The Future of Law
How to Plan Around Uncertainty and Future-Proof Your Business

Join a forward-looking fireside chat exploring how technology, artificial intelligence, and other emerging trends are changing the legal profession and the way that GCs work. Featuring futurist Scott Steinberg, co-author of new book The Shape of the Future, the discussion will examine new shifts transforming legal practice, from automation and data-driven decision-making to what the future of work will bring… and reveal how to stay ahead of the curve. The conversation will also highlight practical strategies for legal professionals preparing for disruption and opportunity in the decades ahead. Expect an engaging, thought-provoking dialogue with one of today’s most accomplished futurist consultants and expert witness authorities.

Trade tensions, sanctions, political shifts, regional conflicts and regulatory divergence have made volatility a permanent feature of the operating environment. At the same time, GCs are expected to lead across increasingly complex legal and regulatory landscapes, not only across national borders but also within jurisdictions where laws, enforcement approaches and policy priorities can vary significantly. In the United States, for example, the absence of federal standards in areas such as consumer privacy, alongside differing state requirements and occasional tensions between federal and state approaches, creates additional layers of complexity for legal leaders. Against this backdrop, GCs must navigate different legal systems, governance expectations, enforcement cultures and stakeholder norms while providing consistent enterprise-wide leadership.

This discussion will:

• Explore how legal leaders are building global risk radars that capture geopolitical, regulatory, cultural and commercial realities before they become board-level issues; and
• Examine how GCs can work effectively with regional teams and local counsel, navigate overlapping and sometimes conflicting legal requirements, help boards manage uncertainty, and protect the business from regulatory, operational and reputational risk.

The modern GC is no longer viewed solely as a legal adviser and guardian of compliance. Increasingly, boards and executive teams expect their GC to play an active role in shaping strategy, challenging assumptions, validating objectives and helping build enterprise resilience. This requires a deep understanding of the organisation’s strategy, value drivers and stakeholder priorities, combined with the judgement to balance legal, commercial and governance considerations.

At the same time, recent corporate flashpoints have shown that boardroom breakdowns rarely begin as purely legal problems. More often, they emerge from tensions around leadership, culture, oversight, strategy and trust.

This discussion will:

• Explore how GCs can move beyond identifying and mitigating risk to helping shape commercial strategy and organisational resilience, while maintaining credibility with both the CEO and the board;
• Examine what separates legal leaders who influence decisions from those who simply review them; and
• Discuss how GCs can identify early signs of breakdown in trust, oversight or culture before they become enterprise-level problems.

Protecting legal privilege is becoming increasingly complex as companies adopt new communication channels, technologies and ways of working. From AI tools and messaging platforms to third-party advisers and cross-functional teams, organisations face growing risks of inadvertent privilege loss. At the same time, the practices and behaviours that can undermine privilege may also expose businesses to broader risks, including loss of confidentiality, loss of control over intellectual property, and breaches of contractual obligations such as non-disclosure, licensing and consulting agreements. What role should legal play in establishing the governance, processes and guardrails needed to protect these critical interests?

This discussion will explore:

• Which parts of the organisation face the greatest exposure to privilege and confidentiality risks;
• Which technologies, communication practices and human behaviours create the greatest vulnerabilities; and
• How GCs can influence senior leaders, employees and third parties to protect privilege, confidential information and other sensitive business assets before those protections are compromised.

In an era of instant scrutiny and heightened stakeholder expectations, many of the risks organisations face extend far beyond legal liability. Increasingly, legal, compliance, communications and public affairs teams are navigating the same issues from different angles, raising important questions about ownership, accountability and decision-making.

This discussion will explore when a legal issue becomes a reputational issue, what role GCs should play in managing stakeholder trust, and how legal teams can work effectively with communications, ESG and public affairs functions. It will also examine who should lead before, during and after a crisis, and how organisations can identify and address potential issues before they become reputational events.

Alongside traditional leadership and technical skills, legal teams are now grappling with the impact of AI on recruitment, training, career development and the future of the profession itself. This raises important questions about judgement, supervision and  the skills future legal leaders need. 

This discussion will explore:

• How organisations can develop the next generation of legal leaders, while ensuring technology enhances rather than undermines professional development; and
• Which skills are critical now, and which will be in the near future.