About

Richard Bacek moved to Siemens in 2009 off the back of a highly impressive private practice career that saw him rise to the level of local partner with CMS Cameron McKenna. During the course of his tenure with Siemens, his role has expanded and he now has responsibility for Slovakia and Romania as well as the Czech Republic. Bacek explains that he built the legal function around the following principles: ‘Firstly, a clear distribution of responsibilities whereby each lawyer is a business partner for the defined business or corporate function. Secondly, motivating lawyers to undertake: internal training of managers; creating and updating templates; and other user-friendly documents for the business. Thirdly, networking lawyers into international Siemens teams and thus motivating lawyers to be part of the global Siemens legal community via information visits to headquarters, participation in practice groups and other methods’. This has allowed the team to be extremely flexible in dealing with the prominent issues, particularly in relation to regulatory changes, new products and ensuring company-wide compliance. Bacek sums up the key to excellent in-house support succinctly: ‘always look at the matter from a business perspective and do not provide legalistic advice. Rather, support the business effectively using whatever legal instruments are available’.