Team size: Nine

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

Virtual meeting applications like MS teams, Zoom and Webex are increasingly providing a platform for in-house lawyers and legal practitioners to work in collaboration with their clients and management in a fast paced and secure environment. It also provides the space for a virtual workplace driving down costs related to physical locations. Moreover, new IT platforms like App4Legal, LMS, even MS Sharepoint, allow legal departments to adopt technology platforms that allow them to embed approved legal contracts and document templates to build document automation processes to increase efficiency and efficacy of legal departments.

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

Gender equality in the workplace and empowering women is a main social cause that we believe in the legal team of Mezzan. The legal team of Mezzan supports female team members as legal professionals as well as in the administrative team members. Four out of nine members of the legal team are female, holding the positions of healthcare senior, paralegal, IP officer and an executive secretary. Women are not only half of the society; legal professionals should also lead the way in practicing gender equality and reduce biases in the workplace. We strive to ensure that our working environment is welcoming to reduce attrition levels in relation to female employees.

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

A successful in-house lawyer should have communication skills to communicate with people from across the entire organisation starting from C level management to lower level of the organisation and to be able to reach out and communicate legal concepts to the average non-legal professional.

Personal skills and approachability are also essential as the in-house lawyer needs to maintain two-way communication as well as strong and good relations with all stakeholders in the organisation. The in-house lawyer advises on critical issues and day-to-day matters that need understanding of how the business works, which will make it easier to advise on current and potential matters. It will also help to engender trust which is critical to being an effective counselor.

Proactive and strategic abilities are a must too, because in-house lawyers are valuable to the business team because they can identify business opportunities and mitigate the risks involved using a legal lens. Lawyers who have a proactive and strategic approach anticipate issues before they arise, articulate potential risks to the business, and allow the business to make informed decisions on how to handle a matter based on the risk.

Good in-house lawyers do not let their risk assessment of the transaction be a showstopper to the business. The ability to make decisions within the context of what is good for the company is always a source of comfort to management in any organisation.

The best in-house lawyer has the highest levels of integrity, leads the legal and business teams to success all the time and always sails to safe shores. They lead negotiations and meetings and can motivate and inspire team members. Also, the knowledge and the ability to handle a diverse number of highly complex, critical, and sensitive missions at the same time efficiently and provide leadership on the direction to take are skills that are essential to great lawyers.