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

Over the past years, there have been numerous cases in our region where breaches of anti-corruption legislation have had severe results for enterprises. Most companies have had good compliance programmes in their drawers, but the general view has been that a compliance programme is just something needed for good housekeeping. I think that a major part of an in-house lawyers’ job will be working with the employees to imbed these programs in the corporate culture and thereby increase awareness accordingly. Also, Scandinavians are quite tech savvy, and being able to understand and integrate the fast-paced development of legal tech into daily work will be key to keeping a comparative advantage.

Do you have any effective techniques for getting the most out of external counsel, in terms of how to instruct them?

We use external counsel world-wide, and have built our experience in this regard over decades of working with various law firms. Often, when the cooperation has not worked all too well, we see that we have not been clear on what we are asking for, the lawyers are then (naturally) responding to something else, and the result is a cooperation that is suboptimal. It is also important to bear in mind that we do not always know the field of law very well, and this may be reflected in how we ask our questions. Our best external advisers are those who are able to analyse why we ask the specific questions, and thereby getting to the true core of the issues at hand.

What can law firms do to improve their services to the legal department?

Being an in-house lawyer, your weeks are often full of meetings and many tasks that are not strictly legal. We therefore value all updates on legal developments and other topics that may be of interest to us. It is also value-adding when external lawyers follow-up on matters and reach out to ensure that deadlines are not missed and provide updates on matters, without having to ask. Further, if the advice received is scalable internally, it will be perceived adding more value.

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Business Involvement

Höegh Autoliners transport hundreds of thousands of cars, agricultural machinery, mining equipment and other types of cargo calling at well over 3,000 ports annually. I have been with the company for almost a decade and during this period, the industry has changed fundamentally, making profitability a challenge. It has meant a need for increased professionalism and a relentless focus on cost. Reducing costs means reducing hours spent for external lawyers and bringing more work in-house. With the evolution of the business and the emphasis on efficiency and costs, we have asked ourselves if there are other ways of serving the clients and their needs.

We have concluded that we want to evolve with the business, to keep our comparative advantage and empower our clients to make streamlined legal decisions. If we can achieve that the business will gain pace, not lose time by always having to go through legal and legal can become a strategic partner to management and shareholders. This process will not be easy. It will require a completely different mind set from both the lawyers and the clients, increased training and not least a digitisation of a number of processes. 

A first step is to identify what the legal and compliance department does. How many times do we respond to the same or nearly the same question? How often do we review similar contracts? How frequently do we refer to the same manuals or templates? By getting answers to these questions, it is easy to identify efficiency gains. The next step is to recognise the various needs in terms of risk, cost, speed and ease of service. Who needs what and what should be prioritised?

The third step is to pinpoint the processes required and to find software that can assist in this development. Some will just be tweaks to existing systems, like having to do a sanction screening in the booking system before being able to book with a new customer. Others will require relatively advanced AI to assist contract drafting and negotiations at business level without involving the lawyers. To achieve the latter, we must centralise relevant contracts and contract clauses, training the system to spot “red flags” and to be able to suggest alternative wording and set up decision-making rules to streamline the process. In parallel, we must ensure that our clients are comfortable by providing adequate training in for them to have critical legal knowledge. It will be important to reward learning in this field.

The technology is getting there and will be a cornerstone in the transformation process. It may prove more difficult to change the mind-set in the legal department. Many in-house lawyers have a background from larger law firms where a great legal mind, immediate attention to the client and extraordinary work ethos resulting in a high number of invoiced hours are rewarded. When these lawyers enter the in-house workforce, they bring the same mind-set and approach. To our clients, it adds value as they get reliable answers quickly, but is that what is needed in the new landscape? The ability to say no is challenging for many people, especially when you have always been rewarded for saying yes. To learn to say no will be essential if we want to achieve our goal of being relevant and keeping our comparative advantage.  

I believe that even with digitisation and low-cost external lawyers, in-house counsels with a thorough business understanding will continue to play an essential role in any company. To properly understand the risks and the strategic thinking, it is key to be part of the business and the culture, but there will only be true value if it is possible to be proactive, rather than reactive. To succeed, the evolution of the role is necessary.