Clifford Chance today (4 October) publishes a heavyweight report that looks at what the in-house legal function will look like in 2025, based on interviews with group general counsel and legal operations heads of 10 multinational corporations across a range of industries, from Anglo American to Walt Disney Company.
The report, ‘Defining tomorrow’s legal function through its relationships,’ through a series of statements garners opinion on how in-house legal teams will be structured; how they will work with stakeholders in the future; and how data and technology will drive that.
Naomi Griffin, a commercial dispute resolution partner based in Sydney, who was involved in the research, working with global think tank RSGi Limited, told Legal IT Insider: “We asked people questions posed as a series of statements, asking if they agree or disagree, and if they disagree, then why. So, the discussion was more structured, and we have got both qualitative and quantitative data out of it.”
When it comes to data and technology, almost all participants agreed that a connected contract management system between procurement and sales will be the norm by 2025. Having a ‘single source of truth’ is already seen as a key business imperative.
That does not currently reflect the state of play and Griffin said: “They imagined that in the future they would have a contract management system, partly because they want people who won the contract to own the outcomes from a profitability perspective and not rely on legal to tell them what is in the contract. That also means legal being able to shift up the value chain.”
In the report, Jan Querfurth, head of legal operations at BMW, said: “It’s important that the people actually purchasing stuff know what’s in the contract. And it helps the department to understand that they are responsible for the content.”
Griffin said: “It’s very clear that everyone wants to be better at capturing data in a more structured way, within technology that is already used by the business. Legal can then access the data, so you join up procurement, compliance and legal, and are then able to generate useful insights from that.”
While there was consensus among participants that legal teams will become smarter about how they measure and track their value to the business, there was no consensus on what metrics should be used. Horacio Gutierrez, chief legal officer at Disney, observed that lawyers first need to recognise that their work can be measured, commenting: “The absence of a problem is hard to measure.” His expectation is that legal teams will make better use of project management experts who understand how to measure work that has previously been perceived as unmeasurable.
When it comes to using AI, most participants saw it as aspirational. Griffin said: “One interesting finding is that AI is seen as having a role, but not there yet. In-house legal teams want to get better insights from their data but see using AI as a way off.”
The same applies when it comes to blockchain, where Helen Lowe, head of operations at easyJet says: “I cannot see blockchain being something that legal uses in the immediate future. Could it happen in the next decade? Yes.”
Griffin said: “It’s interesting that people see blockchain as a great idea but something that will be interesting in 10 years’ time. With all the changes happening around the regulation of cryptocurrency, it’s interesting that they see it very much in the future.”
The link to the report is here: https://www.cliffordchance.com/activelegal2025
To become part of the benchmarking exercise, you can go to this link and click the ‘add your voice’ tab in the survey.