2024 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey Key Findings

2024 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey Key Findings

Based on a survey of 669 chief legal officers and general counsel, representing 20 industries and over 30 countries, these are some of the key takeaways from this years' survey.

CLOs continue to face intense pressure to do more with less

Forty-two percent of CLOs say their legal department received a cost-cutting mandate from their organization over the past year. At the same time, 58 percent of legal departments have been impacted by law firm rate hikes, with 23 percent of CLOs saying the increases have been difficult to manage. Accordingly, the results show a decrease in the percentage of departments saying they will add staff in 2024.

Regulations and enforcement keep CLOs up at night

The top three issue areas impacting organizations that keep CLOs up at night are regulations and enforcement (53 percent), privacy and data security (41 percent), and cybersecurity threats (37 percent). Outside of the US, talent retention is the top issue (42 percent).

Data breaches are the biggest data-related threat CLOs want to mitigate in 2024

Thirty-four percent of CLOs say that data breaches are the biggest data-related threat that they are focused on mitigating in 2024 and 40 percent say they plan on instituting new processes to help defend against these threats, yet just nine percent are “very confident” in their organization’s ability to mitigate emerging data risks. 

CLOs rank operational efficiency as their top strategic initiative 

Forty percent of CLOs rank operational efficiency as their law department’s top strategic initiative for the coming year, followed by the “right-sourcing” of legal services (15 percent), and talent management/retention (10 percent).

The majority of CLOs experienced an increase in workload over the past year

Fifty-nine percent of CLOs say their workload has increased over the past year and just three percent say their workload has decreased. Fifty-nine percent say they are happy with their work-life balance, but among those who experienced a significant increase in workload, only 20 percent say they are happy with their work-life balance.

The majority of CLOs oversee at least three additional business functions beyond legal

Fifty-eight percent of CLOs oversee three or more additional business functions beyond legal and 27 percent oversee five or more. These most commonly include areas such as privacy (44 percent), ethics (43 percent), and risk (38 percent).

Most CLOs believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will have a positive impact on the profession

Sixty-seven percent of CLOs believe that AI will have a “mostly positive” or “somewhat positive” impact on the in-house legal profession, with 35 percent saying that the applications with the most potential will be in document analysis and drafting documents (28 percent).