Norton Rose Fulbright’s 2025 Annual Litigation Trends Survey

United States | Publication | January 2025

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Our 2025 Annual Litigation Trends Survey reveals that nearly half of corporate counsel expect the number of lawsuits and regulatory investigations impacting their organizations to increase in the year ahead, including a rise in legal disputes as plaintiffs seek to limit regulators’ authority in a post-Chevron landscape.

Corporate counsel confronted a difficult litigation environment in 2024 – and many expect even bigger challenges in 2025, from an aggressive plaintiffs’ bar and heightened regulatory scrutiny to increasing difficulty settling disputes before trial.

The Trump administration may bring sharply different regulatory priorities that could lessen burdens in areas such as antitrust while fueling new legal actions on environmental, social and governance initiatives, consumer protection frameworks and other issues.

However, more corporate counsel feel very prepared to meet the challenges ahead compared to last year, thanks to strong legal teams, proactive risk management and the growing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to spot risk. Legal departments also support the use of generative AI by outside counsel, recognizing its potential to drive cost efficiencies, time savings, scalability and improved accuracy to help them manage the growing demands to do more with less.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s Annual Litigation Trends Survey highlights the experiences and perspectives of legal professionals across organizations of all sizes. For 20 years, our research has tracked and identified key changes and trends impacting the litigation landscape, from emerging dispute categories to landmark developments in legal technology.

In September 2024, we surveyed more than 400 general counsel and in-house litigation leaders in the United States and Canada, with respondents from a wide range of industries including financial services, technology, retail, healthcare, real estate and construction, energy, logistics and transportation, consumer markets and food and beverage. In addition, we conducted in-depth interviews with corporate counsel to garner unique insights into their concerns, approaches and predictions for 2025.

Download the 2025 Annual Litigation Trends Survey report for more details.

Key litigation trends

Cybersecurity and data privacy

More than a third (36%) of respondents say their organizations were more exposed to cybersecurity and data privacy disputes over the past 12 months.

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Class actions

Consumer protection was the second most common type of class action, cited by 41% of respondents who experienced them in 2024 – comparable to the previous year.

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Intellectual property

Patents once again appear to be fueling this trend, with nearly half (46%) of those who saw their IP exposure grow last year reporting greater vulnerability to patent disputes over the past 12 months.

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Environmental, social and governance

Respondents expecting their ESG exposure to grow point to both pro-ESG and anti-ESG pressures as among the leading trends contributing to this increase.

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