Team size: 10

Major legal advisers: Baker & McKenzie, De la Vega & Martinez Rojas, White & Case

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?

The largest part of the legal team’s workload comprised the review of agreements for Non-Productive Material products and services. As Continental has 19 production facilities throughout Mexico, which require a lot of agreements, we created a SharePoint with a catalogue of the most commonly used agreements that allows us to have templates for specific kind of documents, as well as more complex agreements.

Having a catalogue of the most used agreements allows us to have a standard quality for all our agreements, representing no additional cost for the company; and allows us to be more efficient, having a very quick response to our legal service requests. Templates also enable us to minimise the time spent on the review and drafting of day-to-day documents and makes the legal department much more efficient and cost effective, redirecting our time to the analysis of more complex matters and projects.

Can you foresee any key developments to the way general counsel work over the next five years?

In the next five years, the general counsel’s work will evolve a lot, allowing the use of more technological resources. We are about to close the e-signature implementation, which was significantly more complex that we initially foresaw, and I believe that all the new tech developments, such as AI will also impact legal work.

While legal work requires academic or theoretical knowledge, it primarily involves strategic thinking and the practical application of law that allows us to solve problems, which I think is the main purpose of the general counsel’s work.

As a general counsel, I think that our job is to be the best business partner our operative areas could have, which involves possessing a thorough understanding of the business and having a strategic mindset. New technological advances are important and should be used to facilitate our day-to-day jobs, allowing us to have more time to get to know both the business and the problems that we should solve, from a legal and practical perspective.

How would you assess the impact of new technologies on the legal landscape in Mexico, and what measures would you propose to leverage these technologies while ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations?

A good example is the increase in regulatory matters; by using new technologies to carry out the check-up, review, and reports on a timely basis, we are able to comply with these requirements. The new labour requirement on Specialized Services (REPSE) places the burden on modern technologies that clearly serve their purpose by freeing up time to prioritise other challenges.