What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

My most significant duty within the company is to achieve the contractual balance between parties. Aligning the economic, commercial, and legal interests is challenging, considering they both want to maximise their benefits and limit their responsibilities. This balance is only reached when parties agree on terms and conditions and extract major economic returns from the contracts in addition to benefits such as recognition and reputation.

What do you predict will be the biggest change in the legal market over the next few years?

Diversification is what is needed in the modern legal market. I bet on the HUBS models — they will change the way companies operate. All legal matters currently fall on one person or a small team. Diverse, less experienced professionals will oversee transactional and simple requirements to decentralise the main team. They will develop skills and support teams in other geographic areas. The idea is to have a centralised in-house team providing internal legal support to the company. In contrast, the new legal counsel will be concentrated on specific issues in other areas.

Digital is at the centre of the current business landscape, and legal cannot fall behind. Adopting AI, data analytics and machine learning, among others, is vital for lawyers and those who are part of this market to implement a new way of working.

As we enter the next decade, what skills will an in-house lawyer need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

One of the great advantages of in-house lawyers, particularly in a multinational company with operations in several geographic markets, is that they apply and expand their knowledge and competencies across multiple geographies. In-house lawyers acquire an ultra-knowledge of law at a transnational level, which makes them assets much more valuable for the company where they are located and for those that may require their services. Moreover, they would create visibility in additional markets different from where they obtained their degree. To complement the above, it is key that they also have attributes such as versatility, adaptability to new realities and ways of working, thinking out of the box, being proactive and innovative, self-directed, and always focusing on how to adapt or evolve in the business.