January 2026
What Will the General Counsel of 2026 Look Like?
In 2026, the General Counsel is no longer defined by legal expertise alone. These roles now require knowledge that spans regulation, technology, risk, and corporate strategy. Boards and CEOs increasingly rely on GCs not just to interpret the law, but to help businesses operate safely, credibly, and competitively in complex regulatory environments.
This evolution is being driven by a number of structural forces. Understanding them, and the skills they demand, will be central to GC success.
This article explores the key trends impacting the General Counsel role in 2026 and outlines the capabilities they need to build to remain effective and credible at the most senior level.
The changing General Counsel role in 2026
Historically, General Counsels were required to manage legal risk, oversee compliance, and respond to issues as they arose. But today, GCs are expected to:
- Anticipate regulatory and reputational risk before it materializes
- Advise on strategic decisions with legal and commercial consequences
- Own governance frameworks that stand up to scrutiny
- Enable the business to move faster without increasing exposure
These changes in expectations have expanded the GC’s remit into areas that were once considered adjacent to legal, including technology governance, data strategy, and enterprise risk management.
Trend 1: AI regulation and enterprise AI governance
How this is changing the General Counsel role in 2026:
Artificial intelligence has moved from experimentation to operational deployment across most organizations. In 2026, regulatory frameworks such as the EU AI Act, alongside sector-specific guidance and enforcement trends, have made AI a board-level risk topic.
In many organizations, the General Counsel is now the executive accountable for AI governance, and heavily involved in strategy. This includes defining acceptable use, advising on liability exposure, and ensuring the organization can explain how AI systems are used and governed.
Learn more about the opportunities and challenges AI is bringing to the legal industry by reading the takeaways from Larson Maddox’s recent panel, ‘Practicing in the Age of AI: Navigating Risk, Roles and Regulation’.
What this means for the General Counsel in practice:
In 2026, General Counsels are increasingly expected to sponsor or lead enterprise AI governance. This includes defining acceptable use policies, setting escalation thresholds, and ensuring the organization can explain how AI systems are deployed and controlled. Practically, this means being involved at the point decisions are made and before AI tools are rolled out, acting as the bridge between technical teams, regulators, and the board.
Trend 2: Expanding regulation and personal accountability of senior leaders
How this is changing the General Counsel role in 2026:
Regulatory enforcement in 2026 increasingly focuses on individual accountability. Regulators expect senior leaders to demonstrate oversight, not just compliance, in a world where documentation, escalation processes, and decision rationale are under greater scrutiny than ever.
This places the General Counsel at the center of how organizations evidence good governance. The GC is often responsible for ensuring that decisions are not only lawful, but defensible months or years later.
In a recent barometer of in-house legal leaders, 98% said their organizations planned expansion in the coming year, and 72% expected legal and compliance costs to rise over the next three years – underscoring why strategies must evolve.
What this means for the General Counsel in practice:
General Counsels are becoming architects of defensible decision-making. In practice, this means designing governance processes that clearly record rationale, escalation, and oversight, and advising executives when decisions carry personal or organizational exposure. The GC’s influence increasingly shows up in how well an organization can explain itself under scrutiny.
Trend 3: Data privacy, cross-border data flows, and digital infrastructure
How this is changing the General Counsel role in 2026:
In 2026, data regulation continues to fragment across jurisdictions. Organizations must navigate conflicting requirements around data residency, access, and transfer, often while adopting cloud platforms and global operating models.
General Counsels are increasingly expected to advise on data strategy alongside technology and security leaders. While deep technical expertise is not required, GCs must understand enough to assess the risks.
What this means for the General Counsel in practice
General Counsels in 2026 are expected to engage meaningfully in discussions about data architecture, vendor selection, and cross-border data movement. While not acting as technologists, they must be able to challenge assumptions, understand risk trade-offs, and guide decisions that balance compliance with operational reality.
Trend 4: ESG regulation moves from policy to enforcement
How this is changing the General Counsel role in 2026:
In 2026, ESG is no longer about aspiration or reporting alone. Regulatory scrutiny and litigation risk are increasing around supply chains, disclosures, and governance practices.
General Counsels often carry responsibility for ensuring that ESG statements are accurate, defensible, and aligned with actual operations, which expands their role into reputational and stakeholder risk management.
What this means for the General Counsel in practice:
GCs are often the final checkpoint between public commitments and operational truth. In practice, this involves pressure-testing ESG disclosures, aligning them with internal processes, and advising leadership on where reputational and legal risk may diverge.
Trend 5: Legal technology, AI, and the transformation of legal operations
How this is changing the General Counsel role in 2026:
As well as managing AI governance, legal teams are under sustained pressure to operate more efficiently by utilizing AI themselves. General Counsels are expected to continue modernizing legal operations through technology, automation, and data-driven management.
This does not require the GC to be a technologist, but it does require ownership to drive operational improvements. Recent research shows that 44% of corporate legal departments now use legal technology frequently or constantly – a marked jump from 34% in 2024 – with much of this growth driven by generative AI adoption.
What this means for the General Counsel in practice
In 2026, General Counsels are expected to take ownership of legal operations improvement. This includes deciding where technology genuinely adds value, overseeing adoption, and using data to demonstrate the legal function’s contribution. The focus is less on tools and more on making legal work faster, clearer, and more predictable.
What hiring managers are looking for in General Counsels in 2026
In 2026, boards and CEOs are far more specific in how they assess General Counsel candidates. The focus is less on legal credentials in isolation and more on whether a GC can operate as a senior decision-maker in a complex, regulated environment.
During selection, hiring panels typically probe for:
- Proven strategic involvement.
Candidates are expected to show where they shaped outcomes, not simply advised on legality. This includes influencing commercial strategy, guiding responses to regulatory change, or helping leadership navigate risk under time pressure. - Ownership of governance and accountability frameworks.
Strong GC candidates can point to frameworks they built or materially improved, such as decision-making structures, escalation processes, or regulatory oversight models. Hiring managers pay close attention to whether governance exists on paper only or is embedded in how the organization actually operates. - Ability to operate across technology, data, and compliance.
General Counsels are routinely questioned on their involvement in AI governance, data strategy, and technology-driven risk. Depth of technical knowledge is less important than the ability to guide responsible decision-making. - Executive and board-level communication.
Hiring managers assess how clearly candidates explain risk, uncertainty, and options. This often includes scenario-based discussions rather than technical legal questions, with emphasis on judgement, prioritization, and clarity.
Across all of these areas, candidates are ultimately evaluated on how well they help organizations make defensible decisions and maintain credibility under regulatory and public scrutiny, rather than relying on technical legal precision alone.
Planning your next General Counsel career move in 2026?
The General Counsel role in 2026 demands a broader, more integrated skill set than ever before.
Larson Maddox works closely with legal professionals at this stage of their careers, supporting moves into General Counsel and senior legal leadership roles across a range of industries. Our consultants understand how GC roles differ by organization, growth stage, and regulatory exposure, and help candidates position their experience against what boards and executive teams are actually looking for in 2026.
Across the senior legal market, we see many General Counsel moves fall short because the scope of the role is misunderstood rather than because of capability. The General Counsel title can mean very different things depending on an organization’s maturity, regulatory exposure, and leadership culture. That understanding is what allows us to guide General Counsels toward roles where their impact and scope are properly matched.
Interested in salary benchmarks for General Counsel roles? Explore our range of compensation guides covering the USA, Europe, and APAC.
