Team size: Four 

Focus on: My career 

As an in-house lawyer in public sector in Puerto Rico, the number one challenge that has impacted me over the past year has been the process of adapting to a new employment, since I was mobilised to the Comision Industrial after the privatisation of the electricity distribution and generation company in Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Power Electric Company, PREPA). I worked for PREPA for 23 years as a trial attorney and then as an employment attorney and held various positions as Senior Attorney, Assistant head of labour affairs division and head of labour affairs division. It was my job to advise the employer on the interpretation of the current five Collective Bargaining Agreements of five appropriate bargaining units that grouped employees in PREPA. Also, I oversaw representing the employer in different judicial and administrative forums in highly complex labour cases and supervise labour lawyers in this task.  

The adaptation and learning process was hard and challenging for me but made me a better professional and human being, in addition to learning that life itself is made up of constant changes. I have learned the applicable law and rules of my new job, and currently work as Director of the Legal Advice Office. Comision Industrial is a public institution that oversees implementing a social purpose of helping those injured by work accidents who do not agree with the determinations of the State Insurance Fund on disability or treatment. So, I feel that this is a new mission in my life and that it has not been a coincidence that I am currently serving in this agency.  

An innovation that improved how my legal team worked in PREPA was to hold periodic meetings with the office’s lawyers to discuss cases and claims and brainstorm on ways to defend the cases we represented with innovative legal theories. Our team faced daily challenges in representing complaints and cases and dealing with supervisors/employees’ controversies and conflicts. We were all in the process of daily study of different aspects of employment and labour law.  

This learning process was rich and full of cooperation and camaraderie despite the large amount of workload we had.  

The most important qualities required to be successful as an in-house attorney in the industry to which I dedicate myself is to keep up to date with the evolution of labour and administrative law and in ways to improve internal processes to help those who come to this Commission to seek justice in their work accidents compensation cases. This task requires being proactive in continuous learning and being an empathetic leader with characteristics of a good communicator.