Major legal advisers: Arochi & Lindner Ricardo Sanguino, Fernando Aued Dentons Panamá, Luis Kudo KNR México

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

Because our internal legal team is short, we need to rely upon our external advisors; we manage to consolidate legal topics and areas to ensure we will not exceed our budget. Considering that, and in the case of a specific process, we require legal fee proposals to different law firms to evaluate costs and benefits. For 18 years, we have managed our G&A, increasing the same annually just in accordance with local inflation. We have successfully done that by planning yearly the legal topics we manage (administrative, corporate and civil litigation). Any case that may arise out of these topics is handled separately.

Can you foresee any key developments to the way general counsel work over the next five years?

When Covid appeared and struck us all, we had to react, adapt, and evolve in ways we could not have foreseen. Our soft skills were tested. Never had they been so necessary to lead teams. And just after hurdling that significant change, we face an even greater one: A.I. Lawyers, more than other professions, must constantly focus on all processes inherent to our jobs and rely on solid human skills that make the difference. Honesty, transparency, reconciliation, strong ethics, creativity, and problem-solving attributes are adamant to effectively lead and execute anywhere globally.

How we work today differs from how we did it just a few years ago. The newer generations entering the workforce demand different from their leaders; attracting and retaining talent is a continuous challenge. Information is everywhere, and so are opportunities for those willing to venture and grasp them. Time is of the essence!

A corporate lawyer needs more than ever to be informed, constantly available, trained, and experienced in dealing with these new challenges and other potentially critical ones -such as social media. Threats to companies’ intellectual property come from hackers outside our organisations, like from unguarded backdoors inside our corporations. Personal data and its importance today must be well managed, and corporations and individuals must be protected from constant threats to all these and others. The corporate lawyer is often the first and last line of defence.