Rethinking Legal Systems: From Advisory Function to Business Integration

As legal teams face increasing pressure to move faster and integrate more closely with the business, the challenge is no longer just delivering accurate legal advice, but redesigning how legal work is structured and delivered.

Isabel M. Cervantes, Legal Innovation at Volkswagen AG, shares her perspective on why legal innovation must go beyond tools, focusing instead on building systems that are measurable, scalable, and aligned with organisational needs.

In this Q&A, Isabel reflects on AI adoption, legal tech decision-making, and how in-house teams can evolve from advisory functions into fully embedded business partners.

Enjoy the interview below.

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1. Looking back at your career so far, what was the single most significant moment or case that forced you to fundamentally rethink how you approach legal work, and why did it have such a lasting impact on you?

There was a very specific moment in my career when I realised that “doing good legal work” was no longer enough. I was involved in a complex, cross‑border regulatory project at the EU level, working with several legal teams of different companies and many engineers under a lot of time pressure. The traditional legal approach - slow, sequential, very risk‑averse - simply didn’t fit the reality of what the business needed.

I remember feeling that, even though our legal analysis was technically correct, we were not really enabling the organisation to move forward. That was uncomfortable. It forced me to rethink my own role: was I just there to say “yes” or “no”, or was I there to create new ways and design how legal support could actually make decisions faster, more compliant and more business-oriented?

From that experience onwards, I started to see legal work less as an isolated advisory function and more as part of a broader system: how information flows, how decisions are documented, how risks are prioritised, who needs to be in the room and when. It changed the way I communicate, the way I structure work, and the way I manage the project. Since then, I’ve been very intentional about building bridges between legal and business, using understandable language for non‑lawyers, and deeply focused on how the company strategy is.

2. When you hear the phrase "legal innovation," what does that genuinely mean to you, and do you think the legal industry is living up to that potential, or is the reality far more incremental than the hype suggests?

For me, “legal innovation” is not a buzzword and certainly not a synonym for “buying new tools”. It’s the discipline of redesigning how legal work is done so that it becomes measurable, scalable, and genuinely aligned with the business.

In practical terms, that means making things faster and easier, improving processes, using data to understand where our time and risks actually are; collaborating closely with other functions; and only then, on top of that solid foundation, bringing in technology and AI (if necessary) where they make sense.

Is the industry living up to its potential? I would say we are advancing. Sustainable innovation in legal should not be like a revolution every six months; in my opinion, it should be like a series of well‑designed changes that actually stick: could be a contract lifecycle that everyone uses, a matter management system that people trust, automated workflows that people understand.

The danger is confusing “noise” with progress. We don’t need more hype; we need better systems that fulfil our real needs and the courage to stop doing things that no longer add value.

3. When evaluating a new legal technology tool or platform, what is your evaluation framework: what questions do you ask, who do you involve in the decision, and what are your absolute non-negotiables before signing off?

Whenever I evaluate a new legal tech solution, I always start with one very simple question: what problem are we solving, exactly? If the problem is not crystal clear, then the tool is not the answer. It sounds obvious, but under pressure to “innovate”, it’s easy to fall in love with a feature rather than with a solution to a real, painful bottleneck.

Once the problem is clearly defined, I look at how the tool fits into our existing ecosystem. A brilliant tool that cannot integrate or “talk” to the systems we already use will end up becoming just another silo. For me, interoperability is a non‑negotiable, especially in large organisations with many platforms.

The next layer is governance, security and data. In a European context, any solution that touches legal data must be fully aligned with our regulatory framework and internal policies: data protection, clear purposes for processing, retention, audit trails, and a robust approach to confidentiality and access control. If those answers are vague, I am not comfortable moving forward.

I always involve the key stakeholders early: IT, data protection, security, and of course, the business owners who will actually use the tool. But there is one requirement that has become absolutely essential for me, and it often ends up being the real game‑changer: the solution must be so intuitive that it doesn't need manuals or training sessions. Lawyers and business teams are already managing an enormous workload; they simply do not have the time, nor should they, to spend hours learning how a new platform works. The tool should function like an iPhone: nobody reads the instructions, but everyone knows how to use it immediately. That level of simplicity is not a “nice to have”; it’s the real challenge for legal tech, and the standard we should aim for.

4. What is your honest view on how AI will reshape the size, structure, and composition of in-house legal departments over the next five to ten years?

AI is already reshaping legal work, and I think the most profound impact will be on the shape of legal teams, not on their relevance. I don’t believe good in‑house teams will disappear; I believe they will look very different.

In the next five to ten years, I expect to see smaller core teams of lawyers, surrounded by a richer ecosystem of roles: legal operations specialists, data and process experts, project managers, and professionals focused on governance, tooling and enablement. The volume of repetitive, low‑complexity tasks, such as first‑level document review, standard drafting, basic legal research, can increasingly be handled by AI‑assisted workflows.

This means that lawyers will spend more of their time where they add unique value: complex judgment calls, strategic prioritisation of risk, ethical and governance questions, and translating legal constraints into clear, actionable decisions for the business.

But this transition won’t happen automatically. It requires legal departments to rethink competency models, training and organisation design. We will need lawyers who are comfortable working with data, who understand what AI can and cannot do, and who are able to challenge outputs rather than just produce them. I’m very optimistic about the potential, as long as we keep humans firmly in the loop and maintain clear accountability.

5. How do you manage the cultural resistance that almost inevitably arises when you are asking experienced lawyers to change deeply ingrained ways of working, and what approaches have you found genuinely move people rather than simply irritating them?

When you ask experienced lawyers to change how they work, you are not just touching tools or processes; you are touching identity, habits that have been built over years, and a sense of professional pride. If we ignore that, we will fail.

What I have learned is that people don’t resist change itself, they resist the feeling of losing control or being treated as if their experience no longer matters. That’s why my starting point is to always respect and work as one team. I try to frame innovation as a facilitator and as a fresh and new approach to the topics with the goal of reducing complexity.

Transparency is key. I explain very clearly why we can do the same things in a different way with the goal of making it easier. I involve the legal colleagues early in the design of new processes and tools, listening carefully and shaping the final outcome together. When people can see their fingerprints on the solution, ownership increases dramatically.

And then, of course, you need quick wins. A small but visible improvement, such as a process that is faster, a new template that removes friction, convinces more than any abstract narrative. Enthusiasm is contagious when people actually feel the benefits in their day‑to‑day work.

6. What insights do you hope the audience will take away from Future Lawyer Europe, Milan 2026?

What I hope people take away from Future Lawyer Europe is a very clear message: the future of legal is not primarily about technology; it’s about rethinking the systems behind our work and, above all, transforming the legal mindset so that we operate as true business partners. Lawyers can no longer function as an isolated silo. We need to be fully embedded in the organisation, rowing in the same direction as the business and contributing directly to the company’s goals.

If participants leave Milan with a deeper understanding of how to structure their legal departments, how to collaborate more naturally with other teams, how to use data intelligently, and how to implement AI and tools on top of robust and well‑designed processes, not as a substitute for them, then in my opinion, the event will have achieved its purpose.

My hope is that in‑house lawyers walk away feeling both challenged and optimistic. Challenged, because expectations are rising faster than ever, and the traditional legal silo no longer serves the business. And optimistic, because there are practical, concrete ways to evolve: ways that do not depend on a magic tool, but on our ability to rethink how we work, to open ourselves to cross‑functional collaboration, and to embrace a more business‑oriented approach.

If we combine our legal judgment with operational excellence, data literacy and a genuine culture of openness, legal can become one of the most transformative functions in any organisation.

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Isabel’s insights highlight a clear direction for in-house legal teams: innovation is not about adding more tools, but about redesigning systems, improving processes, and embedding legal more deeply into the business.

Isabel will be joining Future Lawyer Europe - Italy 2.0 as Chair for In-House Day, where she will guide discussions on how legal teams can operate more strategically, collaborate across functions, and build the capabilities needed to thrive in an AI-driven environment.

Register now to join the discussion at Future Lawyer Europe - Italy.