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? 

Managing legal and risks aspects during periods of instability or crises requires you to have a comprehensive approach of the situation and of the consequences which could result and that may impact the company.

There must be a total consistency between the legal strategy and the broader business strategy as legal is only one of the pieces; essentially only one of the tools to manage the circumstances.

To ensure the organisation’s resilience we need to have lawyers and contract managers deeply involved into the business and fully aware of all the other aspects of the business.

What strategic priorities are guiding you and your team in 2024? 

Priorities for me and my managing team are many; on one hand we keep working on the soft skill development of the people. We keep having our yearly legal academy session during which 20 French speaking and 20 English speaking lawyers and contract managers meet for a whole week to benefit m from this soft skill training. The training is offered by tier 1 coaches and is attended by main managers of each function, who explain the behaviour and the added value expected from all team members to improve the function’s performance. This year will be the fourth year we propose the legal academy, which means that we will have trained 80% of the Colas lawyers and contract managers.

Finally, we start assessing the consequences of CSRD implementation in the construction industry. This will open new battlefields and the necessity for our teams to acquire new skills.

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? 

AI will obviously be the emerging technology impacting our legal profession in the coming years. I appointed a legal digital officer who oversees coordination of all AI and digitalization initiatives, ensuring that experiments are capitalized and additionally monitors the Legaltech market.

Our legal digital officer is also leading tests and comparative analysis between the different tools and products the market proposes us. We have also developed in-house a lot of tools fit for our needs. This led to savings but more than that, it also led to performance improvement.