Big Sis Briefing: The General Counsel Role Is Splitting Into Two (And You Need To Choose)
If you're a mid-career in-house lawyer who sees General Counsel as your ambition, you're probably thinking about timing.
When to make a move, what business areas to build expertise in, which industries offer the clearest path forward. Those are good questions, but they assume the role stays constant while you're working toward it.
That assumption definitely doesn't hold.
Two years ago at the Lawyers Weekly Corporate Counsel Summit, I spoke about GC2030: my thesis that the General Counsel role is splitting into two distinct paths. One deeply human, one deeply technological. Both essential, both valuable, but requiring fundamentally different capabilities and career strategies.
We're now tracking exactly where I predicted we'd be. The split is happening faster than most lawyers realise (I spoke on this before mainstream AI adoption) and if you're building toward a GC role over the next five to ten years, you need to understand which side of this divide you're positioning yourself for.
Not in five years when the market has already made the decision for you, but right now while you still have time to build the right capabilities deliberately.
The pattern we've already seen play out
Let me take you back to my law firm partnership piece for a moment, because the same historical pattern applies here.
When professional roles face disruption, they don't disappear, they stratify. They split into distinct tiers with different economics, different skill requirements and different career pathways. We saw it happen to accounting. We saw it happen to medicine. We're watching it happen to law firm partnership right now.
It's also happening to the General Counsel role too, just differently.
The difference is this: while law firms are grappling with external capital and ownership structures, in-house legal is grappling with something more fundamental. Technology is automating the delivery work that used to fill 60-70% of a legal team's time, which means the role of the GC is bifurcating into two very different jobs.
One job is about judgment, relationships, risk and influence at the highest levels of business.
The other job is about systems, delivery, operations and technology-enabled efficiency.
Both are General Counsel roles. Both sit at the table. Both report to the CEO or Board. But they require completely different skill sets, serve different strategic purposes and will be compensated very differently as this split becomes more pronounced.
What I said in 2023, and where we are now
At the Corporate Counsel Summit, I outlined what I called the "two sides of the same coin" thesis.
The deeply human side: Strategic counsel, board-level influence, crisis management, regulatory relationships, M&A judgment, culture and people leadership, external stakeholder management and reputational risk.
The deeply technological side: Legal operations, contract lifecycle management, workflow automation, data and analytics, vendor management, process design and delivery infrastructure.
I predicted that by 2030, the GC role would functionally split into two tracks. Not formally at first (the title would stay the same) but the actual day-to-day work, the capabilities required and the career pathways would diverge so significantly that mid-career lawyers would need to make an explicit choice about which track they were building toward.
We're on track. Actually, we're ahead of schedule.
Over the past two years, I've watched this play out in real time:
Technology companies are hiring "General Counsel" for legal operations and delivery infrastructure, paying them well but keeping them outside the strategic inner circle.
Professional services firms and financial institutions are hiring "General Counsel" for judgment and influence, paying them exceptionally well and expecting minimal operational involvement.
Mid-market companies are trying to get both in one person, discovering it doesn't scale and eventually splitting the function formally or informally. Never mind the “can you be Company Secretary too?” question.
If you're mid-career and working in-house right now, this split is the single most important trend shaping your path to GC. You need to understand it, position yourself accordingly and build the capabilities that align with the track you're actually suited for.
The deeply human track: judgment, influence and relationships
This is the traditional General Counsel role, evolved.
You're in the room when the CEO is making the decision that could define the next five years of the company. You're the one they turn to when reputational risk lands on the front page. You're managing relationships with regulators, directors, major shareholders and external stakeholders who expect someone senior, credible and commercially fluent.
Your value comes from judgment under uncertainty, strategic counsel that shapes business direction and the ability to translate complex legal risk into language that executives and boards can act on decisively.
This track rewards:
Deep commercial fluency. You need to understand how the business actually makes money, where margin pressure sits, what the competition is doing and how regulatory change impacts strategic options. Legal technical knowledge is table stakes. Business strategy is where your value lives.
Executive presence and influence. You're not just advising, you're shaping decisions. That requires credibility, clarity under pressure and the ability to hold your ground when executives push back because they don't like the answer.
Crisis leadership. When things go wrong, and they will, you're the one who steps in, takes control and navigates the company through regulatory investigations, litigation, reputational damage or internal misconduct. Your ability to stay calm, make decisions quickly and manage stakeholders under pressure is what you're paid for.
External relationship management. You're building trust with regulators, managing relationships with major law firms, representing the company in industry forums and serving as the face of the legal function to the outside world. Your network matters. Your reputation matters. People need to know who you are and what you stand for.
People and culture leadership. You're setting the tone for how legal operates inside the business. That means hiring well, developing talent, building a team culture that people actually want to be part of and being visible as a leader, not just a lawyer.
If this track resonates with you, here's what you need to be building right now:
Get closer to the business: Volunteer for projects that put you in the room with commercial teams. Understand P&L. Understand strategy. Stop thinking of yourself as "legal" and start thinking of yourself as a business leader who happens to have legal expertise.
Build your executive communication: Practice distilling complexity into clear, actionable advice. Learn to present to boards. Get comfortable saying "no" when it really matters and "here's another way" when it helps.
Develop your external profile: Write, speak, build relationships with regulators and industry peers. Visibility matters in this track because credibility often precedes you into the room.
Position yourself for crisis: Volunteer for the messy stuff, the investigations, the difficult employee matters, the regulatory inquiries. That's where you build the muscle and nervous system resilience that makes you indispensable when things go sideways.
The deeply technological track: operations, systems and delivery
This is the new General Counsel role, emerging fast.
You're building the infrastructure that lets legal scale without adding headcount. You're implementing contract lifecycle management systems, designing workflows that move work through the team efficiently and using data to show the business where legal is adding value and where bottlenecks sit.
Your value comes from operational excellence, technology fluency and the ability to transform legal from a cost centre that says "no" into a delivery function that enables the business to move faster.
This track rewards:
Legal operations expertise. You understand process design, project management, vendor management and how to run legal like a business function rather than a professional services firm. You know how to measure productivity, efficiency and value in ways that executives understand.
Technology and systems fluency. You're not a technologist, but you're fluent enough to evaluate legal tech, implement CLM platforms and integrate legal systems with the rest of the business. You understand how workflow automation, AI-assisted contract review and data analytics change what's possible.
Data and metrics literacy. You can build dashboards that show executives where legal is spending time, which matters are high-risk and where efficiency gains sit. You use data to make decisions and to demonstrate value.
Change management capability. Implementing new systems means changing how people work, which requires influence, communication and the ability to bring teams along rather than forcing compliance. You need to be as good at managing people through change as you are at designing the systems themselves.
Commercial pragmatism. You understand that the business doesn't care about legal perfection. It cares about speed, cost and risk management. Your job is to find the right balance and to build systems that let the business move quickly without creating unacceptable risk.
If this track resonates with you, here's what you need to be building right now:
Get hands-on with legal operations: Volunteer to lead the CLM implementation. Own the process redesign project. Build the metrics that show where legal is adding value. Don't wait for someone to hand you a "legal operations" title, start doing the work and the title will follow.
Invest in technology fluency: You don't need to code, but you do need to understand how legal tech works, which vendors solve which problems and how to evaluate ROI. Take courses, attend conferences, talk to other legal ops professionals and build your knowledge base.
Learn to speak business language: Stop talking about "legal risk" and start talking about "business enablement," "efficiency gains" and "cost per matter”. Finance and operations teams will be your closest partners so learn to speak their language.
Build cross-functional relationships: Legal operations sits at the intersection of legal, finance, IT and procurement. You need to be comfortable working across silos, influencing without authority and building coalitions to get things done.
Why you can't do both (and why that's okay)
Sorry not sorry but you probably can't build both tracks equally well and the market increasingly doesn't want you to try.
The deeply human track requires visibility, presence and relationships. You're in the room, in front of stakeholders, managing crises and shaping strategy. Your calendar is full of meetings with executives, regulators and board members. You're externally focused, commercially fluent and trusted for your judgment.
The deeply technological track requires depth in operations, systems and delivery. You're behind the scenes, building infrastructure, analysing data and designing workflows. Your calendar is full of project meetings, vendor demos and implementation workstreams. You're internally focused, process-oriented and valued for your ability to scale legal efficiently.
Both matter. Both are valuable. But they require different personalities, different strengths and different career investments.
Mid-market companies often try to hire one GC unicorn who can do both. That works for a while, then it doesn't. The human side demands external presence and strategic thinking. The technological side demands operational depth and implementation focus. Eventually, something breaks. Either the GC burns out trying to do both, or the business recognises it needs to split the function (hello Legal Operations Manager).
Larger organisations are already making this split explicit. They hire a "traditional" General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer for judgment and influence, and they hire a Chief Legal Operations Officer or Head of Legal Operations to run systems and delivery. Both report to the CEO or CFO. Both are senior. Both are well-compensated. But they're doing fundamentally different jobs.
If you're mid-career and building toward GC, you need to decide which track aligns with your strengths, your interests and your long-term career goals. Trying to straddle both could leave you stuck in the middle, doing neither particularly well.
The questions you need to answer now
If you're thinking seriously about a General Counsel role, you need to ask yourself these questions now:
Do you energise from being in front of executives and stakeholders or from solving complex operational problems behind the scenes?
Are you building skills in judgment, influence and crisis management or in systems, data and delivery infrastructure?
Do you want to be known externally as a trusted advisor and industry leader or internally as the person who made legal scalable and efficient?
Are you more comfortable with ambiguity and high-stakes decision-making or with structure, process and measurable outcomes?
Does your current organisation value the human side of legal leadership or the technological side and does that match where you're strongest?
Those questions matter more now than they did five years ago and they'll matter even more five years from now.
The investment you need to make now
This isn't a warning siren, but it is a map. A choose your own adventure.
The General Counsel role isn't disappearing at all. But it is evolving and that evolution creates enormous opportunity for the lawyers who see it coming and position themselves deliberately on the right side of the divide.
If you're the deeply human type: invest in commercial fluency, executive presence and external visibility. Get closer to the business, build your crisis leadership capability and position yourself as a strategic advisor, not just a legal expert.
If you're the deeply technological type: invest in legal operations, technology fluency and data literacy. Lead the systems projects, build the metrics and demonstrate that legal can scale efficiently without sacrificing quality or risk management.
Both paths lead to General Counsel roles. Both paths offer rewarding, well-compensated careers. But they require different capabilities, different career moves and different investments of your time and energy.
The lawyers who answer those questions honestly and build deliberately toward the track that aligns with their strengths will be the ones who thrive. The ones who ignore the split and assume "General Counsel" means the same thing it meant ten years ago will find themselves competing for roles that no longer exist in the form they expected it to.
Remember the Blacksmith
The ones who saw the car coming and adjusted early had options. They could reskill, reposition or recalibrate their expectations with enough runway to make smart decisions. The ones who kept their heads down and assumed the street would look the same in ten years often found themselves blindsided when demand shifted faster than they expected.
If you're mid-career and thinking seriously about “General Counsel”, this is the conversation to have now, not in five years when the market has already sorted you into a track you didn't choose.
Work with a mentor or career strategist who understands both the strategic side of in-house legal and the operational side of legal delivery. Get clear on which track aligns with your strengths, what capabilities you need to build and whether your current role is setting you up for the GC position you actually want.
The investment you make in that clarity now will compound over the rest of your career.
Onwards!
Mel
