The demands placed on in-house legal professionals are set to rise as businesses look to cut costs. Within the corporate sector, attorneys play a diverse role, often juggling multiple duties at once.
A common humorous remark among in-house attorneys is their perpetual unavailability even though many have chosen in-house roles for ‘work-life balance’ instead of private practice.
From addressing contract queries to offering strategic risk counsel, in-house legal teams are increasingly working to control the expenditures associated with external law firms as litigation rates rise.
“We wear various hats,” noted Adele Falconer, General Counsel EMEA at Christie’s, during her remarks at the LIDW conference on Tuesday.
The scale of legal teams differs across companies; for example, Barclays has over 450 lawyers in the UK, while Google DeepMind’s legal team has 65 members. Smaller firms might have just one attorney on the payroll.
Financial challenges facing businesses are prompting boards to reassess their legal approaches, leading GCs to feel increased pressure to lower external costs and manage more tasks in-house. Jas Sandhu Dade, General Manager for Corporate Europe at Thomson Reuters, reported to City AM that almost one-third of legal departments in the UK plan to reduce their legal budgets in 2025.
The predicted rise in workload is well recognized, with 44 percent of in-house lawyers indicating to Thomson Reuters that they foresee an increase in their duties this year. Sandhu Dade also observed that 68 percent of GCs perceive their role as growing more strategically essential within their organizations.
As a result, GCs are assessing whether their teams are well-equipped for upcoming challenges. Budget constraints that limit hiring additional lawyers have led many to seek alternative means to boost capacity, such as employing alternative legal service providers or utilizing new technologies to enhance efficiency, as explained by Sandhu Dade.
This requires GCs to acquire an additional competency: identifying which technology and AI options are best suited for their company’s budgeting. While there is genuine interest, wariness remains concerning Generative AI. Sandhu Dade described that 41 percent of in-house lawyers are excited about the potential time savings for strategic initiatives, though 46 percent acknowledge that the adoption process is still in its early stages.
These legal professionals, who chose in-house positions instead of private practice attracted by promises of ‘work-life balance’, ‘no revenue goals’, and ‘no business development’, face challenges like “how many tasks can I manage simultaneously?” as their responsibilities shift between attorney, risk manager, accountant, and consultant.
Eyes on the Law is a weekly column by Maria Ward-Brennan focusing on the legal sector.
