Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved the way your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

I support enterprise supply chain for Latin America. One of the core areas is sourcing or procurement. The level of demand for contracts and support is high, considering that 3M has a presence in most Latin American countries. To create something more practical so that sourcing agents could have immediate answers, a self-service tool called legal-wiki was created. Sharepoint has made it easy to access pre-approved contract templates in three languages of various categories, without having to contact the legal area. Additionally, in case of doubts, a legal request tool was created, all within the same platform.

What are some of the key developments (legal, geopolitical or otherwise) that have affected your business over the last year?

In recent years, there have been many changes in legislation, for example in labour and tax issues that impact any business or company. But I think that the greatest impact during the last few years is related to the protection of personal data and technology. Little by little, we see in Latin America that governments are regulating these issues, when in many countries it was only protected as the right to privacy, which is positive but obviously puts more pressure on the legal area to understand and apply these changes. In terms of technology, the use of tools such as Chat-GPT, which are undoubtedly of great help in data analysis and search, is one of the developments that has had the most impact. The proper use of data and information management are challenges that we as in-house lawyers have been facing this last year.

How do you think the in-house legal role will evolve in the coming years?

In-house lawyers continue to be a partner to the business. Our role should focus more on being strategic and continuing to protect the company. I think that technology will be an ally for lawyers in general. Artificial intelligence will certainly make work easier on those tasks that are repetitive, which is good, as it will help us focus on what really matters and that is helping the business grow. The legal advisor is a role that will continue to be vital in decision making.