What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Most recently, I implemented the corporate governance area to serve the entire company, with the introduction of policies, procedures and other documents to provide transparency to management’s actions. Additionally, we fully digitalised the entire legal department through the implementation of contract and litigation management platforms.

Furthermore, we adapted the company to meet the demands of the newly implemented general data protection legislation in Brazil, from the initial mapping, necessary adaptations and implementation of a data monitoring tool. Lastly, the legal team actively participated in several financial projects for the issuance of financial securities and in the company’s IPO.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?

I believe that technologies related to obtaining legal data, such as information from legal proceedings, are extremely important, but data alone is not enough. It is very important that the corporate lawyer has access to different technologies, to better collect relevant data, which can generate quick and applicable information to help in decision-making processes within organisations. The reports and data obtained, properly structured with business intelligence tools, are important to speed up the analyses that impact the results of organizations, facilitating the in-house counsel communication with their business partners.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Any in-house lawyer needs to know their organisation’s business, otherwise they will not be able to communicate effectively with other areas. They must also be results-oriented, because within organisations there is no room for legal ramblings or law abstractions. The representatives of the areas that seek the in-house lawyer want to be served in a concrete way, they want to solve real problems, with assertive professionals, who speak clear language, who are objective and always looking for viable solutions to business problems. The legal department is an integral and important part of companies and cannot be separated from it.

What are some of the main legislative or regulatory changes that have impacted you?

In my opinion, changes and flexibility in Brazilian labour legislation have had a positive impact on organisations. In my case, it was possible to regularise the remote work of lawyers and create a program to monitor interns to always keep them under the lawyer’s watchful eye, regarding the content assigned to them, focusing on their learning and the creation of work routines. As a result, the team organised itself to focus on delivering tasks in a collaborative and integrated manner, through short-term meetings, with pre-established agendas and pointing out the challenges and difficulties to be overcome.