In a recap for ACC’s Corporate Counsel Now, the Association of Corporate Counsel reports on a candid Toronto roundtable where fifteen chief legal officers talked less about which AI tool to buy and more about what legal work should become. The sobering stat: 86 percent of GCs say their department significantly contributes to business objectives. Only 17 percent of C-suite executives agree.
That gap is the whole story. The CLOs see law department AI as a capacity play, not a layoff plan, and want metrics a CFO will believe: cycle times, cost-to-serve, time moved off low-value work. Expect more fixed fees for outside counsel and more legal operations muscle to measure it all. Our guide to future-proofing in-house counsel covers the skills side.
“CLOs were cautious about treating AI simply as a cost-cutting exercise.”
Read: The Law Department of 2030: Leading Through the AI Transformation at ACC Corporate Counsel Now