Mr Galtieri, who is the country representative for the Association of Corporate Counsel Europe, has previous experience in the high-tech space, from Hexagon AB, the world leader in design, measurement and visualisation technologies to the European Space Agency and Interoute Communications. He started his career in private practice at Studio Legale Tonucci, the Italian alliance partner of Mayer Brown LLP. Mr Galtieri is chairing the Law Department 2030 plenary at the GC Futures Summit on 1 November. 

GLP: What size is the legal department at Colt?

Alessandro Galtieri: It  is made up of 32 lawyers and 8 non-lawyers. We cover  all of Colt's activities worldwide from offices in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Austria,  India, and Japan.I support all non-transactional activities, not just M&As. My internal clients are the usual suspects: Finance, Strategy and Business Development, Security and Internal Audit, Corporate Communications. I am also in charge of Data Protection and Company Secretariat, managing all of our subsidiaries worldwide.

GLP:  How do you envisage the Law Department of 2030? 

AG: All the trends that we've seen in the past 15 years will only accelerate in the next 15. People may smile when reading articles about robot lawyering or Artificial Intelligence - but they forget that we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. So no lawyer robots in 2017, but certainly an artificial PA/paralegal that will do what trainees do today in 2027…. A lot of what we do today will have been standardised and "repackaged" to allow our clients to self-serve. Data will allow us to focus on where we genuinely are needed, and information will be accessible almost instantly.

GLP:  What will be the biggest challenge for lawyers in your opinion?

AG: Adapting to the pace of change. If you take away email and IMs,  the way we are instructed, co-operate with our internal clients, report our activity and our contribution....is not dissimilar from 20 or 30 years ago. We need to get much smarter in taking operating tips and solutions from other fields and make them ours. Our biggest challenge will be from mapping our own processes - we will discover we are far less effective that we think we are.

GLP: What contribution could law firms make to the debate?

AG: They are likely to be both the biggest resistance to some of these changes, as it does not fit their current busines model, and some of the best adaptors, because they have the resources. Those who understand that to truly be innovative is the only way to survive, will thrive. The others will struggle. I suspect that the winning specimens will be much more prone to a real integration with in-house department, a little bit like some logistics firms are totally embedded in their customers' supply chain.