Can you please give us an idea of the work your team has done recently?  

The legal team’s focus last year was on compliance. This included a big project that involved all legal practice areas such as corporate law (suppliers, compliances, and new outsourcing regulations), litigation (reducing any contingent that may arise from the past and in the future) and energy law (involving all our offshore and onshore operations into the international compliance standards).

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry? 

I would say that to understand the Mexican energy industry it is especially important to create transparent communication channels with all your stakeholders like clients, suppliers, and regulatory authorities. Another particularly important quality is for in-house lawyers to understand that though we understand the business from a legal perspective, we still need a different approach from an external legal firm to give perspective and a fuller picture. 

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?  

The oil and gas industry is very innovative regarding operations and adopting new ways of doing things, however in other ways we can still be very traditional. For example, some lawyers may have felt more comfortable having face-to-face meetings with stakeholders to maintain the closeness with them. Now, with modern technologies such as videoconferencing we have learned to feel equally comfortable and to change our mindset and ways of doing things.