About

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has been involved with in the last two years?

The team has led a strong reduction in litigation with accruals reduced by R$0m over 2017 – 2018 year on year, and provided legal assistance over all M&A and securities issuances run by the company. It worked on the restructuring of all legal activities and processes involving team rebuilding and the creation of a legal balanced scorecard, with daily, weekly and monthly KPI’s following up on legal performance across all legal areas (labour, tax, civil, etc) including litigation controls either for massive quantities and specific cases across all company’s sub regions comprising all courts spread over the country. It is also responsible for internal due diligence through lawsuit filing processes related to all the company’s entities, aiming at reconciling the internal basis for legal controlling and KPI purposes including tax committee implementation, with monthly meetings together with controllership area as well as external consultants. Finally it maps all PDCA labour claim risks related to all company’s entities throughout Brazil, comprising root causes as well as prompt actions with all involved areas aiming at its mitigation.

How important have “soft skills” or personal attributes outside of technical legal skill been to the team’s success, and which “soft skills” do you feel are most important for an in-house lawyer to possess?

Focus in ethical and compliance culture across all the employees mindset, not only legal. Also, a strong sense of accountability and commitment with the company’s objectives implements a strong measurement culture, focused on practical results and constant monitoring by creating a
strong legal controlling dashboard and balanced scorecard.

How can in-house legal teams be an integral part of their firm’s business? How does the legal team demonstrate its value to the company?

Implementing a strong legal balanced scorecard enabled the in-house legal team to become an important service line, whose KPI’s and processes
are also offered to the company’s clients. This strategy has turned in-house legal into an important cost manager as well as a significant revenue generator, adding value to the business and its respective clients in either cost and revenue
sides.

Does the team use any “legal tech” products and do you find them a helpful management device?

Yes, there is an in-house CRM used for KPI’s and contract management. In addition, we are on the designing and testing stage of the processing logistics system, with court sessions representatives and technical assistants on-line audit, supported by the creation of the respective dashboard aiming at speeding up court decisions on behalf of the company. There is always room to enhance and set up in-house solutions specifically designed for legal matters, reinforced by an ever-increasing necessity
to integrate with the company’s ERP system. Such
an implementation is within legal area targets for 2020.

Is diversity and inclusion as a matter of internal policy on the agenda at your company? How much influence do you, as an in-house legal team, have on the diversity and inclusion policies of your organisation?

Yes, for sure. Whenever policies are developed or discussed towards diversity and inclusion, legal is strongly involved. Especially policies comprising gender, women protection, deep social impact, considering the company’s employees profile. Taking into consideration that most of the employees are females and household heads, whose income is often the only one in families composed by an average of three members (often more). This represents a social impact over a population equivalent to the one of a small city (for Brazilian standards) of approximately 110,000 habitants.

What political, economic or regulatory changes have impacted the company and the team the most recently?

E-social and LGPD were the latest changes that most had an impact on both legal and management decisions, Also, tax and retirement policies still under discussion in Congress, such as the pension plan, tax and labour systems reforms. In addition, the trickery and cleverness by which Brazilian Government deals with international market pressures have strongly affected investments in the country and still hit the FX rates and, hence, our clients, which compose a significant portion of our customer’s portfolio, forcing them to reduce their profitability and, therefore, our company’s margins.

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department ?

Ana Luiza Dourado has restructured legal department by putting new policies and procedures in place, as well as a new vision upon managing and presenting outcomes. Such a mindset allowed the creation of a legal controlling structure, applying visual law concepts comprehending all legal areas. But this was only possible after the efforts from a high performance team, who entirely engaged in this new framework.

 That said, Jessica Ramos, legal manager, joined the company in 2017. She earned her Juris Doctor Degree from Mackenzie University, followed by a post-graduation in Labor Law there. A few time later, Talita Castanho joined the organization in 2018 holding a Juris Doctor degree earned from PUC/SP, complemented by a post-graduation in Corporate Law. Talita coordinates all contract demands from the company. Finally, Thais Gimenez, who is responsible for all the company’s litigation. She  joined the company in 2017 and holding a Juris Doctor Degree from FMU followed by a post-graduation degree in Human Resources Management from FAAP, as well as Labor Law degree from São Bernardo do Campos School of Law.

Focus on…

Compliance

Establishing standardized compliance and legal procedures, as well as KPI’s, reaching all instances and processes across the Brazilian legal system and respective controlling agencies such as the Public Prosecutors Bureau, might be a powerful instrument to ignite positive changes in both legal and compliance areas. Some of the most visible outcomes from this standardisation would be reliable data for indicators comprising municipal, state and federal ranges, as well as creating statistics regarding courts and magistrates decisions under any possible perspective. Nowadays, information is extremely scattered, diluted and inaccurate, often not comparable.

Moreover, access to a better legal database comprising all areas and levels within the legal system result in way more accurate decisions from companies and respective managers, turning into safer and more easily tracked pathways. Risk measurement and assurance would also benefit from such a process, since they would bring on board more comfort and to the company’s executive board (as well as shareholders and board of directors), thus positively impacting service and products costs and, therefore, prices.