How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience? 

During times of crisis, prioritising is key. Each division has its respective role while the organisation is going through periods of instability, and more frequently than not, the legal team will have something to say on each front. It is important to understand how best to distribute your time and resources to address the most pressing issues first, while taking care not to leave other important matters unattended. In order to know where to assign your resources, it is crucial for the legal team to have a close knitted relationship with other company divisions, as lawyers will be able to add more value to the organization by having a better understanding of the business’s key drivers.

As an example, at CAP we faced very important challenges during the past year. One of our most emblematic subsidiaries, and one of the largest companies in the Biobio Region, was affected by international price distortions that impacted the price at which it could sell its products in the local market, leading to drastic effects in the company’s financial situation. In order to solve this situation, we had to work together and devise a multi-department strategy that involved legal proceedings before the antidistortions commission, as well as a backup plan to be activated if things went wrong. With careful planning between the company’s various departments, we were able to achieve a favourable result in the proceedings, but we were always ready for the worst.

Working jointly with other company departments is also helpful in other non-crisis situations, such as M&A transactions, where a deeper knowledge of the rationale underlying a deal, coupled with a comprehension of the high-level strategy defined by the board, will undoubtedly enable the in-house team to come up with better solutions, such as adding additional layers of protection for the company’s interests within the legal documents. It is crucial for the lawyer to duly understand those interests in order to unlock his or her highest potential.

In addition to dealing with crises, instability and specific deals, it is also essential for legal teams to execute prevention work, such as compliance and other forms of risk management. This type of work contributes directly towards the resilience of an organisation, and is very important as a method of protecting the value created by the company. This includes teaching the organisation where the boundaries are, taking special care to enable the deployment of the strategy, while navigating within the boundaries of the legal framework.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments? 

Artificial intelligence is very rapidly becoming a part of our lives. There are already functionalities that are being carried over to the legal profession. At CAP we have been working with our IT department to design specialised bots that can analyze our own information and provide answers to questions regarding our internal policies, manuals and other documentation, such as board and shareholders meeting minutes. This has helped save considerable amount of time on manual tasks that require going through documents to answer those questions, and the results that the bot provides have been surprisingly accurate. We are permanently looking for solutions such as this so that the team can focus our time and resources on more strategic matters that cannot be solved by a computer.