Month: February 2020

I have over 20 years of legal experience, most of it in-house. I started my professional career working as a legal advisor in the notary service. In 2005, I became general counsel for Telebucaramanga, a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Telefónica. Following this, I spent a year practicing litigation in private practice as a senior associate at Baker McKenzie. In 2008, I moved in-house once again as the manager of Latin American corporate legal affairs for the Colombian oil and gas company Terpel (formerly known as Organización Terpel). During the past ten years, I spent two years at TV Azteca as their legal manager, and four years as a legal and compliance director at CenturyLink in charge of the Northern and Andean regions of Latin America. One of the highlights from my time at CenturyLink was working on a team for the deployment of the first submarine cable connecting Colombia with the Pacific Ocean. I then spent a year at Claro Colombia as director of institutional relations and social responsibility, where one of my biggest achievements came in the form of successfully negotiating roaming agreements for the deployment of 4G networks with Avantel, Telefónica and TIGO.

I am now the legal director for the Andean Region for Uber, and for Panama and the Caribbean for Uber Eats. The recruitment team at Uber contacted me in 2018 and I made the decision to move to Uber because I see its importance as one of the most disruptive companies in the world. Through the use of technology it has a huge impact on the communities in which it operates globally. At Uber I am responsible for litigation, commercial and corporate matters, regulatory issues, competition law, and consumer protection rights. I would never include the word ‘typical’ to describe a working day here. My role requires a constant balance between legal strategy and meeting the business’s goals, and minimising risk for Uber while providing the best legal advice. Every day here is full of challenges, so I have to think outside of the box a lot of the time. I have faced a number of compliance challenges, but my team and I work with the board of directors to manage these crises. The experience I have gained has prepared me to handle such challenges successfully, and I have learned how to make a 360-degree evaluation of complex situations in order to come up with ways to solve them.

One challenge modern companies such as Uber face head-on relates to diversity and inclusion. We are committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for everyone, which includes having policies in place to prevent any form of discrimination or harassment. Uber values the unique contributions of individuals with varying backgrounds and believes that diversity contributes to the success of its business. At Uber, all employees are given the opportunity to develop within diverse employee resource groups (ERGs) such as ‘Pride at Uber’, ‘Able at Uber’, ‘Parents at Uber’, ‘Interfaith at Uber’ and ‘Women of Uber’, among others. These groups promote the diverse nature of Uber’s workforce and improve work behaviours and attitudes every day. ‘Women of Uber’ is an internal group that seeks to find new opportunities, support, and sponsorship for women to ensure all women can speak openly and connect with external networks. It enables them be ‘a voice for women empowerment to change the culture from the inside out’.

Personally, I promote diversity and inclusion – particularly as it relates to women – by encouraging the women I work with to speak up, to value their own work, and to be confident in bringing their unique knowledge and opinions to the table. I am strongly committed to empowering the women on my legal team to take risks, to lead, to participate in external workshops, and to build their own self-brand. The #MeToo movement created awareness of a difficult reality many people were (and still are) facing in workplace environments. At the beginning of my career, I experienced harassment myself and can assure you that it is not only scary, but it also makes you feel very lonely. What truly amazes me about the #MeToo movement is the way in which it has encouraged women to speak up and support each other. It has certainly proved that ‘unity is a strength’ is more than just four words. The movement has definitely had a major impact on culture and determined a new era in which we women are no longer scared or threatened to speak up for ourselves in unfair situations.

Even though I believe quotas have played a part in creating gender equal workplaces, nowadays we can achieve this in other ways such as by using fair selection processes with clear terms, giving the same opportunities to men and women, and by ensuring we have selection processes that include similar numbers of male and female candidates – as well as male and female interviewers – in order to guarantee inclusive processes that result in fairly elected professionals.

There is an increased understanding of the importance of including women in higher positions and a greater appreciation of women in the professional field. We now see women as high-level partners at top law firms and developing successful careers in leading companies such as Uber. One of the perks in this digital era is having the ability to be connected, and this has an impact on diversity and inclusion. It makes it easier for companies such as Uber to have a global policy on diversity and inclusion that applies worldwide, allowing diversity initiatives to take place without limitations or the excuse of geographical differences.

GC: Please tell us a little about your pathway into law. What made you move from private practice to in-house roles?

Brenda Puig (BP): I spent my first years as a lawyer in a law firm. It was a large and prestigious law firm in Buenos Aires. I worked long hours and I really loved my job. After some years working for this law firm, I got married and became a mother, and balancing my career with my personal life became a challenge. At that time, at least in Argentina, there was not much debate about these issues. Even though both the law firm and I made great efforts to make it work – I actually became the first part-time attorney – after my second son I felt the need to make a change.

I joined Walmart 14 years ago. I found in the corporate world – and especially Walmart – a much more favourable environment for my personal needs. I also found a completely new way of being a lawyer. The in-house world is so different from private practice, and I just love it. I have been very lucky to experience both sides of the profession, and have learnt a lot from both. I believe this combination has made me a better lawyer.

Carmen Roman (CR): Although I started my professional career in a law firm, what made me move to an in-house role was the opportunity to know about the corporate world, to understand its dynamics, its strategic role, its contribution to different stakeholders, and at the same time interact with different professionals in the same ecosystem. I feel that in the in-house role I have been able to maximise my abilities, improve my strategic thinking, and achieve a work-life balance.

GC: What do you believe are the biggest barriers to women progressing in the legal industry? Are the challenges similar across private practice and in-house, or have you seen differences?

BP: There are many different barriers, which I believe are common to so many other professions, not just the legal profession. Work-life balance is an issue for many women, and even more challenging for mothers of young children. Lack of adequate networking opportunities and visibility is another factor; men tend to have better opportunities for this. The fact that there is a much higher percentage of men in leadership positions plays a role as well – there are fewer women role models for emerging talent. In my personal experience, even though law firms have evolved over the past years, I would say that on average the in-house world is more advanced in designing strategies for solving the gap than law firms.

CR: Yes, I agree. Although we have seen some progress in law firms, I believe that there is more flexibility and career development in the in-house world. There are still large barriers for women in private practice. Even though we see the number of women lawyers growing in private practice, they don’t have equal access to senior positions. The working environment and the long office hours in most law firms are still more suitable to male lawyers compared to their female counterparts. The lack of work-life balance is one of the major obstacles that female (and male) lawyers face. A majority of law firms are reticent to innovate or change with the times, meaning in general that the legal profession lags behind other industries in terms of senior women reaching the top. Law firms should adopt different, realistic working options for parents and actively remote working or a flexible-hours system.

GC: What challenges have you specifically faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?

BP: I have faced many challenges over the years! If I were to find a common ingredient in how I overcame them, I would say that attitude is the key. Whatever challenge you face, having a positive mindset and self-confidence is essential. Believe in yourself and try to find what you can learn from each situation. Also, team-work. No single person on this planet knows everything: we need to rely on our teams, peers, partners, mentors, family and friends. Working collaboratively is a great virtuous circle – help whenever you can, and you will be helped whenever you need.

CR: I am the opposite in that I have never experienced an obstacle that was solely the result of being a woman. I have often been the only woman in the room and almost always the only woman at executive level, but I have never viewed that as an obstacle, because of my attitude. I think the biggest challenge in my career is maintaining a good work-life balance. Progressing in your career while having time for family, friends and hobbies is a constant struggle.

I have always expressed to my different bosses how important family is to me. I request certain benefits as non-tradable. For example, to be able to do school pick-up and drop-off with my children once or twice a week. I make sure this never interferes with my results, and it also has the effect of making my commitment to the company stronger.

GC: Walmart has a strong commitment to empowering women (working with women-owned businesses in its supply chain; the establishment of the Women’s Economic Empowerment Forum). What success have you seen with these initiatives? What metrics are used to measure their success?

BP: We are very much focused on developing our female talent internally and supporting women externally. We truly believe in the power of diversity and inclusion and we put a lot of work and effort into this. We have consistently been working on initiatives for the past ten years. The Global Women Leadership Council was first appointed in 2008 at our US-based headquarters and is an advisory council formed by female business leaders, reporting to our global CEO. This was replicated in each market and we work both locally and globally. I have been part of this council since it was first formed in Argentina in 2009, and I currently serve as its chair. The council is not only focused on the legal department but on the whole company. We have several lines of work and KPIs. I believe that seeing more women in leadership positions as well as in our talent base is the best indicator.

We do awareness activities with men and women: specific training targeted to specific needs of specific groups; mentoring; policies that assure equal representation in recruiting and development; and policies for enabling work-life balance. And we also have an active voice externally. We believe that being such a large company comes with a responsibility because we can inspire change in other companies. We share our best practices and encourage others to have the courage to give it a try. Companies must play their role in improving the work environment and therefore our society.

Our initiatives are both global and local. We have a global framework and there is a lot of market freedom within that framework. We do have company-wide goals and objectives, but challenges around how to tackle those goals and objectives might vary from market to market – the fact is that cultures and realities are different across the region. Each market needs to find the solutions that best fit their specific needs in order to make it locally relevant. And each market can also benefit from benchmarking with other Walmart markets. We like to call it ‘powered by Walmart’.

CR: Yes, that’s right. At Walmart, we know that our people and culture help to make Walmart successful and that different perspectives lead to innovative solutions for our business. Developing inclusive leaders is the key to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. To develop inclusive leadership at Walmart, the executive team has inclusive leadership expectations as part of their annual performance evaluation, and this means (i) participate in at least one approved inclusive leadership education offering such as unconscious bias training, LGBTQ+ training, or sexual harassment awareness training, among others, and (ii) actively mentor two associates, host a mentoring circle, or participate as a mentor in a programme such as our Lean In Mentoring Circles.

In terms of gender, we are focused in developing female talent under the Global Women Leadership Council that Brenda mentioned. We also have a local Diversity and Inclusion Council in Chile; I’ve been a member since 2009 and I’m also currently its president. We are constantly measuring the female participation at leadership level and the programme effectiveness. In addition, I was also part of the International Diversity and Inclusion Council for two years.

Our recent statistics show that 57% of our 51,000 employees are women and 25% of our frontline positions are held by them. At Walmart, we believe that men and women should have the same opportunities, and we ensure internal wage equity with a compensation policy that does not discriminate with respect to gender. We have a range of programmes that promote the development of female leadership within the company:

• Empowering: Development acceleration programme for women executives with high potential, helping them prepare for the challenges of executive positions in the company.
• Women in Retail: Development of leaders for the retail of the future through training, networking, and empowerment.
• Wired Chile: Development, empowerment, and promotion of female talent at Walmart Chile Real Estate through mentoring, conversation sessions, and workshops.
• More Digital Women: Courses on web development and digital marketing, to contribute to women’s development and empowerment through digital training and employability.

We also have several support programmes for women outside Walmart, because our ethos is about making improvements not just for the women who work for us, but for the communities we serve as well. Some of those programmes include:

• Women for Chile, developed with the support of ONG ‘Mujeres Empresarias’ (Women Entrepreneurs). Women for Chile seeks to strengthen women-led enterprises through personalised training, boards, and mentoring, with the possibility that some of the selected enterprises will become Walmart Chile suppliers.
• Solidarity Spaces for women entrepreneurs. These are spaces located in our Leader and Leader Express locations throughout the country. This initiative is developed in partnership with the Ministry of Women and Gender Equity. The women entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to sell and publicise their products in different parts of the country.

GC: Do you think the growth of international companies expanding into Latin America is having a positive effect on LatAm domiciled companies and their D&I initiatives?

BP: Yes, absolutely. We live in a global world today – everybody and everything is connected. Local markets benefit from the influence of international companies that bring best practices. And, likewise, global companies benefit from the local wisdom and practices that can be taken to other geographies. That is the beauty of this synergy.

CR: Definitely. Multinational companies have had more time to develop their best practices, and that is having a positive influence on local markets. In addition, because they are willing to share these good practices with other companies, we are starting to see major cultural changes at the country level.

GC: In what ways do you work with your panel firms to improve representation of women in the legal industry?

BP: This is, again, just using our influence. We look favourably on firms that foster diversity and inclusion, and we give them priority. There are more structured ways and there are other informal ways, such as mentoring other women working for law firms.

CR: We also have ‘Walmart’s Outside Counsel Guidelines’, which establish the expectations the company has of its outside counsel. We expect law firms to stress excellence, integrity, and provide value in resolving legal problems, while also honouring the company’s culture and principles. One of those expectations is to demonstrate commitment to diversity, respect flexible work schedules, promote work-life balance, and to have women as senior partners. We take time to talk about it, and recognise the law firms that advance this cause. Ultimately, we give preference to law firms that foster diversity and inclusion.

GC: You have both been commended for being active promoters of female empowerment and leadership in the workplace. Can you give any specific examples where you have helped other women to reach their full potential and progress in their careers?

BP: I believe that the first thing is to walk the talk. When you reach a leadership position, you need to be aware that people are looking at you. In a large organisation, the few women who reach those positions must be good role models. It is not enough to talk about work-life balance or to talk about supporting and empowering women; you need to live it every day and actively show it. If any young talented woman with the ambition of growing within the organisation looks up and sees that the few women who made it have a miserable life, they will not feel inspired to get there. And, of course, mentoring and sharing one’s experiences is very powerful.

CR: I am counsellor of the Chilean NGO Comunidad Mujer (Women’s Community), and for 12 years, I have been mentor of professional women who seek support and guidance in their career development. This activity has given me much satisfaction, and is also something from which I have benefitted greatly.

Ten years ago, I was the first woman to become part of Walmart Chile’s executive team. I believed I opened the door to other female executives. Today we are four women from ten executives.

I have also supported the career development and promotion of a female lawyer from my Chilean team who is now general counsel in Costa Rica and Central America. I’m so proud of her growth.

GC: How do you go about building a diverse team and leading by example?

BP: Of course, recruiting is key, but also important is the way we form teams for specific projects, the way we manage our team members’ requests, the way we act in every day decisions. For example, a team member who has a sick child will feel more confident in being absent if they see there is an understanding environment for family needs. And the way this is shown is by actions, not words: they need to see that such absence is accepted, that their supervisor shows interest in the child’s health, and that the supervisor also takes leave for family if needed.

CR: I consciously aim to recruit different types of talent. I listen, and try to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of each of the team members by having deep one-on-one conversations with them, identifying their biases, and helping to mitigate discriminations.

I am a promoter of career development for men and women, and I’m particularly vocal in promoting both maternal and paternal responsibilities: for example, I always encourage my male lawyers to take on childcare responsibilities during the week (e.g. dropping children to school, or picking them up, etc).

In 2014, we launched a special diversity and inclusion programme, developed with the support of Walmart Legal International, where we assisted law school students (selected by gender, ethnic background, and socioeconomic vulnerability) during their third year. We helped them obtain tools useful for their future professional activities such as English language, mentoring (provided by us or our external law firm partners), and advance networking. This has been a very successful programme.

GC: There is quite a divide between those who believe in quotas to address gender imbalance in the workplace, and those who don’t. Do you have any specific thoughts on that?

BP: I am personally not a fan of quotas, and think they may be very harmful. If you force somebody who is not ready into a leadership position, the probability of failure is high. That failure will not only damage that person and may damage their career, but it also sends the wrong message to the organisation. It can be seen as a counter-example and even limit future promotions. What we need to foster is more talented women in leadership positions, although of course this is not just about gender – it is about talent, and generating the conditions for both talented men and women to reach their full potential. Having said that, sometimes an organisation might need to force things a bit to make the wheel start moving. If that is the case, it has to be done very carefully. In my organisation we do not have quotas, but we have mechanisms in place that seek to ensure that opportunities are equal. Let’s say there is leadership training with open positions for a limited amount of people and that a certain business area only presents male candidates; we would challenge that leader to re-visit the list, to look harder and see if there are any women in whom they see potential and wish to invest. The answer might still be no and that is ok; remember, we look for talent, not just gender.

CR: For me, over time, I have become convinced that quotas are necessary to level the playing field. Sometimes, you have to push for things to happen and quotas are certainly one way of achieving more equal representation of men and women. There are plenty of examples of women who are better qualified for senior roles and have more experience, but aren’t being promoted to top positions because of their gender. I think appointing women to senior positions would create greater confidence among other women.

However, the quotas must be essentially transitory to cause the change; later, when the reality has shifted and equality has been achieved, then quotas will no longer be necessary.

GC: If you could give advice to yourself at the start of your career, what would it be?

BP: I would say to enjoy the ride and each experience. I am more experienced and seasoned now; when I was younger, I was tougher on myself. Now I see my life and career from a different perspective. I am very grateful and feel blessed for the life I have and for the opportunities I have been given; and that includes my career. Sometimes we forget to take the time to stop and appreciate what we have; or we fail in finding the time to support others, which I personally find so rewarding.

CR: My advice would be:

• Feel passion for your work;
• Your mistakes are learnings and without them, there is no growth;
• Do not rest until you find the workplace where you feel comfortable and valued and where you can develop your strengths;
• Be curious about the opportunities that come your way;
• Take care to always integrate new knowledge and experiences;
• Find strength in working collaboratively.

Over recent decades, Latin America has seen significant change in the makeup of its labour market. An increase in women’s representation and participation in the workforce, and organisational and various governments’ strategies are evolving to incorporate practices and initiatives to manage, enhance, and promote the role of women in the workplace. Foreign investment into the region is having a positive impact as demonstrated by the increase in Latin American companies adopting HR policies that go beyond legal requirements. That said, many Latin American countries and corporates still fall well short when it comes to opportunities for women and their economic participation. The gender pay gap remains significant. And despite the existence of legislation prohibiting gender discrimination, it still happens on a daily basis.

Why, in the 21st century, is this the case and how can meaningful change happen? Unfortunately, there is no single, silver-bullet cure for the gender disparity prevalent across the Latin America region. Change comes slowly, through education, by having uncomfortable but necessary conversations, and through the subtle shift of centuries-old biases that have kept one gender subordinate to another.

In a series of exclusive interviews, GC magazine speaks to senior and general counsel from across Latin America (both women and men) about how the more traditional landscape of the region plays a large role in how women are perceived in the workplace, and how they, along with their colleagues and companies, are slowly changing the experience for women lawyers across the region – but also for women in general.

Chauvinist society

For women working in Latin America’s legal industry (both in private practice and in-house), the challenge of getting ahead, of being ‘heard’, and respected, is two-fold. The legal industry is, and has long been, dominated by men, but that is hardly surprising when seen through the lens of a still largely traditional societal view that men work, and women stay at home. Anabell González Nava, legal director, North Latin America division at Arcos Dorados, says that even though organisations are making important diversity and inclusion improvements, ‘the culture of a society plays a key role in the habits and behaviours of men and women, and consequently of companies.’

‘Traditional gender roles are still very strong and create real and persistent inequalities among men and women in the workplace and in general in Latin American society,’ agrees Mexico-based Véronique Ramon Vialar-Déchelette, LatAm regional legal director at Publicis Groupe.

Valéria Camacho Martins Schmitke, LatAm regional general counsel at Zurich in Brazil, goes further. ‘Women pay a high personal price for equality with men. Some countries more, others less – but all are very chauvinist societies, and men still believe that taking care of children is a woman’s job. They also feel less empowered if their wives make more money than them. They expect women to be home when they arrive, and to prepare dinner. Women can work, but more as a hobby.’

These entrenched views have a serious impact on the industry, and how it is perceived. As Andrea Camargo, director of international legal affairs at Odinsa S.A. states in her profile interview in this publication, ‘It is a paradox that the profession in charge of providing justice is so full of inequalities.’

Despite these challenges, change – although slow – is happening. In interviews, several factors were highlighted as having a direct impact on the region: (i) a new willingness to discuss gender diversity and inclusion; (ii) a concerted effort from leaders to address challenges head-on in meaningful and practical ways, and to lead by example; (iii) the increase in men putting their heads above the parapet to argue that gender diversity benefits everyone, not just women; and (iv) the growth of multinationals, with more advanced diversity policies, establishing subsidiaries in the region.

On gender equality issues, Ana María Delgado, the Colombia-based vice president of corporate affairs at Corona, believes her country (which the World Economic Forum ranked as 40 out of 149 countries in its 2018 Global Gender Gap Report) has been evolving positively and that the participation of women in the workforce, as well as in leadership positions, has increased significantly over time. ‘Although there is still a long way to go, I have seen an increased willingness to openly discuss these types of issues,’ she says.

A recent country survey of Chilean in-house counsel showed that only 25% of general counsel positions were held by women. However, ‘statistics also show an increase in professional women’s careers with far more successful female roles and role models,’ says Guillermo Castillo, chief compliance officer at AFP PlanVital. While women hold only a small percentage of board seats and other influential positions, the pipeline of future leaders is starting to swell.

Zurich’s Schmitke is also seeing progress at a societal level, which will, in turn, have an impact on the Brazilian workforce: ‘I have seen men participating more in family tasks, with some men following their wives to another country because of her career. I believe that with every generation, we get closer to equality.’

Although she believes that Latin America is evolving more slowly than North American and European countries, Vialar-Déchelette says the region is walking the same path. ‘Private and public conversations regarding gender and equality are common, but quite recent,’ she told us. ‘These traditional prejudices need to be properly, widely, and honestly addressed and tackled so that public and corporate leaders understand their stereotypes and are willing to act accordingly to change.’

Tone from the top

The importance of strong leadership in tackling gender equality is a common theme. In her article, ‘How to get more men to take gender balance seriously’, for the Harvard Business Review (November 2019), Avivah Wittenberg-Cox argues that ‘it isn’t enough for the CEO to say gender balance is important once a year in a management conference. Nor even to set draconian and highly publicized targets… Until leaders are convinced that gender balance is a strategic lever for the business and become authentically and articulately convincing to their colleagues about why that is, balance remains a politically correct sideline.’

The 2016/2017 McKinsey report, Reinventing the workplace for greater gender diversity, supports the idea that real change must be led from the top. For women in the workplace to have better opportunities, to train and work in skilled and better-paying jobs, and to work in environments that support work-life balance and reshape social attitudes, organisations must challenge their fundamental and prevailing leadership styles and thoroughly re-evaluate traditional performance models. This is something that is particularly difficult for the legal industry, where the traditional structures and performance measures – such as billable hours as the primary measure of success – are inherently biased towards men.

The report goes on to say that organisations with a strong CEO and senior leadership commitment to gender diversity (i.e. those who place gender diversity as one of their top three strategic priorities) are twice as likely to integrate gender diversity successfully through all levels of their organisation. However, the report also shows that most organisations are falling short in transforming that commitment into a truly inclusive working environment, with many employees citing that they often don’t see words backed up by action, nor do they feel confident calling out gender bias when they see it.

Authenticity and ‘walking the talk’ are, therefore, key. ‘There are lots of good intentions, but not a real, open-minded approach to challenge the existing establishment,’ says Erica Barbagalo, legal, patent, and compliance lead at Bayer in Brazil. ‘The tone has to come from the top. The company needs its leaders engaged and acting as role models to succeed in promoting diversity and inclusion. It is not easy: changing the culture to break biases causes discomfort, and only courageous companies and leaders can bear that.’

Sometimes, it’s small gestures that have the largest impact as Barbagalo explains: ‘At a company event for hundreds of employees, the majority of them men, a guest speaker made a light joke about women. After his speech was over, one male leader got on the stage and explicitly disqualified the statement, making it very clear that this behaviour was not accepted in the company. He apologised for the insensitivity of the speaker. Needless to say, that speaker was banned from future events. Nobody, though, remembers the joke. But everyone remembers, to this day, the leader’s message.’

Diversity is a men’s issue

What came through loud and clear in all our interviews for this publication was the need to redefine gender diversity and balance as not solely the concern of women. For far too long, it has been accepted that fixing sexism is women’s work. But, actually, this is work that everyone must be a part of, because real gender balance has a positive effect for both men and women (see Michael Bruce’s interview in this publication for more on that topic). Wittenberg-Cox’s article states it clearly: ‘Companies whose balancing initiatives involve men are more than three times more effective than those focussing only on women.’

Castillo concurs: ‘Men’s partnership is required in addressing the issues that hinder women, including structural barriers and discriminatory practices that prevent women from participating on boards and receiving equal pay. Male executives can help lead the charge with women in enacting internal regulation that promotes benefits for women and men equally, and repealing policies that discriminate and limit women’s opportunities.’

Vialar-Déchelette believes the support of men is absolutely vital for change to occur: ‘Latin America is traditional regarding gender roles, and women on their own are making slow progress; thus the proactive support of men is necessary as a starting point. These are not just “women’s issues”; they are issues for the whole of society.’

What is key is how companies go about engaging with men on the subject of gender balance and equality to ensure maximum commitment. While this might be difficult for many women to read, Wittenberg-Cox’s advice is, essentially, to present the argument using ‘existing male-dominated hierarchies.’ In short, making the case for diversity based on moral grounds rarely has the desired effect. Instead, frame diversity as a business issue; make gender diversity and balance personal, measurable, and accountable. Position and normalise the issue as a business skill. Make male support the norm, rather than the exception. When the link between gender balance and positive business results is clear and explicit, men are more likely to engage with and support it.

Another key factor is for more men to mentor women, and to be open to recognising their own biases (this applies equally to men and to women). Many of the women we interviewed across this publication spoke of male mentors whose support had a significant impact on their careers. ‘I have been very lucky to have great male mentors through my professional life. They have offered me support in changing career paths, in taking risks, and following my dreams,’ Delgado says. ‘Those decisions have helped shape and define who I am today, and I am very grateful.’

Vialar-Déchelette echoes the importance of male mentors: ‘I was very fortunate to have a modern and supportive chief when I was first employed as a paralegal in a major firm. He repeatedly said that if I wanted power, I just had to take it and not to wait for someone to give it to me. He constantly promoted me over the years, in discrete but effective ways, by teaching the profession and encouraging me to take huge responsibilities without questioning my capabilities as a young lawyer, as a foreigner, or as a woman. In fact, in a male-driven industry and firm, gender has never been a subject between us. He acted with me as if gender didn’t exist. I believe that this kind of mentoring over the years gave me the confidence to drive my career as I have wanted, without fear or self-limitation.’

International influence

There are many reasons attributed to why, in Latin America, there is a growing openness to discuss gender diversity challenges, why more leaders are waking up to the power of a diverse and gender balanced workforce, and why more and more men are beginning to vocally and actively support women’s advancement in the workplace. One of these is, of course, the growth of multinational companies, headquartered overseas, which are now opening subsidiaries across the length and breadth of Latin America.

Many of these multinationals go far beyond local legislative requirements (particularly on the gender pay gap, where legislation in some countries is still slow to come), and are putting in place progressive policies, particularly in regard to flexible working arrangements, maternity and paternity leave, and mentorship programmes. These companies are consistently outperforming their peers, particularly in their ability to attract and retain top talent. The policies are seen as reflecting a commitment to equality and serve as an indicator, to current and future employees, of a more inclusive culture.

Barbagalo says that ‘countries such as the US and some European countries have been discussing equality long before Latin American countries, and by establishing their subsidiaries in the region, these multinationals are able to promote their culture and also set examples – some have women CEOs or other high-ranking women leaders. There are, of course, local companies with high levels of awareness and actions towards gender equality and diversity, but they are the exception rather than the rule.’

And while, currently, it may seem that Latin America-domiciled companies are not as advanced as their overseas competitors when it comes to diversity, progress is being made. Many of the lawyers interviewed can point to success stories thanks to increased awareness and understanding of gender balance.

‘In many of the countries in which we operate, we have seen an increase in women in leadership positions,’ explains Nava from Arcos Dorados’ headquarters in Uruguay). ‘We have three women market directors in Martinique, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. We also have a woman sitting on our board, who is the vice president responsible for government relations.’

While these steps may seem small, they are significant, and show that the tide is certainly turning.

Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States, once said: ‘No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens.’ And what is abundantly clear throughout this publication is that Latin America is not short on talented, strong, passionate, and determined women lawyers who have begun to pave the way for other women to follow. Despite the still patriarchal and entrenched views of women’s place in the world, these women are breaking glass ceilings. They have gone beyond merely boosting the diversity statistics of their organisations to prove that the acceptance and inclusion of women in the workforce – at all levels – has a significant positive impact, both on business and society.

GC: How did you become involved with representing Procter & Gamble’s diversity and inclusion initiatives?

Earlier this year, I was invited to an external training session by MARC (Men Advocating for Real Change). It was very eye-opening for me because, as a man you might say ‘Sure, I’m all in favour of D&I and equality’, but what are you really doing? Is it just the idea you like, or are you actually doing something real to achieve equity and equality?

At this training, a lot of very interesting things were said – issues that men don’t even have to think about in their day-to-day lives, but that are commonplace for women. And that’s mostly what I took out of it and what helped me to try to better understand my peers, the women close to me, specifically on the employment side of the issue. The training happened during the week of International Women’s Day, and at the end of that week P&G was participating on a full-day panel with 13 or 14 other multinational companies here in Costa Rica. The event was organised by the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency, so it was a big event with close to 600 people attending. One of the IT managers that was participating in the MARC training and was one of the organisers of the Women’s Day event (as you can imagine, IT is way, way underrepresented on gender), reached out to me and said, ‘We have a slot, about ten minutes. Do you think you can prepare something that you can present?’ And I said, ‘Sure. Count me in.’ And that was my first presentation on the topic.

I opened my presentation by saying ‘“He is hormonal.” “He is so intense.” “He got the promotion because the company needed to balance the bands.” “Next time we cannot afford to hire a man for that role.” Those are some of the comments women face every day and men do not.’ I have been using that opening statement ever since. It grabs people’s attention. But it’s also very true. You never hear someone say ‘next time we cannot hire a man for that job. He just couldn’t cut it’. But you hear it about women every single day. And it’s extremely unfair, because competence has nothing to do with gender. Hypothetically I could be a terrible lawyer, way over my head with my role, and people won’t say ‘Oh, it’s because he’s a man’. They’ll say ‘Yes, he was a terrible lawyer; we completely mismanaged the hiring process,’ but my gender is never the issue.

So, that’s how it started and from there I have been invited to give talks to other companies on gender equity issues.

GC: You mentioned that you ‘fell into’ representing P&G on D&I issues, but does the company have a central function that deals with D&I?

Yes, we have what we call ‘pillars’, and D&I is one of them. It looks at many different challenges, one of which is women’s initiatives. Another which was started this year is a neurodiversity project, where we hired six individuals within the autism spectrum. We also have GABLE (Gay, Ally, Bisexual, Lesbian, and Transgender Employees), our LGBTQ network. I also do a little work with GABLE. With the women’s initiatives, as I said, it was just something I fell into, and it has been like putting on a glove. It fits me perfectly. It’s something I believe in, it’s something I feel is important, because I hear so many comments that are not okay.

After the first time I went to speak, someone told me that the event was featured in the news. And I thought ‘Oh, good!’ I went to the news programme’s Facebook page, and I found the posting, and I made the worst mistake anyone can make: I read the comments. And there was one that specifically stuck out to me. It was roughly ‘Oh, this is useless, everyone knows women go to social sciences, and men go into engineering, blah, blah, blah’. To me, this was so outrageous, thinking that this might be a parent, a brother – if there’s a young woman starting university wanting to go into science, engineering, maths, technology, and that’s the support they’re getting at home? That was one of the drivers for me to continue finding opportunities to discuss this issue, to show people that if you want to be a pre-school teacher, lawyer, psychologist, engineer – go for it. For me, I’ve never been told ‘you can’t do this; this will never be available to you’. For women, that is something they hear EVERY DAY. And I say that not just because I’m the father of a girl. I could have no children or be the father of ten boys. It would be the same. This is important and we need to change.

GC: How important is it to you that men act as male champions, and also as role models for other men (for example, by taking up opportunities for flexible working)?

It is so important, absolutely. For example, I do flex hours. When P&G started flexible work arrangements here (which was fifteen years ago), this was driven by six or so women who came forward and said ‘Listen, it is difficult for us to keep the same hours; are there any possibilities to work flexibly? We want to continue improving in the company, we still want to work, but we need flexibility’. The company looked into it, and that was it. Those first women were able to take flexible working, and the policy was definitely targeted towards mothers coming back from maternity, or those with young children. But by the following year, the first man had requested flexible working arrangements. And now, today, approximately 95% of the company is using at least one of the flexibility options we have: working from home, not working full-time, etc.

I use it, and I need it. I am divorced, and when I was going through that, it was really difficult for me. My manager at the time said ‘Listen, on Wednesdays, why don’t you leave early, go and pick up your kids from school and spend the afternoon with them, and when you’re able to at night, log back on and check in.’ And I have done that for the last five years.

Often, these working arrangements start because there’s been a reason for women to seek them out, but the beneficiaries are also men. And I think that as leaders we need to show other men that it is okay to leave early, to go to your kid’s soccer game, band presentation, teacher meeting – whatever it may be. As a man, you can do it. The more gear-shifting there is, the more men in senior positions do it, the more we have role models.

It’s just like we need to role model D&I. I go beyond diversity and inclusion, and I say we need to talk about equity and integration. Because that’s what we really need. We need to remove any obstacles that don’t allow someone to achieve equity. We need for everyone to be able to achieve the same, no matter who they are and where they come from.

GC: Do you feel or have you seen that the underlying culture across Latin America, which is quite patriarchal, stymies the take up of those policies?

Yes, definitely. I believe multinational companies have a responsibility to bring best practices to a country where they will eventually become the norm. This year, Costa Rica finally passed a law for flexible working. And why? Because there are so many more multinational companies now, and for them, it’s every day practice. The commerce chamber and associations were also pushing for it. It got enough traction that a law was passed.

One area that I see as low-hanging fruit for companies is paternity leave. You want to get good press for your company? Do paternity leave. It’s so easy. In Costa Rica, by law, mothers have the month before and three months after birth. But offering some type of paternal leave is an equaliser. Because if the conversation shifts from ‘Oh, this woman might one day leave to go on maternity leave’ to ‘Oh, anyone could one day take parental leave’ then it’s a great equaliser. We do it here at P&G, and we are working towards granting more time to fathers so that they can enjoy more time with their children and can help around the house. The president of Costa Rica was pushing for paternity leave and a group within government is working on it. Definitely some organisations and associations are against it, because the money comes from social security. I am completely in favour of it. And hopefully – while we won’t get the full three months – we might get to one month. It’s one of the things I like to talk about.

I talk about gender equity and why it’s important for companies and why we need a diverse workforce, but we also need to talk about the benefits for men of gender equity and more women being in the workforce and the impact is has on society and commerce – it generates more money for the economy. It helps men to move away from these patriarchal strictures: where men need to be the breadwinners, where you have to earn more than your wife or partner. There is a statistic that says women are more likely to try to commit suicide, but men are on average more likely to succeed – they use more brutal means to achieve it. Those suicides – where do they stem from? So often they come from economic problems. Men who lose jobs, men who are in debt – the more we have diverse workforces, the more we have women in work, the more that economic burden is taken away. So, yes, it is a benefit for women but it is also a benefit for men. It’s a benefit for the company. The numbers back up the importance of diversity.

GC: What challenges do you feel the legal industry has in tackling these issues? What does P&G do to tackle gender imbalance?

In the legal profession, we are still way behind. Most law firms, while they may have close to 50/50 representation when it comes to total attorneys, when you get to partner level, it dips substantially. And that’s where we need to call ourselves to attention on it: what are we doing and why? Why are women not achieving partner level in Latin America? That said, it is not just a challenge in Latin America. It is a global challenge.

In our own team, we have a very good gender balance, and we are lucky that this has grown very organically. There haven’t been any team changes in several years. Our chief legal officer is a woman. We had a global meeting in Cincinnati, and these are some of the things we discussed. To me it’s really important how she role models and the things she does. Before Vanessa, the role was filled by a man. The decision wasn’t a conscious ‘oh, it was a man before, now it must be a woman’. It was ‘who is the best person for this role?’ and that person was Vanessa. But I don’t think we will see those big issues here at the company – there might be individual biases – but the company pushes enough what its intent is on the social issues and even more now where the consumer is changing. Consumers, like millennials and Generation Z, want the company to stand for something, not just how much money it can make the shareholders. They want to know what your social issues are, and we have been able to do that through our advertising campaigns.

Our consumer base is predominantly women, and so we really need to practice what we preach. And I think we have three specific campaigns I like to speak about: #LikeAGirl, Share the Load, and We Believe: The Best a Man Can Be. Share the Load started in India and it’s about how, in a very patriarchal way, we assign jobs at the house for women and you go to work and do a full day’s work and then you come home and you have a full day’s work ahead of you again with household chores. And it’s fascinating to see what parents see in how they are raising their kids, or how dads are raising their daughters and how they wished they would have role-modelled differently. And then in 2019 we had our Gillette campaign, where we got clobbered on social media, because apparently there’s nothing more fragile than the male ego. And I don’t get it. I guess the other two campaigns were very inspiring and this was very ‘in your face’, deliberately. But it delivers a message and in the end the numbers backed up that we were right. It was the right call to go that way.

GC: From the legal industry perspective, when you’re thinking about panel law firms and who you give work to, do you look at diversity statistics? Does it influence your decision?

The law firms that I specifically use right now were in place before I started at P&G. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can say we reviewed or I reviewed at the time. But at least one of the firms has a very diverse and very close to 50/50 representation in partners. The other one does not. It’s a very much more traditional Costa Rican set up. But now that I’m more into the importance of this, in everything I try to look at where it is: what does the firm stand for, what does the company stand for, and I look at it in other firms here in Costa Rica. I like to look at whether firms are ranking for diversity.

I think we’re on the right track; we’re starting to talk more about the importance of diversity. It’s a long-term commitment to change, and sometimes you have to start small. It’s like in your personal life, you can’t just say, from now on I’m going to wake up at 5am every day and run 10km, and get to the office early, and eat vegan, and at night volunteer with charities. Choose one initiative, internalise it, commit to it, and then move on to others when you’re ready. Companies can’t go from zero to 100 in a few seconds – it has to be gradual and we have to work on it, work on the culture. Leaders have to role model and show that what they are saying is definitely what the company stands for. Eventually we will reach our goal.

I began my career as a legal assistant at court while I was still studying law at Buenos Aires University. After graduating law school, I spent three years in private practice before moving to BASF Argentina S.A. as an in-house corporate lawyer. In 2003, I had seen a job advertised at BASF and I found it really interesting. While I had really enjoyed my experience working in private practice, I wanted to feel part of a company. I applied for the role, and thankfully was successful! The switch from private practice to an in-house role was not a difficult one for me, and I found that I really enjoyed working with people from across the different departments, getting to know what the business was about, and contributing to its success. Since then, my experience has been solely as an in-house lawyer. I spent 12 years at BASF, during which time I received several promotions, and then followed that with a shorter stint at adidas as their director of legal and compliance (Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay). I then joined Colgate-Palmolive in May 2016 as its regional legal director, Southern Cone. Colgate-Palmolive, the US worldwide consumer products company, focuses on the production and distribution of household, healthcare, and personal care products and operates in Argentina through its subsidiary Colgate-Palmolive Argentina.

In my current role, I have simplified several processes within the legal department, and have also worked hard to bring the legal team closer to the rest of the company – and the rest of the company closer to the legal team. I encourage colleagues from other departments to feel free to contact our legal team early, believing they will receive good advice from us, not just as lawyers, but as business partners. I believe that my attitude of openness and transparency has definitely proved successful. In the past three years, I have built up a rich portfolio by supporting projects that involved the launch of new products and technologies, facing challenges from competitors regarding product claims, as well as handling various business restructuring and litigation cases that are still ongoing. At the heart of everything I do, I aim to show that lawyers are not just a cost centre, but are creating value for the businesses in which they operate. I lead my team by example, and concentrate on providing commercially astute and solution-focused advice that enables the business to be successful in the marketplace while also protecting its business model.

While I have managed to build a strong reputation at Colgate-Palmolive for being committed to my vision, I believe I am also known for having a strong focus on people and being passionate about developing a diverse legal team to deliver results.

At Colgate-Palmolive, we are a small team of three people – all women. However, I have always managed very diverse teams during my career in private practice, and in-house at BASF and adidas. Diversity for me, though, is not only about gender; it is about embracing all the different ways of thinking. When I worked for BASF and adidas, I had teams that were very diverse: different ages, sexes, social backgrounds, and points of view. The more diverse a team is, the more creative it can be.

As well as being responsible for building my own diverse legal teams, I also promote gender equality across the business. I feel as a leader I have the responsibility to promote diversity. Within Colgate-Palmolive, I am the internal sponsor of the Colgate Women Network in Southern Cone territories, which is the region under my scope (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay). The Colgate Women Network is a global initiative that fosters an inclusive and diverse environment, and different activities are carried on in every country around the world. But the initiative has local implementation too. In Southern Cone, we organise activities and lectures and try to develop policies in order to help women grow in their careers with Colgate. For example, we organise inspiring breakfasts with women leaders in the region. These are often in an interview format, so that attendees can get to understand their experiences, the obstacles those women had to deal with while they forged their careers, and how they have managed their work-life-family balance. In 2019, we organised lectures on topics such as leadership, personal branding, and personal finance.

I am also committed to promoting gender equality outside my work environment, and I am currently involved with organisations such as IDEA to help promote diversity and inclusion in law firms and companies. While there is certainly a long way to go before there is gender equality in the legal industry, it is not the only industry in which it is more difficult to be listened to and to get ahead if you are a woman. I used to have that feeling – of not being listened to – especially when I was younger. But, the world has changed a lot… and it is still changing. Fortunately, in my current job, I don’t experience this anymore, and I’ve certainly been able to move ahead with my career. What I have observed, though, is that in private practice, the pace of change is much slower: the number of female partners is still much smaller than the number of male partners.

Quotas, of course, could go a long way towards solving the gender imbalance in the legal industry, but I do have mixed thoughts about them. In some cases, I believe quotas could be a good way to help those women who could not have got to a certain place without that kind of help; and I believe they can be helpful, especially in industries in which there is still a lot of work to be done with gender equality. However, using quotas to simply make up the numbers won’t work – for true equity and equality to take hold, there has to be a cultural shift and a change of mindset about women’s place in the workforce.

Roman jurist Dompia Ulpianus defined justice as ‘the continuous and perpetual willingness to give each one his own’. This concept of justice has always resonated in my heart; I have always seen justice as the solution to avoid conflict in a large community. This belief was especially relevant to me when I was growing up, given that I was part of a large family consisting of three brothers, one sister, and of course my two parents. For me to survive in this large community, justice had to be implemented amongst our group so that each of us received what it was of our own! I believe it is very important to acknowledge that everyone has a place in their community; my place was as the ‘confrontational member’, always trying to assert and achieve justice. It is no wonder, then, that I decided to study law! I paved the pathway of my profession out of my passion.

Like many other lawyers, I have been both in-house and outside counsel. I started my career working in a big law firm, which allowed me to learn the fundamental skills that have helped me along my career: thorough thinking; in-depth analysis; problem solving; network building; technology tools usage; courage to take new opportunities; understanding of and exposure to international markets; and business ethics. I was also lucky to learn from several role models who showed me how important it is to ‘walk the talk’.

I am an extrovert by nature, and this was particularly useful in my private practice career. It allowed me to confidently interact with senior partners, and to learn from them and their experiences; I emulated what they did to achieve a similar result. After several years working in private practice I took my first in-house role – as general counsel of General Electric (GE). Key to my decision to move was the opportunity to acquire new skills and to learn from new role models. In fact, a big motivator for me when I consider taking on new roles is the leader who I will report into. I look for someone who will support and encourage my constant professional and personal development. Also hugely important to me is that my employer fosters a culture of inclusion and supports the development of female talent. Specifically, I look for programmes and policies that allow women to have a work-life balance, for example remote working and maternity leave.

I have been extremely lucky not to have experienced gender-based barriers during my career. I have never suffered harassment; my bosses have been my biggest sponsors (I have been part of several mentoring programmes); and I have a good work-life balance. I was even once hired during my last month of pregnancy. Unfortunately, this is not the case for all female talent in Mexico. As demonstrated by a 2018 study developed by AbogadasMX jointly with CIMAD and Marea Consulting, there are both internal (personal and unconscious bias) and external barriers (organisational structures) that women face in progressing both in private practice and in-house roles, and that organisations and law firms must do better to create equal opportunities for women. That should start with those who are in leadership positions.

Ultimately, all organisations should be a reflection of the people working for them, and it is the responsibility of leaders to build a culture where the success of the company is intrinsically linked to its inclusion of female talent and to creating equal opportunities for all talent. Implementing programmes and policies that allow for this to happen are vital in eliminating both the internal and external gender-based barriers. When I think of my own experiences I would say that for women in the legal profession, companies (i.e. in-house) are doing a better job than law firms. While law firms most commonly implement special considerations for women at a senior level, in-house counsel seem to have the same opportunities at every level.

One final observation, though, is that neither law firms nor companies tend to have formal mentoring programmes or networking opportunities. The biggest barrier for women in Mexico, I believe, is the perpetuation of ‘machismo’ culture, something that even women seem to believe in and uphold. Approximately 95% of the women lawyers who participated in the AbogadasMX study still believe that they should be the ones taking care of the children and the house. Women lawyers who become mothers often decide not to continue working after having children, or if they do decide to continue, they decrease substantially the amount of hours they work and do not take on further responsibilities. This strong internal bias was shown to be almost equal in private and in-house practice; there was a slight trend towards private practice, mostly due to the need to demonstrate long hours worked because of the hourly billing structure.

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I was hired to hold the position of LatAm regional counsel was the constant travel. I needed to make sure that my two daughters were taken care of, that they were safe, happy, and attending school. I was able to overcome the obstacles by building a support network (my sister, the nanny, school parents) to help me with the day-to-day duties. All of them have been amazingly empathic and have given me support when I needed it. I have also been able to work remotely, which allows me to compensate for the time that I travel by staying at home with my girls while I work. It’s also really important for me to communicate to my girls that I have to travel as part of my job, but that when I do they will always be well taken care of.

In my current role at Nielsen I help to promote diversity in many ways. Alongside my role as legal director, I am also head of the compliance and integrity programme. It is my job to make sure that no one is discriminated against in any way. I manage all harassment cases and impose penalties, and I make sure that all employees are treated equally and fairly. I am part of an Employee Resource Group (ERG) called WIN (Women in Nielsen), and participate in different activities to help more women achieve leadership positions. I have been invited to share my experiences with other women globally to inspire them, and am currently participating in Nielsen’s global mentoring programme, acting as a mentor for a female talent based in the US. It has been a real thrill to be able to influence the personal and professional development of another woman.

External to my role with Nielsen, I am a board member of AbogadasMX, an association dedicated to helping women lawyers achieve leadership positions. I am also part of the board of INCAM, the longest-running bar association in Mexico striving for gender equality. I am convinced that it is the responsibility of every woman in a leadership position to help other women reach their full potential and progress in their careers. We need to ‘send the elevator down’ to new talent, and we need to see diversity and inclusion of female talent as a competitive advantage.

We are lucky at Nielsen that our CEO is also our chief diversity officer, because he believes that diversity and inclusion are inextricably linked to the overall success of the business: to drive systemic change, we look for diversity in people and thought, and aim to be consistent with our operating principle to engage, include, and decide. We have identified the need for accountability; by this we mean that every Nielsen associate owns diversity and inclusion efforts, and their involvement is linked to performance processes. This helps to ensure that every one of our associates is able to reach their full potential. The entire leadership team now serves as sponsors for ERGs; they are personally accountable for how they are driving diversity and inclusion and Nielsen expects that all people managers become active participants either in ERGs or as mentors. We are also working to achieve gender equality in top leadership positions.

It is important to me to build a diverse team. I lead by example, because I have learned from the example of the leaders that I have reported to. I am also in favour of hiring outside counsel that have diverse teams, because outside counsel should be a reflection of the in-house culture of diversity and inclusion. I need to lead by example in hiring providers that have diverse talent in leadership positions.

I am 100% in favour of gender quotas, but I also believe that positions should be occupied by the best talent. There are always excuses that quotas limit to hire/promote the best talent, but in my point of view this is only an historical excuse not to move forward with quotas and achieve gender parity.

If I could give advice to myself at the start of my career I would say ‘count your blessings every day and appreciate what you have achieved. However, don’t ever think that you’re at the finish line. There are always new opportunities for achieving new goals and it is more important to enjoy the process of achieving the goals than achieving the goal itself. Constant improvement of yourself will produce happiness, pride, joy, and self-accomplishment.’ n

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to have a job that would allow me to help others, and, like most law students, I wanted to be part of the dream of ‘justice’. When I graduated from high school, I immediately enrolled in one of the top law schools in Colombia, and ever since, I have not stopped learning. I declare myself an eternal student! I am convinced that one should never stop learning, because law and life are in permanent transformation. You have to be ready to reinvent yourself every day.

After law school and at the same time that I was working, I decided to pursue postgraduate studies with various universities in Colombia. I first studied commercial and corporate law, then financial law, and finally international law. I also wanted to expand my horizons, and so I knew I had to leave my country and travel around the world. I am convinced that this is the only way to understand other cultures and ways of thinking. First I went to France to study international law before moving to Berkeley in the United States to study international trade and commerce. From there, I was awarded a scholarship to study in Spain, where I did a master’s degree in corporate law and an international master of business administration at IE Business School, one of the top five ranked schools that year. I wanted to get an MBA from one of the best-ranked universities because I wanted to fight the stereotype that women and lawyers are ‘not good with numbers’. I was tired of the prejudices of my colleagues who graduated in engineering or financial areas. Also, I wanted to give them better advice by speaking their ‘own language’.

I started my professional career in private practice, before leaving to work for several years in financial institutions both in Colombia and in Europe. Those positions then led me to my current role, as legal director of an infrastructure company in Colombia (Odinsa S.A.). I decided to take an in-house role rather than to continue with private practice for many reasons.

First, I believe that working as an in-house lawyer allows me to have a better and more complete knowledge of the business. I enjoy working more closely with the financial and commercial areas, and being surrounded by people of different professional and cultural backgrounds. I am convinced that this kind of diversity is much easier to find in a company than in legal private practice. I also believe that working as an in-house lawyer makes me a more rounded lawyer and human being, since it allows me to hear and discuss different points of view that do not always coincide with my owns views. One of the other reasons I prefer working in an in-house role is that it allows me to have a better balance between my personal life as a mother of two, and my professional life. This is due to the fact that companies are more prone to provide flexible working than law firms.

Of course, all professions are affected by gender inequalities, but I do believe the legal industry is still one of the more male-dominated industries, probably because of its patriarchal tradition. Even though there is a larger proportion of women law students, after they graduate men are offered better job opportunities than those women. It is a paradox that the profession that should be in charge of providing justice is so full of inequalities. The patriarchal configuration and structure of the legal industry moves law away from its social function and its task of contributing to equality.

Unfortunately, this means there are still many barriers for women in law. During my career I have seen several examples of this:

Co-workers and bosses usually assume that if you are a woman, you are not going to be able to take charge in big cases or projects. Women have to prove their value before they are granted trust and confidence.

Women in law are judged by first impressions. As a woman, I definitely feel I have been compelled to dress in a certain way – to ‘dress as a lawyer’ – to be taken seriously, which simply does not happen to male lawyers.

Salaries are not equitable between men and women. Women lawyers are paid less than their equally qualified male colleagues.

Women are usually in middle management roles, but they hardly get to leadership management positions.

It is very difficult for a woman who is also a mother to become a partner in a law firm or to have a post of responsibility in a company, because it is not easy to find balance between personal and professional life. Moreover, our culture tends to dictate that the woman is the one who is expected to take a step back from her career to raise children.

Legal work usually requires you to attend social commitments in addition to your office work – this is always a challenge when you are a mother.

Women in law also usually have to face sexist conversations and jokes from colleagues or clients.

I have seen female lawyers sexually harassed by their bosses.

From my own experience, I would say that the main challenge I had to overcome was to stop my career when I became a mother. I knew that I wanted to spend several months with my newborn children and I was sure that this would halt my career progression – which is exactly what happened. After spending one year with my two children (who are now six and seven years old), it was very difficult to find a job with the same level of responsibility to the one I’d had before. The salary was also an issue, and I was not able to get a job with a similar or higher salary than the one I had before I was pregnant. In fact, I had to start all over again, with a job and a salary at a lower level. Even now, my former male colleagues have better salaries. This was, and still is, the cost of being a mother.

As working women I believe that we all have responsibility in closing the gap between men and women. Being the mother of a boy and a girl, I want them to have the same opportunities. There are many actions we can take to help other women to reach the full potential of their careers:

First, education is fundamental. We need to teach our girls that they can be whatever they want to be. There should not be professions reserved only for men. We are equally capable of performing any job. When boys and girls are equally confident in their abilities, and are given equal opportunities, the gender gap narrows.

Second, women must support other women. Build networks, promote each other, and demand equality in salaries.

Third, we must vocally support policies that promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Fourth, we must adopt flexible working policies that allow women to have a real balance between their family and professional life.

And finally, we have the responsibility to make the problem of gender inequality visible to society through publications, forums, and seminars. Be vocal about the need for equality.

I believe that quotas may help and may be a first step to working towards gender equality. However, I am convinced that they don’t always translate into more power or gains for women. For me, quotas are only one of the tools that can help to solve the problem, but they are not the only tool. Other mechanisms, such as the ones above, are also necessary to achieve equality.

I am also profoundly convinced that as women leaders, we should build teams that are diverse in every sense. We need different genders, cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds present in our teams so that we can get to better solutions. Different opinions and points of view add value, reinforce the commitment and pride of belonging to a team, improve the richness of the analysis and therefore, the decision-making, and increase the creativity and innovation that support the sustainability of the company. I try to promote these kinds of teams in my work. For any woman considering a career in the legal industry, I would give the advice I gave myself: ‘Dream big: everything is possible. You are just as qualified as any man to perform any job you want. Don’t accept stereotypes, fight inequality, and don’t ever let anyone else tell you what you can or cannot do’.

After graduating from law school at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, I began my legal career as many lawyers do: in private practice. I spent four years with Leighton & Compañia, where my clients were the biggest banks in Chile. I represented them at court, and also assisted their internal departments in M&A and real estate. After my time in private practice, I actually stopped practicing law, and became a stay-at-home mother; I also spent that time trying to become an entrepreneur – but (fortunately) I failed! It was during this time that I realised what it is I truly love to do, and that is to practice law.

However, I decided I did not want to return to private practice, and instead started looking for in-house counsel roles. In 2009, I was offered a role with Cencosud S.A., one of the largest and most prestigious retail conglomerates in Latin America. I stayed with Cencosud S.A. for five years, where I was responsible for banking, insurance, and regulated markets. I was also responsible for leading the corporate law team.

In 2014, I joined the L’Oréal Group as general counsel for Chile, and three years later was given the added role of ethics correspondent for Chile, and data privacy officer for L’Oréal in Chile and Peru. For me, the best thing about being an in-house counsel is that it gives me the platform to combine the excitement of a fast-paced business world with what I’m really passionate about, which is the law. Being able to engage the management team and be a part of the company’s core business, and to view how the company relates to consumers and the market as a result of decisions made based on my own counsel is what ultimately allows me to feel that I made the right career choice.

My team and I are focussed on making the legal department a true business partner. We are changing our approach to technology, while also working collaboratively; we are driven by our passion to shape innovation in the legal industry. To become an important part of a business and to be able to make a difference in society is priceless. It does not make sense to wake up every morning without passion!

Aside from the practice of law, the other thing I am very passionate about is diversity and inclusion, and specifically gender-based issues. I am lucky that L’Oréal is a company that works hard to support these areas. As an active supporter of the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, at L’Oréal we are involved in many initiatives that aim not only to improve the situation of women both in the private and public spheres but also to recognise the contribution of women to the progress of humankind (namely via the L’Oréal Foundation ‘For Women in Science’ programme). This focus on women’s rights is part of our general diversity policy, which also covers non-discrimination on the grounds of disability; marital status or family situation; sexual orientation; age; political and philosophical opinions; religious belief; union activity; and ethnic, social, cultural, or national origin. The work we do with our suppliers and subcontractors is also a key part of our programme to respect human rights, which is why for me, the representation of women within a legal firm is always a key criteria for selecting my panel firm partners.

In my own experience, motherhood is a great challenge for women to achieve their professional full potential. Because I am responsible for leading a team, and am therefore in a position to take and advise on organisational decisions, I am a strong advocate for those women who are about to go on maternity leave or are returning to work after being on maternity leave. I believe that it’s important for companies to provide support beyond what the law states, and I also strongly believe that you should be able to rely on other female colleagues to become a support network during this time. As women, it is important to have the right conversations (which are sometimes tough conversations) to set expectations on what we are willing to do and not do; we must help other women to be proud of their work. This is especially important in the Latin America culture, as it is so paternalistic. That I why I feel very proud to work at L’Oréal, a company that aims to empower women on a daily basis through different programmes and initiatives.

Outside of my role at L’Oréal, I am also a member of the LWOW (LawWithoutWalls) community, a part-virtual experiential learning initiative designed for practicing and aspiring lawyers. By leveraging intergenerational, cross-cultural, and multi-disciplinary exchange, the community brings a human-centered design perspective to law. LWOW unites students from more than 35 law and business schools around the world to create innovation at the intersection of law, business, and technology, while developing skills essentials to any modern professional. It focuses on three core areas: upskilling and reskilling; transforming culture and relationships; and creating innovative solutions to real business-of-law challenges.

One thing I have become more convinced about throughout my career is quotas. During my time as a law student and the first years of my career I believed quotas were not needed, because talent would be recognised no matter what. But a couple of years ago, during a talk with Bruce MacEwan, he quoted that ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results’ and it really hit me. Women have been struggling for around 70 years to be respected and included among the leaders of any organisation, and nevertheless the efforts and the women participation rate on boards, governments, etc. – it’s nowhere near equal. We need to start doing things differently. And in my own circle of influence, that is exactly what I am trying to do.

GC: Can you tell me about how you use technology in the Bayer legal team in Costa Rica?

Alejandra Castro (AC): The legal headquarters in Germany have organised a worldwide structure in the legal department. We might be a unique global legal department where all our strategies are aligned including the vision on technology that should lead our functions. We centralise in a single IT tool the contracts, compliance cases, and data privacy processes, in addition to the monitoring of regulations in the region, plus patents as well.

As legal departments in Bayer, we handle various databases, and we are currently migrating to a new IT tool handled by regional expert teams, to make sure that everyone uses the same templates for contracts, with the same quality of service and the same regulations. The tool allows being a self-service contract database for contracts that we have already drafted, which will be harmonised for all the legal entities that we have. There will be an ability to make an online request for different templates outside those already drafted, and then these requests for new contracts will done by the legal department. Our expectation – and we are already reviewing this and finding this is what is happening now – is that the workload is getting lowered. We are trying to use these tools in order to make the process more agile, and to speed up all of the negotiations that we have with external vendors and so on.

Catalina Morales (CM): This new tool grants a contract life cycle management system. This means that you can find a template, you can send it to your business partner in legal, you can send it to your provider from the platform, the provider can give any feedback in the platform as well and, if they have the digital signature, they can also sign it online, and then you just store it in the same system. The idea is to use this system for contracts from the beginning.

AC: On the IP side, we have a different tool – it’s the same IT platform, but it’s a different tool where we upload all the patents that we have. It helps us by reminding us, for example, about deadlines and other IP risks that are very important with patents. If you miss a deadline, you can lose your patent, so for us it’s very important to keep a record of the timeline. In the past, patents were handled through local law firms and they were the ones that kept the reminders on the deadlines and the stages of the patent process. Now that we have developed our own patent tools, we do all the surveillance and the follow-up of what the law firms are doing, so it has increased our work in a positive way.

CM: On the compliance side, the tool registers every event or every investigation that we have. All compliance officers in each country or region have to input everything – every advance that has been happening in the case or the investigation. It is a tool where we are recording, but also reporting to global headquarters. It helps to visualise the impact compliance is having and guide future decision-making, such as whether we need to reinforce training or do more work on specific topics in a specific area or country. It is also useful to use as a knowledge system – you can visualise and it even helps you show that, for example, the number of investigations has gone down since you’ve trained, since you’ve provided more information. You can see, actually in a tangible way, the results of your compliance work.

GC: Have there been any particular challenges that you’ve encountered as you’ve been developing these IT platforms?

AC: Yes, there have. The first challenge was to make sure that we have a single template and that we keep the template with the most protection for the company, no matter in which jurisdiction the contract would be enforced. In my region, there are 33 countries in which we have legal operations, all of whom have different regulations, so that was challenging.

The second challenge was that, in the past, each region had developed their own IT tool for contracts. Now that we are migrating to the new tool – which is the single tool that will be used by everyone – it creates an additional challenge for areas or regions that need to leave the tools that were already developed, and migrate to this too.

CM: There’s always going to be challenges with what is a culture change. You need to explain that you’re not going to do this anymore, the way you’ve been doing it for the last 10 years – now you have to do it this way. Obviously, that is going to take time to adjust. There’s always going to be that initial scepticism about the new system – is it really going to work, do we have to do all this change if it won’t work in two or three years? We do have to do a lot of convincing, a lot of explaining why actually the system works and how it is going to benefit you. That’s the key: I think once they see the benefits, they get on board.

GC: Legal is one area where Bayer is implementing artificial intelligence. How are you currently using it and how do you think that use that will evolve from the sorts of things people are currently using it for?

AC: We currently have experience using AI in labour calculations, for example, for severance payments. It has already brought a lot of value to the department and it is just the beginning. I believe that, in contracts for example, we are going to see a lot more development around how artificial intelligence can help us work on our daily tasks.

CM: I think that AI could have an impact on the profession and the positions required in a legal department. A physical lawyer will always be needed, but the amount of lawyers needed in one department may decrease. For the company, or for the law firm, you could say that’s better because you need fewer people to do the same amount of work, but on the human side, as a lawyer, I wouldn’t like to lose my job and be replaced by technology! We need to find a common ground for us to work together.

I believe we will continue to see a rise in automation, too. It’s inevitable. I don’t know if it will change drastically and I don’t how fast it will change, but it will definitely change. The important thing is to have a company that supports this innovation and digitalisation, because it’s going to affect not only legal but every single department in the company. The engagement of the employees is going to be 100% necessary.

GC: How do you think the legal sector compares to other professional service sectors in Latin America when it comes to technology, innovation and working digitally?

AC: I think that lawyers believe they are not comparable. This is why we have sometimes not implemented technology. But I do think that our services are totally comparable to other areas that have already implemented these tools, like in accounting and finance teams. We are able and we can implement those tools – and there is no need to be afraid of that. I remember when we implemented digital signatures for several legal procedures, there was a lot of resistance from lawyers in the region, but now we use it on a regular basis and digital signatures are part of what we implement in contracts and data procedures. I think there are a lot of things that we can do and I think that legal departments are more than prepared to undertake this.

GC: How would you like to see law firms using and adapting to technology?

AC: If I request external counsel advice for legal opinions, I would love to have law firms keep a record of what they have answered to us for corporate housekeeping, to make sure that they have IT tools to give reminders on processes that are done on a yearly basis, like renewal of the corporation or payment of taxes. But it’s hard to find that in the market. At least, in my country group, we don’t have it. I know that I have peers in other country groups where they do have that service, but not in Central America.

We are undertaking evaluations on outside law firms focused on the technology that they are implementing, so that we can look to use that as well. But, at least in the region where we have our legal department, I don’t think that there is too much going on yet. The law firms that I work with use very little technology in order to provide their services. However, from a global perspective, I know that headquarters have analysed global law firms that are using technology, so we have been able to review those technologies to see if we can apply them in our region or to our IT platforms.

GC: How can in-house teams best prepare and equip themselves for technological changes and disruption in future?

AC: There is a lot of work that has to be done from an investment and budget perspective. I think that is the first challenge that we need to face. The second is training; we’re used to having legal training, but now I think it’s very important to have specific training on the new IT tools that we are implementing, in order to be part of this new era where technology will be leading the legal department.

CM: As a legal department or a law firm that is not yet very technologically advanced, I would definitely recommend doing due diligence. Start small – start mapping out what systems can make your life easier. Maybe just a repository for a list of contracts, so you can upload a template, so that the whole law firm has a basic template that can be shared within a general system – that way, anyone that needs that type of contract can use it and the organisation has one face towards the client. Because, as a client, maybe one lawyer did the same type of contract differently than another lawyer, then you’re giving me two different versions, and maybe in one we went to labour litigation and with the other one we didn’t. So, at the end, it’s easier because they would have the same standard within.

I’m talking just basic contracts, but it works with other things, like legal opinions. If you’re going to give your client a legal opinion, you need to keep a record of what you said to the company and you can also start showing the benefits of having that to the managerial department, to see the importance of having that IT technology within the company.

‘Bureaucracy is the death of any achievement.’ – Albert Einstein

Or is it? Perhaps ask a Brazilian – they tend to know a thing or two about bureaucracy.

‘It’s a very specific problem we have here in Brazil because we are a huge country – we have over 5,000 cities and each one of these cities has at least three different institutions from which it is possible to get different documents. Institutions like the city hall, the labour department, the justice department, the environment department, or the federal government,’ says Pedro Roso, CEO and co-founder of Docket, a legal tech start-up.

And the legal sector itself, says lawyer and tech entrepreneur Bruno Feigelson, is as swollen and filled with complexity as it could be. According to Feigelson, Brazil spends 2% of its GDP on its legal system, and there are currently 100 million ongoing lawsuits in the country.

‘If you compare that with our population – we have 200 million people – we have one lawsuit per person, because you have the plaintiff and also the defendant,’ he explains.

Discontent? Disaggregate

Felipe Monteiro is professor of strategy at INSEAD, and is also the academic director of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index, which identifies the world’s most talent-competitive countries. This has led him to look at how companies and sectors around the world are being transformed.

‘I remember talking to the CEO of a very large, fast-moving consumer goods company in Brazil. This is a very marketing intensive company, and the CEO said: “Brazil is the only country in the world where we have more lawyers than marketing people.”’

All this means one thing for start-ups armed with the technology to bat away reams of paperwork and administration: opportunity.

‘If we go to the legal sector, what’s happening is that whereas one company used to have a full range of activities, a lot of start-ups are coming and trying to break down the full service into smaller parts,’ explains Monteiro.

‘If you think about utilities, BT Group had the full service but now a lot of start-ups are saying “Maybe we can use the infrastructure of BT but start offering different things.” You can think about this as different technologies, but I think most of all, it is not about that. It is that you as a person now have different needs. Maybe an incumbent used to give you all those options, but now independent players can use the infrastructure and offer you different paths, maybe in a more efficient and effective way.’

One company aiming to apply this model to in-house legal teams and unbundle internal processes is ProJuris, a start-up currently enjoying its tenth anniversary.

‘There are more than 1.2 million lawyers in Brazil, which has led to one lawyer for every 190 Brazilian citizens,’ says digital marketing manager Tiago Fachini.

‘Our purpose is to eliminate inefficiencies of the legal routine. We are working with AI in several ways to help lawyers to be more efficient and happy. We are also working with automation and some very neat integrations.’

The company’s SaaS (software as a service) product automates repetitive activities, like creating or updating cases, creating documents, or distributing and managing team tasks. ProJuris also offers software to corporate legal teams designed to improve productivity of the teams who work with contracts, documents, signatures and requests from internal clients. It claims to have more than 1,800 customers, with over 20,000 lawyers using ProJuris every day.

Another is Docket. Founded in 2016, the self-proclaimed ‘document shop’ has developed a platform on which clients – for example, the legal departments of large companies – can manage documentation, allowing faster access to documents, reduced friction with public services and AI-enabled data analysis. Last year, the company participated in Google’s Launchpad accelerator programme.

‘The size of this market is huge. We used to operate without any technology and now we are looking for how technology could solve a lot of problems, through automation or AI and, with this market size, with this very complex system and with technology, I think we have the recipe to create a lot of start-ups in this market,’ says Roso.

‘In Brazil, this year [2019] was the year of fintechs. But I think the legal techs in the next two or three years will be the hype of the year, because we have a lot of solutions emerging. And we have huge potential, because we have opportunities with sectors inside of the legal system.’

Innovation by association

Someone who certainly believes in the future of legal techs is Bruno Feigelson. A lawyer himself, he founded his own legal tech company in 2016, Sem Processo, which aims to connect lawyers and companies in order to resolve and settle the vast numbers of matters that end up before Brazil’s legal system more easily.

But he didn’t stop there. The following year, together with legal departments and law firms, Feigelson – who also runs a law firm, a law school and a legal tech accelerator – created the Brazilian Association of Lawtechs and legalTechs, known as AB2L.

‘At that moment, we had some tech companies in Brazil, but we didn’t have the main legal tech or law tech – it was something like a desert in Brazil for technology. We started the association with just two companies and, nowadays, we have 200 legal techs in Brazil in the association,’ he explains.

Feigelson had observed an increasing interest in technology to assist in legal processes such as contract automation and litigation management and analysis, and he predicted this would evolve beyond the implementation of tech solutions developed in-house to the use of external platforms and processes that would become available on the market. And he is confident that he was right.

‘We have a lot of potential. It’s very interesting because the biggest change is not just the technology – it’s the change of mindset,’ he says.

‘Lawyers are now looking to find a newer way and a better way to change the field. It’s interesting to compare AB2L two years ago and now. Now we have solutions for tax, for compliance and for data protection.’

One particular area of innovation observed by Feigelson is visual law – using design to illustrate legal documents.

‘The biggest lawsuit in Brazil is one in which the state of Brazil is suing certain companies. This lawsuit could be worth billions and billions of dollars. We are drawing all the petitions in order to help the judge show the court what has happened. Three years ago it was impossible to imagine that you would be in a meeting with a lawyer and a designer to improve understanding for the client,’ he says.

But, he concedes, this has not yet translated to a huge number of legal tech companies in Brazil currently.

Growing pains

Roso believes that coming up with an idea for a start-up in the legal sector, particularly in Brazil, necessitates first-hand experience of the market. Docket itself was created following the challenges experienced by one of the co-founders while working for a real estate company.

‘You need to study a lot to create a start-up to solve these processes. It’s different to thinking “Oh, let’s think of something to create.” I think for legal tech you need to experience this pain, you must understand how to solve it. It’s not too simple because we don’t have a standard here,’ he says.

Put simply, however, Brazil is not the most conducive environment in which to open up a business. Placed 138th out of 190 countries included in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 rankings for starting a business, the country scored 124th for ease of doing business overall (figures taken from World Bank. 2020. Doing Business 2020. Washington, DC: World Bank. DOI:10.1596/978-1-4648-1440-2. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO).

‘The complexity to open a business, get clients, handle these physical problems that we have to understand our taxes, to pay our taxes – I think it’s not so good yet,’ says Roso.

For the legal sector, there are specific problems, and the very bureaucracy that has created a huge potential market for legal technology platforms also creates hurdles.

‘We have the problem of dealing with hundreds of different courts around the country, each one with its own system. There are more than 100,000 open cases in the Brazilian legal system, so in this decentralised and unstructured scenario, most legal techs fail to obtain and use public information,’ says Fachini.

The Doing Business website identifies some business reforms made by the governments in recent years that have smoothed the way for those looking to start a business. These include speeding up business registration, lowering the cost of the digital certificate, and establishing online systems for company registration, licensing and employment notifications for Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The government also launched an online portal for business licences in Rio de Janeiro.

‘I think this government, and other governments, are concerned with being more friendly with entrepreneurs. As a result, we have had laws pass through our congress that make it easier to be entrepreneurs,’ says Roso.

‘We are at the beginning of this agenda. It’s a long ride – we have a lot of things to do, but we are starting, so this is something to celebrate: we start this process here. I think the support from the government is very important because they could transform this whole scenario and bring more investment to our country and generate more jobs. Everyone has some kind of benefit from that.’

A new (ad)venture

The biggest problem, according to Feigelson, is a lack of investment relative to markets such as the US or the UK.

However, the tide may be beginning to turn in the venture capital stakes. In 2019, SoftBank Group launched a $5bn technology innovation fund focused on Latin America. In May 2019, Crunchbase reported that venture funding in Brazil reached $1.3bn in 2018, up from $859m in 2017 and $279m in 2016, according to figures taken from LAVCA, the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America.

‘[Venture capital funds] are more present in Latam, I think, compared to three or four years ago – when it was completely different,’ says Roso.

Closer to home, in the legal sector, encouragement for legal tech is not as evolved as it could be, says Feigelson, whether through direct investment or by launching incubator and accelerator programmes. Early adopters are often thin on the ground, and although support is there in theory, the money is not always where the mouths are.

‘The law firms in Brazil, they don’t invest a lot of money in law techs. They don’t have a lot of money, because in Brazil we have a closed system in law firms. It’s impossible to invite a partner that is not a lawyer to introduce to this society,’ he explains.

‘They believe, but they don’t believe in this revolution. It’s very common that I’m going to a conference and talking about international big law and the companies that they are creating. But the Brazilian law firms, they are not doing the same.’

Adds Fachini: ‘Sometimes, our Brazilian bar association (called the OAB) puts some barriers in the technology way, trying to keep the old patterns instead of helping us to develop faster to help even more people.’

Perhaps a cautious approach to investment among incumbents is prudent, however. To throw a potential spanner into the trend among law firms in regions like the US and Europe to launch innovation labs, Monteiro believes that the benefits to incumbents of incubating and/or accelerating start-ups are not always clear.

‘It’s not even a billion-dollar question but a trillion-dollar question: to what extent incumbents will ever be able to integrate whatever those start-ups are doing,’ he says.

‘Imagine I’m a big company, let’s say a bank, and I start investing in fintechs – I have all those fintechs in my lab. To what extent will I be able to change the bank, or will I just be an investor in those new things? It’s not trivial, because the nature of the change is so much more profound than the previous technological changes.’

Monteiro is not speaking specifically about the legal sector, of course, but of a general response to possible technological disruption across the board.

‘I think we have a tendency of thinking that this idea of open innovation and accessing business technologies is more about “How do I connect with start-ups?” But actually, a lot of my feedback about it is that it is not about the connection itself, it’s more about “How do you bring those things home? How do you transform the mothership?”’

But Feigelson has observed the tech revolution (and, perhaps, cultural invasion) continuing apace – across all sectors in Brazil, even legal. And in-house teams, with their proximity to trends across the corporate ecosystem, are well-placed to benefit.

‘In Brazil, if you are a bank you are looking for fintech, if you are a health company you are looking for health tech – all these companies are living a special moment. We have a big movement in Brazil against wearing a tie, nobody wants to wear ties, they want to be modern, they want to be like Steve Jobs,’ he says.

‘The reconnection of the legal world with this new reality, of the fourth industrial revolution, it’s easier for legal departments than the law firms.’

In-house leading the way

‘[Incumbent legal service providers] are starting to realise that technology is a friend which can help them to be more effective and efficient in their daily activities. In the beginning, there were misunderstandings about how technology would and could help, but now everyone is looking for tools to help legal routine,’ says Fachini.

But, in many cases, according to Feigelson, customers are coming from the in-house sector, and not external firms: ‘They take the money that was for the law firms and they put it into legal techs.’

At Docket, most clients are also tech-curious in-house departments. Their concerns are practical rather than innovation-related, in Roso’s view.

‘We have 130 people here, we have a huge team, and we always talk with huge clients, so we need to be prepared to absorb these huge clients. I think their consideration, at the end of the day, it’s not about [whether we are] a start-up, but if we will have the necessary structure to handle them. I think, in most cases, they are very optimistic about how technology could transform the legal department and reduce these operational jobs without any kind of value,’ says Roso.

The Brazilian general counsel GC spoke to as part of the research for this report were bullish about the potential of technology to improve in-house life, and took a pragmatic approach to the adoption of innovative tools – whether they be those developed specifically for their own departments, customised off-the-shelf software, or services procured from third-party tech providers.

‘Legal tech is the future; it is only a matter of time before they can prove what they are using is consistent and sustainable. I think that there is no way back – technology will only be more and more relevant to the legal market,’ says Rafael Dantas, director of legal and compliance in Latin America for General Mills.

For some, the challenges around technology revolve not only around selecting system tools likely to be effective, but identifying the best method of procurement. General counsel must find the right momentum and timing between developing them internally (balanced with other priorities within companies) and hiring third-party developers. But, the need for appropriate system tools is widely accepted.

Is disruption coming?

Conditions are certainly favourable in Latin America – and in Brazil specifically, says Monteiro.

‘When you are a developing market, one potential application of technology is offering leapfrogging opportunities. Remember that in a number of these markets they have nothing, and if they adopt the most recent technology, they will basically skip prior stages of technological development. The most well-known case was in Africa with M-Pesa in Kenya where, 10-15 years ago, most people didn’t have a bank account. M-Pesa started offering mobile payments on very simple phones. Many Kenyans don’t have a formal bank account and maybe they never will, because a lot of people skipped and started having a mobile wallet in their cell phones,’ he says.

‘There are a number of examples like this in Latin America. If you want to extrapolate a little and think about the legal sector, there are maybe two points to consider: one, is to imagine that some companies, and some of those start-ups, will never engage with formal legal services as we know them now – maybe they will skip that and they will start engaging with new ways of getting legal services; two, is the level of complexity of the Brazilian legal system – it is so complex, which means that you have a lot of lawyers and that’s why the legal tech sector in Brazil is thriving – because people know that there will be ways of disrupting that market and offering many different things.’

Feigelson certainly knows, and perhaps his enthusiasm – and that of the legal techs, like Docket, which is an AB2L member – will continue to be catching.

‘We believe a lot that we have the numbers and we have the anthropological conditions to make the biggest evolution in technology in Brazil. I work with researchers in Brazil, I work with law techs from other countries: people are coming to Brazil and trying to understand what’s happening here. I think we have a lot of change.’

I joined ADM a year and a half ago, and in the past year we’ve invested a lot in technology. I myself am a person that really thinks that technology is important, because you really can replace operational work that I think is not a priority for senior lawyers – I try to prioritise the strategic issues and benchmarking, in order to check the other companies and really understand what we have in the market. I try to improve and, if this is the case, we invest externally.

ADM Brazil invests a lot in technology, we’re upfront: we know what works and what doesn’t. When we see something working, we can adopt that solution to what we also do in the future. But, in order to do this, we need to gather the necessary data to take such decisions. And, looking at information necessary to take those decisions, law firms are able to provide information in a better way and in a better form – things like graphics – and some law firms are able to provide us this information, so that we don’t need to do the work, which I consider to be operational, to get this information ourselves. And, it’s on information like that we can take decisions. That’s the point.

It’s never easy to get budget. It’s super difficult: you have to put a business case forward and prove why you need to bring that technology to the company, and make some sort of trade-off – this need not be in monetary terms, it could be efficiency. You need to show how valuable the technology is that you’re investing in. If you’re a big, global company you also need to prove that this technology is in accordance with the entire IT project globally. Not just in terms of local security – because what you are doing on a local level can interfere in security – but, you need to understand that everybody has to approve. Being practical in this way can bring a lot in for the company.

At ADM, we have control technology which allows us to control the litigation cases. The technology we use was acquired in the market but specifically customised to our needs. We have a massive litigation area here, so that technology helps us get the information we need. I wouldn’t call it artificial intelligence because it’s not done alone, but it does allow us to use that information gathered for practice or for analysis. With this, we can see how many cases we’re winning, how many we’ve lost, how much money we’re going to lose and how many cases we’ve received. For example, if we focus on labour pay and want to see why we have so many of these labour cases, you can detect that through our technology, and then this allows legal to brief and train the business to be aware of the current legislation and to be able to reduce these problems in the future. We can do this in relation to any problem. If we see that our consumers have a specific problem in a particular region, then we can make sure we avoid the same problem in the future. It’s a useful strategy to have in legal.

Brazil is very advanced in terms of technology and has very sophisticated solutions concerning IT because of all the investment here. Being a super big and democratic nation, we have a lot of legal work and technology here. But, Latin America consists of many nations. For example, you’ve got both Mexico and Bolivia – these are two totally different countries with different levels of development. When you think of Mexico, there are many differences in culture, and you must also consider the dependency on the US. You also have Brazil, which speaks Portuguese, whilst all other Latin American nations speak Spanish. You have many differences, but Brazil is a pioneer in this area compared to other Latin American countries.

I think that AI is revolutionary for in-house teams. I think that AI, or something related to AI, will create more connections than ever. I think the future is about AI and connection, because as much as we can be connected now, we cannot connect things and people – AI helps with this. When you can make out as many links as you can between people and information – for example, you can now make a complete profile on and of anyone. Before I meet someone, I can go into a web link, see their profile and other information about them – everything – even their personal life: whether they’re married, have kids, where they live and what they like and dislike. This is powerful because I can have a conversation with them and convince them of something, because, essentially, I know them now. Giving a simple example, if you have LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, I now know you. So I will know how to process our conversation in a way that I can convince you of something. We can see this when purchasing items on Amazon: when you buy a product, Amazon offers you other related products. This is embryonic and I think the future will be more like that. The more connected we are with information, the more connected we are with people.

AI and technology will not replace lawyers, but it will replace lawyers who don’t use technology. By nature, I think technology and information will become more global. So, I think privacy will become a big problem because everyone will know everything about you, and you won’t be able to have a little bit of privacy. Most of the available information is free right now, because it’s so easy to get this information. What was valuable in the past is not valuable in the future – like information. In the future, you need to be more strategic and use that to your advantage. I think the future is about AI and connecting us to as much information as possible.

When GC surveyed and interviewed a host of general counsel at some of the biggest corporate players in Latin America, what emerged was a variety of approaches to the question of how best to incorporate technology into the daily life of the in-house legal department. But whether the response was a wholehearted embrace, a cautious side glance, or something in between, what many agreed on was the fact that technology has made a significant advance into legal teams over the last five years – and that advance is set to continue.

‘In my three years at Bayer, I’ve seen the introduction of many systems. For example, a new tool was just introduced this year for contracts and Prime for data privacy was introduced last year. Comcat (a compliance tool) was in diapers three years ago, but it has gained significant importance around how we report on compliance cases. In my three-year period, it has moved very much towards a technology-based or technology-oriented profession,’ says Catalina Morales, data privacy manager for Central America and Caribbean at Bayer in Costa Rica, currently in an assignment based in St. Louis, US.

Bayer has taken a global approach, with the Central America region assimilating accordingly. But general counsel at Archer Daniels Midland Brazil, Patricia Ulian, has added personal momentum to the tech wave.

‘I myself am a person that really thinks that technology is important, because you really can replace operational work that I think is not a priority for senior lawyers – I try to prioritise the strategic issues and benchmarking, in order to check the other companies and really understand what we have in the market. I try to improve and, if this is the case, we invest externally,’ she says.

‘Five years ago, information control was totally dependent on human action. In-house lawyers were much more operational and less strategic, as they had to dedicate their time to fill in Excel sheets and other reports. The margin of error was high, the time of responses was longer – and those aspects directly influenced the quality of the decision-making process of the company.’

A race to technology?

In this spirit of striving to minimise administrative tasks, the GCs we interviewed for this report have much in common with their counterparts around the world, who have bid farewell to the paper-based days of yore. But some feel that parts of Latin America have further to go to catch up with peers in certain jurisdictions. Selim Erdil Guvener, general counsel at the International Potato Center in Peru, is one such person, having moved to Latin America six years ago after a career that has taken him to London, Istanbul, Nairobi and Benin.

‘I think the legal profession in Peru is behind the US and Western Europe in terms of adopting new technology. Here, I can still only see technology use at the word processing and some systems levels. But lawyers will need to adapt quickly, as digital transformation is picking up speed, especially in the government,’ he says.

Of course, in a region the size of Latin America – including 20 countries for the purposes of our research – and with the unique character of each country, it is impossible to draw conclusions that are too general.

‘Latin America consists of many nations,’ says Ulian. ‘For example, you’ve got both Mexico and Bolivia – these are two totally different countries with different levels of development. When you think of Mexico, there are many differences in culture, and you must also consider the dependency on the US. You also have Brazil, which speaks Portuguese, whilst all other Latin American nations speak Spanish. You have many differences, but Brazil is a pioneer in this area compared to other Latin American countries.’

Vastly differing economical, commercial, societal, and geographical landscapes across the numerous countries making up the Latin American region have resulted in similarly different priorities for the governments governing those countries. Regulatory differences therefore exist across the region and, in some cases, technology regulation might not be the most pressing or significant issue for the relevant country regulators and the legislature.

Despite the inherent differences between the various countries that comprise the Latin America region the counsel who participated in the quantitative aspect of our research were near unanimous in their agreement that technology had become an essential component of any in-house lawyer’s role. Indeed, 96% of respondents reported using specialised legal tech within their departments, with only 11% saying that the use of technology within their legal department hadn’t changed in the last five years.

Says Ulian: ‘I believe legal technology is already helping us to work smarter and can make in-house teams more efficient, improve knowledge retention, accelerate professional development and reduce potential burnout.’

Making connections

Some general counsel stressed the importance of technology in bringing closeness among parties, be they internal, external, or even customers.

‘I think the future is about AI and connection, because as much as we can be connected now, we cannot connect things and people – AI helps with this. When you can make out as many links as you can between people and information – for example, you can now make a complete profile on and of anyone… This is powerful because I can have a conversation with them and convince them of something, because essentially, I know them now,’ Ulian explains.

‘We can see this when purchasing items on Amazon: when you buy a product, Amazon offers you other related products. This is embryonic and I think the future will be more like that. The more connected we are with information, the more connected we are with people.’

But on a more prosaic level, the existence of technology can foster a greater understanding between legal department and business partner.

‘We are now a lot closer to our clients, thanks to technology. Not only from a telecommunications and technology point of view, but also because we’re able to follow their work and provide support almost instantly. Now that we have significant information technology support, we can understand what the client’s business actually is,’ says Guvener.

‘Let me give you an example: we have a monitoring and evaluation platform where we gather all the information – this is not necessarily legal information. But, we do have the key performance indicators in there. We can look at it and identify the key challenges colleagues are facing. We can see if there is anything related to legal challenges. Therefore, we can pre-empt project implementation challenges before they become real bottlenecks for projects. The ability to work on legal documents in real time is a real big change.’

The human touch

Much discussion on the topic of technology centres on the issue of how much professionals have to fear from technological advancement. But many of the general counsel we spoke to were relaxed about any potential ‘threat’ posed by machines.

‘Technology is not here to replace a lawyer’s work, but rather to enhance it. There is a human factor that lawyers provide – interpretations, judgement, decisions, solutions and knowledge of legal systems and a particular business situation – that need to be part of the entire law system, that is why technology and human knowledge are complementary. On the other hand, if a lawyer keeps up with the different technological changes and embraces new technologies, the exercise of the legal profession will be improved. In fact, I believe you will become a better professional,’ says Juan Pablo Ovalle Arana, country counsel at IBM Colombia.

Rather than replacing lawyers, those we surveyed for this report were strongly in agreement that technology was a tool to be used to enhance the outcomes provided by lawyers, not replace them. 66% said that technology could enhance outcomes for in-house departments to a great extent, with a further 31% agreeing but to a moderate degree. Only 3% of respondents had a divergent opinion.

There was a sense among general counsel in the region that the increasing use of technology tools was unlikely to remove lawyers from a role as ultimate architect of legal solutions, primarily because of the importance of the human element in contributing to productive outcomes.

That humanity was defined as communicating through body language, reading through the lines, and responding to the emotional component of client representation, identifying the exceptions that prove the rule, and the quirks of life and law that build the richest understanding of any situation.

Applying emotional intelligence – be it with opposite parties negotiation or litigation, or in internal client interactions – is far from an exact science, yet the lawyer’s role relies heavily on these essential interpersonal skills alongside technical expertise. As in the healthcare profession, while a machine might contribute pinpoint accurate analysis and speed to a diagnosis or treatment, there is currently no automated substitute for bedside manner. For this reason, some of the general counsel we spoke to pointed out the limitations on true disruption to the legal profession, and the potential for hyperbole when applying buzzwords and jargon terms perhaps more suited to analysis of tech trends to the nuances of practising law. Rather than a discussion of disruption, those general counsel felt, a more accurate description of technology’s impact would be in terms of incremental time-savings rather than replacement of core duties.

‘There is an element of “frustration” that is recurrent for the legal professionals, and it is a client saying “My lawyer doesn’t understand me”. I have been in situations where I have to go through a call center bot and they give me a number of options, but I am not always sure that my question will fit any option. So, the interaction with the machine is not always perfect, and “the human touch” is still needed,’ says Ovalle Arana.

‘I think we, as lawyers, would need to learn to interact with new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and others. The work between man and technology has never been so important and efficient and it is up to us to take advantage of it to make our profession evolve.’

But, for some, even outside of AI and any mythology about the robotisation of the profession, the cold touch of technology can already be felt – ironically aided by the very tools developed to improve communication.

‘Today, you can negotiate and close a big deal without meeting the other party in person. That’s a dramatic change, because it allows you to work remotely, even in complex fields. The challenge is that by losing the personal touch, it will hurt the lawyers in their capacity to develop negotiation tactics and so forth,’ says Alberto Vergara, head of litigation for Scotiabank Chile.

‘You save cost in matters like travel and meetings but, on the other hand, you will lose some useful tools that only the experience of personal relationships provides to lawyers. Right now, you have general lawyers that don’t have external meetings – they work exclusively by their computers, so they don’t have any real relationship with their counterparties. I would say that is problematic.’

For a non-millennial, old-fashioned lawyer, as I am, technology is challenging and represents a large area to explore. At IBM, we are expected to be acquainted and familiar with technology. From an operational perspective, there is a need for lawyers to be tech savvy and understand the technology.

And, it is our responsibility, as professionals, to improve the use of technology and encourage the use of it.

The way lawyers use technology has evolved in the past years and, in my view, we have made progress, but there is still a journey ahead of us. When I joined IBM – eight years ago – you could provide a quality service to your internal clients by knowing the business and products. Now everything moves at a faster pace: regulations have changed, so the only way to catch up with new regulations is by using technology – especially when you work in the fintech environment. As in every industry, there is always room for improvement, and the only way to do it is creating a culture of continuous learning, including hard and soft skills on your learning journey.

Emergent technologies are real, and we have to live with them. Technology is not here to replace a lawyer’s work, but rather to enhance it. There is a human factor that lawyers provide – interpretations, judgement, decisions, solutions and knowledge of legal systems and a particular business situation – that needs to be part of the entire law system – that is why technology and human knowledge are complementary. On the other hand, if a lawyer keeps up with the different technological changes and embraces new technologies, the exercise of the legal profession will be improved. In fact, I believe you will become a better professional.

As with many other countries in the region and globally, Colombia is starting its journey in the use of technology in different professions. Incorporating, for example, AI within in-house legal departments is helping law firms focus in what is really important – their clients – while technology ensures documents are processed in a faster and accurate way, what translates in better services for the clients and time saving for the lawyers.

Where technology is headed is a tricky question – I certainly don’t have an answer to that. New technologies emerge all the time and they develop quickly, so it is very unpredictable. It is hard to predict what’s going to happen, and, what is actually going to come up next and what you think is going to come up next, are not the same thing.

Most in-house counsel interviewed agreed that technology was a partner in the process – an increasingly unavoidable one – but not a rival. Yet support for technology in corporations, particularly legal departments, nevertheless butts up against frequent barriers.

Leadership

Unsurprisingly, support from corporate leadership is a prerequisite when it comes to weaving technology into the fabric of internal teams. Those at companies already well versed in technology often gravitate more quickly towards technological solutions.

There was a sense among some interviewees that timescales for innovation in more tech-based industry sectors could be truncated compared to more traditional sectors, or those with less of a technological provenance. Tech companies, for example, often enjoy a head start in the mindset of management, and a supportive attitude among the general workforce to tech or innovation-based change. These elements can help teams enjoy quicker productivity and efficiency gains than more traditional companies, who might be less open to technology culturally.

And, of course, expressions of support from leadership much be accompanied by practical encouragement – namely, financial support. Of those who participated in our report, 60% said their department had received an increase in budget for technology over the past five years. Those who had received an increase in budget were much more likely to cite technology as a strength of their legal team, at 71% (compared with 30% of those who hadn’t received an increase in budget), and to think that their company was well positioned with their use of technology, at 76% (versus 40%). Of course, the leadership of the legal team must be live to the necessity of obtaining budget specifically for technology – and, according to some, it’s a matter of outlook.

‘If the person that is leading the legal area doesn’t take the fact that they will need money for innovation or applying systems or technology into account when they are developing that budget, well, that’s a failure. It’s just because they haven’t thought about it,’ says Pablo Enrique Urrego Hernández, head of legal at Diageo Colombia.

‘What normally happens is, in the middle of the project, you ask the CEO to give you money for something you haven’t taken into account. Probably you can ask for some more money, but you must have already had the idea of developing that technology. You have to be smart. That’s why I say everything is part of the culture. If you have that in mind and it’s part of your DNA as a lawyer, you will be able to get the resources.’

For this, Urrego Hernández believes it is important for the GCs themselves to lead any example and model a progressive attitude towards embracing technology.

‘We need to develop leaders on these issues, and my challenge is to become a leader. I probably won’t be the one that will develop the systems, but I could be the one who can push everyone to understand that adopting these kind of systems is a good thing.’

Practical makes perfect

In a region as diverse as Latin America, practical constraints can be a common source of frustration among leaders eager to implement technology in multinational corporations.

‘We do have countries and projects where internet connectivity is an issue. In those cases, having world-class technological tools available to us can actually be time consuming and frustrating,’ explains Selim Guvener, general counsel for the International Potato Center.

‘We’ve been looking at how much can we do by teleconferencing rather than travelling, allowing us to have as much face-to-face interaction as possible – without having to travel across the world and contribute to global warming. On one hand, technology is developing significantly, but on the other, there are still parts of the continent that are lagging behind.’

Even when accessibility is not an issue, there might be competing systems in play. In rolling out a global contract life cycle management system, Bayer found it had to abandon systems in certain jurisdictions, for example.

‘In the past, each region had developed their own IT tool for contracts. Now that we are migrating to the new tool – which is the single tool which will be used by everyone – it creates an additional challenge for areas or regions that need to leave the tools that were already developed, and migrate to this too,’ says Alejandra Costa, head of law, patents and compliance for Central America, Caribbean and Andean region.

‘If you’re a big, global company, you also need to prove that this technology is in accordance with the entire IT project globally. Not just in terms of local security – because what you are doing on a local level can interfere in security – but you need to understand that everybody has to approve,’ adds Patricia Ulian, general counsel for Archer Daniels Midland Brazil.

Interface issues might also become apparent when engaging with external parties.

‘When you are outsourcing your services to a large number of outside counsels, it is natural that each and every law firm uses their own system and has their own routine. It is difficult to make sure that the external company is using your system or actually providing the information that your company requires,’ says Rafael Dantas, general counsel/director for legal and compliance Latin America at General Mills.

[Data] Private: Keep Out

Thinking globally has not only practical implications, but also regulatory ones, meaning that companies must stay compliant across the board – preparing themselves to be fit for purpose in the most rigorous regulatory regimes, even if this means appearing heavy-handed in jurisdictions with a less prescribed approach. Nowhere is this more evident than in the context of data protection, as Catalina Morales, data privacy manager for Central America and Caribbean at Bayer, discovered when implementing a global system to ensure compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

‘Obviously there were, at the beginning, rejections: why do I have to apply GDPR, locally it’s not applicable, I don’t process EU data. But, even though you don’t process EU data, you may be doing a clinical trial locally, and in that clinical trial the data is being sent to our headquarters in Germany – so there you should be complying with GDPR,’ she explains.

‘We had to explain every simple situation where GDPR could be involved to make them see that actually it was important for us to apply it, even though locally you don’t have an obligation.’

In Bayer’s case, the system in question acts as a repository for data processing activities, enabling swift and detailed mapping of what data is accessed and when. But, in other contexts, technology could muddy the data security waters in terms of risk and accountability.

‘The more digital we become in our work, the more difficult it is to establish network safety and security. So, at the same time, we need to educate the people who are using and accessing our network in order to protect it. This will require training and capacity building for our workforce,’ says Guvener.

A clear understanding of accountability in data processes must also be ensured, to avoid ‘the machine’ being blamed for data leaks, when the issue might be one of process or authority.

Winning hearts and mindsets

Across the board, a major challenge for those implementing changes in systems and processes is gaining the buy-in and support of team members. Those on the frontline of using new technology might raise myriad concerns, ranging from reluctance to adjust to a new way of working, doubts in the quality of the system itself, through to a more existential fear of being rendered redundant.

Those who participated in our research thought that, as a whole, the profession was not adequately prepared to adapt to technological changes. Only 22% of participants believed that today’s lawyers were properly prepared and equipped to embrace technology, despite 97% saying that their team members were receptive to its use.

‘I believe the first step is constructing a culture of digitalisation, automation and using technology so that people understand that these are tools that can make life easier and better. They are not competition, they will not replace a lawyer – in my team, every person is important. What I want to be able to do is to free capabilities – give my lawyers freedom to work on other issues,’ says Urrego Hernández.

‘If you have a lawyer spending time doing contracts, that’s not right! You need to liberate, create time for them to do all those things and be able to develop other skills. What technology can do is become a partner in that development – it’s their best ally for that. If people start to understand that technology is a partner and not an enemy, or a possible substitute for their job, that will change the progress of what we have been doing.’

For Urrego Hernández, such a culture change means not only approaching new technological systems and processes with an open mind, but with a willingness to share company information with external legal tech developers, in order to develop bespoke solutions.

‘You might not be able to find what you want because it’s not yet developed, but you can find someone able to develop it. But in order to find that ally, you have to be really open minded,’ he says.

‘They need information that might be confidential, or to understand problems that normally you would not talk about outside the company. But once you understand they are an ally and give them trust, everything goes more easily.’

It’s an oft-repeated thought that lawyers are conservative and slow to adapt to change when compared to those in other professional sectors. But some believe that it’s sometimes unfair to stigmatise lawyers in this way. Rather than comparing apples and oranges, it’s important to compare apples and apples, this thinking says: areas that involve much human interaction can’t simply replace entire thinking or decision-making processes, and perhaps those areas of the profession not seeing drastic technology-induced changes are those that require a large amount of additional insight on top of what technology can provide.

Not everyone agrees on the uniqueness – and, hence, immunity – of the law when it comes to technological innovation, however.

‘I think that lawyers believe they are not comparable. This is why we have sometimes not implemented technology. But I do think that our services are totally comparable to other areas that have already implemented these tools, like in accounting and finance teams. We are able and we can implement those tools – and there is no need to be afraid of that,’ says Costa.

‘I remember when we implemented digital signatures for several legal procedures, there was a lot of resistance from lawyers in the region, but now we use it on a regular basis and digital signatures are part of what we implement in contracts and data procedures. I think there are a lot of things that we can do and I think that legal departments are more than prepared to undertake this.’

The chicken and the egg

Across the board, across continents even, there is a sense, even among many in the legal profession, that use of technology lags behind in the law. If there is a reluctance for legal professionals to adopt technology when compared to other professions, there was some discussion about why.

Some of those who provided input for this report speculated that, perhaps due to its difficulty as a subject, many were avoiding law, choosing instead to train in other business areas such as marketing, business administration, and other areas that are useful in a globalised business world, and currently popular career choices. Perhaps law struggles with its (perhaps unfair) reputation as a stopper, rather than an enabler, and this is a disadvantage it in the innovation stakes.

If it is true that law is at times seen as a less attractive choice for potential candidates, is it the very lack of technology and innovation in the law that is deterring minds from a traditional legal career, and attracting them to a newer breed of company? Bruno Feigelson, lawyer, entrepreneur and president of the Brazilian Association of Lawtechs and Legaltechs, thinks this might be the case:

‘They asked associates in big law firms in Brazil if they dream to be partner one day. They don’t want to be partners, they are not happy with the way things happen, so these new structures, these new law firms, these new ways, are attracting the best talent,’ he says.

‘The big challenge for the big law firms in Brazil is how to attract the better brains to the law firms. They want people that understand how to use software, how to use design, how to understand the legal system in another way, they start to search for new opportunities. We have a lot of special persons doing law tech, trying with new law firms, so we have a new evolution with these new young people and also the youngest people from the legal departments, they are searching for another way.’

Regardless, it seems obvious that the various arms of the evolving ecosystem for legal solutions – in Latin America and globally – could benefit (and are doing so, in many cases) from cross-pollination. Especially in the world of tech, recognition is growing about the importance of having people from different areas share ideas and explore how synergies can be created. Engineers, lawyers, people from different disciplines, can share experiences, generating improvements and new ideas in the process, which can then be applied to solutions.

Winning the innovation battle

But, as those in-house will be quick to attest, the legal profession is very much a profession of two halves – and it is often in-house teams, in close partnership with other business functions, who lead the game when it comes to tech adoption.

Interestingly, when it comes to using technology, looking to external law firms for guidance remained a rarity. Only 35% of our respondents said that they were satisfied with the use of technology by their external firms, despite 86% saying it was somewhat or very important to them that their law firms keep abreast of new technologies. Only 26% said that they looked to their external firms for guidance when it comes to new technology, with even fewer – 18% – saying that their firms had offered to share or help with the implementation of tech systems.

‘In Latin America, and in Colombia specifically…there are just the typical law firms that have a hierarchical structure of partner, associate, staff and so on,’ says Urrego Hernández.

‘They have the old-fashioned way of working and trying to change that is like trying to break a bargain. They do not care much about innovation and, I have to say, it’s frustrating, because in-house legal teams are far ahead of the legal firms in terms of using technology and using these kinds of tools.’

It’s not true to say that law firms are trying to hold back the tides across the board, however, and some noted some flexibility and adaptability among external providers.

Feigelson is seeing the shoots of technological growth starting to show in the legal system in Brazil – evidenced by some law schools beginning to teach coding, and an increase in management approaches such as agile, conceived in the software development sector and often assisted by technology tools.

‘It’s very common in Brazil for the boards of the big companies to invite the CEO to go to Silicon Valley to understand how disruption is happening, in order to change the way of the future. So, the CEO goes there and they get completely brainwashed. They come back to Brazil, they hire a chief of innovation and they start to do things in another way,’ he says.

‘The legal department starts to be completely alone in the company, because the legal department knows how to work in the last century; they have some trouble connecting with and understanding these new ways within the big companies. So what we are living now in this moment is that the legal department is trying to be new. It’s very common for legal counsel to be trying to understand innovation, going to legal class about innovation, reading books about innovation.’

‘But I think the legal department is more advanced than the law firms – they are inside the companies, they are living this change, and they need to reconnect with this new world. So the reconnection of the legal world with this new reality of the fourth industrial revolution – it’s easier for legal departments than the law firms,’ he says.

The future

Recent years have seen an expansion of the role of the in-house lawyer in a number of different directions. Legal qualifications now sit at the centre of a wheel with an ever-increasing number of spokes, of which technology is one – in Latin America and across the globe – and to be equipped for future success (and relevance) legal professionals must keep their toolkit well maintained.

As Urrego Hernández aptly puts it: ‘You don’t have to spend your whole time being a lawyer, you have to spend your whole time being a lawyer that can fix problems, not just by using law, but by using other tools, other skills and other people to help you.’

Nubank is a Brazilian fintech founded with the objective of fighting complexity in the financial market by offering intuitive products and services. It has grown a lot since I joined, more than four years ago, to start and build the legal team.

Today, Nubank has more than 20 million clients (it is considered the largest digital bank outside Asia) and has recently expanded beyond Brazil to explore other Latam countries. And we are still at the beginning of our journey. One of the secrets to such hyper growth is the focus on the customer. We structure ourselves in four pillars: user experience, design, technology and data science. Technology has allowed us to get where we are today, but the human factor makes the company stand out.

The legal team, like other teams in the company, uses technology to manage information and data to assist in decision making. We have created internal tools to manage certain matters we deal with and which enable us to interact with other teams more efficiently. A current focus for us is smart contract management through a combination of technology and AI.

As a company, even as we increasingly use AI in our daily work, it is worth emphasising that we don’t delegate responsibility for decisions to machines. AI enables richer insights from data and improves the quality and speed of decision making. However, at the end of the day, humans remain accountable for making decisions. We are always called upon to use our judgement in the way we use the information we obtain from AI.

That is why in-house lawyers must be what I would call architects or designers of solutions. In many negotiations and decision-making processes, the human component is essential. Understanding body language and anticipating movements based on a repertoire inaccessible to machines is not an exact science. Science can help and will, more and more, but I believe there will always be a human in the loop, at least for the foreseeable future.

Technology will indeed replace repetitive and administrative tasks. It already allows better management of documents, streamlined due diligence processes and court decisions monitoring. However, lawyers – assisted by an increasingly powerful array of technology and AI tools – will continue as key players in designing solutions.

The legal market as a whole needs to be more prepared for a technological future. Law professionals must learn to harness the power of data and AI as a natural evolution of the profession. It is auspicious the emerging trend of law schools teaching courses on data and technology, and law firms introducing tech to their daily work.

Inside a tech company it’s very enriching to have people from different areas sharing their ideas and seeing how synergies are created between lawyers, engineers, business analysts, designers or data analysts. These interactions contribute a lot to deeply understanding how technology can be a further ally in developing better products, services and solutions, including in the legal area.

All in all, technology is definitely something that is already helping in-house teams and the legal market. And it will help even further, there is no way to avoid it. The key point is understanding how technology can add value while being aware of the importance of legal ethics, data protection and accountability in such discussions.

Here at World Services Group, it is our pleasure to introduce you to the second in our series of GC special reports examining the present state of technology use by in-house legal departments around the globe.

Based on the stories and experiences shared as part of this report, there appears to be no denying that the use of technology in the legal sector is flourishing across Latin America. From blockchain-backed smart contracts to law firm relationship management software and everything in between, evolution is evident in all aspects of legal life – much of which is being driven by in-house legal departments. With positivity emanating and uptake rapidly increasing, the point of maturation for legal technology is not just on the horizon, but rapidly approaching.

As private practice lawyers, this means that we must also be at the vanguard of technological development. With the range of novel applications being implemented by forward-thinking counsel and their businesses, it is crucial that we understand the disruptive potential of technology in order to ensure that we remain relevant as trusted advisers in an ever-changing corporate environment. General counsel have made technology a business priority, which means that we must make it a business imperative.

Getting buy-in and leadership from all corners of the profession will be an essential component for long-term success. New solutions will require new thinking and, as the report reveals, implementing technology into legal functions is not always a straightforward matter. Considerations around the ethics of different innovations and the impact they can have on businesses and their legal departments is just one prominent example shared of the new challenges being faced by counsel of all walks. Oftentimes, these will have no clear and obvious precedent to follow, which speaks to the importance of engaging with members across the legal fraternity.

At World Services Group, we do not want to be passengers as our profession changes around us; we strive to be agents of change that help to facilitate progress. Partnering on projects like this provides us an opportunity to directly engage with thought leaders from across the legal world and glean insights into what the future of the legal profession may look like, as we collectively chart a renewed path for the practice of law and enable our member firms to add value for their clients.

Finally, I would like to extend my thanks on behalf of everyone at World Services Group to all of those who took the time to contribute their views and opinions as part of this project. The insights you’ve shared will undoubtedly ignite discussions and establish a dialogue about the impact technology stands to have on the legal sector – both in Latin America and further afield – but more importantly, help us all to consider how we can harness its potential for the betterment of everyone in our profession.

J. Michael Bernard

Chairman,
World Services Group

Equity Member,
Dykema