Team size: Five

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Legal teams are facing periods of instability or crises with more frequency these days and the most important lever to deal with these periods is communication with the team members and with the other departments linked to the event that generated the instability of the crisis.

Communication is important to understand the event, its implications and to develop a plan that is best for the company with the right persons dealing with specific aspects. Appointing the right persons and establishing follow up meetings are necessary as the plan can be subject to changes according to the new situations that appear.

In a period of crisis, a strong leadership is of big help, considering that the team involved must be concentrated and must have in mind the risks the company is facing.

Finally, yet important, a legal manager should approach his team with empathy as listening to the members of the team, building confidence are important in handling a crisis.

To align the legal strategy the legal department has to understand and find solutions for the risks of the company; by understanding the risks, the companies can reduce the outcome and find the best response to the crisis.

Business strategy is also helped by the contract management: clear contracts that support the objective of the company will enhance the power of the company to face crisis and will minimise the disputes. Moreover, clear procedures are of big help for the company’s resilience.

Considering that the legal team is a support team, it is a key quality to be flexible. The best legal advisers are the ones, which are flexible, which are able to find solutions according to the company’s interest.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?

For sure, artificial intelligence is a technology, which will have the most important impact on the legal profession. Also: automation. I consider that the two are of a big help in respect to time-consuming tasks.

In my department, we have implemented electronic signatures, as 90% of the contracts are signed electronically; archives are also electronically kept; all the processes of approving contracts are electronically made. Moreover, in respect to contract drafting, our organisation will use in the next future a legal assistant, workflow and research tool.