What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

As a legal department that supports companies in the hygiene segment of the Reckitt Group in Brazil, we have been working to get closer to the business areas, in order to add value in the form of solutions and alternatives that allow the teams to do business with legal certainty and sustainability. In this journey, we have supported various innovation projects for the group’s companies, which seek to offer consumers solutions that are increasingly aligned with their needs and expectations. This support included the improvement of processes and the constant search for efficiency, combined with cleaner and sustainable technologies.

The way in which the legal department operates in this scenario of innovation and constant changes is crucial for the success of corporate initiatives, and only with the alignment between the department’s objectives and the business objectives is it possible to provide innovative responses to the challenges ahead of us. With this, for example, it was possible to minimize part of the impacts of the pandemic through the review of legal flows of analysis and formalization, adapting the forms of interaction to what proved to be our new reality and through the joint analysis with our stakeholders of ways to facilitate negotiations for procurement of commodities and to answer needs of consumers.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?

Every day the request for legal services gains more complex dimensions, and the arise of new technologies, such as smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, automation, AI and cyber security, positively impacts our performance. In any case, it is necessary to keep in mind that law was not primarily designed for the technological world and traditional law education still has a way to go to include all new references.

Within this scenario, it is up to each professional to evolve and to create innovative ways of acting. For those who can rely on creative solutions, as it happened in our department, technological advances become an ally in the search for speed. The technology is also a facilitator, reducing operational work and providing more time to elaborate strategic action, based on data analysis, which seeks to unlock processes, while ensuring that the business operates safely.

As we live in a fast-paced world today, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

Corporate legal teams, inserted in the current context of dynamism and uncertainties, need to have professionals who are curious and open minded to reinvent their way of acting, understanding and aligning themselves more and more with the values and strategies of the business. In this journey, active listening is another important skill, being an enabler for the legal team to explore new possibilities with its clients, to be present and attentive, to create together, thus reinforcing a relationship of trust.