Making the Pitch
Alejandro Fernández R-B, head of legal at Cotemar, discusses his efforts in introducing technology to his legal team, the challenges of selling the value of legal tech investment to the business, and the ethical considerations that come into play when adopting new technology.
I think technology in the in-house department is not an option anymore. Because, as you know, all companies are cost and profit-driven. So, at some point, the question will be on the table: ‘What is cheaper for me’ or ‘What is more efficient for me?’ To have an in-house department, or just to go find a law firm and try to push down the prices? So, I think the technology will give us, as in house lawyers, more possibilities in order to argue that it’s a good idea to have in-house lawyers. I think every company must start to interact with these new technologies to try to develop an idea or a practice to use that. In my case, of course, I’m trying to bring these new technologies and ideas and be open to the market but, otherwise, I try to bring on board young lawyers with these new ideas, who of course can contribute to the development of the legal department.
We deal a lot with in-house software that manages the areas of litigation, arbitration and conflict management. We focus on these areas because of the amount of litigation that we have. For example, in 2009 there was a drop down of oil prices and, as we are a construction and maintenance company, we had to let go of many people because some of our contracts were shut down. That brought us over 100 cases of litigation. So, taking that into account, and also that we have almost 1,200 active suppliers at the moment, we need to find a way to manage this and try to be more strategic.
