Finalists: Nigerian Stock Exchange; Standard Chartered Bank; Wholesale Lending Legal Team, CIB Legal; Barclays Africa Group (Highly Commended).
South African legal insurance provider Law For All clinched the Large Legal Department of the Year prize for its work managing a team of 169 legal employees. The department provides legal advice and mediation for clients who buy insurance cover, with 75% of the cases it takes on usually resolved through negotiation and the rest referred to independent law firms for litigation.
The necessity of such a large team is best understood through the number of legal cases it handled last year – more than 88,000 across criminal, civil, labour and family law, among others. That scale has helped it land commercial contracts with the likes of the Telesure Group, Absa and Zurich Insurance. The company has invested heavily in training and skills development for legal department employees through mentoring and external coaching sessions, enabling the firm to promote 13 internal candidates to senior positions last year. And the department has introduced a custom cloud-based case management system so that staff can access files remotely and senior management can maintain oversight on all active cases.
“It takes great skill to manage such a large legal team and yet still deliver a level of service that is exceptional and delivered with care and compassion,” noted a judge.
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