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

I am currently leading, with the help of my legal team, a major refinancing of our company’s purchase orders, accounts receivable, and general-purpose facilities, as well as securing additional financing totaling up to US$500M in factoring and loan facilities to expand its distribution of Chinese tech leading brands Xiaomi and Tecno in Latin and North America, through important carriers like America Movil and other major retailers in these regions.

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

A corporate legal team has the difficult mission of balancing the gatekeeper and business enabler functions, inherent to the in-house counselling profession. As gatekeepers, we have always been expected to provide sound but concise and clear legal and strategic advice to eliminate or minimize risks in our organizations. In turn, and now more than ever before, in-house teams are required to align with the business, not only by finding creative solutions to operational problems or regulatory hurdles, but also by setting up an efficient and effective shop, where processes and procedures are streamlined, where data is being collected and analysed, and where KPI’s need to be measured not only qualitatively but to old school lawyers surprise quantitatively.

In the modern in-house industry, in-house counsels should start thinking in terms of people, processes, and systems. A modern in-house counsel should be well versed in alternative fee arrangements and new billing tools to manage outside counsel, understand the company’s day-to-day contracting workflows and approval matrices, as well as the latest available features in contract lifecycle management software. Additionally, they must be familiarized with budgeting tools to anticipate, manage and minimize legal expense to make cost-effective decisions that makes sense for the business, and leverage A.I. to make the legal team and external counsel focus on added value legal work, rather than repetitive tasks or commodity work. Using knowledge management and repository systems that allow for efficient and scalable information use and minimise training on best practices. Lastly, get to know alternative legal provider offerings that can complement the added value work you need from the in-house team and external counsel.