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In-house legal professionals are entering 2025 with an expectation that the year will bring challenges they can anticipate, as well as a host of headaches that are unexpected right now. They are considering strategy involving not only technology-enabled business trends to manage, but also a new president taking office for the next four years.
“The start of any administration in Washington means regulatory change as the incoming team tries to enact the new president’s agenda,” reported Legal Dive. “But this year will be unusually uncertain as companies leverage the flexibility they’ve been given by the Supreme Court, which last year overturned decades of regulatory precedence in several landmark business decisions.”
In addition to the challenge of operating a corporate legal department in this opaque and fast-changing environment, in-house counsel are increasingly expected to serve as more than senior corporate attorneys, also playing a key strategic role to their boards and CEOs as business advisors.
Sue Reisinger of the Law360® news service observed: “The year 2025 has arrived for general counsel like a scary movie featuring monster environmental, social and governance risks, new technology demons that threaten to rip apart data privacy and security, and overlords who demand the legal department defend the company and save the day.”
In a recent Law360® Pulse special report, several corporate legal experts spoke about what issues are keeping in-house counsel up at night in 2025. Here are five of the worries they identified:
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors will be an even bigger headache for corporate legal professionals to manage in 2025. On the one hand, many companies still need to define and achieve ESG goals, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and reporting requirements; meanwhile, many companies are facing public backlashes to ESG initiatives. In-house counsel must address these ongoing ESG pressures and expectations, including public political stances and climate change-related information.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming business operations across all sectors, but this technological revolution brings with it a complex web of legal and ethical considerations. Establishing robust AI frameworks, ensuring regulatory compliance and strengthening cybersecurity measures are crucial for in-house counsel right now — especially at the intersection of AI development and data protection. This requires staying abreast of AI-specific legislation, navigating data protection laws in the age of AI, and overseeing corporate strategies for risk mitigation when it comes to potential liability for the use of AI systems.
The in-house counsel role now extends beyond traditional legal expertise to include serving as a: strategic business partner who provides proactive legal advice that supports business objectives and helps mitigate risks; a technology adopter who leverages tech to improve efficiency, manage legal operations and enhance data analysis; and a change manager who leads and facilitates transformation within the legal function to adapt to the evolving legal and business environments. That is a lot to think about throughout the day, and often into a restless night.
The rising tensions between the U.S. and China, as well as the emergence of more nationalist-leaning regimes around the world, are leading to a complex patchwork of regulations and potentially even more complex trade policies. In-house counsel will need to monitor and manage regulatory changes, navigate cross-border legal issues and perhaps develop new global compliance programs in the year ahead.
Data breaches have been on the list of top in-house counsel worries every year for more than a decade now, but the ugly truth is that cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and frequent, posing a significant threat to businesses of all sizes. This requires robust incident response plans and compliance with evolving reporting requirements, especially in light of increased enforcement by state attorneys general in the areas of privacy and data security. In-house counsel must serve on the front lines of their company’s executive team to protect sensitive data and manage data breach incidents.
As major challenges evolve and emerge in 2025, in-house counsel need fast access to information and tools to help them mitigate external risks to the enterprise, shape legal strategy and adapt to changing circumstances.
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