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CCCA | Mondaq

2025 Canadian In-House Counsel Report

Unparalleled Insights into Canada's In-House Profession

Sponsored by

About Mondaq

Mondaq is a leading global provider of AI-enabled content
marketing, analytics and data solutions for professional
services firms and helps its over 20 million readers
worldwide to find answers to legal, tax and compliance
questions. Mondaq has over 2 million readers in Canada,
including the majority of Canadian in-house counsel and
executives from thousands of Canadian organizations .

About the CCCA

The CCCA is the leader and voice for Canadian in-house
counsel. Founded in 1988 as a forum of the Canadian Bar
Association, we represent over 5,000 in-house counsel
from every province and territory, and sector and industry,
making us the most inclusive and representative
professional association for in-house counsel in Canada.
Our members are lawyers working for public and private
companies, not-for-profits, associations, government and
regulatory boards, Crown corporations, municipalities,
hospitals, postsecondary institutions and school boards.

INTRODUCTION

The Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA) and ​
Mondaq are delighted to present the results of our fourth
annual ​Canadian In-House Counsel Survey. Based on over
600 responses ​from across the country and across all job
levels, this report ​provides Canadian in-house counsel and
the legal profession with ​unrivalled insight into the key
questions and issues that are ​impacting individual counsel
and legal departments today. ​Designed in partnership
with an advisory board composed of ​eminent in-house
counsel, this report provides an up-to-date ​analysis of the
hot button issues and 2025 outlook for the ​Canadian in-
house profession.

We’d like to thank the Canadian in-house community for
their ​terrific support of our survey, which has established
itself as the ​definitive annual report into the Canadian-in
house profession, as ​well as our advisory board members
for their sage counsel.

Thank ​you also to our report sponsor, Lawyers Financial,
for enabling us ​to further amplify the survey findings and
analysis.

PARTICIPANT PROFILE

In September 2024, the CCCA and Mondaq jointly
launched the fourth annual Canadian In-House Counsel
Survey with the aim of providing unrivalled insights into
the in-house counsel profession in Canada. This survey
stands out as the ​most comprehensive and
representative examination of the state of in-house legal ​
departments in the country.

607 respondents completed an online survey between
September and December ​2024. The survey included 34
questions covering organization and legal ​department
activity, budgets and investment, outsourcing,
technology, ​innovation, as well as priorities, challenges
and other people-focused questions. ​Following the main
questionnaire, a voluntary self-identification section
consisting ​of 8 questions was included, garnering
responses from over two-thirds of ​the participants.

METHODOLOGY

Advisory Board

To ensure rigorous oversight and authoritative input, the
survey was developed ​in partnership with our survey Advisory
Board, which includes eminent Canadian ​in-house counsel.

The survey successfully obtained a representative ​
view, with notable characteristics in participant ​
roles and organizational affiliations:

• Representation from across Canada: British
  Columbia (18%); Alberta (19%); Saskatchewan
  (7%); Manitoba (5%); Ontario (37%); Quebec
  (6%); New Brunswick (3%); Nova Scotia (2%).
• Diverse job-level representation across legal ​
  departments included responses from ​
  CLOs/GCs (27%), EVP Legal/VP Legal (3%)
  Associate GCs (7%), Senior Counsel (19%), ​
  Counsel (29%) and Directors of Legal ​
  Services/Legal Managers (11%).
• Excellent response levels from across various ​
  sectors, with 26% from public companies, ​30%
  from private companies, 33% from ​government
  organizations and 7% from not-​for-profits.
• Well balanced distribution based on ​
  organizational size, with 34.5% of responses ​
  from organizations with up to 500 ​employees,
  34.5% with 501 to 5000 ​employees, and 31%
  with 5001+ staff.

For further details on survey respondent specifics,
​refer to the Participant Profile charts to the right.

Location

Organization Type

Organization Size by Employees

Job Role

Ranj Sangra

CCCA President & Associate
General Counsel

Vice President, Corporate
Development and GC

Ballard Power Systems

Heidi Schedler

Solicitor

Nova Scotia
Department of Justice

Steve Smyth

Trotter & Morton

Dev Jagdev

Senior Legal Counsel

Rogers
Communications

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Against the continued backdrop of geopolitical upheaval
and economic uncertainty abroad and closer to home, the
CCCA & Mondaq Canadian In-House Counsel Survey seeks to
shine a light on the state of Canada’s in-house legal
departments and profession.

The extensive questionnaire and widespread survey
participation, provides unrivalled insight into legal
departments’ budgets, investment, staffing, activities,
insourcing and sourcing focus; reveals the biggest
challenges and priorities across varying in-house job levels;
and provides insights into what makes a great in-house
lawyer in 2025.

Hybrid working patterns firming up in response to
employee engagement issues – Level with the
previous year, 82% of legal departments work on a
hybrid basis but the fast-rising trend towards a
minimum of three mandated office days again rose to
48% of organizations. Those that do not mandate any
office days shrank 5% to less than one in five. Two-
thirds of organizations rate employee engagement as
the most challenging aspect – slightly up on last year.

Continued growth in demand for in-house services
with organizations increasingly looking to in-house
counsel for business strategy and advice - There are
predicted rises in activity across a wide spread of
business areas, building on broadly similar rises in
previous years: Data Privacy (+50%), Risk & Compliance
(+53%), Contract Management (+50%) and Business
Strategy & Advice (+40%, up by a quarter on 2024).

Technology and insourcing prioritized to meet
increased demand for legal services – Legal
technology is the fastest-rising investment priority,
followed by investment in legal department staff.
Higher levels of investment in both technology and
people will be somewhat offset by less growth in spend
on external counsel and alternative legal ​solution
provider spend in 2025.

Well defined ‘Big 5’ buy-side drivers for procuring
outside legal services – The ‘Big 5’ – the same buy-
side criteria as last year and all rated as important or
very important by over 90% of respondents – are
composed of legal expertise, practical advice, client
service, understanding of the client’s business and
value for money.

In-house counsel continue to shoulder significant
accountabilities beyond their legal roles - Compliance
is by far the most common (47%) suggesting it is now
widely regarded as integral to the legal function. Ethics
responsibilities and Company Secretarial duties are the
next most common, each being reported by around a
quarter of respondents.

Work-related stress and anxiety levels remain very
high – Around half of the profession (47%) again
reported increased work-related stress and anxiety over
the previous year. The proportion reporting a decrease
dwindled by a fifth and now stands at only 1 in 12,
indicating a potentially acute need for a review of work
patterns and the introduction of employee wellness
programs.

Stubborn lack of focus on Equality, Diversity &
Inclusion in legal departments – As in 2024, 39% of
Canadian legal departments do not consider ED&I to be
a priority within their organization. The lack of priority
was reported strongly at senior levels, by 44% of
CLOs/GCs and may give rise to concerns around the
composition of legal teams, as well as the working
experience and career prospects for employees from
different backgrounds.

Top in-house priorities and biggest challenges –
Volume of work/managing workload remains the
greatest challenge for in-house counsel at every level.
AI is a major challenge in terms of both the
implementation of generative AI and the rapidity of
change around AI regulation. In terms of highest
priorities, there is a much wider spread of priorities
across the in-house profession, although two topics rise
to the top – managing risk, and improving processes
and efficiencies.

What makes a great in-house lawyer in 2025?

The three most important skills required for an effective
in-house lawyer today are strongly highlighted as
communication, followed by business understanding
and flexibility/adaptability, although there are
differences across job levels as to the top skill. These
eminently transferable characteristics may go some
way to explain a slight rise in numbers of those moving
out of legal into wider business roles, most commonly
within HR or Compliance.

BUDGETS & INVESTMENT PRIORITIES

There is little evidence of expected decreases in any area
of activity for in-house legal resources as organizations
continue to look to ​their legal departments to manage
regulatory risk and compliance, and ​increasingly to act as
business partners to help them drive growth. This level of
demand may be a main driver of the expected investment
growth in both technology and in-house staffing.

Indeed, technology is the clear budget winner for the
coming year, holding firm as investment growth for in-
house staffing is beginning to pull back. Overall, 46% of
organizations plan to invest more in legal tech in 2025 -
slightly up on last year’s 45%. Growth expectations are
highest in private companies, where 55% will increase their
technology budget. Investment in legal technology is now
seen as a priority by 53% of organizations, a remarkable 10
percentage points up on last year.

Around half of all organizations (48%) expect their in-
house legal department budget to remain the same in
2025, while more than a third (35%) expect their budget to
grow. There is a reduction in the number of organizations
expecting their budgets to grow (from 40% in 2023, to 38%
in 2024, to this year’s 35%). 16% of organizations expect
their budgets to decline in 2025, the same as last year.

Expected size of the total in-house legal department budget over the next year:

Appetite for increased investment in in-house staffing has
slightly weakened for this year. 38% of organizations
currently expect to invest more in staffing, down from 45%
on the previous year. There has also been a near-doubling
to 9% of organizations that expect to reduce spending on
in-house staff. Public companies will see the least growth
(28% spending more vs. 15% less) and private companies
the most (43% more vs. 6% less).

Nonetheless, there will still be significant growth in legal
department headcount in 2025 – an overall trend that has
now been sustained for four years, with more than a
quarter of organizations (26%) expecting their
departments to increase in size in the coming year. These
figures greatly exceed the proportion that expect to
reduce the size of their in-house legal team, which stands
at 6% overall. But that figure has doubled from 3% to 6%
over last year, so this is an area to watch.

The contrast between expectations of growth versus
reduction in headcount is greatest among privately owned
businesses. Here, six times the number of respondents
(30%) plan to grow against 5% that expect headcount
reduction. Public companies are the most cautious: just
23% expecting to grow against 8% predicting to shrink
their legal team size in 2025. In the government sector 26%
expect an increase against 7% a reduction in team size.

Public companies are experiencing the least budget
growth. Here, only 30% expect their budgets to rise. That
figure is a third higher at 41% among privately owned
companies. This is mirrored in the figures for those
expecting their budget to be cut – just 13% of private
companies compared with 28% of public companies. 33%
of government organizations are looking at an increase in
2025 against 13% expecting less budget.

As to the responsibilities and demands on in-house legal
teams, there are predicted rises in activity across a wide
spread of business areas, building on similar rises in
previous years. 50% of respondents expect in-house
activity in Data Privacy to increase. This is lower than the
previous year (57%) but demand remains strong. There are
correspondingly large rises in demand across these areas:

Spend on outside counsel appears to be increasingly
challenged in ​2025. While 34% of organizations intend to
spend more on outside counsel, 22% are ​expecting a
reduction in spend, a big increase on last year’s 17%. The
downward pressure on outside counsel spend is driven
primarily by public companies, with 32% of ​public
companies expecting to spend less on outside counsel
compared with 28% spending more. In contrast, private
companies are likely to see more investment in ​outside
counsel, with 41% expecting to increase spend on outside
counsel, although 21% expect to decrease their spend in
2025 (compared with just 9% last year). 34% of government
organizations expect to spend more and 16% less on
outside counsel, broadly similar to last year.

Expenditure on Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs)
edges higher with 15% now expecting to increase spend –
half as many again as four years ago. This is highest in
private companies (17%) and public companies (16%).
However, 12% of organizations expect to spend less on
ALSPs.

So, while the demand for in-house services continues to
increase, organizations aim to meet this demand through
the additional investment and priority given to both
technology and people, somewhat offset by lower growth
in expenditure on outside counsel.

OUTSOURCING

Outside Counsel

As seen in the 2024 report, there continues to be a narrow
range ​between those organizations expecting to outsource
more work to outside ​counsel, versus those expecting to
outsource less, although there is an increase in those
organizations expecting to outsource more work to
outside counsel. 27% of legal departments ​are expecting to
outsource more work to outside counsel in the next 12 ​
months (compared to 23% in 2024 and 22% in 2023) and
20% expect to ​outsource less work (the same as in 2024
and compared to 22% in 2023).

Like last ​year, this is most pronounced in public
companies, with just 21% expecting ​to send more work to
outside counsel and 22% expecting to send less. Private
companies are planning to send more work to outside
counsel (33%) rather than less (24%), as are government
organizations .

The types of work most likely to be outsourced are very
similar to previous years. They are centered around areas
where there are shortfalls in in-house capabilities and/or
capacity.

72% of legal departments are likely to seek expert advice in
areas new to them, 65% look for assistance with litigation,
63% of organizations will look outside for the legal
assurance, opinion or coverage of external counsel. Over
half of organizations (55%) outsource when there is
insufficient internal capacity.

Public companies lean towards outsourcing more
transactional work, private companies more towards
litigation. Government tends to look for support with
short-timeframe work.

Work areas most often outsourced:

Moreover, the gap is widening between the Big Five buy-
side criteria and the next three. The importance of brand
and reputation is holding. But existing senior-level
relationships are reducing in importance – along with
outside counsel’s investment in technology and
innovation. The lower level of importance placed on
existing relationships and the perceived ​brand and
reputation of the law firm should motivate incumbent
firms ​and fee earners to ensure the higher scoring buy-
side value drivers are also ​addressed. 28% of organizations
now rate Diversity and Inclusion initiatives as an important
or very important selection criteria, up from 26% in 2024.

Significantly more inside counsel deem the below are to be
important or very important:

But there are some interesting shifts in buyers’ priorities.
Over the past four years of this survey, the factors showing
the strongest and most consistent growth in importance
are ‘understanding of the business’ and ‘value for money’.

Focus on buying criteria considered ‘very important’, there
are significant 12% gains for both legal expertise and
practical advice – each being cited by 12% more
respondents than last year. Client service also jumped into
third place– being rated as very important by two-thirds of
those surveyed – slightly ahead of understanding the
client’s business.

When selecting to instruct outside counsel, the ‘Big Five’
buying criteria are consistent with previous surveys: legal
expertise (99% consider important or very ​important),
practical advice (97%), client service (95%), understanding ​
the client’s business (94%) and value for money (91%). All
five criteria increased in importance to buyers over last
year.

The following five factors are rated as important or very important:

Percentage of legal departments using:

OUTSOURCING CONTINUED

How important are the following factors when selecting outside counsel:

Other outsourcing

After two years of decline, there is an increase in the
number of organizations using Alternative Legal Service
Providers (ALSPs) – 15% of legal departments outsource
work to ALSPs (up from 13% in 2024). The increase in use of
ALSPs is driven by public companies, and mirrored by an
increase in those expecting to spend more on ALSPs in the
next year. The use of ALSPs is highest in public companies,
which is substantially up from 17% in the prior year and
lowest in government organizations at 8%. A fifth of
private companies use ALSPs, which is also up on prior
year. That said, the overall landscape for use of ALSPs is
more mixed. 12% of respondents now expect to reduce
their spend with ALSPs, rising from 10% last year.

The figures for offshoring and onshoring outsourced work
are very similar to last year. Around a third (31%) sending
work offshore, while 95% onshore their outsourced work.
Public companies are most likely to send work offshore
work (53%). Government organizations are least likely to do
so (9%).

When outsourcing:

Outsource within

Canada

Outsource outside of

Canada

95%

30%

INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY

Innovation

More than half of respondents (54%) rated innovation as a
priority in legal and regulatory risk management. This is
the same figure as 2024, indicating a strong commitment
to innovating, that will be sustained for the coming year.
The picture is broadly the same across all types of
organizations, with slightly more focus among public and
privately-owned companies.

When it comes to where the spend will be focused, there is
a broadly similar landscape to last year. Document
Management (37%) and Data Privacy & Security
Management (36%) are again identified as the top two
technology spend priorities, followed by Contract Lifecycle
Management (24%), Workflow Management (23%) and
Contract Automation (22%). There has been a noticeable
year-on-year rise in the number of legal departments
planning to invest more in Contract Automation and
Contract Lifecycle Management.

Unsurprisingly, given the recent developments in
generative artificial intelligence (AI), AI is the biggest area
for innovation across legal departments overall, followed
by contract and document management. Many
respondents refer to the use of technology to improve
efficiencies and automate routine functions and processes.

But the main areas of innovation focus are more nuanced
again between government organizations and companies.
For private and public companies, AI takes a clear lead
over contract management as the main innovation
priority. But among governmental organizations AI falls
into 2nd place behind document management.

Contract Automation

22%

The barriers to technology investment and adoption
remain broadly the same, but with a marked rise in data
privacy concerns for the second year running. In 2023 only
1-in-4 respondents gave Data Privacy as a concern. But
that figure has risen by half as much again in the past two
years. 38% of organizations now place data privacy as their
third highest technology challenge – level with
Implementation Risk.

Cost remains by far the greatest challenge, cited more
than three-quarters of those surveyed (78%) – one
percentage point higher than last year. Further back in
second place, according to 46% of respondents, the next
most challenging barrier is a lack of integration with
existing legal department technologies.

These figures suggest that technology providers may do
well to focus on solutions that more cost-effectively
support integration and alleviate growing concerns over
data privacy.

Technology

There is a big increase in the number of legal departments
treating investment in legal department technology as a
priority. 53% (versus 43% in the 2024 survey) of
organizations are prioritizing investment in legal
department technology. Private companies lead the field
in making technology a priority with 55% of respondents
expecting investment growth, followed by public
companies at 48%.

In line with the prioritization of tech investment, 46% of
organizations plan to invest more in legal department
technology in 2025, meaning technology is now the largest
area for in-house spend growth – outstripping even
investment in in-house staffing, with which it had parity in
last year’s survey (both at 45%). This continues a trend of
incremental growth in legal technology spend over the
past four years.

The single biggest area of innovation in the legal department is:

Number of organizations expecting to invest more in these ​
technologies:

PRIORITIES & CHALLENGES

In 2025, there are two standout challenges to the in-house
legal profession. Firstly, it’s clear that developments in AI
and their impact on legal departments and businesses,
both from an implementation and from a regulatory
perspective, is significant. Second, the volume of work and
managing workloads continue to be a huge challenge to
the profession.

From the perspective of top priorities across all job levels,
there is a much wider spread of priorities across the
Canadian in-house profession, although two topics rise to
the top – managing risk and improving processes and
efficiencies.

From an organizational perspective, all boards continue to
face regulatory change and compliance as their main
challenge, though less firmly so than in prior years. AI
continues to rise in prominence, with Litigation making up
the top three issue areas. But that picture is more nuanced
when comparing private and public companies. The
boards of public companies are looking at cybersecurity as
a major challenge, along with privacy. But there is scant
reference to AI. This may imply a disconnect on this issue
between CLOs/GCs and the board within public
companies. In the private sector, there is more frequent
mention at board level of the challenge of AI, while
regulatory risk and compliance remains the primary
concern.

While AI has captured the minds of in-house legal teams,
workload challenges – and the concomitant impact on
employee wellbeing and retention – could well be the
metaphorical elephant in the room.

Challenges

Volume of work and managing workloads remains the
greatest challenge facing legal teams at every level – the
same as last year. There is no question that AI is also
soaring as a major issue for legal departments. There are
two aspects to this: the impact of advances in generative
AI, but also the rapidity of developments in regulating AI.
The pace of change in the field may itself be a factor. AI
first emerged as a challenge only as recently as 2024. It
now stands as the 2nd most-mentioned challenge across
all roles – edging regulatory risk and compliance down to
3rd place.

But the emphases vary significantly between different job
levels within legal departments.

CLOs and GCs: CLOs and GCs are predominantly
expressing concerns over managing risk in the face of
“demands for increasing use of technology and AI” –
and about “increased use of AI without proper
controls” over data and privacy.

Legal Counsel and Senior Counsel: Challenges around
AI are also prominent among Legal Counsels and
Senior Counsels. But they are considerably behind both
workload / volume-of-work concerns and privacy-
related matters.

Directors and Managers: However, for Legal Directors
/ Managers it is abundantly clear that the greatest
challenges are centered around regulation and
compliance. This is driven by increasing and changing
requirements – and the need to manage compliance
against that constantly shifting landscape. Concerns
over workload and litigation are also high on the
agenda at this level.

The greatest legal challenge I expect to face in 2025 is
(CLOs/GCs)

The greatest legal challenge I expect to face in 2025 is (senior
counsel; legal counsel):

PRIORITIES & CHALLENGES CONTINUED

Priorities

Looking at the top priorities across all job roles, there is a
wide spread of priorities across the Canadian in-house
profession, although two topics rise to the top, namely
managing risk (across a number of areas, including third-
party risk and reputational risk) and improving processes
and efficiency. The latter can reasonably be interpreted to
be a response to the workload challenges facing legal
departments.

CLOs/GCs are focussed on improving processes and
delivering efficiency, on governance and risk management,
and on matters relating to AI and their teams (such as staff
retention ​and training). Legal Counsel and Senior Counsel
most often indicate managing risk, ​learning and
development and improving processes as ​key areas of
priority. Legal ​Directors/Managers have a greater focus on
legal business operations, ​various contract projects and cost
management as top priorities.

Top priority for senior counsel/legal counsel:

Top priority across all job levels:

Top priority for CLOs/GCs:

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Almost four out of ten Canadian legal departments do not
consider Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) to be a
priority within their organization. The figure is level with
the 2024 report.

The lack of priority was reported strongly at senior levels,
by 44% of CLOs/GCs. Although this is down 1% from last
year’s survey, it may give rise to concerns around the
composition of legal teams, as well as the working
experience and career prospects for employees from
different backgrounds.

But the likely strongest driver of priority is the size of the
legal department itself. Results mirror the trend for
organizations as a whole, with large organizations
dominating the numbers. 85% of legal teams with more
than 30 staff make ED&I a priority. For smaller
departments of 10-30 staff, the figure is rather lower at
around two-thirds (66%) – and a still smaller proportion for
small teams of up to ten people. Given the contrast
between results for large and small operations, more
understanding may be needed over differences in
structure and methods, internal culture or other factors
that drive the setting of priorities.

Focusing on diversity data, half of respondents completed
the survey’s voluntary self-identification section. Of these
responses 62% identified as female, 36% male. People who
identify as either two-spirit or non-binary were both
represented in the remaining 2% – along with those who
prefer not to say.

There is also diversity from an age perspective, with the
figures showing a balance across age-ranges. Specifically,
the splits are 43% age 25-44, 33% age 45-54, 23% age 55
and over.

There is substantially lower diversity in terms of race and
ethnicity with almost three-quarters (74%) identifying as
Caucasian. A tenth of respondents identified as Chinese
(6%) and South Asian (4%), followed by Indigenous North
American (3%) and Black (2%) respondents.

There remains variation between the provinces, but the
headline is that ED&I is noticeably less of a priority across
some provinces. The sharpest fall was in British Colombia,
which reported a drop of 10 percentage points – falling
from almost 3/4 of legal departments making ED&I a
priority last year to 62% today. This is the same proportion
as Ontario, which posted just a 1% drop from 2024. Alberta
respondents showed a drop – 9% lower than last year at
58%. Manitoba was alone in recording a modest 1% rise.
But it remains the only province, with a large enough
sample size, where over half of legal departments (55%) do
not deem ED&I to be a priority for them.

Organization size is a clear determining factor, with large
organizations of 5,000+ staff outpacing smaller operations
of up to 500 employees. In fact, substantially more large
organizations (75%) make ED&I a priority than their smaller
counterparts at 44%. The gap widened over the last twelve
months, rising 5 percentage points for the former and
falling from 55% to now fewer than half of small
organizations.

Survey response diversity data based on voluntary self- identification
questions:

Race/ ethnicity of respondents:

PEOPLE & TALENT

Based on the high level of survey participation, we are able
to examine a ​significant number of responses across all job
levels, helping us to deliver a view from the top as well as
from middle and junior in-house legal roles.

Workplace

The survey shows that 82% of Canadian in-house legal
departments are ​operating a hybrid location model (level
with 2024), although there are big differences depending
on the type of organisation. 82% of public companies, 71%
of ​private companies and 88% of government
organizations operate a hybrid policy.

While hybrid is still far and away the most common
staffing model, ​there is a shift towards more office-days
being mandated as organizations expect their employees
to spend more time in ​the office than last year.
Approaching half the organizations surveyed (48%) now
mandate 3 or more office days per week. This is a fifth
more than last year, when the 3-day pattern was also the
largest riser. The preference is strongest within public
companies, where 55% mandate 3 days. More mandated
office days are also more prevalent in large organizations
of 5000+ employees (51%) than in smaller organizations up
to 500 staff (46%). There is a distinct fall from 21% to 17% of
organizations that do not mandate any office days in 2025.

These figures may to some extent reflect a response to the
most common challenges of hybrid working. Fully two-
thirds of organizations (67%) rate employee engagement
as the most challenging aspect – a slight rise from the
2024 report. A third also indicate some challenges around
employee retention, which is 10% higher than last year.

Responsibilities

In-house counsel continue to carry significant
accountabilities beyond their legal responsibilities.
Looking across the range of non-core legal duties, the
figures are broadly constant from year to year. Compliance
is by far the most common extra responsibility. 47% gave
this as an answer – almost exactly the same as last year,
following slight uplifts in both 2022 and 2023. This is
highest in private companies (61%) but also the most
commonly cited additional responsibility in public
companies (49%) and government (40%) and suggests that
compliance is now widely regarded as integral to the legal
function. As before, a substantial proportion (25%) also still
carry ethics responsibilities. Almost a quarter (24%) of
respondents said they carry company secretarial duties
(39% in private companies and 28% in public companies).
There is a marginal rise in responsibility for investigations
(22%), counter-balanced by a slight fall in those involved in
government relations (17%). The proportion of those
picking up ESG-related duties has dropped to 12% (from
14% in 2024), although is higher in public and private
companies at 16%.

The sustained burden of extra accountabilities has been a
consistent pattern for the past four years – and is allied
with a growing demand for in-house services. Taken
together, these are likely to be significant factors driving
the continued investment growth into legal department
headcount (27% of respondents expect to see their in-
house legal team grow in 2025, with just 6% expecting to
reduce in size).

These additional responsibilities, coupled with the extra
demand for in-house services are also likely to be
significant contributing factors to the continued increase
in work-related anxiety and stress levels. Nearly half of
respondents (47%, down from 50% in 2024) reported an
increase in work-related stress and anxiety, while the
number reporting a decrease is down from 1-in-10 last year
to just 8% today.

Stress is most prevalent within public companies, where
the proportion experienced increased levels peaks at 51%,
but increases are high throughout, with private companies
at 49%, government at 40% and not-for-profit at 28%.
Highest increases are reported by Associate/Assistant GCs
(53%), Directors of Legal Services / Legal Manager (51%) and
CLOs / GCs (46%). 47% of staff within large organizations
(5000+ staff) report heightened levels of anxiety and stress.
This is notably higher than the 40% within smaller
organizations (up to 500 staff).

The figures reinforce that work-related stress and anxiety
in legal teams remain very high. This may indicate a
potentially acute need for employee wellness programs
and, consequently, department and human resources
leaders should consider implementation of staff support
programs.

It is important to note the small increase is on an already
highly stressed base

In-house personnel accountability beyond legal:

Remote/hybrid working arrangements:

Reported increase in work-related stress and anxiety

PEOPLE & TALENT CONTINUED

Skills & Opportunities

The skills deemed to be most important for an effective in-
house lawyer across all job levels align with previous years,
with communication skills once more the clear leader.
Adaptability and flexibility also feature particularly
strongly, along with business acumen and an
understanding of the business. However, there are
differences in skills ranked by role, with business acumen
and understanding rated as the top skill required for
CLO/GCs, while communication skills rank highest for
Senior Counsel and Legal Counsel.

Given that these attributes are eminently transferable, it is
perhaps unsurprising to see a trend towards in-house legal
staff moving into wider business roles. Almost 1-in-5
respondents (19%) are seeing an increase in the movement
of in-house counsel in non-legal roles, slightly up on last
year.

Most commonly, such moves have been into HR or
Compliance roles. This increase in to business roles is
concentrated in the commercial sector, where such moves
are made in about a quarter of companies (Private 26%,
Public 23%). There is also evidence of more moves into C-
suite positions since we first reported in 2021, including
CEO and COO roles.

of CLOs/CGs reported
increased levels

of director of legal
services/legal manager
reported increased levels

respondents seeing an
increase in in-house counsel
moving into non-legal
business roles

Most common non-legal business roles into which in-house
counsel move:

Stress and anxiety levels amplified in more junior roles:

Think before you print

CCCA | Mondaq

2025 Canadian In-House Counsel Report

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