Team size: Five

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

Impact will be driven by artificial intelligence based on the Cloud. At Microsoft, in-house legal teams are already experiencing the benefits of these technologies in tasks like managing contracts and escalation to relevant stakeholders; identifying non-standard contracts, recommending amendments that will speed up negotiation; and flagging documents for lawyer review in due diligence processes, to name a few. Undoubtedly, the digital transformation of in-house legal teams requires dedicated focus and commitment, and we must always remember that transformation starts with culture.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Trust is always going to be the foundation of a strong relationship. For in-house lawyers, trust is earned by embodying a spirit of accountability by keeping a tight alignment with the business goals of their internal clients, understanding their needs and motivations, and being able to translate them into workable, legally compliant solutions. In-house lawyering is not about providing abstract legal advice detached from the underlying realities of the business, but the ability to leverage those realities into actual legal solutions.

What are the most significant cases or projects you have been involved in recently?

At Microsoft Spain, the legal team has been recently focused on bringing Spanish customers and multinationals to Microsoft Cloud, to enable them to benefit from our technology in a manner that is compliant with privacy, intellectual property, industry regulations, and other laws and standards. A significant part of this effort has revolved around Microsoft’s building its first Cloud Region in Spain, where virtually all areas of law, including real estate, tax, administrative, and commercial law, have had to perfectly sync to ensure an excellent result.