First, can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently?

The company is a major player in the engineering and construction industry, and our team handles a wide range of legal issues affecting the organisation.

In the last years, we have led the negotiation of multiple complex contracts for the execution of significant infrastructure works within the private and public sector, including in-house support to project finance. Some of these projects represent the country’s most important and strategic investments in infrastructure and will be carried out in the near future.

Moreover, the legal department has assumed a relevant role working closely alongside our business development team. A significant milestone was the in-house advice on the sale of a company’s stake in a wind farm to a leading investor in renewable energy. Currently, we are advising on several transactions as part of our company’s expansion strategy.

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

We are committed to generating a positive and verifiable social and environmental impact. Within an industry that is increasingly sensitive to social and environmental matters, addressing these issues is how companies build durable trust.

Besides from adopting ethical standards beyond what the formal rules require, many other essential elements of corporate citizenship need to be continuously strengthened. This has become one of our main priorities, which requires staff, from the general counsel and the whole legal team, to exhibit the technical expertise, wise counselling, and accountable leadership to help the company fulfil the abovementioned responsibilities.

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

Companies are always striving to reduce costs and increase value, and the legal departments are no strangers to this rule. Therefore, law firms should be constantly thinking about how to innovate and add real value to the service they provide to inside counsel.

In addition, law firms should seek to integrate more deeply with the legal department and with their client’s business. In order to become a strategic advisor, law firms need to identify, among its staff and with the client’s help, and train those lawyers that are most qualified to deliver the best services possible to that specific client over the short and long term.