Team size: Eleven

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

This is very important because the external lawyers we work with operate as an extension of our team. That is why, during the process of searching for a law firm, we make sure that we not only have specialised and highly experienced lawyers in the different areas that we require, but also professionals who demonstrate the capacity and openness necessary to understand and consider account the company’s business and culture when providing advice to us.

In other words, we look for them to be able to provide us with deliverables and personalised and sophisticated solutions that are not only feasible to implement from a legal point of view but also from a practical point of view and focused on our business and users.

Indeed, it is likely that we will reconsider the position of current external lawyers if we perceive a misalignment between our values ​​and culture and that which the firm and/or specific adviser has or manifests in the development of their advice.

As we live in a fast-paced world today, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

Competing in the e-commerce industry and fintech business, designing and offering disruptive and innovative products and technological solutions that did not exist in Latin America, and also doing so in a company whose cultural pillar is to be constantly searching for greater innovation in processes, dynamics and internal work methodologies, as a legal team, challenges us every day, because it implies assuming adaptability to permanent change as a structural element of the work methodology and that, of course, requires a flexible legal team with different types of skills and abilities.

The first thing is that we always must be able to think outside the box, intentionally moving away from traditional legal approaches and structures. In dynamic markets, being conventional lawyers is a luxury we cannot afford. Rather, we must operate with the perspective of being business enablers, so that we are perceived as strategic partners in achieving the company’s own goals. In this way, the lawyer changes their historical role of being a mere reviewer of commercial strategies or initiatives and becomes another piece that integrates the generation of projects. This encourages the business units to include us from the beginning in discussions and decisions and not only when it comes to legal issues. But it also implies that we must be up to the challenges to add value permanently and systematically.

So, specialisation is very important. Today at Mercado Libre, we have specialised lawyers with scope in different countries of the region. When I started to build the team, I had to decide whether to go for a small and rather generalist team and outsource most of the tasks, or have a more specialised, senior team with solid knowledge. I chose latter approach because the issues that we must tackle have become more and more complex and for that it is necessary to have a very solid team that accompanies you to navigate the edges and direct the growth of the company. For this reason, I designed a structure that mirrors the business units, we have a team specialised in e-commerce, logistics and operations, Fintech, Antitrust, dispute resolution, etc.

But technical expertise is not enough, it is also necessary to know the business like nobody else and could adapt and anticipate 3 or 4 moves ahead because it is the only way to propose and design sophisticated, feasible, scalable and long-term solutions.

In today’s world, where everything has become so efficient and where times have shortened so much – even patience -, another speed is expected from the lawyer, another type of advice. You are expected to roll up your sleeves, sitting at the table to help make things happen and not to say what can or cannot be done.

It is also important that we know how to see technology as an opportunity, and not as a threat, a tool that helps us push and take our profession and performance to places that we did not reach before because it allows us to standardise tasks that do not have added value. The business wants its lawyer to be thinking, for example, how to structure the business, to design innovative solutions but adjusted to the norm. It is not relevant or efficient that we are dealing with repetitive topics, which do not add value. That is why I always tell my team that, as lawyers, we are too relevant a player to get lost in tasks that are not up to the task of helping the Business navigate the various markets.

When we look at the advances in technology without prejudice, without fear of losing our supposed place, we can find opportunities to do our job better and be more efficient in what really matters, which is to add value.