Team size: Three

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?

Due to the rapidly growing nature of the sphere of legal services, our team made an innovative administrative decision to engage legal specialists from outside our circle for specific projects when and if those tasks extend beyond the expertise possessed by our key members.

It is important to note that such specialists used to be engaged, not merely as regular external legal advisors – which is not a new concept – but as temporary members of the team working on a part-time basis. This style of participation, located between the functions of an external advisor and a full-time employee, allows for closer cooperation and exchange of experiences, while minimising expenses on specialists from targeted areas.

While services such as mergers and acquisitions often require the participation of specialists from niche legal fields which may not be covered by members of the core team, their assistance may often be required in isolated cases, rather than on a regular basis. This innovative diversification allowed us to not only avoid the administrative and financial expenses of retaining specialists for rarely required tasks, but also improved our cooperation with other legal specialists, rendering us a more professionally connected team.

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

Our team has mostly been involved in questions of compliance. In the face of often stringent regulations on companies’ obligations, particularly in commercial law, compliance considerations have only caused the demand for legal services to grow.

Overregulation is not uncommon and is often one of the chief reasons that compliance questions require special attention. We are often invited to work in compliance issues such as monitoring and confirming tax-law related consequences of mergers and acquisitions.

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

‘Do what is required but make aware of the consequences’.

In our in-house team, it is important to recognise that while it is of paramount importance to address exactly what is demanded of us, it is a boon to the company if its in-house department takes initiative to research and warn of the possible repercussions or results of an action, decision, or change they are asked to implement or make.

For us, it is just as important to fulfil a legal task in precise compliance with directions, as it is to go above and beyond such instructions to warn the board of directors or company leadership of the possible consequences tied to the decision’s implementation.