In your opinion, what are the qualities and skills needed to form a strong legal team?

Every organisation is unique. I think effective legal teams are the ones that are agile and adapt and respond to the unique environments, cultures, and leaderships. Communication plays a fundamental part in the legal team’s role. In my opinion, what sets a strong legal team apart is not just the ability to understand and write complex legal principles but more importantly the ability to adapt its style of communication and convey messages in a language that is relevant, easy to understand and use, and most importantly doesn’t alienate the audience. There is no point speaking in legal terms if the audience doesn’t connect with it. 

One of our company’s values is collective intelligence, which is something that I look for in a legal team. In terms of qualities, I look for individuals that are team players. As our legal team is dispersed in different parts of the world, for us to operate effectively as a cohesive legal team, you need individuals that overcome the geographical barriers, and pitch in, whether it be helping another team member, sharing knowledge, and most importantly sharing lessons learnt. 

What is the biggest risk to your industry or organisation and how are you contributing to prepare your organisation for this?

As a global company, one of the challenges we face is ensuring that people within the business are well equipped to respond to the evolving regulatory environment in each of the jurisdictions in which we operate. Globally, the construction industry has felt the impact of significant regulatory developments following several events, not the least of which being the Grenfell tragedy, and in response we have been preparing our organisation by monitoring developments in the regulations, delivering training and assisting the business with updating internal processes to ensure compliance. 

Additionally, we are also seeing long overdue regulatory responses to the evolving and higher societal standards and expectations in areas such as sustainability, data protection and privacy, modern slavery, and workplace health and safety. Our team has been a key business partner with developing compliance programs in each of these areas, including in developing policies and procedures, engaging with the business and delivering training.

What challenges have you overcome to get to the position you are in today?

The pandemic presented various challenges which we had to overcome, including our team’s downsizing, at a time where there was not only an increase in the volume of work, but also an increase in the complexity of work arising from the unique legal issues presented by the pandemic. 

To overcome this, we looked at the ways in which we delivered legal services within the business and started to identify inefficiencies that were systemic. During that time, we were able to lean on some of the software and platforms that other teams within the business were using, and we developed our own automated system for legal reviews. Going through that process has allowed us to reset and work more efficiently.