In this interview, Carlos Eduardo C. Saba, Chief Legal Officer North LatAm at Louis Dreyfus Company, shares valuable perspectives on implementing legal technology solutions globally. He outlines how the landscape for legal tech has evolved in the past decade from a scarcity of solutions requiring extensive custom development, to an abundance of offerings in the market today.
Carlos explains that a significant opportunity now lies in engaging teams worldwide to evaluate various tools aligned with regional needs. He highlights important considerations including compliance, data privacy, localization, training, integration and cost-efficiency across different jurisdictions.
Addressing key challenges in adopting solutions globally, Carlos points to recognising regional specifics, managing costs efficiently across regions, and maintaining robust governance while balancing consistency and regional autonomy.
Bradley Collins: Hi Carlos – I’d love to hear about your experiences in leading within a multinational company, what are your considerations when it comes to testing legal technology solutions worldwide?
Carlos: There was a time when we faced a scarcity of sophisticated legal technology in the market. Back then, our main challenge was collaborating with tech companies to create custom solutions that met our specific needs, in the hope that these could be applied more broadly. On one hand, this led to adaptable, customized solutions for our diverse company needs. On the other, it required significant internal resources, including personnel and time, to develop the product. Additionally, where solutions designed for our company didn’t attract scalability for other businesses, maintenance deteriorated, and we had to change suppliers and sometimes start over.
Over the past decade, the landscape has evolved radically. The market now offers an “unlimited” variety of technologies addressing our internal needs. We no longer need to create solutions from scratch, and our focus has shifted toward very open eyes in the legal tech environment and ecosystem, testing different tools and adopting those that make the most technological and economic sense.
For a global company like ours, a significant opportunity is to engage our teams in evaluating various tools worldwide to identify those aligned with unique needs, decide which suit regional adoption and determine which hold potential for regional or global use. Factors like regional disparities, compliance, data privacy, linguistic and localisation requirements, user training, scalability, vendor compatibility, integration and cost-effectiveness are key considerations. The adage that bureaucracy stifles innovation holds true – not only for legal teams and their clients but also for the adoption of internal legal department technologies. Having a global legal operations team capable of understanding initiatives in each region, and serving as an enabler, is crucial for configuring diverse initiatives, leveraging distinct solutions, and ensuring necessary governance.
Bradley Collins: Interesting stuff – what are the main challenges when it comes to adopting solutions globally?
Carlos: It’s a captivating topic, and you’ve touched on a challenge familiar to global companies. The pursuit of a universal application to serve all jurisdictions, driven by governance, may not be the most effective approach, based on our experience. Let me highlight three key aspects:
Regional Specifics: Recognising the unique legal requirements, practices, and cultural nuances in each region is imperative. Adapting legal tech solutions to accommodate these differences is vital. Understanding and respecting these distinctions is crucial. Diverse, sometimes conflicting regulations across countries, including data privacy laws, trade restrictions, and industry-specific regulations, can pose significant challenges.
Cost Efficiency: Understanding the cost implica-tions of implementing a solution is essential. Effective budgeting should consider cost variations across regions. Different jurisdictions offer varying solutions, often at significantly different costs. Leveraging solutions from one region for use in another is a key strategy. Costs, influenced by factors like labor costs, taxes and local expenses, can vary substantially. Managing budgets across regions can be a formidable challenge.
Governance: Maintaining a robust global governance framework for overseeing and managing worldwide legal tech implementation is vital. Balancing global consistency with regional autonomy is crucial. Typically, regions with substantial resources find it more feasible to conduct large- scale pilot projects and test technologies. The challenge is to avoid seeking a one-size-fits-all solution for diverse realities while ensuring the necessary degree of control and governance. The goal is to make all information accessible in a global tool, without introducing redundancy, rework, or unnecessary bureaucracy. With tools like PowerBI, system integration from report generation, and RPAs, this objective is entirely achievable. Our regional legal operations teams, in collaboration with global counterparts, are diligently working toward this goal, while respecting the unique characteristics of each geographic region across our company.
Bradley Collins: Finally – how do you come to making decisions on which tech vendors to work with given the rapid rate of change in capabilities we’re now witnessing?
Carlos: In the ever-changing world of technology, making the right choices in tech partnerships requires a meticulous approach, including but not limited to:
Assess your needs: Start by fully grasping your organization’s requirements and objectives. What specific challenges are you addressing, and what are your long-term goals? This sets the stage for evaluating potential vendors.
Stay informed: Keeping up with the latest technological advances is crucial. Monitor industry trends, attend conferences and engage with tech communities. This
helps identify emerging technologies beneficial for your organization.
Vendor evaluation: Thoroughly examine potential vendors. Investigate their track record, reputation and customer feedback. Are they known for innovation and reliability? Do they have industry-specific experience?
Scalability: Consider how well the vendor’s solutions can adapt to your evolving organizational needs. Scalability is crucial, especially in a dynamic tech landscape.
Customization: Evaluate the vendor’s ability to tailor their offerings to your unique requirements. The capacity to customize technology to align with your organization is essential.
Integration: Compatibility with your existing systems is imp-ortant. Assess how easily the vendor’s solutions can integrate with your current infrastructure.
Cost-benefit analysis: Assess the total costs of impleme- ntation and operation. Consider the technology’s return on investment, including efficiency gains, cost savings and revenue growth.
Proof of Concept (PoC): Consider running a PoC with the vendor to evaluate their technology’s performance in your specific environment. This helps mitigate potential risks.
Vendor relationship: Building a strong relationship with the vendor is crucial (not only with legal teams but also with other departments involved, such as IT and digital innovation). Open communication, responsiveness and a collaborative approach are key to success.
Flexibility: Be ready to pivot when necessary. Technology decisions should remain adaptable and the ability to embrace new opportunities is crucial.
Compliance: And it goes without saying – ensure the chosen vendor complies with legal and regulatory requirements relevant to your industry.
In summary, effective decision-making in the rapidly evolving tech landscape combines thorough research, adaptability and a clear understanding of your organisation’s unique needs and goals. It’s an ongoing process that demands vigilance and a readiness to embrace emerging technologies as they emerge.
Read all 13 interviews with legal experts in our latest LegalTech Diaries Volume 3: https://www.legaltech-talk.com/legaltechdiaries/volume-3/
Carlos will also be speaking at LegalTechTalk 2024 on 13-14th June 2024 at InterContinental O2 in London where over 2,500 in-house and law firm leaders, legaltech startups, and investors will join us for 2 full days of insights and networking. See more here: https://www.legaltech-talk.com/
