How is your innovative self doing?

María Elena Sanz Arcas, Head of Legal Corporate Governance & Compliance at ScottishPower and member of the In-house Lawyers' Committee, talks about innovation in the in-house profession.

Last month I had the opportunity, together with some of my colleagues, to attend the 2018 European Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels organised by the European Commission. 

This is an amazing annual event where public authorities, energy agencies, industry associations, businesses, civil society organisations and the media are all invited to take part.

With more than 60 sessions to choose from I decided to attend six of them focused on two core themes for the industry I work in: Digitalisation and the new European Energy System. I learnt more about electric vehicles, sustainable energy storage, corporate sourcing of renewables and digitalisation of energy.

My legal and process driven mindset was being challenged in sessions where innovators explained, for example, how they had successfully tested their sustainable energy solutions matching their energy consumption with their energy production, or how data sharing hubs were transforming the energy system from unidirectional to multidirectional flows.

And I have to be honest, at the beginning the only things going through my mind were legal challenges such as ownership of input data vs ownership of data analytics, smart devices liability for use or regulatory challenges. But at some point the level of exposure to these new ideas transformed my approach and I started to properly listen. I started asking myself the right questions to be able to use legislation, regulation and industry knowledge to assist innovators rather than question them.

Then I realised that in-house lawyers can be innovators as well. We are professionals who address legal challenges in our organisations every day, and by trying to provide bespoke legal advice, become law makers in the making. That is exciting!

As I was surrounded by professionals from every part of the world sharing their ideas on how to achieve a sustainable future I realised that formal law making processes are now, more than ever, slower than technological evolution. This is already having an impact on the premises under which in-house solicitors deliver legal advice and how the profession will have a role leading such evolution.

In-house lawyers should take every single opportunity to be surrounded by industry experts who challenge the existing legal framework and make us think differently. The European Union is full of them and you can meet them for free at these types of events. Find out more events run by the European Commission here.

Let your legal selves become your innovative selves!