Team size:  5

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

In the current context, crises are no longer isolated or sporadic events. Instead, they are a constant feature in our reality. We are permanently immersed in an environment of political, socioeconomic, and regulatory instability and uncertainty, where legal changes are continuous and accelerated.

In this dynamic scenario, experience has consistently shown me that reacting is insufficient. The focus must be on strategic anticipation, which is achieved through rigorous risk measurement and control. This allows us not only to map and understand the most probable or high-impact risks but also to proactively design and implement the most effective mitigation measures. It enables us to understand the business, be prepared, and emerge stronger from each crisis.

Additionally, training the various areas of the company is also a form of anticipation. Proactively empowering the company’s various departments is not merely a preventive measure but an extension of legal control. At L’Oréal, we have implemented “Champions” teams, with an ambassador within each area, who receives ongoing training on legal matters of interest. This allows them to identify and prevent risks within their respective areas, while also transmitting acquired knowledge to their teams.

Furthermore, I have observed that, during times of crisis, a critical success factor is cross-functional collaboration. It is necessary to break down traditional internal “divisions” and foster true teamwork among the different areas of the company. The legal function, in particular, benefits from joining forces with key departments such as communications, commercial, finance, among others.

This multifunctional integration not only enhances our analysis with diverse perspectives and valuable experiences but also allows us to build a stronger response, leveraging the advantage of being part of a unified organisation.

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

Our legal team’s contributions within the company are distinguished by its diverse scope of action. A fundamental pillar of our work is its preventive approach, which materializes, among other things, in the continuous training of our teams.

This proactive vision has also driven us to develop advanced risk anticipation methodologies, including the creation of robust matrices that allow us to identify and mitigate potential contingencies before they materialize.

However, an area where I believe our contribution has been particularly significant is the collaborative fight against product imitation and counterfeiting. This is a growing phenomenon in the consumer products industry that not only affects brand integrity but also exposes consumers to serious risks, especially with products applied directly to the skin. In this context, our role transcends purely legal compliance, becoming an essential social responsibility to safeguard the health and safety of our consumers.

To address this industry-wide challenge, we have established and consolidated strong collaborative networks with specialized external advisors and trade associations, working jointly and in a coordinately manner to effectively combat this growing problem.

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?   

The in-house lawyer should leverage the advantage of being part of the company to develop an in-depth understanding of the business, its culture, operations, and internal sensitivities. This proximity to the business reality enables to offer legal advice that is not only legally robust but also strategically aligned with the organisation’s objectives and vision.

However, in complex scenarios, finding the best solutions requires complementing this internal perspective with external expertise. External legal services provide a global perspective, covering market trends, legal precedents, industry best practices, and innovative solutions tested in diverse contexts.

A key metric for evaluating their performance is precisely the accurate understanding of the company’s internal reality as reflected in the external legal advice, ensuring that the external counsel is not generic but rather adapted and contextualized to the company’s specificities. For this collaboration to be successful, it is essential for the in-house lawyer to act as an effective bridge. Their role is vital in transmitting the company’s internal reality and particularities accurately and sensitively to the external team.

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 that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?
 

Just a few years ago, we were only beginning to hear the term “AI”. Today, it has become an essential component, with exponential growth and deep integration into our daily operations, radically transforming the way we work. I cannot recall any technological incorporation with such rapid integration.

AI offers undeniable benefits, but it also carries significant risks that we cannot ignore, particularly in highly sensitive areas such as data privacy and intellectual property. As in-house lawyers in our companies, our responsibility is fundamental, and we must be deeply attentive to this evolution, staying at the forefront to be able to proactively educate our teams and the various functional areas of the company, ensuring an adequate use of this technology that allows us to leverage its advantages without exposing ourselves to obvious or even implicit risks.

Finally, this technological advancement will challenge us even further, even though there are bills currently underway, we may potentially have to navigate years without a clear regulatory framework.

AI has been taken seriously as a potentially revolutionary technological change in the legal world for a number of years now. Has it had a meaningful impact in how your legal team works in this time?

As an in-house lawyer, I believe it’s key that we integrate AI into our daily function, especially in those tasks where the speed of AI is hard to challenge, such as contract review, legal research, clause proposals, among others.

Consequently, this optimisation of our time allows us to redirect our talent towards where we truly generate value: a deep understanding of our business, complemented by our legal judgment, experience, and knowledge, which enables us to collaborate in decision-making and its strategic direction.