Team size: Two

Major legal advisers: Lewis Silken Ireland, A&L Goodbody

What impact did the pandemic have on the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries in Ireland?

In March 2020, we had to completely transform our business, how we worked and how we engaged with our stakeholders including healthcare professionals. Novartis had been planning new ways of working prior to the pandemic. In Novartis, the flexible working policy is called Choice with Responsibility, and it has been in place since July 2020 with great success helping employees manage their responsibilities while increasing impact in the workplace.

I believe that society now looks more favourably on the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries since these are the companies investing in significant research and development required to eventually launch vaccines and other medicines to combat disease and providing hope so that the world may find a way to end the Covid-19 pandemic.

Novartis no longer has a vaccine business, but it does have one of the largest and most diverse manufacturing operations in the industry. We have been involved in collaborations to help manufacture two different mRNA-based vaccines. From an external perspective, pharmaceutical companies are probably viewed as more attractive places to work now due to people’s renewed interest in their health.

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

Corporate legal teams need to be proactive and commercial-minded problem solvers. Providing advice in digestible formats like executive PowerPoint summaries or visually representing legal opinions so that they can be easily understood by internal stakeholders with no legal training is a good start. Being digitally savvy, having the ability to navigate complex matrixed organisations and stakeholders and continuing to embrace learning all help. Helping the business make the right decisions by taking smart risks in this complex environment is really where the in-house role adds meaningful value.

Due to the pandemic, we embraced change and developed new habits and working practices overnight. This proves that we can be very agile if required. No one knows what the next challenge will be and how to adequately prepare. However, we can work on our resilience and embrace a positive mindset to navigate new working structures, client needs, new turbulence, and uncertainty.

In what ways do you see the in-house legal role evolving in your region over the next few years?

The legal industry has traditionally been slow to embrace digital. As we all know from the now famous ‘I’m not a cat, judge, lawyer video’, lawyers like everyone else have had to adopt digital solutions including virtual hearings. In-house lawyers need to optimise their processes and project management skills so that they spend more time on impactful work rather than time-consuming administration. Rather than being simply cost-effective, in-house legal roles need to truly work in partnership with their clients with an optimistic, problem-solving business-oriented mindset.