Team size: 29

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The business continues to adjust and adapt following the Covid-19 outbreak and the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. This has brought multiple legal challenges for the team, including contractual, contentious, financial (budgetary) and logistical (digital management of teams) issues.

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?

We digitalised our work processes. This involved using a centralised contract database for the whole corporate group, EDMS software to centralise, store, search, and access documentation from all offices of the EBU and GDPR dashboard software to manage and control data protection records. At the same time, and to balance the cost of this crucial digitalisation exercise, we became a paperless department, with fully electronic archiving and document retention.

Additionally, and at no cost, we implemented an internal legal training programme to enable lawyers to learn about and teach each other the basic principles of other legal areas, thus ensuring business continuity when needed and increasing the overall quality of internal advice.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

A critical skill to possess as an in-house lawyer is staying close enough to the business to understand their needs, to be able to offer creative solutions, whilst at the same time, retaining enough distance and independence to minimise risk and protect the company.

The broadcasting industry requires lawyers who understand digitalisation, online platforms, new forms of content distribution and online social media. This must be combined with a clear understanding of the complex regulatory framework and how different instruments fit together in converging markets. It is exactly for these reasons that we implemented our internal legal training programme, to help the team understand and recognise all potential risks and work together to provide creative solutions.