Team size: Four

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

In recent years, in light of various changes and innovations in the legal landscape, in-house legal teams were urged to take a proactive stand and enhance their legal-technological capabilities in legal research, reporting, e-discovery, document review and data management in an efficient and cost productive environment.

I believe the need for more technologies that may provide additional, productive services to achieve a higher level of value is right around the corner. With the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), the in-house legal teams, via such technologies, may enhance their capabilities to the extent of providing investigations, simple legal advice, detecting red flags, mitigating risks and related processes. This could greatly benefit in-house legal teams, allowing them to significantly reduce the use of law firms and making the in-house legal teams much more professional and efficient.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

To be a successful in-house lawyer you need to have a proper balance between the legal guardian role and a business partner role.

A successful in-house lawyer needs to act as a close, trusted legal guardian and a business partner and to establish a long-term relationship with the business based on integrity, transparency, trust, respect and in a responsive way to: assist and deliver quality and productive solutions. The above holds true particularly with respect to an in-house lawyer in the field of the pharmaceuticals industry, which is characterised, inter alia, as an industry which is subject to heavy internal and external regulation regime.

Furthermore, general counsel much be leaders. The in-house lawyer should motivate their legal teams in a positive and respectful manner and thus promote and achieve successful results.

It is all about people – I believe that in order to succeed you have to respect people, accept the other and the different, work well and in a respective way with people of diverse backgrounds.

A successful in-house lawyer should create a positive and open atmosphere and give the team independence so they can do amazing things for the company and their personal and professional development. It is important for me that my team feels significant, to influence and express their positions without hesitation. I invest time and resources to ensure my team realises their potential, providing them with an effectively structured environment to develop their skills.

What can law firms do to improve their service to the legal department?

I believe that law firms should first and foremost acquire an in-depth understanding of their clients’ business needs, goals, objectives and relevant ecosystem and competitors. This will allow them to provide highly productive and added-value legal advice and oriented input. It would undoubtedly turn law firms into valuable and trusted business partners. By working closely as a partner with the in-house legal team in full transparency, availability and efficiency, the law firms can strengthen the understanding of the client’s business and thus improve and optimise the law firms’ services.