The changing landscape of legal sees many companies supporting an in-house legal counsel model, which brings great benefits for the company – some of which include risk management, access to legal support, performance management and succession planning.
Samiksha Kader, Legal Counsel at Tiger Brands will be presenting at Legal Innovation & Tech Fest, sharing her learnings around the needs and challenges presented for in-house counsels. We caught up with Samiksha in the lead up to the event.
Samiksha – we look forward to having you present at Legal Innovation & Tech Fest. What motivated you to get involved as a presenter at the event?
I realised that many of the challenges faced and experienced by myself are also experienced by my colleagues and I would like to share my thoughts on the vendor conundrum as well as share possible solutions, and also learn from fellow colleagues on how they deal with common challenges.
Tell us about your story/career journey in the legal space? And what do you enjoy most about your work?
I was raised by a single mom. I was exposed to a very different reality than many of my friends and family, where my mum being the sole provider in the household and also my sole caretaker filled the role of what I later learned to be associated, in some instances with the role of a “man in society”. Being exposed to such an independent and strong female role model, I began to question at a very young age how society viewed and treated women. Given the strong opinions I would share, people regarded me as a feminist and in time, that passion to fight against the stereotypes of the world expanded to fight against racism and violence against women. I believe that law was already in my story long before I realised it was. I always want to contribute in some way to a better place to live. I suppose I gravitated to law to make that difference. Through my career, I was exposed to many aspects of the field, from matrimonial law, criminal law to IT law. I spent much of my career at Business Connexion Group, an ICT company. I really enjoyed being part of an innovative industry. What I enjoy about my job till today is that I am exposed to all facets of trade, which I get to learn about i.e. FMCG, IT, Pharmacy etc. I am still very much a human rights law enthusiast and although I have not had enough time to dedicate to it, I believe that I will keep trying to make that difference, however small.
A challenge for in-house counsels is wading through the vendor conundrum to find the solution that supports all the requirements seamlessly. What are the areas that need to be focussed on to get this process right?
1. Data Management and record retention
2. Workflow management (audit trail, workflow and work load management, benefit analytics)
3. Template generation tools.
About the speaker
Given her background of being a specialist in ICT Law and having worked for one of South Africa’s most prominent ICT companies, Samiksha Kader had access to a fair amount of technology at her fingertips, most of which was never meant to support legal, but Samiksha found ways to make it work for legal. She is obsessed with efficiency and is always looking for answers to work smarter. Samiksha is very artistic in nature and believes the practice of law is an art form not administrative. She loves freedom, peace and nature. Her main ambition in life is to live with passion and love.