Team size: Five

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

2022 was an uncertain year. The pandemic raised many concerns related to supply chain disruptions and health and safety issues, which created significant pressures on legal departments everywhere. When some of these concerns were about to be alleviated, the war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions against Russia destabilised legal and compliance departments. The increased standards required for vetting business partners significantly increased our workload. Inflation and rising energy prices which started worsened in the second half of the year also led to the need to renegotiate existing agreements and solidly anchor them in the new economic realities. In this context, I would say that the major challenge was shifting resources from one priority to another, in a constantly changing environment marked by increasing legal complexity.

Do you have an example of a time when you have come up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works that did not result in a large expense?

In my view, a general counsel should ensure that his or her team members are engaged in high value activities, which require the mandatory input of a legal counsel. To ensure that the legal department preserves its capacity to utilise its resources for prompt high value legal input across all business areas, cooperation with the business teams and delegation of non-legal tasks was needed. In this way, I managed to reorient the legal team’s focus exclusively to legal files with a higher level of complexity.

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

I think an-inhouse lawyer needs to thoroughly understand the organisation and its mission in order to provide pragmatic and constructive advice. Beyond legal knowledge, a good counsel must rely on soft skills to navigate the organisation’s politics while being a trusted source of advice. Most importantly, I believe an in-house lawyer should maintain client focus – keeping a close relationship with main internal customers to assess and address their changing needs. With respect to the legal team, it is important to keep abreast of the ever-changing regulatory landscape. In-house lawyers must also remain intellectually curious and develop new skills to enhance the legal team’s technical skills.