The role of the in-house lawyer has changed significantly over the past decade.
Through my work with General Counsel and legal leadership teams across sectors, I have observed a consistent shift in expectations. Legal functions are increasingly being asked to contribute far beyond the provision of legal advice. This was a recurring theme at the Economist Impact GC Summit 2025 and other forums attended by senior legal leaders, where discussions focused less on technical expertise and more on legal’s contribution to organisational outcomes.
General Counsel are now expected to influence strategy, support transformation, strengthen governance and contribute to enterprise decision-making. In many organisations, legal has also assumed responsibilities extending beyond traditional legal and regulatory matters, including ESG, sustainability, ethics, governance, risk and organisational change. The expectation is no longer that legal simply protects value; increasingly, it is expected to help create it.
The profession has largely embraced this evolution. Commercial awareness and business partnering have become defining characteristics of modern legal functions. For years, the conversation centred on securing legal a seat at the table. Today, many General Counsel have achieved that objective and are recognised as strategic contributors to organisational success.
However, this evolution has also exposed an unresolved tension. Many legal functions continue to define their identity through the provision of advice, while organisations increasingly expect them to shape decisions, influence priorities and contribute to organisational direction.
As legal teams become more embedded in organisational decision-making, questions inevitably arise about independence and challenge. Recent governance failures, including those highlighted by the Post Office Inquiry and at RICS, have intensified scrutiny of legal’s role in organisational decision-making. At the same time, the SRA’s thematic review of in-house practice serves as a reminder that independence remains a fundamental professional obligation.
This creates a challenge that many General Counsel openly acknowledge. The challenge is not a lack of legal expertise. It is that many lawyers have been trained and treated primarily as advisers, while increasingly being expected to operate as enterprise leaders. How does legal become more strategic and more focused on enterprise value while retaining the independence required to provide effective challenge?
The answer is not to retreat from the business. Nor is it to return to a model where legal operates primarily as an advisory function.
Increasingly, the answer lies in enterprise leadership.
Across my work with General Counsel and legal leadership teams, a consistent theme has emerged. One echoed in discussions at the Economist Impact GC Summit 2025. The most effective legal leaders possess capabilities that extend beyond legal expertise, commercial awareness and business partnering. Increasingly, these are enterprise skills.
Five enterprise skills that matter most
The debate is often framed as a choice between commerciality and independence.
It is not.
The most effective legal leaders create enterprise value precisely because they possess the capability to exercise independent judgement, influence decisions and challenge constructively. In my experience, five enterprise skills increasingly underpin both outcomes.
Strategic direction
Creates value by aligning legal’s effort to organisational priorities and ensuring resources are focused where they can have the greatest impact. Protects independence by providing an objective basis for difficult decisions and competing stakeholder demands.
Prioritisation and enterprise judgement
Creates value by focusing attention on the risks and opportunities that matter most, rather than treating every issue as equally important. Protects independence by enabling lawyers to apply enterprise judgement rather than simply follow process or react to the loudest voice.
Executive influence and constructive challenge
Creates value by improving the quality of decision-making before choices are made. Protects independence by ensuring challenge is heard, understood and acted upon. Many governance failures arise not from an absence of advice, but from an inability to influence outcomes.
Operating model and business acumen
Creates value by helping legal deploy resources effectively and contribute to organisational objectives. Protects independence by enabling challenge that reflects organisational realities as well as legal obligations, increasing both credibility and impact.
Transformation and change leadership
Creates value by ensuring legal remains relevant and effective in an environment shaped by AI, regulatory complexity and organisational change. Protects independence by embedding governance, ethics and risk management into transformation rather than treating them as afterthoughts.
This is particularly important as legal functions accelerate investment in AI, optimisation and transformation programmes. Technology can enhance capability, but it cannot compensate for weak leadership, ineffective operating models, unclear priorities or a lack of enterprise judgement.
Conclusion
The profession has invested heavily in developing legal expertise, commercial awareness and business partnering capability. Yet the demands now being placed on legal leaders increasingly extend beyond all three. As expectations of legal leaders continue to expand, organisations need lawyers who can create value and provide independent challenge in equal measure.
Enterprise leadership is increasingly the capability that makes both possible. It provides the bridge between enterprise value and independent judgement.
The question is no longer whether legal has a seat at the table. It is whether the profession is equipping lawyers with the enterprise skills needed to make that seat count.
Donna McGrath is founder of The In-House Lawyers Coach and creator of the accredited In-House Lawyers Leadership Programme (ILLP) and a former FTSE 100 solicitor
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