Countries in Latam your company operates in: Over 40 countries

What do you predict to be the biggest change to the Latam legal market over the next few years?

Latin America, as most regions, has entered a period of low economic growth and high inflation, during the recovery from the pandemic, along with high energy prices, and growing geopolitical tensions.

In the energy sector, one of the main consequences of the actual situation is an increased attention to energy security and independence, which has in turn also raised the interest in accelerating the deployment of renewables. Renewables are one of the most effective instruments to stimulate the economy, to reduce energy prices, to address climate change, and in turn, to avoid future national energy security problems.

I consider the Latam region as a gifted area to reinforce renewables and achieve a much-needed energy transition, and I’m sure that this market will adapt to this evolving reality in the next few years.

In general, what would you like to see change about the external law firms you use?

To answer this, it is necessary to briefly describe how the role of the in-house lawyer has evolved. Before we were dedicated to reviewing contracts and now, we have a much greater involvement in the role of the company and in its transformation.

From my perspective, the transformation of legal counsel is that we must accompany the business and now there is an important involvement, in the sense that we are a partner of the business, and we are part of the profit and loss account. In addition, we must do more with less and we have gone from being advisory centers to being a part of the company’s decision-making process. In-house counsel is now responsible for the legal risk map of companies.

Consequently, law firms must adapt to this status quo. They must have multidisciplinary knowledge, versatility, imagination and speed. In addition, they require excellent negotiating and drafting skills, the ability to build and maintain strong professional relationships across the business, the capacity to communicate complex legal issues and risks, in terms that non-legal colleagues can understand, and the ability to work in a highly autonomous role.