In a conversation with Laurent Giezendanner, Head of Legal Operations and Corporate Security team at Syngenta, we delve into the evolving landscape of legal departments within large enterprises. Laurent shares insights into how legal teams have adapted in recent years, the transformative power of legal innovation, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for corporate legal teams. His extensive experience provides a unique perspective on the evolving role of legal departments in today’s complex business world.
Bradley Collins: To kick things off, how have you seen legal departments adapt in large enterprises in recent years to the evolving world we find ourselves in?
Laurent Giezendanner: I joined the Syngenta legal team 14 years ago. At the time, our function was already looking at legal and IP, ethical and trade compliance, insurance, risk management, and corporate security. Similar to legal teams in different industries, our job has become more complex due to higher regulatory pressure and greater demands from our internal clients. We followed the trend of large organisations’ legal teams to explore how to operate faster, simpler, with high quality and quantity rates, and most importantly, with optimal cost efficiency.
We tried many different things, failed sometimes, and learned every time. Ten years ago, we started some significant legaltech projects without fully comprehending the requirements of our legal colleagues and their internal clients. We also lacked adequate project and change management expertise. To address this, we established the legal operations team seven years ago, and I took charge of this team four years ago, in addition to my role as Head of Corporate Security.
Bradley Collins: What are the most interesting business outcomes you’ve witnessed from legal innovation in the last 12 months?
Laurent Giezendanner: I could mention the successful implementation of our e-billing solution, which significantly reduced our law firm spend, or the massive productivity gains we achieved with our new Contract Lifecycle Management tool. But I understand that this may sound familiar or repetitive to readers therefore I would rather mention that the best innovation we have made over the past 12-24 months, is actually the investment in our people.
We worked hard to bring our global team closer together, making our collective purpose clear and meaningful, improving the way we communicate at all levels, fostering trust among team members, providing growth opportunities through project collaboration and leveraging diversity and inclusion. This investment has helped us adapt to the changing legal ecosystem and implement solutions that bring value to our team and clients.
Bradley Collins: What are the most significant changes you believe we’ll witness in corporate legal teams in the years ahead?
Laurent Giezendanner: Looking forward, I anticipate an increase in regulatory, sanction, and geopolitical challenges, which presents an opportunity for the legal team to further support the business. To achieve this, we need to improve how we measure the impact of our work and shift the perception of legal from a cost center to a profit center. However, measuring our function’s impact is not a simple task and requires a mindset change within the legal community. We need to find ways to measure the value we bring to the organisation, which goes beyond legal tech spend and considers the entire legal budget and contribution to business performance. This requires the collective brain of our team to find the best way to calculate our return on investment, as the value differs depending on the type of job we perform.
Key takeaways:
1. Embrace efficiency and innovation: Adapt to the evolving legal landscape by exploring ways to operate faster, simpler, and more efficiently while maintaining high quality. Invest in legal technology and innovation to optimise cost efficiency and productivity.
2. Invest in your people: Recognise that investing in your legal team’s cohesion, communication, trust, and growth opportunities can be one of the most valuable innovations. Strengthening the team’s dynamics and fostering diversity and inclusion can lead to better adaptation and value creation.
3. Measure impact and shift perception: Prepare for increasing regulatory challenges and seek opportunities to support the business. To do this effectively, shift the perception of the legal department from a cost center to a profit center by measuring and demonstrating the value it brings to the organisation. Explore innovative ways to calculate return on investment that consider the diverse roles within the legal team.
