What’s important to the general counsel and chief legal officer in 2025

Technology

Modernize your legal technology

Compared to other functions, legal has been slower to adopt leading technology, primarily because of confidentiality and defensibility concerns. That’s changing as emerging technologies offer innovative ways to digitally enable and scale your department. 

Digitizing, standardizing and centrally housing data is a critical first step. With a strong foundation, you’ll be well positioned to benefit from other tech applications. Of note, there are many generative AI use cases in contract risk analysis and processing, legal research, regulatory change monitoring and document review, drafting and summarization that can augment the AI tools legal already uses.

Additional ways to modernize your legal technology

Generative AI

Generative AI for chief legal officers 

Find out how to drive the business strategy, align legal operations and take key steps in your journey towards a modern law department.

Artificial Intelligence

2025 AI Business Predictions

Explore PwC's AI predictions with actionable strategies, industry insights, and trends shaping AIs role in business transformation for 2025 and beyond.

Artificial intelligence

PwC’s 2024 US Responsible AI survey

Discover insights from PwC's Responsible AI Survey on AI and generative AI adoption, risk management, and value creation. Benchmark your AI readiness today.

AI and analytics

Innovation in the legal domain — AI

Listen in to our webcast focused on how AI is reshaping legal work and service delivery, use cases, as well as risk, quality and regulatory considerations.

Source: PwC’s 2024 US Responsible AI Survey

Risk and regulatory

Manage legal and regulatory risk

To help manage operational and reputational risks, keeping a finger on the pulse of the risk and regulatory landscape — including emerging regulations, compliance, cybersecurity and data privacy — is one of legal’s core responsibilities.

Legal functions face challenging cyber disclosure, tax transparency, environmental impact, supply chain composition, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and various other requirements. A practical risk management playbook will help your company stay ahead of changing regulations and other requirements, as well as meet stakeholder expectations. To increase proactive risk identification and free up resources for these critical areas, an effective playbook can help you determine where to upgrade, reconfigure or replace relevant tech applications.

Additional ways to manage legal and regulatory risk

Risk and regulatory

PwC Pulse Survey: executive takes on election 2024

In our latest survey, find out why risk leaders are struggling to manage risk, including election-related uncertainty affecting business decisions.

Resilience

From growing cyber risk to geopolitical instability, law firms rethink resilience

From supply chains to cyber threats — discover how law firms can enhance resilience and mitigate risks in a rapidly changing world.

Resilience

Technology risk: So pervasive, it’s hard to see

Managing tech risk needs enterprise-wide coordination. Leaders need to collaborate across silos to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity and privacy

General counsel’s role in cyber disclosure

General counsel knows the fine line between adhering to the law and safeguarding the company against litigation and liability. Are you asking these seven questions?

Source: PwC’s 2023 US Risk Perspectives Survey

Data governance

Improve information and knowledge governance

Effective information and knowledge governance is crucial to safeguarding your intellectual property and confidential information. It facilitates effective stewardship and secure use of your corporate information assets, as well as timely and accurate reporting.

Effective protocols and systems are vital for managing access and use, sharing, retention and disposal of information. Yet enterprise record and document management systems alone aren’t enough without user-friendly, secure and effective integration into daily processes. Strengthen information governance across the business by aligning process, training and oversight, and supporting them with appropriate technology. A well-designed, flexible information governance program can help your business safely accommodate virtual and on-site work, adapt to new technologies and provide appropriate guidance and effective risk management.

Additional ways to improve information and knowledge governance

Data governance

Managing risk and building a replicable compliance culture for a global automaker

From compliance complexity to competitive opportunity — explore how one company reinvented their compliance model to stay ahead of fast-changing regulations.

Transformation

Advancing legal as a strategic value driver 

Legal business solutions can elevate corporate legal departments and law firms by integrating people, processes and technologies in innovative ways.

Source: Take command and control of your information

Operations

Enhance contracting

Contract life-cycle management (CLM) is increasingly complex, with terms that address data management, security, privacy, access and more. However, these terms also offer opportunities for more flexible business deals and trading relationships. Moreover, efficient contracting that increases speed to market and has the right protections is among the most important ways legal teams tangibly benefit the business.

Accordingly, assess your contracting function to find where it could improve and how — for example, by standardizing and automating contracting processes. Develop and refine contracting playbooks and clause libraries to measure the value you’re getting from your contracts and agreements. Consider how recent technological advancements can bolster contract management from drafting and negotiation through execution.

Additional ways to enhance contracting

Operations

Considerations for a successful CLM implementation

Find out how to drive the business strategy, align legal operations and take key steps in your journey towards a modern law department.

Technology

Take charge of your contract lifecycle management

Icertis and PwC provide a smart contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution enabling value chain management through the lifecycle of vendor relationships.

Automation

Accelerate automation with a cloud service provider

We mix PwC's legal industry capabilities, services and technology experience with Microsoft tools to help law departments extract more value.

Source: Contract lifecycle management: How to Improve your CLM process