In conversation with: Jelena Madir, general counsel

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

Gavi’s legal team guided the organisation through the development of the Covax facility, which is the biggest multilateral effort since the Paris Climate Agreement and has nearly 200 member countries. Covax is essentially a global risk-sharing mechanism, which pools the resources of the world’s developed economies to finance the research and development, procurement and distribution of a vaccine, in an equitable and fair manner, across the world to developed and developing countries alike.

Gavi’s legal team played a key role in operationalising many innovative aspects of this ground-breaking initiative. We were part of the negotiation of different commitment agreements with governments, catering to both high-income and low-income countries. Additionally, we participated in the launch of a mechanism through which countries can donate their surplus doses to other countries, and in the creation of a humanitarian buffer whose objective is to cover populations that may not be covered through the main allocation mechanism for vaccines. Furthermore, we set up the no-fault compensation scheme for 92 low-income countries through which individuals can claim compensation for serious side effects from Covid-19 vaccines administered through Covax. Lastly, we created the model indemnity agreement, to which most vaccine manufacturers signed up, as well as set-up of a technical assistance programme for low-income countries that need help with the implementation of indemnification and compensation schemes.

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

As the pandemic has accelerated the pace of technology adoption in all industries, including the legal world, it is very possible that this trend will lead to lasting changes in how we practice law. For example, in the world of e-signatures, document sharing and online collaboration tools, it may not make much sense to go back to physically sending documents back and forth or spending half a day on physical deal signings.

We are also seeing several tech innovations disrupting the legal profession, including in-house legal teams. For instance, using automation, logic and decision trees to create document templates that define all the relevant search terms upfront, non-lawyers and businesses can use the technology to produce initial draft documents and contracts that used to require input from legal teams. Robotic process automation is a new type of software that replicates the transactional, rules-based work that a human being might do. Essentially, wherever there are processes that are rules-based, repeatable and use IT systems, the person doing that process could be replaced by a software.

I also think all of this highlights a greater need for continuous upskilling of modern lawyers wishing to remain competitive in a post-pandemic world. Finally, it also represents a tremendous opportunity for the providers of legal tech solutions, who should remain mindful of the massive pressures to control cost and augment efficiencies that in-house legal departments face.

Jelena Madir