If there's one phrase that's worn out its welcome in the past few years, it's "unprecedented times." But I'll say this: 2025 is redefining what disruption looks like. The convergence of sweeping regulatory shifts, geopolitical turbulence, and the lightning-fast evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has created a perfect storm for in-house legal departments, with 80% of legal leaders now reporting moderate to extremely high risk due to regulatory uncertainty. And there's no perfect playbook we can pull from to navigate this moment. As legal leaders, we're building it every day in real time - and I would argue that's a gift.
In our recent Axiom webinar, “Mobilizing for Uncertainty: How In-House Legal Leaders Are Responding to 2025’s Shockwaves,” the first in a series designed to provide actionable insights and strategies to help legal teams mitigate the risks and seize new opportunities, I was able to start to unpack this moment with Earamichia Brown, Senior Counsel at Match Group, Michael Brousseau, Founder of InsightDynamo, and moderator Scott Smith of Penbury Consulting.
The headline? Uncertainty isn't just a backdrop. It's now a defining element of legal strategy, and it may be an unprecedented opportunity to redefine its importance. From AI regulation to cybersecurity concerns and the evolution of DEI principles, legal departments are at a critical inflection point: React to risk sure, but mobilize for leadership and resilience.
Risk Isn't New — But the Velocity Is
The legal risk landscape has shifted overnight and isn't likely to slow down any time soon. It's not just the volume of change that's challenging. It's the velocity and the sheer number of fronts opening.
According to our recent survey of in-house legal leaders:
- 80% face moderate to extremely high legal risk due to regulatory uncertainty.
- Top disruptors include DEI requirement changes (50%), AI regulation & compliance (43%), and cybersecurity & data privacy concerns (43%).
The job of the general counsel (GC) today is not just playing defense and more about being a forward scout. Risk is no longer confined to isolated domains like data privacy or M&A. Instead, it's omnipresent, threading through all facets of an organization. And this omnipresence of risk is precisely what makes uncertainty a defining element of today's legal strategy.
The key, then, to navigating this disruption, is to design legal functions that are not just reactive but agile, and who embrace their opportunity to lead through a minefield.
Navigating the AI Transformation
The regulatory landscape isn't the only source of disruption. As organizations grapple with external pressures, they're simultaneously navigating the internal and existential transformation catalyzed by generative AI.
Those external factors are hitting departments from the top, but from the bottom, the Gen AI transformation is requiring legal departments to think about their internal transformation, how they're going to do legal work and capture efficiencies, and purpose. It’s like upgrading a plane in flight, but this time legal leaders will have to do it during a tornado.
This dual challenge creates a perfect storm where legal teams must simultaneously manage external risks while reinventing their operational models. The hesitation we're seeing from many departments is understandable. There's a moment of assessment. Legal leaders are asking themselves, “Is this hitting me? Is this not?”
I encourage everyone to just get started on the AI journey, even if it's just for emails or certain smaller tasks. Leverage the tools that can speed things up so that later you can start on the journey of rolling out bigger efficiency tools, and accept that tectonic change is coming, even as you will have to understand and manage its risk.
DEI in Flux: Substance Over Semantics
With DEI requirements topping the list of disruptors affecting legal departments (50% of survey respondents), our panel explored how companies are navigating this particularly sensitive area of change.
Earamichia offered a valuable perspective: "The DEI conversation sometimes feels like it's more of semantics versus substance." At Match Group, where inclusion is fundamental to their business model of connecting people across every walk of life, their approach focuses on what matters beyond labels or acronyms.
"Legal's role is to reinforce that foundation in a way that respects these shifting regulatory and cultural dynamics without losing sight of what matters," she explained. "We're not trying to check a box or chase a label. We're doing this because we know it's the right thing to do."
This distinction between performative adjustments and genuine commitment is critically important. While some organizations are scrambling to realign their language in response to recent Supreme Court decisions, Brown emphasized that "it's not so much what you call it; it's what you're doing."
💡Watch the full conversation on demand.
Finding Strategic Alignment
Whether it's DEI initiatives, generative AI implementation, or navigating new tariffs and regulations, the fundamental question remains the same: What is core to your business? Are your legal strategy and priorities in lock step with your company's strategic plan and initiatives, and do your peers understand your contributions and accountability throughout?
What are the big boulders? Where are you really needed in this moment to steer things forward from a strategic standpoint? Where can you settle for "good enough" or for a materiality threshold that is in sync with the times? Being very aligned with your leadership, with your peers on the C-suite, and with the rest of the enterprise is absolutely critical. There's a right thing to do, but there's also a right thing to do for your business, and that may not be a universal answer for everybody.
In times of uncertainty, legal departments must assess not just risks, but also what is worth fighting for and what is needed to fight in order to advance the interest of your company. They must be able to act quickly and decisively - something that is hard to do if you are not building on a common understanding of your leadership and role.
Bridging the Growing Resource Gap
Faced with expanding demands, legal teams are being stretched thin, and the data backs this up:
- 45% of teams are turning to legal tech to streamline workflows.
- 42% are increasing outside counsel spend.
- 41% are tapping alternative legal service providers (ALSPs).
- 37% are hiring additional full-time staff.
Large legal departments (20+ FTEs) are more likely to lean on traditional outside counsel (51%). But that approach doesn't always translate to speed or flexibility, two qualities that are mission-critical in this landscape.
Creating a Shock Absorption Layer
Gone are the days of calm waters where legal departments could cruise along predictable paths. Today's reality requires us to be sailors in choppy waters where the straight road to your destination isn't as easy to navigate. In this context, alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) have evolved beyond merely offering cost savings. They've become strategic partners that enable resilience and risk management.
ALSPs like Axiom have become the layer that allows legal leaders to really absorb the shock to ensure in-house teams are not underwater every time something happens. You need them to add buffer, which is what allows legal departments to maintain their strategic focus while managing day-to-day demands.
But equally important is maintaining the flexibility to deploy premium resources when truly needed. When you need help, you can afford it so that when you do need to spend the big bucks on the premium of a law firm because the advice you need is of a certain kind and the risk is of a certain profile, you have that. You need to use all the tools in the kit to build the oxygen and space in budget and responsiveness. Do you have the ability to ramp up a specialized team for a deal quickly? How will you transition toward more AI-enabled operations as you lose the ability to just hire?
No legal department has unlimited resources. The key is being thoughtful and intentional about how you allocate your budget and deploy your resources.
From Risk-Averse to Risk-Resilient
Legal teams can't afford to operate as risk-averse gatekeepers anymore. We must fast-track becoming risk-resilient business enablers and leaders.
That means rethinking our organizational models. It means designing legal functions that scale dynamically, that can expand and contract based on the nature of the challenge. It means building legal ops capabilities that empower better decision-making. And it means investing in people who are not just smart, but adaptable.
The legal department of the future isn't one that prevents every risk. It's the one that can pivot faster than the risks themselves evolve. It sees around the corners, and it brings along the rest of the organization - safely. It makes difficult judgement calls to ensure that the enterprise thrives despite challenges, in fact learning to embrace them.
The world isn't going to slow down. If anything, the pace of change is likely to accelerate. But disruption doesn't have to mean dysfunction. At Axiom, we're seeing forward-thinking GCs take bold steps: bringing in flex legal talent to cover gaps and manage spikes in demand, and empowering their teams with tech and training. These leaders aren't just surviving uncertainty; they're turning it into competitive advantage.
Turn Disruption Into Your Edge
What's clear from this moment is that legal leaders can no longer afford to wait for certainty before they act. The ones who will thrive in 2025 and beyond are designing functions that flex, scale, and lead, not react.
- Disruption isn't going away. But with the right playbook and the right people, you can turn it into your edge. There has rarely been a time where legal function had more to bring to the table than today.
💡 Watch the full conversation on demand.
