Rightly or wrongly, legal questions are often secondary considerations in business and politics, not to mention everyday life. In 2025, however, the law is having “a moment” as waves of urgent legal matters wash across politics, society, and business, challenging or upsetting many long-standing norms and affecting us all.

Every day, the news is flooded with stories related to legal questions. The courts are suddenly more influential than Congress in shaping the political process. And after years of declining enrollment, applications to law school have surged over 20% from last year. Even sales of copies of the U.S. Constitution are surging.

For General Counsels or Chief Legal Officers, this “every day is a new crisis” era has put an enormous strain on resources and capacity. It also presents an opportunity to take a more central role in helping their organizations navigate unprecedented uncertainty.

The problem, however, is that the advice and support they provide must meaningfully change to meet this moment. Traditionally, GCs and CLOs have served as arbiters of risk for their enterprises, channeling their specialized knowledge into guidance that supports the business and informs critical decisions. In this blizzard of new risks, however, it’s increasingly difficult to assess the consequences of different decisions and the potential for hazard or harm.

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When everything is a risk, the default response can be panic and reactive decisions or hitting the brakes to avoid potential danger as much as possible. But businesses cannot operate that way for long. They need to maintain forward velocity with relatively clear direction even when they don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

What if the best stance a GC or CLO can take today is to think more like a CEO while maintaining the granular, complex, and practical understanding of risk that legal brings to the table?

Here’s how that blended approach could shape the way GCs and CLOs work and provide guidance.

Risk is Different from Right

Lawyers are often portrayed in popular culture as crusaders who champion what’s right and challenge what’s wrong based on a moral or ethical stance. Many shared that view when they applied to law school. Through years of education and experience, however, they learn how nuanced the real world can be and that a lawyer’s personal views or principles are superseded by the interests or positions of their client.

Laws are also not set in stone. Their nature is to evolve as they are applied across changing times. Legal work is often about balancing questions of the moment against timeless values and principles.

We’re now living through one of those times when laws and norms are in great flux and once timeless principles seem less certain. Not only do many of us feel this as individuals (and lawyers) but our organizations may be experiencing new levels of distress and disorientation as they attempt to navigate these disruptions. After all, organizations also have deeply inculcated values, norms, and priorities which may now feel under threat.

Take DEI, for example. A few months ago, a company that violated its own DEI policies could cause itself reputational, legal, and financial harm. Now, an organization that follows those same DEI policies could lose contracts, funding, and market share while also risking the ire of consumers, employees, and investors no matter which stance it takes. So, which way should the organization go? There’s no clear answer and different companies have taken different paths. Notably, Meta is among those that have announced DEI rollbacks while Costco has not. And customers and stakeholders are watching.

Or consider the precarious position that Columbia, Harvard, and other educational institutions find themselves in. Pressure from the Trump Administration is affecting funding, foreign student enrollment, and academic freedom, among other risks, while stirring up strong emotions in stakeholders across the political spectrum. Is it better to compromise or resist? Columbia compromised. Harvard continues to grapple and negotiate. Which has made the right decision?

Despite their sensitivities to organizational dynamics, CEOs tend to think in terms of survival and opportunity during moments of crisis. This makes them willing to sacrifice a great deal when necessary, including (at least temporarily) norms and principles. They are captaining a ship that must continue to advance safely.

Amazon, for example, calls itself the world’s most customer-centric company. This value aligns with its announcement in April that it would start displaying tariff price increases alongside total list prices on Amazon.com. After furious White House backlash, however, the leadership team reversed course, blaming a lower-level division for the decision, and received vocal support from the President in turn. Was that the “right” decision given the risks involved? Walmart, which is certainly just as customer-centric as Amazon, took a different course, publicly blaming tariffs for future higher prices and calling for them to come down but avoiding raising prices for now or any plans for “notifying” customers about price increases.

It's fascinating how organizations are threading needles to offset different risks. But the human impact on leaders is real. When norms or values are “under attack”, how can a GC or CLO help the CEO and leadership team identify and support the right organizational interests and priorities, not the wrong ones, and keep the organization aligned to its North Star while also on path toward its strategic objectives?

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A Pragmatic Rubric for Risk

That starts by helping the CEO understand that many present risks, even some massive ones, are no longer avoidable. There is no path forward in which the organization will not take hits. So what hits is the organization willing or able to take, and which areas of the business need the most protection or momentum?

GCs and CLOs can facilitate that decision-making process by developing a new rubric for determining which norms/values matter most, which risks must be avoided at all costs, and what hits the organization will need to take to stay on course.

If you’re a computer manufacturer, for example, maybe your biggest risk is losing access to chips. If you’re a consulting firm, your core need might be to retain your top clients. If you’re a manufacturing business with a global expansion strategy, maybe trade uncertainty is your Achilles’ Heel. If those truly are your biggest risks, what actions or stances will you need to take to avoid them?

The answers may not be pretty. But the exercise will help leadership assess which priorities or risks aren’t actually “life threatening” and which will lead to very dark days.

From there, you must assess (with ruthless clarity) how your other vulnerabilities should be ranked and prioritized. If your government contracts are threatened, how much do those contracts matter compared to your other business relationships? If tariffs will interrupt your vital supply chain, how does the risk of investing in domestic production or turning to other suppliers help offset that danger?

What sacrifices might be necessary to make those core crises less likely? Does rolling back a DEI policy protect a more important vulnerability or will that be a dealbreaker for employees, customers, and investors? How critical are those concerns? Which is the vital risk and which the luxury that must be sacrificed to live to fight another day?

There’s also potential risk in doing nothing. Is the status quo the right path or will that exacerbate risk or ensure failure down the line?

Thinking more like a CEO means assessing those risks in extremely pragmatic and concrete terms tied to survival and success.

Leading the Debate

For a GC or CLO, leadership in risk management is also not about “taking it all on” by oneself. It’s about educating decision makers, especially the CEO and Board, about the real-world parameters of the question at hand. The CEO will be making the tough call—and the GC’s/CLO’s guidance will be crucial in that decision process. But it’s also important that the entire leadership team contribute input and understand how the decision was made so they can rally behind it.

With that kind of cohesion, the organization can also react better should things go wrong as a result of that decision. Instead of blaming and excuse-making, leadership can go back to how that decision was made and asses how the risk was understood as a way of focusing on taking action to improve the organization’s position going forward. It can withstand the hit, and correct course effectively.

In other words, while legal is responsible for flagging and managing risk, the risk is owned by all. Legal is critical in enabling that understanding and accountability so everyone locks arms.

Doing what’s right for the organization strategically is not about abandoning principle or a moral compass. In the intersection of changing norms and organizational survival, questions about what’s right and what’s wrong are too complex and nuanced to be treated theoretically. What’s “right” now is what’s “right” for the organization now. That’s your North Star.

This can and should be an exciting and invigorating time for GCs, CLOs, and in-house legal teams. Legal leadership is no longer confined to your own team’s priorities but encompasses the entire enterprise’s global view. Your job now is to balance many conflicting interests or priorities without the luxury of oversimplifications or offering easy guidance over hard calls. There is no question you and your CEO will make some wrong decisions. You can live with those easier by knowing that was the best decision you could make under the circumstances.

That’s the kind of responsibility CEOs shoulder all the time. You show your integrity in how you lead others during such times to keep the organization upright. And like a CEO, your leadership now is more needed than ever and will help shape the organization for years to come.