(previously at Banco Cetelem)

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? 

Artificial Intelligence is essential in every relevant legal department and there are already several good tools available to be explored. Because AI can constantly learn with new data, I consider it a very precious tool for the legal team to improve analysis and actions, especially to develop preventive perspectives for all company areas. 

Another instrument I find very useful to practice corporate law is related to legal design. Our legal team developed a very useful tool for mass litigation called Visual Defense project. It combines law with creative design to simplify proceedings and bring a more creative way of thinking to lawsuits. This tool helps us to communicate better with judges using technologies such as QR codes, videos, graphs, interactive images and audio. 

Using new ways to bring the evidence to the lawsuit helps judges to better absorb information in proceedings. So far, it has been well-received by courts, and we have seen a significant improvement in our success rate. 

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

Being close to business partners is essentially to understand all their needs, forecasting tendencies and trends to help the whole operation setting innovation and technology, for a better and faster service. 

I believe time is a very precious asset and our legal team must be ready not to lose any opportunities. Fast legal departments can avoid bureaucracy, testing the solutions alongside the operational teams, as well as developing innovative and creative ways to deal with any legal or operational issue. 

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

The main legal and regulatory developments we recently experienced are intimately related to compliance and consumer protection, so I believe all legal departments must forecast these changes and anticipate plans of action towards them. Also, data protection, and its impact on financial institutions, has being a very defying challenge, as it is necessary to deal with consumer sensible information as a core engine for operational teams. 

In addition of reducing the business risk complying with the regulation, I believe that legal department must also be an active part of the company, watching over the operational teams to ensure legal protection turns into a unique consumer experience.