Across our survey of 150 senior legal leaders, one pattern came through loud and clear: The gap between what legal is asked to deliver and what it’s resourced to handle keeps widening — not because of poor management, but because the operating model itself is outdated.
Legal is being asked to run like a modern business function — agile, data-driven, and integrated — while relying on a staffing structure built for stability and hierarchy. The result is a system that can’t flex fast enough to meet the pace of change.
Regulations shift without warning (37% of leaders cite regulatory uncertainty as a top concern). AI is transforming workflows faster than policies can catch up (88% expect major changes within two years). And nearly half of teams (46%) say they’re already understaffed.
It’s not a capacity problem – it’s a design problem.
Legal teams face conflicting pressures: growing workloads from regulatory uncertainty and geopolitical shocks, budget constraints that limit headcount, and expectations to do more with the same resources. The path forward requires matching the right resources to the right problems.
Teams that are adapting fastest aren’t necessarily bigger or better funded. They’re simply organizing work differently.
This ebook shows you how 150 legal leaders are responding. We’ll share survey data on the four priorities that matter most to GCs and CLOs (efficiency, technology, risk, talent), concrete strategies for each, and a 90-day roadmap to build a solution: the Portfolio Solution, a strategic mix of permanent staff, flexible legal talent, and targeted outside counsel that lets you match each problem to the most efficient resource.
Teams using this approach report measurable wins: 33% credit ALSPs for recent successes, 30% are shifting to more strategic use of traditional outside counsel, and leaders see better cost control while maintaining quality.
The result isn’t just a more efficient department. It’s a more resilient one – built to flex when the business does.
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