Team size: 9

What are the key projects that you have been involved in over the past 12 months?

There is strong focus on growing the business through M&A, and the legal team has assisted in all transactions over the last year, from early phase through completion. Other major contributions to the business were related to contract negotiations and reviews, claims management and regulatory compliance initiatives and policy updates.

What do you think sets you apart from other in-house counsel?

We are generally getting good feedback for solving people’s problems. I am mindful of the fact that the legal team is a support function, which the business should see as adding value. It is important to have a commercial mindset and find solutions rather than creating problems and more work for our colleagues. The most trusted in-house counsels are seen as enablers of business, not blockers. In parallel, we need to manage legal risks and ensure compliance with applicable laws. Being a moral compass in the organisation will always be important – knowing when to say no, when to escalate and when to draw a hard line.

The team is also focusing on all types of initiatives which can make us work more efficiently, including ready-made templates, standard terms and conditions, dashboards for distribution of work internally in the team, low hurdles for colleagues to contact the legal team etc.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on, of which you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful?

There is a lot of focus on AI solutions these days. Understanding the digital tools that are transforming legal work: contract automation, AI review, legal dashboards are important. However, in my experience, it is challenging to find a solution that truly adds value and which comes with a price that can be defended internally. If a “Volkswagen solution” is what we need, I don’t want to buy a Rolls-Royce. Finding the right solution requires understanding about the legal and contractual needs, but also IT and AI knowledge, which may need to be found outside the legal team.