Team size: Ten 

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense? 

My first concern joining the team was fighting against isolation and the misconception very common to most companies as regards the standing and role of lawyers. Taking steps to explain our work and ensure receptivity to innovation, I included regular invites to key internal stakeholders for them to explain their work, the terminology used (too often a pain for us), their priorities but also have a view of our role and thinking. I arranged regular meetings and discussions with managers/teams that seemed to have problematic or non-existent relations with legal and the exchange of ideas with other legal teams of multinational companies in Greece to get a fresh and new perspective. 

The other pain point to tackle was the enormous time spent in meetings, which we managed to do firstly by reducing the number of lawyers in the same meeting and secondly and most importantly by reintroducing the idea of written questions via email. In addition to the above, we focused on using tech tools already provided by our group at no cost such as reporting tools for litigation to follow court cases and rationalise and simplify templates used by commercial teams for various transactions. Lastly, we started streamlining our yearly goal setting with business, starting with our CEO’s and executive committee’s yearly priorities. Next steps: issue a regular newsletter, which we plan to do by the end of the year. 

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?  

Their role is crucial for us, they are all going to be reevaluated this year since we try to make long-standing bonds we value. One of the criteria will be their alignment with our principles, particularly diversity policies and compliance. Note that we managed to save costs considerably during the last two years when I joined the company, keeping a lot of the work internally but also revisiting fee structures.