Blended legal workforces will become the norm in 2027, says LOD’s head

“We see blended workforces becoming the norm – combining permanent lawyers, flexible talent, specialist support, ALSPs and technology,” he said.

“AI agents will sit alongside permanent lawyers and specialist or flexible resources.”

Oversight and accountability

Speaking with Lawyers Weekly ahead of the 2027 Corporate Counsel Summit and Corporate Counsel Awards (for which Consilio and Lawyers On Demand, a Consilio Company, are principal partner), Cowling said that as technology takes on more work, the need for relationship management, oversight and accountability will grow. Legal teams “will need to remain accountable for, and confident in, the outputs that their technology produces”, he said, and trust will therefore become “a critical part of managing technology effectively”.

Workloads, he added, remain a major challenge, and technology will alter how capacity is managed rather than removing the need for it.

“Whilst AI use is growing rapidly, workloads remain a major challenge and technology will change how capacity is managed, rather than eliminating the need for additional capacity in itself,” he said.

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The changing role of the general counsel

Turning to the pressures facing general counsel and chief legal officers, Cowling said the job is shifting from managing lawyers to overseeing a combination of people and AI agents.

“There is no doubt that the GC’s job is changing,” he said. “The role is evolving beyond managing lawyers to overseeing teams of people and AI agents.”

GCs, he continued, will need to decide which tasks lawyers perform, which can be delegated to AI agents, what level of oversight is required and what must remain with people. They will also need to decide what to do with the time AI saves, with Cowling noting that LOD is already seeing that time redirected towards higher-value work, improving quality, or enabling teams to move on to the next matter more quickly.

At the same time, he said, the strategic expectations placed on GCs are rising. As routine work moves towards technology, “the opportunity, and expectation, for GCs to contribute at a more strategic level will continue to grow”, he said.

That makes accountability even more important, Cowling argued. “If AI agents are taking on more work, legal leaders need to be clear about what controls, governance and human oversight are in place so that the team remains accountable for the outcome,” he said.

Operating models not keeping pace

On what a high-performing, future-ready in-house function looks like, Cowling said adoption of AI across legal use cases has increased compared with last year, but structures, workflows and roles are not necessarily keeping up.

“Many teams are still layering AI onto an operating model designed for a different time,” he said.

Future-ready teams, he said, will go further by rethinking how work flows through the function, how it is allocated, what roles they need and where specialist technology capability sits within the team. This, he said, “is about more than using AI to create efficiencies”, and “means redesigning the operating model around what people and technology can each do best”.

The evolving role of ALSPs

Asked whether ALSPs such as LOD will become more integral to the in-house operating model, rather than simply a source of additional capacity, Cowling said efficiency gains from AI do not automatically make the need for capacity disappear. Data, he said, shows that saved time is being redirected towards verifying outputs, exercising judgement and spending more time on the human and relationship aspects of legal work.

Much ALSP use today remains tactical, he said, but providers will become more integral where they offer judgement and expertise. As technology absorbs more routine work, “the need for specialist expertise and oversight will become greater”.

“AI allows legal teams to work beyond their traditional areas of expertise,” Cowling said. “That in turn creates new opportunities, but it also increases the need for specialists who can validate outcomes and provide expert judgement.”

He said the human elements of being a lawyer – “judgement, trust, relationships and accountability” – will become more important as technology takes on more of the work.

Legal teams, Cowling said, will need to rethink their operating models as technology evolves, and will “look to providers for support not only with capacity, but with redesigning roles, operating models and governance”.

Practical steps for GCs

For general counsel looking to build more agile, resilient and commercially effective teams, Cowling said the starting point is the team, its structure and its workflows.

“Be clear about what AI can do, what needs to be verified and where human judgement must remain,” he said. GCs should also make deliberate choices about where the time saved through AI should go, he said, whether that is junior training and development, learning and mentoring, higher-value work, or building stronger relationships with the business.

Efficiency alone, he said, should not be the benchmark. GCs should review the workflow, roles and overall structure of the legal team, because “a structure that worked five years ago won’t work for the way legal work is being delivered now”.

“The goal should be to make deliberate changes and improvements to the operating model and partnerships with external providers, rather than simply layering new technology on top of an outdated structure,” Cowling said.

Consilio and Lawyers On Demand, a Consilio Company, is the principal partner for Lawyers Weekly’s upcoming Corporate Counsel Summit and Corporate Counsel Awards.