In early November, Norton Rose Fulbright's Legal Operations Consulting team, in collaboration with Cognia Law, hosted a roundtable with leading General Counsel, Legal COOs, and Heads of Legal Operations to discuss the evolution of the legal function and its ecosystem over the next decade.

The discussion highlighted the challenges and opportunities ahead for in-house legal teams as technology, business demands, and shifting market conditions drive fundamental change within the legal landscape.

Reflecting on these discussions, we have produced an article with Cognia Law to expand on the key insights and the results of our survey completed by attendees: Next decade legal evolution: From technical excellence to ecosystem innovation.

In this article, we look at:

• Evolution and future of the General Counsel role: The role of General Counsel is expanding to include strategic business vision and new capabilities like data literacy and change management.
• Transformation of skills and education: Business and interpersonal skills, particularly empathy, are becoming essential, and legal education must evolve to meet these new demands.
• Changing team composition and structure: Modern legal teams are increasingly diverse, incorporating roles like data scientists and legal technologists, as well as moving towards more flexible structures.
• Agility and continuous transformation: Legal teams must be agile and continuously adapt to new challenges, leveraging the entire legal ecosystem.
• Ecosystem collaboration: Collaboration within the legal ecosystem, including law firms and ALSPs, is becoming increasingly essential for success.
• Legal evolution in numbers: Survey results from our roundtable attendees highlight mounting pressures on in-house legal teams around AI, skills and quest for value.