers, I worked with my father on matters that involved the defence of some of those rights. At home, we learned that privileges carry huge responsibilities to society.

GC: What do you believe are the biggest barriers to women progressing in the legal industry?

Despite efforts in the industry as a whole, I would say gender bias is still generating significant disparities for women. Women continue to face barriers in hiring, assignments, promotions, and compensation. Reports on this matter still show that women and people of colour may feel they are held to a higher standard than men.

In addition to bias and machismo in the profession and in particular in Latin America, the barriers women place on themselves adds to the challenge. For example – the guilt we feel if we want to be successful and also have a family life; the struggle in fighting bias and finding work/life balance; understanding that it is ok to be driven and successful; and the desire to make partner and yes, have a life outside work.

Surprisingly, I have come across women in law who believe that taking parental leave will negatively impact their career, even though this is changing across the profession. For example, Willkie recently promoted a female associate to partner while she was on maternity leave, which I think sends an important message to our associates and to the industry.

GC: When you speak with women in-house lawyers, do you sense they face the same challenges as women in private practice?

Yes – numbers still show that women lawyers are far outnumbered by men in the highest-ranking and highest-paying positions, both in-house and in law firms.

According to the latest report from the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, only 35% of active US lawyers in 2016 were women, and they earned less than their male colleagues. Of the top lawyers for Fortune 500 companies, just 26% were women.

GC: How does the industry collectively need to change to break those barriers?

I think it will take time because it is a cultural change, a reset. We have to start with our children. Women also need to be more transparent about their personal experiences, and make more of an effort to mentor, sponsor, and guide other women. The industry and its women leaders also need to keep demanding change.

GC: What do you feel is the single biggest change that needs to happen?

We have to believe that gender equality and diversity is not only good for women, but good for business too.

GC: What challenges have you specifically faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?

I have been very fortunate to work at Willkie since I started my career, in an environment in which I had and continue to have full support and encouragement from our leaders and partners. I am grateful for the full support from the firm to lead our Latin American Practice Group, and to excel as an attorney.

For women practicing corporate law in Latin America as well as in other regions, there may be bias that women will not be ‘tough enough’ (and if they are assertive, they could be seen as too aggressive) or not fully committed, and if they have a family, that can be interpreted as an impediment.

Overcoming these challenges takes time. For me, I had to show I was hard-working, committed, and that I could handle the pressure and pace of transactional work. The M&A world is tough, but I love challenges. I’d like to see more women lawyers, bankers, CEOs, CFOs, and dealmakers in the M&A and private equity fields.

GC: How do you help to promote diversity, and do you feel a responsibility as a woman in a leadership position to help other women reach their full potential and progress in their careers?

I feel fully responsible to support and mentor other women: in my day-to-day work with our associates, through our foreign associate program, and outside Willkie through some of the non-profit organisations I support.

In my discussions with other women, I try to be open and share my honest experience, both the challenges and the successes. I regularly speak about diversity at conferences organised by law firms in Latin America, companies, and organisations such as the International Bar Association and The Legal 500.

I believe I have a responsibility to generate and be part of the initiatives and efforts on diversity. This is why I believe this Women in Law project with The Legal 500 is a great forum to share experiences, and to recognise some of the in-house lawyers who are working hard to transform the industry in the Latin American region.

Most importantly, I try to be a good role model and mentor for my daughter Valentina, to prepare her for leadership roles. I want her to be proud of having a mother who works and wants to be successful. I have learned not to feel guilty about my career and also to try to be fully present as much as possible for Valentina.

GC: How do you go about building a diverse team and leading by example?

As a woman of colour practicing corporate law, I hope that shows other women that if I can do it, they can too. We have a very talented and diverse team of women and men who respect and value each other’s opinions, each contributing a unique perspective.

GC: There is quite a divide between those who believe in quotas to address gender imbalance, and those who don’t. Do you have any specific thoughts on that?

While I respect and see the value of those who use them, I personally do not believe in quotas. But I do think we have to support talented men and women, and also give women the same opportunities to succeed as men. Associates work really hard to make partner and once they do, the merit is not in their gender or colour.

GC: Are there particular challenges that women face in the legal industry, as opposed to other industries, or is gender imbalance a more widespread cultural issue?

In my opinion, gender imbalance is just a more widespread cultural issue.

GC: If you could give advice to yourself at the start of your career, what would it be?

Be yourself. See the things (including your gender and colour) that make you different as advantages and not as obstacles, and use them to overcome the challenges you face. Find mentors, sponsors, and supporters with diverse perspectives and experiences from yours. They will help you view things differently, challenge you to improve, and ultimately help you to succeed.

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Alberto Vergara, Head of Litigation, Scotiabank Chile

I would say that our legal team is more advanced than other legal teams because the whole bank is making efforts in the area of technology. There are other financial institutions and other companies in other areas that are behind us – sometimes in a very dramatic way – because they don’t, in their businesses, feel that there is an urgency in making the whole business digital. So, obviously, we have an advantage in that area. We also have an advantage because we are an international company. But, on the other hand, sometimes small companies and new companies have an advantage because they start with digital. For us, we are advanced, but sometimes you have to change the habits of people who have several years in the industry – that they have to now learn how to become digital. That’s a difficult issue. Again, we are better in comparison with a lot of other legal teams, but I would say that smaller companies and start-up companies – their legal teams are probably more advanced than us.

Mainly, we use external providers that develop commercial products for the legal industry in Chile. We have different systems: one in the dispute resolution area called Case Tracking, to review the status of your case in the courts. It’s software that is based on cloud computing technology. That provides you with several functionalities that allow you to track and manage your cases and prepare reports, and so on and so forth. It’s a very friendly software, and it’s available for any company or any lawyer and in other Latin American countries, and it’s been very useful for us.

I would say that the challenge is to increase the use of technology. It’s a growing area and there is a big focus on making the whole bank in the legal area digital. So that’s the goal, and that’s the big challenge but, on the other hand, the problem is that you have to invest a lot of time, a lot of money, and especially education in your internal and external stakeholders. So, it’s very challenging, because the world is urging banks, especially in legal areas, to make a big bet on technology and digital tools but, on the other hand, you don’t have the proper resource to do so. Also, the ‘business as usual’ on a daily basis sometimes makes it harder to make that change. I would say we are trying to increase the time and the money that we are spending on digitalisation, but it is difficult to make a schedule or to develop a very precise and clear plan to do so.

IT is often more focused on the commercial side, so it’s difficult in any business to get attention to the legal area. I would say everyone is very keen on improving their digital relationship with the clients, and let’s say the back office of any business is out of their priorities. So, I would say that IT areas are 90% focused on the digitalisation of the relationship with the clients.

I would say there are three main issues where technology is dramatically changing the legal profession.

In first place, the technology is allowing legal areas to do business with less support staff. Right now, you need so many paralegals or so many assistants, so lawyers are increasingly doing, with the support of technology, tasks that in the past would require non-lawyer assistants. That’s the first dramatic change, because it’s making the legal teams – in some cases – all lawyers, and they don’t need too much support from other areas. That probably will increase in the future, and especially general lawyers will very much do everything by themselves. That’s important.

In second place, I would say that the technology is making it so that the legal profession is losing the human touch in a way that, right now, you can negotiate and close a big deal without meeting the other party in person. That’s a dramatic change, because it allows you to work remotely, even in complex fields. The challenge is that by losing the personal touch, it will hurt the lawyers in their capacity to develop negotiation tactics and so forth. You save cost in matters like travel and meetings, but on the other hand, you will lose some useful tools that only the experience of personal relationships provides to lawyers.

In third place, I would say the big question is: how will AI shape the legal profession? Right now many people are talking about AI, but nobody knows for sure how it will work in the legal profession. That’s an open question, and it may imply that some legal teams will invest a lot of money in AI but at the end it will prove useless. On the other hand, some legal teams will find that AI is useful in some areas: for example, smart contracts. In service industries, in which you have a massive contract that you have to sign every day with clients, artificial intelligence in smart contracts could be a useful tool, but again, probably an open question. There could be an important change regarding managing caseloads and case precedents in order to improve your litigation skills but, so far, I haven’t seen any programme that provides you with an edge without an important expense of money.

The innovation ecosystem in Chile is growing, and I would say there are some forces that have driven that growth. Firstly, Chile has been experiencing an economic growth over the last 30 years, which allows us to buy and develop technology. The Chilean economy is also a very open economy, which allows you to look for external experience and allows you to buy and import any solution off any country, without any problem. Also, since we are an open economy, it also provides you an incentive for Chilean companies to expose themselves to other areas. And lastly, since 2008, the Chilean government has been investing big in improving the tech sector – providing incentives to invest public money in the development of new technologies here, and that has been an important governmental push.

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Carolina Carrasco, General Counsel, Alstom Chile

Our team is looking for new ways of working and new systems to improve legal work. We are looking for new ideas and resources, in order to become more orientated towards implementing artificial intelligence into our work, and this is just the beginning. We recently reviewed new systems that are currently on the market, but before anything can be implemented, in our case, it needs to be validated and implemented by the central offices based in France.

Recently, I was in a regional legal meeting comprised not only of lawyers, but contract management, insurance and compliance people. In this meeting, we spoke a lot about how we are going to manage artificial intelligence and new technologies. Also, how we can manage automatisation in the best way.

For instance, since I work a lot with contracts and negotiations, it would be very good to have a reliable system where I can find worldwide information. Maybe it exists, but I am not aware of it as this is a new issue to deal with for a lawyer of my generation. I am in charge of Chile, but I have also been in charge of other countries which I am not overly knowledgeable about, such as Colombia. In that situation, I have to go to a local legal firm for assistance.

It is difficult for me to research case judgments from different jurisdictions – it would be great to have a system that would make those processes and daily tasks easier. Finding information like this mostly means I have to go to an external lawyer. I do not work in litigation – it is not my area – but sometimes when I am putting together a legal opinion, I need information on judicial cases. At this moment, this information, for a non-litigation lawyer, is not easily found. And this only refers to automatisation and search.

One of the barriers inherent in implementing legal tech comes internally. I know there are certain constraints on my company to implement new systems as there are some systems already implemented at our central level that sometimes don’t fill all the local needs on automatisation or otherwise, which represents security risks.

The circumstances have not obliged me to seek new support systems as it hasn’t been until recently an issue or something that was considered not only a tool but really a resource for optimisation. Obviously, it would be good if external lawyers used more technology. Ultimately, technology could help lawyers deliver solutions within a shorter period amount of time. But still, I believe that the options available to external lawyers, for example to find case law, are the same as the options that are available to me. In the end, we experience the same difficulties. The only difference is that often I do not have the time to do the research myself.

When it comes to legal technology and innovation, I think the legal sector is falling behind other professional sectors in Latin America. Consider that most doctors have artificial intelligence working with them in order to do surgeries, yet these scientific professions are very different to the law. Lawyers tend to be – maybe because of the past – counsellors of the family or of a company. They tend to be more focused on a close relationship with customers than implementing new technology.

The new and upcoming generation is different. My perception is that, in the last five years, new lawyers coming into the market are much more technology- and AI-oriented. They see technology as an asset – something that could be very useful. I think the view of technology and the role it plays within our profession will eventually change, but no one can tell you how quickly the market will allow the process to be implemented, nor the cost of such optimisation.

Looking to the future, I can imagine working with programmes that would speak to you like a robot. Lawyers will have access to a lot of information that will help you make the right decision much faster in the right situation. I know there are some programmes already out there in which you can enter the facts of a case and the programme helps you make a decision regarding a legal issue based on previous decisions. In this case, artificial intelligence will be able to help you make legal decisions quickly. This is happening now. As a result, it means that your workload will be reduced, because part of the work will be done by technology – the software will only be confirming what you have already analysed in a specific situation, or maybe challenge that opinion so you will have new tools to analyse the situation again. I can imagine the future of legal tech looking something like that – and if things were to head in that direction, it would be very interesting. As a consequence, I believe that some legal professionals are starting to fear artificial intelligence, as they believe that it has the potential to replace lawyers.

I do not believe that AI has the potential to disrupt the legal profession. Even if you feed an AI system all of the information, you will still need a lawyer to go through the process of feeding the information into that system. AI may do part of the job as it seems difficult to imagine now AI orienting customers face to face, negotiating, issuing a legal opinion, or litigating in front of a judge. Closeness is an essential part, nowadays, of our job. Times are changing, and we are always working towards becoming more creative and innovative. But, at the end of the day, I see people are still reluctant towards technological change.

Maybe in the future it will be like the movies: everything will be done in a way which is hard to imagine at this moment. At the same time, thirty years ago it was hard for me to imagine speaking on a smartphone. Now I do almost everything on my smartphone.

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Pablo Enrique Urrego Hernández, Head of Legal, Diageo Colombia

Diageo, the global leader in alcohol beverages, with an outstanding collection of over 200 brands enjoyed in more than 180 countries around the world, is a technology- and digitalisation-open company. For human resources, we use a platform on which every employee is able to manage their own information, holidays and professional development. IT and HR have developed a learning platform called ‘Learning Hub’. As I see it, you develop as a professional through being proactive about learning new things, and there is an incredible number of courses, trainings and learnings that you can take on this platform during your Diageo career.

There are many learnings and trainings that our corporate team have developed and uploaded to the platform that are related to legal issues, for example, compliance, or ethics or on specific legal issues. We are also developing local learnings and training, as a complement to global platforms.

In legal, we have been working on a platform for contract management. At the moment it is quite simple: you can upload your contract, control duration of the contract, who is the contractor – it’s a summary of the full contract system that allows you to understand when a contract is going to end, and to do whatever you need in terms of requests and keep control of all documents. You have all the elements that you need in order to take decisions.

However, in Colombia, the idea for the future, if possible, is to apply artificial intelligence to this. We are starting this process by developing models of contracts that the system can match with the requests of our clients. For example, if a brand manager needs a contract for sponsoring an event, the idea is not to go to the lawyer and spend one or two hours trying to explain what they need and so on, but to match the models we are creating with the client’s requirements and let them fill the gaps in those contracts. This means taking some risks, of course. But once they have done that, the system will be able to issue the contract with just one previous reading by a lawyer in order to correct small things. That’s a way of trying to make it much more proactive, much more predictive and much simpler.

If this goes well, the idea is to start applying artificial intelligence not just to get the information, but also to ask questions regarding what kind of contract is needed in order to really fulfil expectations. We are developing that tool by first getting the basics.

We also have a very simple software that we use globally to control our legal processes. It’s not rocket science – you submit information into the software and it organises processes according to risk and the information you have given. But the idea is not simply to stop there: I dream of having a general platform that could connect with law firms. You would give information to the system and obtain information directly from the firms, getting the information in an organised and structured way.

Technology is one of those elements that will change the world, especially in legal. Everybody believes that you need a lawyer for doing contracts and that’s not true. You need a lawyer to do the models and to be critical – what are the minimum factors in a negotiation? But if you have artificial intelligence systems developed to do the contracts according to all of the criteria that the lawyer has given, that will change the way we see contract management.

And what is probable is that in the future, many law firms will have to change their way of working. Today, we rely on their name and reputation; you hire a lawyer because he’s important, he can deal with your problems and can give you the right answers. But in Latin America, jurisprudence and judicial decisions have been very clear in the last ten or 20 years and we have some trends that are already recognised. Of course, every problem is different, but if you recognise those trends, you don’t have to ask lawyers for new concepts, you just have to ask them for probable general concepts that you could apply to your specific problem. This means changing the whole system, their way of working and the way they make profits, and I don’t know if law firms are ready to do that or if they are happy thinking about it. In Latin America, and in Colombia specifically, they haven’t done anything about it, at least nothing we can identify. There are just the typical law firms that have a hierarchical structure of partner, associate, staff and so on. They have the old-fashioned way of working and trying to change that is like trying to break a bargain. They do not care much about innovation and, I have to say, it’s frustrating, because in-house legal teams are far ahead of the legal firms in terms of using technology and using these kinds of tools.

Technology is one of those elements that will change the world, especially in legal.

When it comes to technological disruption in-house, it’s all about the way you construct the culture. It’s not just in the legal team, it’s through the whole company, the whole organisation. I believe the first step is constructing a culture of digitalisation, automation and using technology so that people understand that these are tools that can make life easier and better. They are not competition, they will not replace a lawyer – in my team, every person is important. What I want to be able to do is to free capabilities – give my lawyers freedom to work on other issues. If you have a lawyer spending time doing contracts, that’s not right! You need to liberate, create time for them to do all those things and be able to develop other skills. What technology can do is become a partner in that development – it’s their best ally for that. If people start to understand that technology is a partner and not an enemy or a possible substitute for their job, that will change the progress of what we have been doing.

Being honest, this is not easy at all. You have to be open-minded, you have to be ready to assume some challenges, and you have to be able to unlearn. You have to try to forget some things that you have learnt in order to learn new things that could help you to improve. We need to develop leaders on these issues, and my challenge is to become a leader. I probably won’t be the one that will develop the systems but I could be the one who can push everyone to understand that adopting these kind of systems is a good thing.

You might not be able to find what you want because it’s not yet developed, but you can find someone able to develop it. But in order to find that ally, you have to be really open minded. They need information that might be confidential, or to understand problems that normally you would not talk about outside the company. But once you understand they are an ally and give them trust, everything goes more easily.

I think the legal profession is very far behind other professional service sectors when it comes to technology. I believe no one has taken the time to think about changing the way of working that is normal for lawyers. The lawyer has always been seen as the guy who has all the knowledge to fix problems and people believe that technology won’t be something that lawyers could understand or that would be interesting for them. In some ways they are right, because lawyers are difficult people, especially when you talk about law firms – I am a lawyer, so I can say that! I believe there is a kind of natural restriction in the minds of people, but I believe that could change. It’s about the way we construct culture – and we need to start talking about this much more.

I believe many new and young lawyers are thinking how to change the way law firms and in-house teams are working and, in the medium term – in two or five years – we will see some changes.

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Alejandro Fernández R-B, Head of Legal, Cotemar

I think technology in the in-house department is not an option anymore. Because, as you know, all companies are cost and profit-driven. So, at some point, the question will be on the table: ‘What is cheaper for me’ or ‘What is more efficient for me?’ To have an in-house department, or just to go find a law firm and try to push down the prices? So, I think the technology will give us, as in house lawyers, more possibilities in order to argue that it’s a good idea to have in-house lawyers. I think every company must start to interact with these new technologies to try to develop an idea or a practice to use that. In my case, of course, I’m trying to bring these new technologies and ideas and be open to the market but, otherwise, I try to bring on board young lawyers with these new ideas, who of course can contribute to the development of the legal department.

We deal a lot with in-house software that manages the areas of litigation, arbitration and conflict management. We focus on these areas because of the amount of litigation that we have. For example, in 2009 there was a drop down of oil prices and, as we are a construction and maintenance company, we had to let go of many people because some of our contracts were shut down. That brought us over 100 cases of litigation. So, taking that into account, and also that we have almost 1,200 active suppliers at the moment, we need to find a way to manage this and try to be more strategic.

We have been working in this project almost two years, I believe. At the beginning, there was a lot of data mining. We tried to obtain as much as data as possible from all our contracts and litigation: the value of the litigation, the name of the parties to the contract, the duration of the contract, the purpose, scope and everything else. We did all of this data mining and uploaded it into the software.

At the moment, the software gives me an idea of when, according to the data, is the most proper moment for me to settle. So, this technology gives me all the tools to make a decision and, of course, to manage this big amount of issues.

Before five years, the only contact with technology from our legal department was the cloud and the files’ source. We PDF’d and scanned all the documents and uploaded them, but there was no ‘correct’ way to manage them. In case you wanted to search for a specific file, there was no way to do it. You needed to spend five or ten minutes to find it – if you found it.

The first challenge was to try to obtain budget. It’s not common for in-house – maybe for firms it’s trendier – but for in house, it’s quite new to have this managed software, and it’s newer that you want to create your own software. So, trying to sell the idea to the CEO in order for them to see the benefits that it eventually will bring to the company was really hard. But I can say for sure: today, they can see those benefits and the company is willing to invest more in software within the legal department. Our software was obtained through our in-house IT department, and we spent almost two years working closely between them and our legal department to create this software.

In terms of ethical issues, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this – in Mexico, when you have a labour case, mainly it’s because the former employee feels that he was entitled to receive a bigger compensation. Some cases, they are right; some cases, they are wrong. But that’s purely mathematics. Even if they are right or wrong, my duty as a head of legal is to see the best interests of the company. So, there are some cases that they are right in asking for these extra compensations. But the software might recommend that I can settle with them for a lower figure that they are entitled to. So, that is the ethical issue. Because in some part, I want to, and it’s my duty with the company, and on the other hand of course, I want to be fair with the former employees. So, that is an ethical issue that I am seeing as a result of this software.

Right now, we are planning for next year to add a new part of the software for insurance management, and also for customs management. For customs, we often import the vessels, and our import permit might be valid for six months, seven months, one year or ten years. You have to renew that permit or you will be fined. So, we are thinking to add this part to the software, in order to have a reminder previous to the due date in order for us to renew the permit. Regarding the insurance, it’s the same. We cannot have our vessels or operations without insurance, so the idea is to create these new parts of the software to manage that.

Both external lawyers and in-house teams have to adapt to new processes. But, at some point, we ask for external lawyers to fit our software: we ask them to do it, but we understand that we are not their only client. So it takes time for them to fit the software, and if the software is not with the proper data, we cannot take the proper decision. So it can be difficult – it’s gymnastics. At some point, we have to work on that, and eventually it will be really natural.

Historically, lawyers are not used to using technology in our profession, and the definition of a lawyer has been to do things the old-fashioned way – with paper, or e-mail. Before we took the decision to develop the software in house, we looked at many options within the market, and we noticed that most of the software was being developed in order to manage, first of all, the billing hours for external lawyers and, secondly, to manage contract drafting – and that’s it.

New generations of young lawyers have a different set-up, a different mindset. I think lawyering is a little bit behind if you compare it with other professions, such as marketing. I think these new generations will push harder to improve new technologies in the law practice.

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Rafael Dantas, General Counsel and Director – Legal and Compliance Latin America, General Mills

After more than a decade focused on the chemical and pharmaceutical business while working for Bayer, formerly as a tax lawyer and overseeing all the legal areas over the years, I have recently decided to take on an opportunity that has changed my daily routine by moving to General Mills to be part of a great team, working now in the food business. I am now responsible for providing the direction for all legal and compliance matters across our company’s businesses in Latin America. In order to do that, I have a team of six people within the region, and we are now deeply discussing, testing and making a lot of use of technology at General Mills. We are still evaluating tools for litigation – and with my previous experience as head of litigation at Bayer, for me, it is something the company can really make benefit of by having the right data and cost control while using this kind of technology. Nowadays, there is no way you can manage a legal department without making use of technology – and this is for contract, litigation and billing purposes – there is no way you can stay out of it. I am a big believer in technology, and I always try to foster this new technology right at its foundation. So as a business, we are, right now, testing and always looking for new technology, and hopefully we will get it implemented.

In the last three years, the legal sector has offered more in terms of developing technology, and is making real progress. Before that happened, I would say that it was a little behind. I think the legal market is going to keep up this technological momentum, but when compared to other markets, such as finance, we are still behind. I am a big believer that technology helps to streamline and illuminate company overheads. Legal professionals should take technology as part of their job: there is no way you can work in legal [or any other area] without taking technology as part of your job. It will become more and more relevant. You cannot stay away. You have to be prepared. There is no way you can manage a legal department without making use of technology.

For contract management, the use of technology has been helping companies here in Latin America a lot. We have an in-house system for contact management where you can easily pull out a predetermined contract, which dramatically reduces your overhead of in-house lawyers working on standard contracts. This is very helpful in terms of budgeting and overhead production. You are also able to control the workflow within the company: from the start of the contract, when the business unit is negotiating the contract, to the signing of this contact – which goes electronically and by hand. We are also implementing digital signatures for contracts.

For litigation, there has been a lot of upgrading within the systems available in the market – software companies are designing litigation tools: it works both in case management, and in billing. Therefore, you can manage the case and also have your external information managed within the system. This is helpful in both reducing your overhead externally and controlling your case. In the past, companies were used to receiving reports by copying and pasting information into a system. But now we are finding that external law firms are inputting every piece of information on the case, rather than having in-house counsel do this. This technology is making the work of in-house counsel easier.

For budgeting purposes, there has been an evolution in our work because we can now predict cases. You can build your budget on the actual number of cases you have ongoing. You are also able to control the hourly case rate on a case-by-case basis. This brings about more security and predictability on the existing provisions you may have.

I have been implementing new technology within my legal team for a while. It has been more than 12 or 13 years since I began upgrading systems and providing new technology to my team. Like I said, I am a big believer in technology. However, there are two big challenges you face when implementing new technology.

Firstly, the in-house team must be ready to make the change – it demands a lot of work, especially in terms of preparing for change. This requires a lot of work in standardising the documents and the archives for a new system first. You must make sure you are communicating the benefits of such technology to your team, in order to get everyone involved and committed to the project. This is a major internal challenge that you and your in-house team may face.

For budgeting purposes, there has been an evolution in our work because we can now predict cases.

The second challenge concerns external counsel: when you are outsourcing your services to a large number of outside counsels, it is natural that each and every law firm uses their own system and has their own routine. It is difficult to make sure that the external company is using your system or actually providing the information that your company requires. So, when looking into systems, or any new technology, it’s always highly recommended to integrate as much as possible the targeted solution with the existing technology available so no disruption is caused to your routine.

In my view, AI is going to disrupt the legal profession. In the past, people used to instruct lawyers for basic and simple cases. We had to answer the phone multiple times a day to address standard topics and answer these questions. But now, people are able to interact with a machine where their questions are answered and standard contracts are drafted, which saves companies a lot in terms of in-house counsel overhead needs. I think this is something that is already a reality and it will change dramatically the way we interact with our business. AI is our reality if we wish to develop a more standard and simplified way of building documents and contracts for legal work. This is already a reality and something that I would be happy to have the chance to be implementing within the next five years.

Will I lose my job to a computer in the future? This is a question that all lawyers are asking themselves. But, when it comes to views and interpretation of all nuances concerning either contracts or litigation, I still believe a machine will not be able to do this work. A human will always be required to do the job. Although, I do think for less complex things like mass litigation and standard contracts, I have no doubt that these are going to be performed by machines and may pose a threat to people currently performing these jobs. But, for high profile and specific cases, I still firmly believe there is no way a machine will be able to perform these in the same way a human can.

I think there is one topic regarding the use of technology of which I am a little sceptical and that is the predictive ability of software. By the time we receive a new lawsuit, there might be a high chance that the software will say that we are losing the case based on the current position of the court or the current position of the work in your country. The big challenge yet to be overcome is, again, the nuances of a number of court decisions we have and the way a machine interprets and provides its provision. There are a number of cases still decided and won by means of small details and it might be challenging for a machine to process such information in the same way that humans are able to. So, this is one area regarding the use of technology that I view as there still being more proof required.

So overall, I am fully supportive, and I feel the majority of the technology available has been fully proven. I am a big believer that they have come to help and streamline and eliminate the overhead.

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Selim Erdil Guvener, General Counsel, International Potato Center (CIP)

CIP is a research organisation conducting agricultural research for development in 22 countries, mainly in the global South – this means we are very much involved with the development of intellectual property. Sustainability in agriculture is a key priority for our organisation. We have reached six million households in sub-Saharan Africa with our sweet potato technologies: we distribute genetic resources so other entities can use them in developing new solutions.

We are very much a capitaliser of technological innovation in terms of agriculture. That is exactly how I see our legal department. We are a service-oriented group of lawyers using technology to support colleagues around the world to be aware of the regulatory elements that they need to be taking into consideration for the implementation of their projects. This is so they can plan, and so that nothing becomes a bottleneck. We organise our portfolio management through a system called OCS – it’s based on ‘Agresso’. This is where we try to automate as much as possible: in terms of creating reports, creating networks for contractual management, and timesheets. An important aspect of our work is supporting the innovation pipeline. We have contracted an external software service provider for management of our IP platform, which covers all IP management processes, from invention disclosure all the way up to licensing. As soon as our colleagues have a brilliant idea, we encourage them to disclose it internally. This triggers a review process, supported by both our legal and finance teams. Then, with approval from assigned leadership, we take all necessary protections, such as intellectual property rights. With our integrated corporate system, we can monitor how we use that technology with different development projects or whether we license it for others to use. We can measure the impact whilst we’re deploying the invention for public benefit. Email almost becomes a burden when you come to the end, with a long exchange of documents from lots of different members of the chain. We work in a decentralised way, so collaborating with Microsoft Teams has been tremendously helpful – it’s fantastic when you’re working across multiple time zones with different people.

We are now a lot closer to our clients thanks to technology. Not only from a telecommunications and technology point of view, but also because we’re able to follow their work and provide support almost instantly.

Now that we have significant information technology support, we can understand what the client’s business actually is.

Let me give you an example: we have a monitoring and evaluation platform where we gather all the information – this is not necessarily legal information. But, we do have the key performance indicators in there. We can look at it and identify the key challenges colleagues are facing. We can see if there is anything related to legal challenges. Therefore, we can pre-empt project implementation challenges before they become real bottlenecks for projects. The ability to work on legal documents in real time is a really big change.

The main challenges we’re experiencing within the legal team concern confidentiality and data security. Now this comes with multiple aspects: it’s not necessarily something the legal department can resolve. We also work in connectivity: we have everything on the cloud, so colleagues are able to operate them when they’re in the field. But, we do have countries and projects where internet connectivity is an issue. In those cases, having world-class technological tools available to us can actually be time-consuming and frustrating. We’ve been looking at how much can we do by teleconferencing rather than travelling, allowing us to have as much face-to-face interaction as possible – without having to travel across the world and contribute to global warming. On one hand, technology is developing significantly, but on the other, there are still parts of the continent that are lagging behind.

For in-house teams, the most important benefit of technology is being able to communicate in real time: shortening the communication time between offices, therefore being able to explain very quickly and provide support from a legal perspective. The legal profession is very much based on the knowledge of the lawyers and the ability to understand the situation at hand: I believe Artificial Intelligence (AI) is particularly useful for in-house teams. The more we can rely on AI, the more we can open up bottlenecks. So, for a small legal department working in multiple jurisdictions, the big challenges are knowledge of local laws and regulations and the language barrier. With local laws and regulations, you can do your research or contract outside counsel. But, with the language barrier, it is more difficult. For example, if you want to work with China, you need both a translator and a lawyer who speaks Chinese. Working with 22 different countries, this has become a bigger challenge. Therefore, AI, in terms of translating written communications, is extremely useful to us today.

With AI, it will be particularly beneficial in streamlining processes for legal teams in the future. I see AI as a continuation and an extension of computing power. We no longer have typewriting, we’re collaborating online via real-time documents – this allows us to work more efficiently. We also see this through Siri and Cortana – they act as a personal assistant, they send an email which causes someone to respond to your queries. If we go from this to ‘hey I am setting up your goals because you have these objectives,’ that would increase the productivity of our legal team. There’s an administrative side. I think we, as lawyers, need to manage AI and it is very dependent on the capabilities of the lawyer. The judgement and understanding of the business that a lawyer has is very difficult to replace with AI, it might be difficult for AI to provide adaptable solutions. I think, for the next ten years, we still need a lawyer to support AI – rather than AI taking over the role of lawyer.

With new technology, new ethical issues are also raised: information is sensitive because it can be personal information, research data and research projects. We want to make sure that our assistance provides efficient protection, but we are constantly challenged by people who want to access our information without proper authorisation. The more digital we become in our work, the more difficult it is to establish network safety and security. So, at the same time, we need to educate the people who are using and accessing our network in order to protect it. This will require training and capacity building for our workforce.

I moved to Latin America six years ago. Previously, I was working in London, Istanbul, Nairobi and Benin. I think the legal profession in Peru is behind the US and Western Europe in terms of adopting new technology. Here, I can still only see technology use at the word processing and some systems levels. But lawyers will need to adapt quickly, as digital transformation is picking up speed, especially in the government.

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Alejandra Castro and Catalina Morales, Bayer, Costa Rica

GC: Can you tell me about how you use technology in the Bayer legal team in Costa Rica?

Alejandra Castro (AC): The legal headquarters in Germany have organised a worldwide structure in the legal department. We might be a unique global legal department where all our strategies are aligned including the vision on technology that should lead our functions. We centralise in a single IT tool the contracts, compliance cases, and data privacy processes, in addition to the monitoring of regulations in the region, plus patents as well.

As legal departments in Bayer, we handle various databases, and we are currently migrating to a new IT tool handled by regional expert teams, to make sure that everyone uses the same templates for contracts, with the same quality of service and the same regulations. The tool allows being a self-service contract database for contracts that we have already drafted, which will be harmonised for all the legal entities that we have. There will be an ability to make an online request for different templates outside those already drafted, and then these requests for new contracts will done by the legal department. Our expectation – and we are already reviewing this and finding this is what is happening now – is that the workload is getting lowered. We are trying to use these tools in order to make the process more agile, and to speed up all of the negotiations that we have with external vendors and so on.

Catalina Morales (CM): This new tool grants a contract life cycle management system. This means that you can find a template, you can send it to your business partner in legal, you can send it to your provider from the platform, the provider can give any feedback in the platform as well and, if they have the digital signature, they can also sign it online, and then you just store it in the same system. The idea is to use this system for contracts from the beginning.

AC: On the IP side, we have a different tool – it’s the same IT platform, but it’s a different tool where we upload all the patents that we have. It helps us by reminding us, for example, about deadlines and other IP risks that are very important with patents. If you miss a deadline, you can lose your patent, so for us it’s very important to keep a record of the timeline. In the past, patents were handled through local law firms and they were the ones that kept the reminders on the deadlines and the stages of the patent process. Now that we have developed our own patent tools, we do all the surveillance and the follow-up of what the law firms are doing, so it has increased our work in a positive way.

CM: On the compliance side, the tool registers every event or every investigation that we have. All compliance officers in each country or region have to input everything – every advance that has been happening in the case or the investigation. It is a tool where we are recording, but also reporting to global headquarters. It helps to visualise the impact compliance is having and guide future decision-making, such as whether we need to reinforce training or do more work on specific topics in a specific area or country. It is also useful to use as a knowledge system – you can visualise and it even helps you show that, for example, the number of investigations has gone down since you’ve trained, since you’ve provided more information. You can see, actually in a tangible way, the results of your compliance work.

GC: Have there been any particular challenges that you’ve encountered as you’ve been developing these IT platforms?

AC: Yes, there have. The first challenge was to make sure that we have a single template and that we keep the template with the most protection for the company, no matter in which jurisdiction the contract would be enforced. In my region, there are 33 countries in which we have legal operations, all of whom have different regulations, so that was challenging.

The second challenge was that, in the past, each region had developed their own IT tool for contracts. Now that we are migrating to the new tool – which is the single tool that will be used by everyone – it creates an additional challenge for areas or regions that need to leave the tools that were already developed, and migrate to this too.

CM: There’s always going to be challenges with what is a culture change. You need to explain that you’re not going to do this anymore, the way you’ve been doing it for the last 10 years – now you have to do it this way. Obviously, that is going to take time to adjust. There’s always going to be that initial scepticism about the new system – is it really going to work, do we have to do all this change if it won’t work in two or three years? We do have to do a lot of convincing, a lot of explaining why actually the system works and how it is going to benefit you. That’s the key: I think once they see the benefits, they get on board.

GC: Legal is one area where Bayer is implementing artificial intelligence. How are you currently using it and how do you think that use that will evolve from the sorts of things people are currently using it for?

AC: We currently have experience using AI in labour calculations, for example, for severance payments. It has already brought a lot of value to the department and it is just the beginning. I believe that, in contracts for example, we are going to see a lot more development around how artificial intelligence can help us work on our daily tasks.

CM: I think that AI could have an impact on the profession and the positions required in a legal department. A physical lawyer will always be needed, but the amount of lawyers needed in one department may decrease. For the company, or for the law firm, you could say that’s better because you need fewer people to do the same amount of work, but on the human side, as a lawyer, I wouldn’t like to lose my job and be replaced by technology! We need to find a common ground for us to work together.

I believe we will continue to see a rise in automation, too. It’s inevitable. I don’t know if it will change drastically and I don’t how fast it will change, but it will definitely change. The important thing is to have a company that supports this innovation and digitalisation, because it’s going to affect not only legal but every single department in the company. The engagement of the employees is going to be 100% necessary.

GC: How do you think the legal sector compares to other professional service sectors in Latin America when it comes to technology, innovation and working digitally?

AC: I think that lawyers believe they are not comparable. This is why we have sometimes not implemented technology. But I do think that our services are totally comparable to other areas that have already implemented these tools, like in accounting and finance teams. We are able and we can implement those tools – and there is no need to be afraid of that. I remember when we implemented digital signatures for several legal procedures, there was a lot of resistance from lawyers in the region, but now we use it on a regular basis and digital signatures are part of what we implement in contracts and data procedures. I think there are a lot of things that we can do and I think that legal departments are more than prepared to undertake this.

GC: How would you like to see law firms using and adapting to technology?

AC: If I request external counsel advice for legal opinions, I would love to have law firms keep a record of what they have answered to us for corporate housekeeping, to make sure that they have IT tools to give reminders on processes that are done on a yearly basis, like renewal of the corporation or payment of taxes. But it’s hard to find that in the market. At least, in my country group, we don’t have it. I know that I have peers in other country groups where they do have that service, but not in Central America.

‘The law firms that I work with use very little technology in order to provide their services.’

We are undertaking evaluations on outside law firms focused on the technology that they are implementing, so that we can look to use that as well. But, at least in the region where we have our legal department, I don’t think that there is too much going on yet. The law firms that I work with use very little technology in order to provide their services. However, from a global perspective, I know that headquarters have analysed global law firms that are using technology, so we have been able to review those technologies to see if we can apply them in our region or to our IT platforms.

GC: How can in-house teams best prepare and equip themselves for technological changes and disruption in future?

AC: There is a lot of work that has to be done from an investment and budget perspective. I think that is the first challenge that we need to face. The second is training; we’re used to having legal training, but now I think it’s very important to have specific training on the new IT tools that we are implementing, in order to be part of this new era where technology will be leading the legal department.

CM: As a legal department or a law firm that is not yet very technologically advanced, I would definitely recommend doing due diligence. Start small – start mapping out what systems can make your life easier. Maybe just a repository for a list of contracts, so you can upload a template, so that the whole law firm has a basic template that can be shared within a general system – that way, anyone that needs that type of contract can use it and the organisation has one face towards the client. Because, as a client, maybe one lawyer did the same type of contract differently than another lawyer, then you’re giving me two different versions, and maybe in one we went to labour litigation and with the other one we didn’t. So, at the end, it’s easier because they would have the same standard within.

I’m talking just basic contracts, but it works with other things, like legal opinions. If you’re going to give your client a legal opinion, you need to keep a record of what you said to the company and you can also start showing the benefits of having that to the managerial department, to see the importance of having that IT technology within the company.

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Patricia Ulian, General Counsel, Archer Daniels Midland, Brazil

I joined ADM a year and a half ago, and in the past year we’ve invested a lot in technology. I myself am a person that really thinks that technology is important, because you really can replace operational work that I think is not a priority for senior lawyers – I try to prioritise the strategic issues and benchmarking, in order to check the other companies and really understand what we have in the market. I try to improve and, if this is the case, we invest externally.

ADM Brazil invests a lot in technology, we’re upfront: we know what works and what doesn’t. When we see something working, we can adopt that solution to what we also do in the future. But, in order to do this, we need to gather the necessary data to take such decisions. And, looking at information necessary to take those decisions, law firms are able to provide information in a better way and in a better form – things like graphics – and some law firms are able to provide us this information, so that we don’t need to do the work, which I consider to be operational, to get this information ourselves. And, it’s on information like that we can take decisions. That’s the point.

It’s never easy to get budget. It’s super difficult: you have to put a business case forward and prove why you need to bring that technology to the company, and make some sort of trade-off – this need not be in monetary terms, it could be efficiency. You need to show how valuable the technology is that you’re investing in. If you’re a big, global company you also need to prove that this technology is in accordance with the entire IT project globally. Not just in terms of local security – because what you are doing on a local level can interfere in security – but, you need to understand that everybody has to approve. Being practical in this way can bring a lot in for the company.

At ADM, we have control technology which allows us to control the litigation cases. The technology we use was acquired in the market but specifically customised to our needs. We have a massive litigation area here, so that technology helps us get the information we need. I wouldn’t call it artificial intelligence because it’s not done alone, but it does allow us to use that information gathered for practice or for analysis. With this, we can see how many cases we’re winning, how many we’ve lost, how much money we’re going to lose and how many cases we’ve received. For example, if we focus on labour pay and want to see why we have so many of these labour cases, you can detect that through our technology, and then this allows legal to brief and train the business to be aware of the current legislation and to be able to reduce these problems in the future. We can do this in relation to any problem. If we see that our consumers have a specific problem in a particular region, then we can make sure we avoid the same problem in the future. It’s a useful strategy to have in legal.

Brazil is very advanced in terms of technology and has very sophisticated solutions concerning IT because of all the investment here. Being a super big and democratic nation, we have a lot of legal work and technology here. But, Latin America consists of many nations. For example, you’ve got both Mexico and Bolivia – these are two totally different countries with different levels of development. When you think of Mexico, there are many differences in culture, and you must also consider the dependency on the US. You also have Brazil, which speaks Portuguese, whilst all other Latin American nations speak Spanish. You have many differences, but Brazil is a pioneer in this area compared to other Latin American countries.

I think that AI is revolutionary for in-house teams. I think that AI, or something related to AI, will create more connections than ever. I think the future is about AI and connection, because as much as we can be connected now, we cannot connect things and people – AI helps with this. When you can make out as many links as you can between people and information – for example, you can now make a complete profile on and of anyone. Before I meet someone, I can go into a web link, see their profile and other information about them – everything – even their personal life: whether they’re married, have kids, where they live and what they like and dislike. This is powerful because I can have a conversation with them and convince them of something, because, essentially, I know them now. Giving a simple example, if you have LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, I now know you. So I will know how to process our conversation in a way that I can convince you of something. We can see this when purchasing items on Amazon: when you buy a product, Amazon offers you other related products. This is embryonic and I think the future will be more like that. The more connected we are with information, the more connected we are with people.

AI and technology will not replace lawyers, but it will replace lawyers who don’t use technology. By nature, I think technology and information will become more global. So, I think privacy will become a big problem because everyone will know everything about you, and you won’t be able to have a little bit of privacy. Most of the available information is free right now, because it’s so easy to get this information. What was valuable in the past is not valuable in the future – like information. In the future, you need to be more strategic and use that to your advantage. I think the future is about AI and connecting us to as much information as possible.