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In what ways do you see the in-house legal role evolving in your region over the next few years?

It seems that more and more companies have learned to appreciate the value legal departments create, both in terms of risk mitigation and concrete business results, and therefore the trend seems to be that more and more companies hire in-house lawyers to handle their legal affairs. The scope and role of the different legal departments, however, differs extensively from company to company. As in many other professions, technology impacts the need for in-house lawyers to do routine work, especially work which could either be done by non-legal colleagues themselves, by digital tools or even by hiring contract management support from low cost countries at an inexpensive hourly rate. Hence, I do not expect that most existing legal departments will increase their headcount moving forward, even if the workload were to increase. I believe the role of in-house counsel is shifting from managing legal cases into becoming strategic advisors, who in addition to giving more strategic legal advice focuses on enabling the business colleagues to make better legal decisions themselves. This is not least done by providing quality assured digital tools and trainings adapted to the legal and compliance risk the company is exposed to. The in-house counsel must also pay close attention to how the law firms develop their services, to ensure that their company only uses innovative law firms, while not paying more than strictly necessary.

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

In addition to being a business oriented and highly skilled legal professional, I believe that excellent cooperative and communication skills are keys to success in this profession. Furthermore, as complexity and work load constantly increase, in-house lawyers need to be able to prioritise well, and focus on enabling non-legal colleagues to make better every day legal decisions themselves, which in turn allows the legal colleagues to focus on the most important legal issues and on being strategic advisors to the business.

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

A few years ago, in my previous job in Siemens, a brilliant German colleague who was both an in-house counsel and a skilled programmer, presented a digital solution he had developed for analysing and commenting contracts according to corporate standards, and my initial thought when I saw this was that we will soon all be out of a job. This has, however, not happened yet. It is my impression that all legal departments are struggling these days in deciding which technology to choose to improve quality and efficiency of the legal work. I have personally participated on countless seminars and received presentations from law firms, legal tech firms, consultancy firms and regular software providers, who all promise to make our lives easier with different tools, systems and portals. I do believe there are a lot of good solutions out there already, but there is no one size fits all solution available yet. Even if the perfect solution for every company does maybe not exist yet, I believe that technology will change the way we work even to a larger degree than email changed the way we communicate. Therefore, we obviously need to pay close attention to the ongoing technological developments. In my opinion the most successful solutions will probably be those that in a simple way gives you access to the exact information you need at a touch of a button at any given time. Simplicity and user friendliness are crucial factors to convince bot the legal and non-legal colleagues that any new tool is in fact useful, and not yet another burden.

What can law firms do to improve their services to the legal department?

Many law firms do a very good job supporting legal departments, and those who are particularly good manage to put themselves in the shoes of the in-house counsel and contributes to solving the actual problem fast, rather then writing endless disclaimers. The question external lawyers should ask themselves is what they would have done in a similar situation. The in-house counsel very often knows the law, and what he or she needs is advice.

Do you have anything additional you would like to add?

My impression is that many legal departments have, in many ways, traditionally had a different role and have been perceived differently from other departments in a company. Legal has been the department you only contact if there is a crisis or if you need a document approved fast, never otherwise. Furthermore, legal is probably the only department that considers itself to be the undisputed champion when it comes to buying external legal services, and that there is nothing to learn from procurement about obtaining value for money external legal advice. Unlike for instance IT or HR, legal does not consider any of its work to be routine, and therefore all enquiries to Legal must be done from one person to another, and the output from legal will take time, must always be perfect, and it may under no circumstances be questioned in any way. I believe this is all about to change, and that those in-house lawyers who manage to adapt and become a more integrated part of the business, are those who will succeed. One topic I am particularly interested in is how best to manage a global legal function with very limited resources. What tasks should the in-house lawyers focus on, and equally important, what should we not focus on? I happen to believe that the customer is not always right, and that in-house counsel should often seek to provide legal support to the parts of the business that do not ask for such support, rather than focusing on the colleagues who scream the loudest.