Team size: Seven

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?

The legal strategy of a company and of its legal department, should be aligned with the business goals, ensuring adaptability and long-term viability.

This is especially critical during periods of instability or crises, in which managing legal aspects becomes crucial for a company to overcome the crisis. Some of the main aspects that need to be considered, in my perspective are: (i)assess and evaluate the nature and scope of the crisis and of the uncertainty derived from it. We need to understand the specific legal challenges posed by the crisis, based on its nature, we should then assess risk and define mitigation measures; (ii) diversify — the crisis may be not impacting all the regions in which the company operates, and if so, then the effect may be different. Based on this, the impacts of the crisis on the business may eventually be mitigated by collaboration with other company’s entities located in other regions in which the business operates; (iii) prioritise people, customers and community — in a crisis, companies and all organisations need to prioritise their people (employees and contractors) as well as their customers and the community to which they belong. This contributes to building and enhancing a sense of belonging, loyalty, trust and resilience after the crisis.

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?

Legal professionals need to stay permanently updated on legislation and on social, political, cultural and technological changes. We need to do this following specialised publications, attending conferences, and engaging with colleagues and other professionals, including legal tech specialists. Staying updated is critical as technology has reshaped and continues reshaping the legal profession.

Technology has helped to make legal management easier and faster by transforming drafting legal documents and legal research. It has also created new ethical challenges, which legislators, judges and especially attorneys, must understand, predict, and resolve.