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What Will the In-House Legal Department of Tomorrow Look Like?

May 2016
ManagementIT

Abstract

How many articles read, how many conferences attended around this question about a vision of the future of in-house legal counsels; but what concrete actions do we need to integrate today to prepare for tomorrow? Traditional hot topics of General Counsels are well known: budget constraints, ensuring compliance in an increasing complex world with more and more regulations, sanctions more and more applied by the authorities, more and more aggressive and competitive markets…. If we look back a couple of years to the evolution of legal practice of in-house counsels, a lot has been already done: efficiency programs, tools, templates, processes introduced to work in a more effective manner. Is that enough? Will the lawyers of tomorrow continue to be the local jurisdiction expert? Or is their role meant to grow? General Counsels have to integrate and anticipate these challenges today to build on the legal department of tomorrow. The in-house legal counsel of tomorrow will be from the Z-generation, with more and more international skills and mindset, more a strategist than an expert.

Author

Portrait image of Cécile Kavalses
Cécile Kavalses
General Counsel Benelux & The Nordics, Atos, Netherlands

After having been graduated with a Master's degree in Business Law from “Université Paris XI” and “HEC”, and having been admitted to the Bar, Cecile worked for different IT Legal Departments’ within Air France and then Oracle. She joined Atos in 2006 first as a Corporate Lawyer. Cecile took over the lead of the Corporate Affairs Legal Department in 2009, where she was responsible for the corporate legal matters of the listed company, governance, company law, compliance with stock exchange markets regulations and financing. In 2012, she was appointed Chief of Staff of the Group General Counsel. In 2013, she was appointed General Counsel for India, Middle East and Africa. She recently moved to the Netherlands in 2015 as General Counsel for Benelux and The Nordics. Cecile also teaches French Corporate Law since 2008 at Université Paris-Dauphine and taught OHADA Corporate Law in Gabon at BGFI Business School from 2011 to 2013.

Company

Atos logo

Atos

About Atos Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is a leader in digital services with pro forma annual revenue of circa EUR 12 billion and 100,000 employees in 72 countries. Serving a global client base, the Group provides Consulting & Systems Integration services, Managed Services & BPO, Cloud operations, Big Data & Cyber-security solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry. With its deep technology expertise and industry knowledge, the Group works with clients across different business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications, and Transportation. Atos is focused on business technology that powers progress and helps organizations to create their firm of the future. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and is listed on the Euronext Paris market. Atos operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline.

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