How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

For a general counsel, it is of the utmost importance to work with external lawyers who align with our values, understand our business and provide us with ‘out-of-the-box’ solutions for complex problems.

Values such as transparency and rigour are essential. When an in-house externalises subjects or topics, they seek quick, practical and straight-to-the-point legal advice. A transparent and complete risk assessment without surprises (bad surprises, I mean) makes all the difference when choosing the law firms or lawyers we want to engage with.

If your legal advisors are not aligned with your values, you may engage them once, but you will not consider them for future projects – this is the difference between building long-term partnerships or being taken for a one-off topic.

A good lawyer’s most valuable characteristic is a 360º vision of the problems! What makes a lawyer outstanding from his peers is the capacity to look into a particular subject with all the variables, almost like having a problem workflow chart in his mind. The easy way is to see and advise on what is in front of you – what is evident before your eyes — however, a file has so many variables. Such variables have so many impacts that you need to see the whole picture and study all the details and scenarios to anticipate the next move. It is almost like a chess game: You know where you are standing and aim for the goal, but you need to study all the different moves to succeed.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change within their organisations?

In-house lawyers are no longer part of a hidden department that is placed down the hall. Nowadays, in-house counsel is playing new roles in organisations and giving active advice to management.

We went from a legal department that solved problems and issues created by the other departments (the cleaners) to a true business partner that anticipates, evaluates and mitigates risks and actively supports management decisions.

A good organisation is well-prepared and can mitigate or even avoid problems. Nowadays, what is expected from an in-house is effective management – showing the path: Knowing the business like no one, assessing the risks, and providing advice that will drive the organisation to its goal.

In general, what would you like to see change about the external law firms you use?

We want to have straight-to-the-point and practical answers. The ‘never-ending’ emails full of conceptual speech are nerve-wracking – and after the third paragraph, you lost me!

First, it gives the impression that the law firm needs to justify the amount they are billing by showing off tons of concepts and jurisprudence that will be useless. The tradition shows that a lawyer is an eloquent professional with notable speech and writing skills, but the current pace is incompatible with such an approach. We look for easy-to-read, short and concise answers. All of us attended university and are familiarised with the generic principles. Instead, we want solutions that are well structured, straight to the point, and goal-oriented – and yes, all of us know that the beauty of legal advice relies on a proficient ‘it depends’!