Team Size: Over 20

What are the most significant cases, projects or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

Over the past year, my legal team has engaged in numerous strategically important initiatives. Among them, the following three stand out the most:

My team led the charge in negotiating the contract, coordinating with relevant authorities, and analysing the risks for the acquisition of a large-scale site where we intend to build future R&D facilities. This transaction was closely tied to our company’s long-term innovation strategy, which meant it required a swift but measured approach.

In a critical lawsuit involving one of our affiliates overseas, we acted as the bridge between our local counsel and our head office, successfully ensuring alignment on legal strategy. Our efforts enabled us to minimise legal risk and respond to developments quickly, ultimately empowering us to better manage legal exposure globally.

My team built a company-wide system to consolidate and broadcast our internal regulations, procedures, and rules. This platform automatically logs all revisions and reference logs across our rules and regulations, which not only makes it invaluable for reinforcing compliance but also driving operational efficiency and transparency across our entire company.

How do you approach managing legal teams during periods of instability or crisis to ensure your organisation’s resilience?

I believe that the key to resilience during crises is a legal function that is prepared but can also adapt on the fly. Not only does my team consist of people who possess expertise across a wide range of regulatory, contractual, and conflict-resolution areas and can effectively respond to all kinds of risks, but we also actively involve team members in complex matters to help build grit and foster their decision-making capabilities in high-stakes situations. On a broader level, I encourage my team to internalise our company’s values and engage in cross-functional collaboration so they can learn to make speedy and accurate decisions under pressure without relying on top-down directives and, as a result, cultivate trust with the rest of the company.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance ?

Our default is to handle matters in-house whenever possible. However, we do consider partnering with external counsel when the issue poses a potentially significant risk to our social credibility or business continuity, when the matter requires involvement with regulators or government bodies, or when knowledge about a specific area or overseas legal matters is required. As for how we evaluate external legal partners, we not only assess their legal expertise, but we also look into how well they understand our business, the speed and accuracy of their communications, and what value they bring to our team in helping mitigate long-term risk.

Looking forward, what trends do you foresee in the legal landscape over the next five-ten years that companies should prepare for?

I believe that our ability to coexist with AI — and the clear allocation of roles between humans and technology — will be a defining issue for legal teams going forward. While I believe that AI should be actively leveraged in routine and repetitive tasks, I also believe that in-house professionals should be the ones to handle matters which require making nuanced decisions based on a strong understanding of company culture, strategy, and risk. That said, I am confident that the integration of technology and organisational knowledge will be the key to empowering legal teams in generating true strategic value in the years to come.