About

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

The legal department that supports DHL Express Central America and Dominican Rep, is as follows:

Legal manager: Mónica Muñoz Herrera

Junior legal counsel: Brenda Molina Artavia

Legal Executive Administrative Assistant: Alexandra Sánchez Calderón

Every team member has an important role for the department’s goals and objectives.

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

No details can be provided due to a non-disclosure agreement. Nonetheless, we have several judicial cases within the seven countries in scope in which legal strategy is key in the outcome and how the case is presented to the judge – we are always thinking about the solution and the best defence. We work closely with authorities and that requires a great deal of creative solutions in order to comply with local and international law. Also, we act on strategy and negotiations in collective conflicts, closing great deals and negotiations for the business.

Our job includes working closely with different areas of the company in the different countries such as: general management, finance, customer service and commercial.

In the past two years we have worked to solve customer claims in order to avoid lawsuits. Of course, part of the job is to provide advice on the changes that need to be implemented in every part of the process so there are no more service failure that could turn into customer claims. As well to be proactive an anticipate risks that could end in huge contingencies for the company, so is very important to get involve with the business in every part of the chain.

What are the key steps to take in order to increase trust in an in-house legal team within a company?

Constant communication: this means stay close, inform, proactively anticipate risks and maintain trust.

Clear and concise recommendations: as lawyers we need to understand that colleagues within the company does not like to read or to understand what I call ‘legal language’ long and tedious answer to questions are old fashioned and of course not required and not practical. So every email that you answer should be easy to read and short.

Staying close to the business and their needs: this is the only way that an in-house counsel can provide the best legal advice, knowing how the business work.

Proactive rather than reactive assessments: will contribute to have a large amount on savings in fines, sanctions, law suits, claims, and will continue helping the business to concentrate on the customers and their needs.

Can you describe some of the challenges your team faces by working for a foreign multinational package delivery company in Central America’s market?

The great challenge that we face is that most of the time you need to give recommendations on situations that you haven’t actually seen before. This means that we act and recommend most of the time remotely. It is better for us to be fully involved but is simply impossible to be totally informed of the daily details of the business. And, of course, we deal with diverse legislations, because as a region sometimes a position on certain matter is needed and it is challenging to come with a single position.

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

The legal department is working on several digitisation initiatives such as electronic signature for internal documentation and contracts, and also a matter management tool.

The electronic signature will help to have more control on the documentation within the company and also will eliminate hardcopy printed documentation, with this initiative we also contribute with the environment.

The matter management tool will help to order the large amount of issues assigned to the legal department. This solution will help the whole Americas legal department.

How significant is collaboration within the legal team and how does that improve output?

Collaboration, commitment and passion is very important in any team, but as a legal department you also need to work together in order to always have the best approach and give the best advice. Team work is very important, and the fact that all members of the team feel supported is a very precious element, in which they all feel confident to ask the questions to make sure all doubts are solved and that everything is covered. This is not an infallible solution or approach as humans we all make mistakes but at the end of the day it is nice to see that we are working towards the same goal.

Focus on… being an extraordinary team

A legal team must have excellent analytical and strategic capacity to closely advise the organisation’s top management and business partners with a preventive and business-focused approach, anticipating risks and recommending in compliance with legislation to facilitate decision making. Lead and guide the business in the approach for the attention of judicial cases or important projects for the organisation working closely with the business is one of the most useful way to have the trust and confidence in the legal team. Strong performance under pressure and extraordinary results are key but also work-life balance is the most important one because this will give the team the motivation to drive everything else. Teams are conformed by people and every person has different personal situations, needs, desires and dreams, it is imperative to let them know that their needs are important and that every single member have so much to contribute and bring in to team, that if you understand that they will commit, they will deliver and deliver in the most amazing way. Leading the people under a culture of respect and results as DHL promotes, will provide the proper road to obtain extraordinary objectives.