Team size: Three legal counsel and one paralegal

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

Managing resources, for example, attracting and retaining talented colleagues in a tight labour market, has been the number one challenge for us. This also included engaging interim employees to handle a temporary increase in the workload. Managing the regulatory compliance environment and obtaining appropriate resources and expertise in a constantly changing, increasingly complex legal framework was also a challenge for the team. Chief above all was working to maintain the wellbeing of you and your team members.

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?

We decided to the make the most out of our existing cache of IT tools without incurring additional expenses. We started using the Planner tool within Microsoft Office 365 to handle matter management within our team, which allowed us to keep track of who was handling which file and what the status was at any given time. We replicated this within our legal matter management process using SharePoint, which allowed our team to centrally save email correspondence, documents and letters and manage files in a much more efficient and unified manner.

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

A curious nature is a prerequisite – you want to understand the business of the company and the technology behind its products and services. With business acumen and a pro-active approach, a successful in-house lawyer should be focused on providing solutions whilst minimising risks for the company. It’s important to ask a lot of questions to help colleagues progress in their pursuits and across their objectives. Through discussions with their in-house counsel, your business colleagues are better equipped to take the best approach in any given project.