--- title: What skills do companies look for in a general counsel in the age of AI? description: Discover the key skills general counsels need in the age of AI, from AI governance and legal prompting to contract data and technology ROI. image: https://blog.biglelegal.com/hubfs/Thumbnail-Oct-13-2026-12-04-47-9001-PM.jpg --- [Skip to content](https://blog.biglelegal.com/en/what-skills-do-companies-look-for-in-a-general-counsel-in-the-age-of-ai#main-content) [![Bigle ](https://blog.biglelegal.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Logo%20Bigle-1.png?width=150&height=30&name=Logo%20Bigle-1.png)](https://www.biglelegal.com) Open main navigation Close main navigation - [Contact us](https://www.biglelegal.com/en/company/contact-us) [Contact us](https://www.biglelegal.com/en/company/contact-us) [All posts](https://blog.biglelegal.com/en/all) October 13, 2026 # What skills do companies look for in a general counsel in the age of AI? ![Picture of Bigle](https://blog.biglelegal.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Bigle_Isotipo.webp?width=50&name=Bigle_Isotipo.webp) By  [Bigle](https://blog.biglelegal.com/en/author/bigle)  ·  6 minute read **Companies are looking for a legal director who can lead the use of AI for lawyers within their function:** someone who knows how to govern its use across the team, move operational work that doesn't require a lawyer out of the department, turn contract data into decisions, and measure the return on technology. Legal expertise and team management remain essential, but they are no longer enough. AI is already part of the day-to-day work of most legal departments, and its impact goes beyond making each task faster: it is changing the role of whoever leads the function. **The legal director no longer oversees matters one by one, but instead shapes how legal operations work across the entire company.** [![Abogado usando IA](https://blog.biglelegal.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Abogado%20usando%20IA.jpg?width=350&height=233&name=Abogado%20usando%20IA.jpg)](https://www.biglelegal.com/es) [**Discover our ebook: The future of the legal director in the age of AI**](https://www.biglelegal.com/lpeng/the-future-of-the-legal-director-in-the-age-of-ai) ## **What has AI already changed in the day-to-day work of the legal function?** **AI is already part of the daily work of most legal departments. The question now isn't whether it's used, but where: from standalone tools for one-off tasks to AI embedded in the legal team's workflows.** Drafting or reviewing a document with AI is already routine. According to KPMG's Global General Counsel Outlook, **70% of legal leaders have implemented AI in legal research and analysis.** That was the first stage. That first stage made each lawyer faster, but it didn't change how the function works. The bottleneck lies in what happens between one task and the next: pending approvals, scattered information, renewals nobody had on their radar. When each lawyer uses AI on their own, the team gains individual efficiency but still lacks the big picture. And that lack of visibility costs money. According to WorldCC**, companies lose an average of 8.6% of their contract value** through unenforced terms, unreviewed renewals or untracked obligations. On a €10 million portfolio, that's €860,000. The current stage addresses that problem: AI sits inside the processes, in Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), in approval workflows and in self-service for other departments. Repetitive work is handled by the system, and the team spends its time on what genuinely needs a lawyer. **That leap isn't made by the tool, but by whoever decides where it's integrated, what gets automated, and where legal judgment stays in place.** And that decision belongs to the general counsel. ## **How does AI reduce the legal department's response times?** **By offloading operational work. With an AI-powered Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platform, drafting standard contracts, approvals, and request tracking no longer depend on the legal team: they're handled by the system or through self-service by each business unit. Legal gets that time back and responds faster to what truly requires a lawyer.** Virtually every area of a company needs contracts to operate. When they all depend on Legal to review them, the function ends up being seen as a bottleneck, even though the problem isn't the team, but the model. **The goal is to move all operational work that doesn't require a lawyer out of the legal function.** Automated templates let any business unit generate its standard contracts without going through Legal. Workflows set who reviews and who approves, and requests that do need the legal team arrive through a complete, trackable form. **Legal is left with what demands its judgment: high-value contracts, exceptions and oversight of the system.** This is the direction the market is heading: according to Gartner, by 2029 nearly half of contract reviews will be handled by self-service systems that escalate only one in ten to human review. And that doesn't mean losing control, because risk is managed in the design of templates and workflows, not in each document. **For the general counsel, this is a fundamental change: their contribution is no longer measured by how many documents their team reviews, but by how well the system the whole company works with performs.** ## **What does an AI-powered Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platform offer the general counsel?** **An AI-powered CLM brings the entire contract lifecycle into a single system, from drafting to signature and renewal, and turns the company's contract portfolio into decision-making intelligence.** The real value of Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) lies in what contracts contain: parties, amounts, deadlines, clauses, and obligations that, taken together, describe who the company has commitments with, on what terms, and with what risks. For years, that information sat in an archive that was only consulted when a problem arose, and this isn't an isolated case: according to McKinsey, functions such as Procurement use less than 20% of the data available to them when making decisions. **Once structured, that information becomes business intelligence.** This is where AI comes in, as the layer that analyzes, prioritizes and extracts what matters. At Bigle, for example, **Libra's AI Skills take part in metadata detection: any imported contract is structured in seconds, with its key dates, parties and main clauses identified**. As a result, the legal function no longer finds out about a renewal after it has gone through, and can decide in advance, with room to renegotiate or cancel. **That visibility is what allows the general counsel to move from defending their function to demonstrating its value**, with figures the executive committee understands. [Read our article: AI for lawyers: what comes after the revolution?](https://blog.biglelegal.com/en/ai-for-lawyers-what-comes-after-the-revolution) [**![](https://blog.biglelegal.com/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-Oct-08-2026-01-00-36-2381-PM.jpeg?width=377&height=251&name=undefined-Oct-08-2026-01-00-36-2381-PM.jpeg)**](https://www.biglelegal.com/) ## **What skills do companies look for in a general counsel in the age of AI?** **AI requires four new skills from the general counsel: governing AI use within their team, mastering legal prompting, turning contract data into decisions, and measuring the return on technology. These are judgment skills, not technical ones: they don't need to code, but they do need to decide where AI is applied, under what rules, and what results are expected of it.** The gap isn't in access to technology, but in knowing how to use it. According to Deloitte Legal ("The AI Imperative: Reshaping of the Legal Industry"), virtually all legal departments use some form of AI, but **only 7% have invested in training their teams.** Without training or clear rules, AI is underused, and decisions about how it's used are left to each individual lawyer. Closing that gap takes judgment skills, not technical ones: - **Governing AI use.** Defining which tools are used, for which tasks, and who is accountable for each output, with indicators such as the percentage of documents resolved without team involvement or the error rate. - **Knowing how to write instructions.** Legal prompting is now a core team competency, and the general counsel needs to understand it in order to promote it. - **Turning data into decisions.** Knowing what to look for in the contract portfolio (upcoming expirations, recurring terms, risks concentrated in certain suppliers) and bringing it to leadership as a recommendation, not a report. - **Measuring the return.** No committee approves a bigger budget based on the feeling that the team is moving faster. The general counsel needs to express what technology delivers in business terms: hours recovered, lower outside counsel spend, contracts closed faster, and value no longer lost. **Adopting a tool isn't the same as getting a return on it, and proving that difference is now part of the job.** **Their role is no longer just leading lawyers, but leading how lawyers work with technology.** ## **What is expected of the general counsel in the age of AI?** **To turn the legal function into one that works with systems and data, not just documents: deciding what gets automated, where the team's judgment comes in, and how its contribution to the business is demonstrated.** In practice, this comes down to four decisions: - **Start with the team.** Identify where work gets stuck and which tasks consume time without adding legal judgment. - **Set a roadmap with measurable goals.** Which indicators should improve, by when, and what responsibilities will the team take on once operational work moves out of the function? - **Choose an end-to-end solution.** It should integrate with the company's systems and be easy to use for non-lawyers, because self-service only works if other departments adopt it. Local-language support and a provider that understands legal work also matter. - **Support your people.** Ongoing training needs to be part of the project from the start, not an afterthought. And it's not a decision that can wait. Gartner expects legal technology budgets to double by 2028, and that growth will go to legal functions able to present leadership with a clear plan, with measurable goals and results, not a list of tools. **AI doesn't change the essence of what's expected of a general counsel (judgment, protecting the business and the trust of leadership), but it does change how they deliver it: less time on operations and more on designing, deciding, and demonstrating.** ## **Frequently asked questions about AI for lawyers and the role of the general counsel** ### **What is AI for lawyers?** It's the set of artificial intelligence tools designed for legal work: drafting and reviewing contracts, extracting data, researching case law or managing the contract lifecycle. ### **Will AI replace the general counsel?** No. AI takes on operational tasks, but decisions, validation, and strategy remain the general counsel's responsibility. What changes is their role: they now decide how the legal function works with technology. ### **Why isn't using AI enough to improve the legal department?** Because when used in isolation, it speeds up specific tasks but doesn't fix the bottlenecks between tasks or provide the big picture. The leap comes when it's integrated into the function's processes, such as Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM). ### **What is legal self-service?** A model in which the legal function defines templates, rules, and approval workflows, and other departments generate their standard documentation without going through Legal. ### **What's the difference between an AI-powered CLM and a generative AI assistant?** An assistant helps with specific tasks when asked. 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