About

Bob Marin says his greatest achievement at Panasonic has been ‘survival’. Given that his brief is to look after the North America region for a complex global organization, his comment will surely resonate with anyone in a similar position. The key appears to be down to Marin’s own efficiency. Acknowledging that ‘doing more with less’ was one of the biggest challenges he faced when moving in-house, he created a matrix to allow his legal department to communicate effectively – without unnecessary bureaucracy – to all the various different areas within the business; his matrix is based upon the principals of relationship management, and area of expertise. Market sources have noted that Marin is ‘an outstanding steward of the legal department, having his team focus on receiving value from law firms, regardless of firm size. He is not tied to incumbent firms and is an innovator when it comes to using non-law firm providers where they are the most efficient provider to complete a project’. Marin himself described this practice as ‘wading through the latest trends and focusing on the few that are truly useful and innovative’. He’d like to see law firms mirror his emphasis on efficiency, citing ‘overstaffing’ as one of the most common issues he encounters.