Who Moved My Legal Team? How In-House Functions Are Being Reshaped from the Inside Out

​In-house legal teams are in the middle of a significant repositioning. What was once a reactive, compliance-driven function is increasingly expected to operate as a strategic partner to the business, making decisions about AI adoption, data infrastructure, cost allocation, and cross-functional governance. But the gap between ambition and execution is real. This roundtable brings together senior in-house leaders to have an honest conversation about what that shift actually looks like on the ground: what's working, what's not, and what it takes to move from firefighting to forward-thinking.

The conversation will move through three natural beats:

​- The AI reality check: what changes once legal teams start adopting AI tools internally, and how that reshapes the balance between in-house capability and external counsel
- The data governance challenge: how teams are managing the growing complexity of DSARs, cyber risk, and regulatory compliance alongside day-to-day legal operations
- The change management gap: why technology alone doesn't get you there, and what it takes to embed new ways of working across people, process, and culture

Key Takeaways:

• ​A clearer picture of how peer organisations are navigating the shift from compliance function to strategic business partner

• ​Practical insight into how AI adoption is redistributing work between in-house teams and external firms, and the cost implications of that shift

• ​An honest look at the data governance landscape: DSARs, cyber, GDPR, and where the operational bottlenecks really sit

• ​Why change management is the piece most legal teams underinvest in, and what good looks like when embedding new technology and processes"

​This session is part of LegalTechTalk 2026, Europe’s Event for Legal Transformation. A dynamic, annual in-person festival bringing together 5,500+ attendees from 75+ countries and over 400 industry-leading speakers across two days, on 17-18 June 2026 at InterContinental London - The O2.