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“The future of law is going to look vastly different, and in-house teams have the privilege of drawing the blueprint for what that looks like,” one GC has said.
In conversation with Lawyers Weekly ahead of her appearance at the 2026 Australian Law Forum, at which she will join a panel to discuss “The expanding role of the general counsel”, Woolworths Group general counsel (eComX and strategic partnerships) Jade Droguett said that, in the new financial year, the pace of business will demand unprecedented speed and a capacity to navigate continuous change.
To this end, she said, the role of GC will expand deeply into cross-functional leadership, requiring law department leaders to collaborate seamlessly across multidisciplinary teams that blend legal expertise with tech, data, operations, and corporate strategy.
“To meaningfully prepare, GCs must cultivate a growth mindset and learn to become comfortable leading in ambiguity,” Droguett said.
“Historically, the legal profession treated tenure as the be-all and end-all. While institutional knowledge is incredibly valuable, the future belongs to those who can think differently. Preparing for FY27 means shifting our focus from technical advice to building high-level judgment and emotional intelligence within our teams, ensuring we can pivot as fast as the markets do.”
There are, however, numerous challenges that GC will have to contend with in FY2026–27. For one, Droguett said, “accepting that we will never know everything, and being comfortable in the ambiguity and uncertainty”, is a psychological hurdle that must be overcome.
“In a rapidly evolving market, not knowing something is exactly where we all sit today. This is deeply confronting for lawyers, who are traditionally trained to seek absolute facts and mitigate risks. We can look to overcome this by building organisational resilience and establishing a safe environment to try, fail, and learn. If we operate out of fear of failure, we bottleneck the business,” she said.
GCs will also have to manage capacity as demands on the legal function grow: “We cannot simply do more of the same. We need a highly nuanced understanding of the business’s risk appetite to intelligently triage our workflow.”
“Not every issue represents a material risk, and we must be disciplined enough to ask: ‘Does legal actually need to touch this?’ By stepping away from low-stakes matters, we protect our bandwidth for truly strategic, high-impact work.”
The flip side of such ambiguity, Droguett added, is what she sees as a “massive opportunity” to redefine how value is delivered.
“GCs have a unique opportunity to deeply understand the business’s risk appetite and use that insight to drive commercial outcomes rather than stall them. To grasp this opportunity, legal leaders need to intentionally foster psychological safety within their teams,” she said.
“By creating a culture where calculated risk-taking is permitted, we can move at the speed the business requires. It allows us to transition from reactive problem-solvers to proactive innovators who design creative commercial solutions.”
Such shifts signal that the legal function is no longer a reactive compliance centre, Droguett said. Instead, it’s a “foundational pillar” of business resilience and growth in corporate Australia.
“In-house teams need to fundamentally elevate how they view their own roles,” she said.
“They must stop viewing themselves simply as internal legal advisers and start seeing themselves as core business partners. When teams bring a combination of sharp legal judgment and a willingness to embrace change to the table, they become true commercial enablers.”
“The future of law is going to look vastly different, and in-house teams have the privilege of drawing the blueprint for what that looks like,” she said.
When asked what excites her about the expanding role of the GC, Droguett reflected that we are living through a “truly revolutionary time” for the legal profession, in which the traditional view of GCs as gatekeepers is “gone”.
“Today, commercial teams come to their GCs for far more than strict legal advice – they are looking for a true business partner,” she said.
“We are moving away from an era where a lawyer’s value was measured in six-minute increments, shifting instead towards an era defined by strategic judgement and adaptability. The expanding role gives GCs a seat at the table to actively shape business strategy, reimagine how things are done, and lead through a multidisciplinary lens.
“It’s an incredibly dynamic space to operate in.”
The Australian Law Forum is being held on Thursday 30 July at Royal Randwick in Sydney. To view the full agenda, click here. To view the full speaker line-up, click here. To secure your ticket for the day, click here.
Jerome Doraisamy is the managing editor of professional services (including Lawyers Weekly, HR Leader, Accountants Daily, and Accounting Times). He is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in New South Wales, and a board director of the Minds Count Foundation.
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