Team size: Nine

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 Bapco legal team is responsible for reviewing, negotiating, and managing a high volume of contracts daily. One of the simplest but most innovative workplace practices I have implemented is to ensure that every team member is equipped with two large screen monitors.

This has had a dramatic impact on the team’s productivity and has proven to be an invaluable asset for team members. The innovation has allowed the team to effectively segregate their communication tasks, such as emails and phone calls, from their document-related work, like reviewing documents and taking electronic notes. They are able to work on both screens simultaneously with increased efficiency and convenience.

The simple innovation allows my team to configure their workspace to their working preferences therefore eases their frustration with disruptive tasks, minimising windows, and the use of small mobile devices. This new but simple practice has improved the way my teams all at a low cost.

How do you balance your responsibilities as a GC with your involvement in dispute resolution and M&A matters?

I have organised the legal department into specialised verticals, senior lawyers are responsible for heading the Strategic Initiatives, which includes activities related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), as well as the Disputes vertical. Less senior team members, often comprising local nationals whom we are committed to training, undergo rotations across these verticals. This allows them to gain valuable experience by working alongside the more senior lawyers.  

Creating these specialised verticals and placing senior specialist lawyers as leaders instils confidence in the effective day-to-day management of associated matters.  

I conduct daily update sessions with the heads of each vertical to understand their current challenges and closely work with them on developing strategies for these matters. For the purpose of adding value, I prioritise transactional matters and project work, such as M&A activities and projects, right from the structuring phase – this helps to reduce the possibility of disputes.

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

I cannot emphasise enough that the style, methods, and delivery of work products, as well as contracting processes, along with how legal teams serve both internal and external clients, will undergo a significant transformation over the next five years due to the adoption and implementation of legal technology.

As chief legal counsel of Bapco, I am spearheading our legal transformation initiative. This involves setting up a contractual life cycle management system, we have appointed a project advisor who is responsible for process mapping and managing the implementation of legal technology. We also have a technology provider to build and tailor the enterprise system to our specific needs. Additionally, a legal advisor has been tasked with drafting new updated contract templates to align with our changing requirements.  

This legal transformation will centralise and automate all contracts in a user-friendly format, making them accessible to all business units. This will significantly reduce the transaction time with customers, whilst enhancing governance by integrating our Schedule of Authority into the approval process, and enabling the team to control invoicing, bills, and overall matter management. Centralisation and automation will become a necessity for the successful functioning of legal teams in the future.

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?

For in-house counsel overall, and for those within industrial companies, comprehensive contract lifecycle management (CLM) technologies will become increasingly important. This growing importance can be attributed to a growing emphasis on governance, compliance, legal risk management, transparency, digitisation, and automation. Industrial companies are placing a strong emphasis on digitisation and automation, driven by their adoption of advanced technologies aimed at achieving sustainability and environmental goals, which is now extending to their support services, including the legal function.

As the regulatory bodies across industries mature, especially in the oil and gas industry, there is a greater emphasis on compliance throughout the entire organisation, extending beyond health and safety and environmental concerns. CLM technologies will play a pivotal role in assisting organisations in achieving their legal compliance and legal risk management key performance indicators (KPIs). For governance and transparency purpose, CLM technologies permit a full audit trail and are capable of embedding an entity’s schedule of authority and other policy requirements into the contract management process. This information is accessible to predetermined stakeholders, ensuring a transparent and accountable contracting process.

We are in contact with the market leaders in this sphere, having selected two technology providers, we have agreed bi-annual presentations from the top three market leaders in this field, who are eager to secure additional business. These presentations serve to keep us abreast of the latest developments and additional features that can enhance our capabilities. A designated team member is responsible for managing and follow up this process.