Confidence Amid Complexity:
How Legal Leaders Are Preparing
for Tomorrow

Key Findings

In this report, you will find data collected from over 150 online survey participants along with poll responses gathered during the most recent series of our Client Experience (CX) webinar program.

We have pooled this data together to give you access to a more robust set of findings. Please refer to the Methodology section of this report for more detail.

We have also gathered insights from several of our partners and professionals across Dentons, who have provided their reflections on the results.

Our intention is to provide your legal team with a comprehensive set of benchmarking data along with a wealth of ideas to consider while you develop strategies to guide your legal function and organization forward.

We invite you to take a deeper dive into the report and have highlighted some of the key themes below that have emerged as signals of law department confidence.

Confidence Signals

Operating models need to be agile and adaptive

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AI literacy is a core competency

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Business is still profoundly human

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Preparedness defeats uncertainty

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Demonstrating your function's value drives trust

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Hear perspectives on these themes from leaders across the legal ecosystem

Panel

Dive into the strategies shared during a thoughtful discussion from a recent webinar moderated by Dentons Global CEO, Kate Barton. The session examined key themes from the survey in detail and offered practical takeaways for balancing growth, risk, and efficiency in an increasingly complex environment.

Our panelists unpacked what’s driving change in legal departments today, including:

  • AI moving beyond experimentation to become a core strategic capability for legal functions

  • How legal teams are balancing risk mitigation with enabling business growth

  • How organizations are identifying, prioritizing, and responding to emerging risks in increasingly complex regulatory environments

Tune into the practical insights shared and learn how legal leaders are evolving their operating models for what’s next.
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Client Experience
Webinar Program

Insights for in-house legal

Our internationally acclaimed webinar program delivers bespoke training to empower you and your in-house legal team. It’s designed to inform and inspire, enabling you to confidently navigate the evolving legal landscape through focused learning in strategy and leadership, legal operations and personal development.

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Building the Law Department Fit for the Future

Building a legal function that is not only fit for today's needs but is agile enough to prepare for the unexpected, while fully embracing technology as an efficiency lever has become the new norm. We explored several core dimensions of the operational framework including budget and resources, talent development, AI and legal leadership to understand what law departments are doing to be future-enabled.

Budget and Resources

As legal departments continue to navigate shifting demands and increasing complexity, access to budget remains one of the biggest challenges in an effort to evolve the legal function for the future. Our survey highlights that most in-house counsel expect headcount to remain stable, with a plurality anticipating similar stability in legal spend, signaling a continued focus on doing more with the same resources.

50%

of CX webinar poll respondents cite limited budget or resources as the biggest challenge they face in evolving their legal function for the future

Source: Dentons CX webinar program, Building a future-ready legal function (317 responses)

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Building your case for additional resources or budget

If access to budget or resources is preventing you from accelerating your legal function, consider these tips as you prepare your business case:

Be clear on the problem you are trying to solve.

Be curious and dig deep to understand the root cause. A well-articulated problem statement creates alignment among decision-makers.

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Against this backdrop, respondents also shared their expectations for the role of AI in the legal function. A slight majority (61%) believe that if workloads were to increase, AI has the potential to sustain service levels without increasing headcount or spend although many have yet to see this realized in practice. Notably, nearly 40% either believe it will not close the gap or remain uncertain.

Talent Development

With resources holding stable, enhancing your team’s capabilities can be a strategy to maximize impact. When we asked in-house counsel which skills they and their teams will need most over the next 12 months, their responses painted a consistent picture: AI literacy is rapidly becoming an essential competency.

The results highlight a handful of other priority skills sets, reflecting where teams see the greatest opportunity to elevate their performance. We also asked attendees in a 2026 CX webinar program which additional skills they would like to develop across their teams - strategic thinking, influencing and executive communication followed legal operations and AI fluency.

"AI governance and literacy and regulatory technical capabilities are in many ways interrelated. With the proliferation of regulatory changes and the need to have a more confident perspective in an environment where your in-house headcount is expected to remain largely the same, AI is one way to address that gap. It allows you to distill the landscape faster and have a more confident first view of key issues and regulatory obligations before taking those to the business and getting to the process of assessing risk. The quicker you can complete a regulatory scan and build a compliance or regulatory matrix, the sooner you can get to the business-focused (and potentially more valuable) exercise of identifying what a regulatory requirement or change means for the business and how to apply it in practice.

We’re seeing that the organizations with the most complex regulatory exposure are also the ones moving fastest to adopt AI and they’re increasingly expecting their outside counsel to do the same."

— Michael E. Zolandz, Washington, DC Managing Partner, Dentons, US

"In the EU context, AI literacy is increasingly understood as a governance issue, not just a training exercise. The guidance coming from the AI Office and regulators is consistent. While there is no one‑size‑fits‑all approach, organizations must know which AI systems they use, who uses them, and for what purpose. At a minimum, EU expectations point to clear internal policies that warn employees about AI risks relevant to their job functions and demonstrate accountable oversight.

I think this will be a precedent for how we will be managing AI throughout the world. And it makes sense because AI literacy is essential to protect your business, your trade secrets and IP."

— Elze 't Hart, Partner, Dentons, Amsterdam

Technology and AI

The role of technology - particularly AI and GenAI - has rapidly evolved from an ambition to an operational imperative. Conversations with our clients indicate that this shift is being driven by organizational strategy and an expectation that the legal function be aligned with their internal peers on the path to digital transformation. There is broad recognition that AI and automation play a significant role in advancing the legal function and maximizing capacity, especially with limited resources.

Yet adoption across law departments remains uneven – with 16% of CX webinar poll respondents describing their current adoption of legal technology as “advanced” or “expert”. In the same CX webinar, we learned that the majority of participants are prioritizing their technology investment in contract management.

Overall, law departments continue to weigh the promise of efficiency against practical concerns around risk, the development of young lawyers, and an over-extension of trust in AI tools.

"I think there are two AI risks that are consistently underestimated in the legal profession. The first is really about data privacy but referred to as shadow AI, which is when teams use publicly available tools that haven’t been authorized, often sharing sensitive or confidential information to get quick results. I think those legal teams who are not currently providing access to approved AI tools within their legal functions are most at risk at having their teams turn to unauthorized alternatives or workarounds. It becomes a compelling risk argument for investment.

The second is adoption. Many organizations focus on selecting tools and assume that investing in the right tools means they are now in the age of AI. In reality, without structured change management, training, new ways of working and recognizing that AI is much more than just a productivity driver, the technology remains under-used, creates frustration, and fails to deliver value."

— Cornelius Grossmann, Global Head of Solutions Development, Dentons

Leadership & Influence

As part of our exploration into leadership and influence within today’s legal function in our CX webinar program, we examined three key dimensions that shape a legal leader’s effectiveness:

  • individual impact and leadership presence;

  • the ability to navigate and manage complex stakeholder dynamics;

  • and how these contribute to the legal function’s visibility and voice across the organization.

When it comes to navigating stakeholder dynamics and managing your personal presence, respondents tell us that balancing competing stakeholder expectations and priorities and pushing back on senior leaders is a concern for many. While strong professional relationships are the foundation of influence, there appears to be room for improvement: 43% of CX webinar poll respondents indicated that intentional investment in these relationships happens only irregularly or not at all.

Articulating the value of the legal function to business stakeholders has been a recurring challenge for many. Notably, only 6% of CX webinar poll respondents are very confident that their stakeholders can clearly see and articulate the value that the legal function delivers today. The most significant barrier to advancing this value narrative is the difficulty in communicating ‘invisible’ metrics, such as risk avoided. While metrics are only one mechanism for demonstrating value, 26% of respondents reported that metrics reporting is not yet a priority.

Navigating Your Organization Through Complexity

In-house counsel have consistently led a balancing act of enabling growth within their organization while safeguarding against ever-evolving risks. Leading this dual mandate has never been more complex, as global disruptions have created what many describe as a state of ‘permacrisis’. We explored what legal teams are doing to lead their organizations’ growth imperative while navigating an evolving risk landscape.

"Most law departments are not inherently set up to manage risks like geopolitical disruption or large‑scale regulatory change on their own and that’s because these risks are fundamentally multidisciplinary. Corporate law departments don't always have the resourcing for specialized expertise in these areas. But when a crisis hits, the business turns to the general counsel and says, “Fix this problem.”

The real value of the law department in this context is not simply flagging risk but helping the business calibrate it - explaining which regulatory or geopolitical risks truly require action, why they matter, and what the business impact will be."

— Michael E. Zolandz, Washington, DC Managing Partner, Dentons, US

Identifying and Managing Emerging Risk

As in-house teams are navigating an increasingly complex environment, marked by regulatory changes, geopolitical shifts and an evolving competitive landscape, there is a shift in how confident teams feel about their ability to identify and manage those risks. While perceived risk readiness across the legal function has declined, those leading with confidence have highlighted the steps they have taken to strengthen their ability to identify and manage risk.

In our 2023 Global In-House Counsel Insights Report, we noted that the vast majority of respondents (71%) were either confident or very confident in their ability to identify and manage emerging risks and regulations. While our webinar polling indicates that some organizations are enhancing their proactive risk management capabilities, our survey data shows a decline in perceived risk readiness across the legal function since 2023.

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Click to view the survey results from 2026/2023

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"When we talk about risk, the real question is whether it’s something you’re reasonably expected to manage. In many areas, the laws are still evolving and enforcement is limited, so organizations are trying to interpret guidance in real time. The challenge is not to always default to the most conservative position simply to feel safe. Over‑compliance can quickly become unmanageable and can actually work against the business. Risk management has to be proportionate.

Tools like sanctions screening or compliance programs are important, but they don’t eliminate risk on their own. What matters is having thoughtful processes behind them - periodic reviews, spot checks, and a defensible rationale that shows you took reasonable steps. You’re not expected to eliminate every risk; you’re expected to manage it sensibly."

— Joydeep Sengupta, Partner, Dentons, France

We asked those who expressed having confidence what steps they were taking to boost their ability to identify and manage risk and increasing the capacity and capability of internal legal team resources is a top priority. This is followed by a focus on training across the business on potential risks, strengthening compliance controls, and conducting or updating risk assessments.

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Compliance Training Fundamentals

Ben Allen, Partner, Dentons, Australia

Effective compliance training comes down to a few essentials:

Make it contextual.

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Make it a program, not an event.

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Build ownership.

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Ensure tone from the top.

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Understanding Risk Exposure

In a 2026 CX webinar, we invited our attendees to share how often they conduct risk assessments within their organization and 46% indicated that they had done so within the last 12 months. The results were quite similar when we asked the same question in a CX webinar in 2024. While in some jurisdictions and sectors, a risk assessment is a regulatory requirement, for others who may be considering its utility, and for the 12% who have never explored this type of review, the exercise can be extremely helpful in understanding your risk profile.

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Top 7 Tips for Conducting a Risk Assessment in Your Organization

Joydeep Sengupta, Partner, Dentons, France

Organizations are conducting compliance and risk assessments more frequently as regulatory expectations expand. While many jurisdictions or industries require periodic risk assessments as a legal obligation, even where not mandated, regulators expect companies to show proactive risk identification; failing to do so can sharply increase penalties after an incident.

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Top Tips for Effective Horizon Scanning

Melissa Gomez Nelson, Partner, Dentons, US

Horizon scanning works best when it is intentional, structured, and embedded into everyday business practices. Without a clear framework, it often slips down the priority list although your external counsel can play a valuable role in helping establish a repeatable process.

More mature approaches draw on multiple information channels but internal reporting mechanisms, such as ethics or compliance hotlines, are an often-overlooked source of insight. While individual reports may seem minor, reviewing them collectively can reveal emerging patterns and early warning signs. Manager-led conversations are equally important. Training managers to ask consistent, risk-focused questions can surface frontline insights - provided those insights are captured and shared.

Ultimately, effective horizon scanning is not just about gathering information, but about turning insight into better decisions. When built into routine activities and supported by clear communication pathways, it becomes a practical, sustainable practice that strengthens organizational risk awareness.

Peering Around Corners

Horizon scanning – or understanding what risks or opportunities might be ahead for your organization to aid in decision making - is an essential part of every in-house counsel’s responsibility according to the poll results in a 2026 CX webinar. Although it can understandably slip to the bottom of the priority list for busy in-house counsel which is highlighted by the 18% of participants who have no process in place.

Managing High-Stakes Litigation

Survey respondents are quite confident with their team’s ability to manage high-stakes litigation with 58% citing they are either very confident or confident. Respondents who reported higher degrees of confidence also described deliberate steps taken to enhance readiness, including direct and proactive engagement with the business on priorities followed by establishing a panel with external counsel across multiple jurisdictions. Educating the business and commercial teams on potential litigation risks was also highlighted as an important step – a consistent theme when discussing managing risk.
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Managing High Stakes Litigation: Establishing a Panel of External Counsel

Many legal departments achieve greater efficiency by consolidating their external counsel through a law firm panel or convergence program. Because these initiatives involve multiple internal and external stakeholders, success depends on clear vision, strong leadership, and effective change management. Here are 5 tips:

#1

Clearly articulate the case for change.

Define the problem you are solving and what success looks like (e.g. stronger relationships with fewer firms). Without a compelling rationale, stakeholder support may erode.

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"There are particular things you can do on a day-to-day basis that will make a difference when the stakes are high and pressure is on. I’m a big fan of asking my team open questions such as, ‘is there anything I should know, is there anything concerning you?’ Those kinds of conversations can give people a pressure valve to share with you an important piece of information that just might not get shared otherwise."

— Karyn Harty, Partner, Dentons, Ireland

With extraordinary pressure on resources and an imperative to move towards digitalization, it is interesting to note that respondents are not yet fully enabling AI or legal technology to create efficiencies when managing high-stakes litigation.

"What really stood out to me in the survey is the gap between intent and execution when it comes to AI. We’re seeing clients talk a lot about using AI for global, real‑time regulatory monitoring, but far fewer have actually embedded the tools to do it well. I think that hesitation is often driven by trust, investment decisions, and lingering skepticism from earlier technology or outsourcing experiences.

The in‑house teams that are genuinely pulling ahead are those deploying the technology now and building familiarity and confidence before a live dispute or compliance issue hits rather than trying to adopt it under pressure."

— Ben Allen, Partner, Dentons, Australia

"In‑house teams are typically set up to manage a docket of familiar, repeat disputes. But when a true “bet‑the‑farm” dispute arises - one that’s existential for the business - that can be deeply challenging.

When something like this lands, speed matters but so does strategy. The decisions you make at the outset can shape the entire trajectory of the case, particularly if it goes to trial. That initial response is critical, which is why it’s so important to have thought in advance about external counsel: who you would call, and why. Too often, the choice is driven by who happens to answer the phone in the moment, rather than who has the right expertise for that dispute in the right jurisdictions.

Preparation really makes the difference. Understanding your key risk areas, knowing when litigation may be on the horizon, and being clear about what matters to you as a business - whether that’s active involvement, trial readiness, or early resolution - and ensuring your external counsel is aligned so you’re not briefing in the moment are key to moving confidently when the stakes are high."

— Karyn Harty, Partner, Dentons, Ireland

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Enabling Organizational Growth

Our survey explored growth ambitions within an increasingly complex environment, focusing on concerns associated with executing deals, and the steps legal teams are taking to prepare for a potential uptick in activity through 2026/2027.

The largest share of respondents indicated that it is very unlikely that their organizations will be pursuing a transformational or large-cap cross-border deal in 2026. Regulatory uncertainty and political and economic risks were cited as the greatest concerns when conducting a cross-border deal in today’s current climate.

As highlighted in our 2023 In-House Counsel Survey and Report, maintaining alignment to the business and adapting to shifting priorities continues to be the top strategy for legal teams looking to enable greater organizational growth.

While AI and technology may be viewed as less critical when managing high-stakes litigation, they are increasingly viewed as key enablers in deal preparedness, likely driven by the expectation to expedite deal execution and reduce cycle times.

"Being plugged into the business as a legal function makes great sense but the challenge is that alignment can shift quickly as business priorities change. I see this when I look at different approaches to M&A. One company might move from being acquisition-driven to taking a cautious, wait‑and‑see approach, particularly if they’re exposed to tariffs, supply‑chain disruption, or other economic and geopolitical uncertainties. In today’s environment, their expectations around deals can change almost overnight.

Another company (perhaps a completely different sector) might take the opposite view. Their leadership perhaps sees uncertainty as an opportunity and will drive a more aggressive acquisition strategy. Deal-making in that environment often involves a delicate balancing act between value maximization and risk mitigation. As deal dynamics can shift quickly, legal has to move in lockstep with business, providing pragmatic solutions that reflect, and account for, the embedded risk profile of the selected business strategy. In my experience, legal teams that are truly embedded in the business are the most prepared to influence and guide key decisions."

— Alex Farcas, Partner, Presiding Member of the Dentons Canada Region Board, Dentons, Canada

"When looking at cross-border deals, clients often tell us that what helps most is context. They understand legal frameworks in their home market, but those same concepts can work very differently in another part of the world. Our role is to translate often complex and conflicting local legal regimes into familiar frameworks that clients already know and understand. Providing our clients with a solid foundation on how local realities fit within their broader business landscape, significantly reduces transactional friction and enables them to move forward with confidence in complex cross‑border matters."

— Alex Farcas, Partner, Presiding Member of the Dentons Canada Region Board, Dentons, Canada

"I think one of the greatest advantages for deal teams using AI right now is the ability to work from your own precedents. You can ask whichever AI tool you are using to find a special clause or structure from deals years ago, and it surfaces it instantly. What used to take hours of searching now takes seconds - that’s a massive efficiency gain.

The same applies to reviewing counterparty drafts. You can run them against your playbook to flag deviations which also saves a huge amount of time.

Experienced lawyers will benefit most because they have the judgment and context to evaluate the output. The risk is that junior lawyers rely on suggestions without developing that judgment themselves. So the upside is significant time savings for experienced lawyers, but the challenge is ensuring the next generation is still trained to make those calls."

— Cornelius Grossmann, Global Head of Solutions Development, Dentons

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Conclusion

As complexity and unpredictability increasingly define the business landscape, effective leadership in uncertain times requires a purposeful combination of expertise, technological innovation, and essential human skills. Leaders who invest in their teams’ capabilities, foster internal relationships, leverage enabling technology and AI, and design frameworks for risk management are better positioned to navigate uncertainty and lead confidently through 2026 and beyond.

Methodology

This report includes data points and results from Dentons online survey of over 150 in-house counsel conducted between February 17th – March 19th, 2026. Some survey questions were conditional on prior responses (gated questions), meaning only relevant respondents were asked those questions. As a result, base sizes vary and are indicated where applicable.

This report also includes poll results which were conducted in front of a live webinar audience during our Client Experience (CX) webinar program from September 2025 – March 2026. No screening question was applied.

Some questions allowed participants to select all answers that applied and results are reported as the percentage of respondents selecting each option; therefore, the totals do not add up to 100 percent. In some single‑choice questions, totals may not equal 100 percent due to rounding.

Survey Respondents

The data in this report collected through our global survey is based on the responses of 154 in-house counsel from teams of various sizes and sectors spanning 40 countries. The majority of respondents are either the most senior member of their legal function or report to the most senior member.

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Dentons Contributors

Ben Allen

​Partner, Australia

Ben is a partner in the dispute resolution team with 25 years’ litigation experience and leads the Global Compliance and Investigations team in Australia.

Alex Farcas

​Partner, Presiding Member of the Dentons Canada Region Board

Alex is a partner in the Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate groups, and currently serves as the Presiding Member of the Dentons Canada Region Board as well as a member of the Dentons Global Board.

Melissa Gomez Nelson

​Partner, US

Melissa is a partner in Dentons’ Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice, and a member of Dentons’ White Collar and Government Investigations practice and Blockchain, Digital Assets & Cryptocurrency teams.
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