Team size: Six 

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved the way your legal team works and didn’t come at a huge cost?  

When I took over the coordination of the Group’s legal department in 2019, I immediately noticed a lot of internal resource allocation on the contracting side. A lot of time was wasted reviewing the same issues in contracts. I also noticed that a very large proportion of contracts were repetitive, being used in the same volume of activities. Although it may not seem like a big deal nowadays, by standardising most of the legal aspects of contracts over time, we were able to save a lot of time and resources to be further allocated.   

What are some of the key developments (legal, geopolitical or otherwise) that have affected your business over the last year?  

The Covid-19 pandemic and the armed conflict in Ukraine mainly impacted our legal work. The former, in particular, has meant a significant change in the way we think about work itself, with the emergence of hybrid or home-based work.  

Getting out of the office while doing our jobs meant, in addition to a decisive change in the mindset, a change in how meetings, internal alignments and departmental flows were conducted. 

How do you think the in-house legal role will evolve in the coming years?  

In the future, I increasingly see legal work not only as a support activity but as a relevant business partnership. Because of the increasing number, recurrency and complexity of changes in legislation and the increasing level of regulatory and compliance coercion, the legal team will have to be an integral part of any relevant project from its early stages for that project to be feasible. 

Do you use any “legal technology” products and, if so, what areas of your work do you find it most useful for? (For example, billing, contract drafting, e-discovery, case management, etc.)  

Yes.  

Besides the everyday browsing of legal dedicated sites and neswletters, I mainly use a complex dedicated tool, which has several built-in modules – internal and EU legislation, alerts on legislative changes and proposals, litigation monitoring and case-law, multiple drafts on different documents, e-books. 

It keeps me updated on a daily basis on a tremendous volume of fast changing information.