Carlos Correa, managing partner of Ontier Chile: “Business law needs lawyers who understand the industry, are flexible and help create business opportunities for clients”

Carlos Correa, managing partner of Ontier Chile, has talked to Gericó Associates about the current situation in the legal sector and its trends for this new year.

“We have to be flexible, adapting to change as quickly as possible, staying close, communicating more than ever and providing a lot of value to our clients. It would be impossible to think about continuing doing the same thing in the same way,” he says, when asked about the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the legal sector.

In relation to the legal market in Chile, he believes that it is developing positively and that it is becoming more diverse and more specialized every day. Thus, new sectors and industries are being generated and the needs that require increasingly innovative, fast and global solutions are multiplying.

According to Carlos Correa, business law in Chile needs lawyers who understand the industry of the business they advise, as well as lawyers who are flexible when proposing their fees. In addition, it does not only need lawyers who are strictly focused on the legal perspective, but who also help clients to create business opportunities.

He also adds that “All legal services that do not add value to the core business will be defined by price. On the contrary, those services that generate high added value for the business will be defined by trust, bearing in mind that the price should always be market price, although not necessarily the cheapest”.

Regarding the large international firms and their penetration in the legal sector in Chile, Correa points out that these global organizations are nowadays more relevant due to the interdependence of international trade. Therefore, clients require global and interconnected services.