Extract from Trudy Knockless’ article “In-House Teams That Figure Out Tech Able to Cast Themselves as Sales-Enablers”
As legal departments take on more responsibilities than ever before, many are trimming staff, stretching budgets and investing in AI tools to keep up.
The Association of Corporate Counsel and the recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa shared those findings in their recently published “2025 Law Department Benchmarking Report” and explored them further during a webinar Tuesday featuring Ironclad General Counsel Jasmine Singh, ADP Head of Legal Operations Jordan Chapnik-Kadec, ACC Senior Director of Business Intelligence Blake Garcia and MLA Executive Director of In-House Counsel Recruiting Chad Marlow.
The report, which drew from surveys completed by nearly 400 companies across 34 countries, shows a growing strategic role for in-house counsel, with 78% of legal departments now overseeing compliance and an increase in the percentage handling government affairs, ESG and cybersecurity.
“Legal is overseeing more functions that are outside of a traditional legal domain,” Garcia said. “There’s a very significant percentage of legal departments that are overseeing four, five or even six of these areas.”
