Team size: Eight

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

Dividing the team into a legal counsel and legal operations team last year proved to be an incredible improvement in our overall output and performance, at no extra costs.

In a fast-moving scale-up like Adverity, there is always a multitude of different tasks for the legal department. These range from contract review, classic legal advice, compliance tasks, supporting RFIs, contract management, automation of legal processes, and reporting, to specific legal project management.

We have reached a point where our lawyers have not had enough time to devote to their core tasks. We also needed to improve and maintain our contract management system and continue to automate our processes in the department to reduce the overall workload.

This, alongside the divergence of interests of the legal team in traditional legal tasks and operational and technical tasks, resulted in the division of the department. Fortunately, we perfectly staffed the teams with existing members according to their respective interests and competencies and even hired a new person for legal operations.

Since then, my team has been more efficient, organised, and transparent, with individual team members having the opportunity to specialise according to their interests.

During the introduction of the legal operations team, we also started to handle all requests to the legal department via a project management or ticket system, which saved a lot of time for both the requester and my team. Tasks are no longer assigned and processed via email; the whole team has an overview of the tasks to be done and the people assigned to them. Deadlines and priorities are clearly visible and make it easier for my team to handle many tasks.

In addition, it has enabled us as a legal department to set up reporting on our performance, which provides interesting insights into how we work and do business, and what can be improved as well as allows us to manage the team more strategically.

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives? 

My team is involved in various business-critical projects. They have drafted and implemented our code of conduct, implemented an information security and data protection assessment for new supplies, supported ISO27001 and SOC2 audits, and conducted various legal training sessions for other teams.

Can you sum up the team culture/ethos in one sentence? 

We help each other succeed, always challenge the status quo, and love what we do.
In every hiring interview, I have mentioned that open and direct communication is key to the success of our team. I am fortunate that my team members are not only excellent lawyers, but also wonderful team players who are open to receiving and giving feedback. The fact that we are a diverse and international team that appreciates different points of view and wants to learn from each other makes us the invincible team that we are.