The Top Legal Trends to Watch in 2025

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to The Legal Report from Robert Half, where industry leading experts discuss current hiring and practice management issues impacting the legal profession. Robert Half is a premier provider of talent solutions for the legal field. The Legal Report from Robert Half is here on the Legal Talk Network.

Jamie Sullivan:

Hello everyone, and welcome. I’m Jamy Sullivan, executive director of the Legal Practice Group for Robert Half and the host of our program. My guest today is Ranti Okunoren principal Corporate counsel at Microsoft RTI leads strategic legal support for global sales teams and retail energy and gaming, driving customer adoption of AI products and addressing legal challenges. She advises executives on complex legal matters, collaborates with cross-functional teams, and provides tailored guidance to enhance decision-making and drive impact for industry customers. Ranti, thank you for joining us today and in advance for sharing your expertise with our listeners.

Ranti Okunoren:

Thank you, Jamy. Thank you for having me.

Jamie Sullivan:

Great. In this episode, RTI and I will dive into some of the top legal trends of 2025. We’ll discuss how emerging technologies like AI and automation are reshaping legal practices, the challenges of getting those tools up and running, and why compliance officers are so key in keeping things on track. We’ll also touch on big topics like data privacy, cybersecurity, and the rise of alternative legal service providers. Plus we’ll explore how tech is shifting the roles of paralegals and lawyers. Now, Rani, there’s a lot to talk about today, but let’s start with the impact of technology and really the emergence of AI and automation and how it continues to reshape the legal industry as we know it. But as these AI tools become more widely adopted in legal practices, how can law firms and corporations ensure that they maintain the right balance between leveraging automation for efficiency and retaining necessary human oversight to mitigate risks like bias and errors?

Ranti Okunoren:

You’re right, Jamy, it’s all about striking a balance. Balance is key. So when you’re thinking about the use of AI with the firm or in-house, it’s all about balancing, leveraging the benefits, and also putting guard rails in place. And I can think of three ways that we can actually strike that balance. First is governance. Governance is very important when we’re talking about ai, not just when we’re using AI responsive, but also putting processes and policies in place so that AI can be developed, used and deployed responsibly, making sure that we have consistent human oversight. We talk about AI not being autopilot, but co-pilot, and so when we talk about governance, it’s really about putting the human in the center. The second thing that comes to mind is transparency and explainability. When people understand how a system works, they’re able to use it in a better way.

So not being overdependent will also be understanding the strengths and the limitations of AI systems. We all know that AI systems are great at what they do. They help us do better and be more efficient with our work. However, they do have their own limitations, and because they have their limitations, we cannot overly depend on them because if we do, then it gives room and rise to risks that come with ai. The last thing that comes to mind is continuous monitoring and training. For me, in my experience in my practice, I think train is one of the most overlooked skills or ways to mitigate risks in any organization. It’s a low hanging fruit that has huge impact when used properly. If we train employees understanding how a system works and how to mitigate the risks and the role they play in mitigating those risks, I think the risks of AI would be mitigated.

Jamie Sullivan:

Well, a very succinct outline and similar common themes that I’ve heard in other conversations and even with past guests on the program. So maybe just a little deeper here. With the growing concerns about ethics bias and regulation and AI technologies, responsible AI is becoming a hot topic. Absolutely. And I almost use it in quotes, right? In the air quotes, responsible ai. So in your view, what role should corporate council play in shaping responsible AI policies within an organization?

Ranti Okunoren:

AL’S council have a very important strategic role to play. I think one of the most important things they can do is keeping up with regulation, not just keeping with regulation, but helping members of the organization understand what that regulation means for them, how to implement the regulations in place. So for example, the EU Act is something that is a regulation that is coming out of the eu and it’s top of mind for a lot of legal teams. Helping legal teams and internal stakeholders understand what that really means in their practice, in their everyday and for their business, how it impacts their businesses. One thing that legal counsel can do for their stakeholders. The other thing is making sure that helping to drive a culture and practice of responsible ai, which is really about using AI in a responsible manner and making sure that the use aligns with the corporate values.

Some of those values that many businesses have would include privacy, security, fairness, accessibility, transparency, things like that. Making sure that the practices and processes align with the corporate values in-house counsel can also help the stakeholders understand risks by providing legal advice and security risks, liability exposures that AI systems can raise. I think about how recently with the E act especially one of the things that we’re able to do with our clients is helping them to see the role these regulations play and how they need to change, helping them to understand the changes they need to make within their processes to be able to comply with comment regulations.

Jamie Sullivan:

Well, that’s an ongoing learning, right?

Ranti Okunoren:

Absolutely.

Jamie Sullivan:

That’s not a one size fits all or a one time that you learn about it. So I love that you’re pointing all of that out and corporate values kind of an underlying theme that you come back to. So all of this is still striking that balance that we mentioned on the front end of our conversation between policy and ongoing responsibility as well as still being innovative, obviously won’t be able to move forward and be innovative. So love all of your points there. AI and legal tech are no doubt, powerful, very powerful tools, and they have immense potential, but they also don’t deliver their full value right away. We see it that they require thoughtful integration and adaptation. Which leads me to my next question. What are those biggest challenges both for law firms and legal departments that you think will face when integrating new legal tech tools in 2025, and what are some ways that they could overcome those hurdles?

Ranti Okunoren:

Definitely Jimmy, I think about integration has really changed management. So any of the challenges we face with change management is probably what we’ll see when we’re integrating tech tools, for example, legacy systems are a big thing. My prior employer was 120 year old company. We had many legacy systems

And supporting the IT directorate. One of the big things was anytime we had new technology, one of the questions we always had to ask was about getting another technology to help with the interoperability. And so legacy systems are always a challenge. Resistance to change is another big one. People are not always a very comfortable with change where creatures of habits, and as you can imagine, anytime there’s change, helping people understand why change is important and working through that with the teams is a process on its own. So resistance to change is another challenge we may face. And one of the ways to help people through change is training, helping people understand how to use the tools. I mean, for example, one of the things that my colleagues and I do, we share prompts that help us to do our work better is if someone finds a prompt that is helpful or gives them a response that they really like, they share with the team and that way everyone can learn together.

So that’s one way to help with the challenge of reluctance for a change. And the other thing is costs. We can’t ignore the fact that integrating legal technology could be high CapEx. And so the one way to think about it as we’re working through that is the fact that there’s a long-term investment whenever there’s technology. Investments in technology is usually the RI is long-term. So when talking through with stakeholders about how to think in the long term rather than short term to get the ROI from the investment is one of these. So just some of the ways that some of the challenges we see and how to resolve them.

Jamie Sullivan:

And you hit on something that’s actually very near and dear to my heart. We use that change management as part of our leading prophecy, if you will. Almost like when we’re bringing in those new tools or new ways, and we’ve had the same thing at our company. So training, understanding the tools, the why behind the tools, like why it’s going to help somebody. And to your point, sharing the prompts or best practices.

Ranti Okunoren:

Exactly

Jamie Sullivan:

Resounding result, right? Much more buy-in and change management. So I love your examples there. So if we talk maybe now about compliance, that’s another critical factor in the integration process and resulting in new responsibilities for compliance officers. How do these officers contribute to the successful integration of legal technologies, particularly in ensuring compliance with industry regulations and even data privacy laws during the adoption process?

Ranti Okunoren:

The role of the compliance officer is extremely critical. They basically help pull things together for the organization even before the technology is procured. They need to understand the technology, the requirements, the features and how they comply with industry standards so that by the time the technology is procured, they can put down in writing clear guidance policies and procedures. That’s easy for everyone to follow. So basically understanding the regulation and understanding the technology that is being procured once that technology is procured. The next important step is really training. Like I said, training is so critical. It’s important that it has a huge impact. So training, making sure there’s continuous training, driving that training process, making sure everyone understands how to use the technology, the strengths and its limitations so they can use it the correct way. Developing those policies and processes and continuous monitoring for the system.

So once you have the people trained, you want to make sure you develop processes to continuously monitor the AI systems you put in place, whether you can use internal auditing processes and have excellent auditors look through as well, but making sure that there’s continuous auditing and review so that you can catch any vulnerabilities ahead of time. And so keeping proper documentation, those processes in place, training, those are things that as any compliance officer you want to have down. In my role as a compliance officer, one of the things that helped me whenever we had third party audits was having proper documentation, proper documentation of our processes, proper documentation of our trainings and proper documentation are really how we keep our records secure. These are all things that not just beneficial for the business, but also beneficial in the event that you have third party auditors coming in.

Jamie Sullivan:

Well, not only an extremely critical role, but evolving, ever evolving, right? With all the things that you just talked about, staying on top of your toes. I saw something the other day that it’s like, did you document that? And so with the last point that you just mentioned that made me think of that. So very valid. Absolutely. Well, let’s turn to another concern for organizations today, and we’ve mentioned it a little bit here already, but data privacy and cybersecurity with the growing threat of breaches, compromising sensitive information, protecting against these risks has never been more important. So as we think about cybersecurity breaches becoming more prevalent, what role does the legal department play in strengthening an organization’s cybersecurity posture? And how should legal teams collaborate with say IT and compliance departments to mitigate risk?

Ranti Okunoren:

The legal teams have very important roles to play. First of all, like I said, in helping teams understand regulations, regulations that apply to the business, especially those ones addressing security privacy. They need to understand what that looks like in practice, working closely with IT departments and working closely with compliance teams to be able to interpret those regulations for the businesses so they can understand how that applies to their processes. Adopting compliance frameworks like the NIST Cybersecurity framework is another thing that it can do, which provides a comprehensive guidance to teams and how to keep the businesses secure. Also, collaborating with internal stakeholders on how they’re using data, how they’re securing data, how they’re transferring data, how they’re classifying data. All these things become very important, especially in this AI moment. AI uses a lot of data and just like AI systems help us to do better, AI systems also help the bad actors to be more efficient in their bad acts.

And so getting ahead and staying ahead of these bad actors is going to be very important. One of the other ways we can do is really just making sure that we’re working with our IT teams to ensure the infrastructure that the businesses have in place are up to date. Having incident response plans that helps everyone be on the same page with regard to the stance of the business. This is what we have, this is what we need to do, these are the systems we have, these are the processes we have in the event this happens, something happens. And then playing it out, have a playbook. Definitely run the playbook to make sure that there are no gaps in the plan, and if there are any gaps, you fill those gaps.

Jamie Sullivan:

Well, we definitely have seen a lot more cross collaboration and communication within organizations. So I think that’s such a critical component between legal compliance, it, whatever teams it might be to, as you said, go up against those bad actors. So that was a great analogy there. Well, rti, we’ve definitely gotten into a lot already. Wonderful insights that you have shared, and there’s still plenty more to explore. But before we dive back in, let’s take a quick break.

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Jamie Sullivan:

Welcome back to The Legal Report from Robert. Half my guest, RTI uca Norin and I have been discussing some of the top legal trends to watch in 2025 rti. I’d like to go back to what we were talking about just before the break and maybe have a follow-up question here as it relates to cybersecurity and data privacy and how closely linked they are with protecting sensitive information from breaches such as crucial as ensuring compliance and privacy regulations, and given the rise in those data privacy concerns and regulatory enforcement and how it’s evolving, how can legal teams proactively build and maintain comprehensive data governance frameworks to safeguard both consumer and corporate data while also minimizing the risk of costly penalties?

Ranti Okunoren:

Thank you for that question. Jamy. It’s so crucial that legal teams help their internal stakeholders stay on top of things. That’s where how can mitigate the risk of fines and legal exposure. I said earlier that AI uses a lot of data, and so understanding data, how data is classified, how data is accessed, how data is shared and used, all of that is going to be more important with ai, more important than ever before. So I stayed on top of regulations, understanding GDPR requirements, understanding CCP and other privacy requirements and helping internal stakeholders understand how it applies to them is one way. Data governance is not an option in this AI moment. It’s an imperative for the business. Making sure you have clear processes in place, how data is deployed, how data is used, how data is transmitted in the regular course of business. I also think about incidents, response systems, running those response systems and making sure that it’s kept up to date. Because one of the things that we found out where I worked previously, we usually have this response systems events done once a year and then we found that they were outdated because the laws changed. And so updating the policies, updating the response plans is all vital. So I think overall the role of the in-house counsel legal teams is extraordinarily important and crucial with ai.

Jamie Sullivan:

Excellent. Well, thank you for allowing me to go back and now I’m going to shift on you a little bit more to talk about another trend that we’re seeing in 2025 and really has been continuing to grow, but the rise of alternative legal service providers or SSPs vendors and contractors and these external providers have really reshaped the legal landscape offering in-house legal teams as well as law firms, access to specialized expertise, cost savings, and enhanced efficiency. My question to you, RTI is what kinds of legal tasks are best suited for outsourcing, and could you share any examples or experiences that you’ve had in working with these external partners?

Ranti Okunoren:

Absolutely. In my experience, I believe the outsourcing for specialized niche areas of law have found them to be very, very useful. For example, recently I was supporting a team that wanted to take care of some multi-jurisdictional recordings with them, some gambling commissions. Gambling is heavily regulated because it has to do with real money. And so when you’re dealing with real money gaming, anything that has to do with real money, it’s heavily regulated. So working with gaming clinicians, understanding and navigating the landscape for gambling, it was something I was not familiar with. So when I got this project, I had to leverage an expert vendor who was able to work with me to navigate different jurisdictions and the requirements and how those will apply to my clients to apply them to their businesses and their processes. And so definitely the specialized areas that are not common, especially areas that we are not familiar with or areas where it takes a lot of experience to grow knowledge and expertise in that field, those are the areas where I feel like a LSPs can help to save money and save time.

Jamie Sullivan:

That’s a great example. We’ve seen so many different ways on how you can explore partnering with an external partner, and that’s a really specific one. I love that example. And you can also think about, for our listeners, document review, legal research, litigation support are very common, but then evolving of course to contract management and integration, corporate governance, privacy and data protection as we’ve been talking about, as well as compliance monitoring. So it will continue to grow well into 2025 and beyond by what a LSPs are capable of doing. So thank you for your example as well. So with that being said, if we’re going to partner with these external providers like a LSPs that clearly we’ve said have offered us a variety of benefits, there’s still a piece that we have to remain mindful of when we’re partnering with these external individuals. So what risks or even potential drawbacks should organizations consider when relying on external providers and how can they effectively mitigate these risks when selecting partners?

Ranti Okunoren:

We’ve heard stories of lots of bridge incidents being traced back to third party vendors, and that’s not to say that they’re always the cause, but because there’s that risk, I can’t overestimate the importance of having a robust onboarding process where you ensure that the vendor is able to comply with the security systems privacy requirements and policies for the business. If they cannot meet the minimum requirements, then they cannot be doing business with you. And it’s extremely important to ensure that that whole onboarding of vendors is actually a very comprehensive process. And then when you’re able to get them onboarded, it’s important that you have regular audits and random audits and also attest stations to make sure they’re continuous compliance with your processes in the policies because things change, systems change management change for these vendors. And so you want to make sure that they’re consistently reporting back to you with regard to the management, the system changes, and to ensure that they’re still in compliance.

The other thing that is also important when you’re dealing with vendors is making sure that you include terms in their contracts that require their compliance with your security and privacy systems, as well as making sure that their clear terms with regard to service level agreements, ensuring that there’s no confusion about the expectations for the vendor. The last thing that comes to mind is really continuous monitoring and training where continuously monitor the vendors and audit them, ensuring that they’re keeping up with the policies as they’re changing. And so as pulses change with AI adoption and tech adoptions, making sure that your vendors are upgrading as well and keeping up with the policies and requirements like your security requirements as things change,

Jamie Sullivan:

Those are valuable points that you kind of connect it all together and how to help mitigate risk not only during the onboarding but throughout the ongoing process with the audit. So appreciate you diving into that a little bit deeper for our listeners as well. One last trend that I would like to explore today, and it really takes us back to the beginning of our discussion today about technology, but this time let’s focus on the effect it is having on traditional legal roles, notably paralegals and lawyers, Bronte, as AI and automation become more prevalent in the legal industry. I have a bit of a multifaceted question for you here. How do you think the role of paralegals will continue to evolve? And kind of second part to that is what unique skills do they offer that technology cannot replace? And then thirdly, how can law firms ensure that they remain essential to legal teams while embracing new technologies?

Ranti Okunoren:

It’s a very broad question, Jamy, but when I think about paralegals, I think about when I was interning with a law firm my second year of law school, and one of the things I learned was that paralegals are experts in process. They understand how to keep things moving. And I think that’s one thing that paralegals can help with the introduction of AI technology. They can definitely do high level tasks and things that can be done by technology can be led to technology, but they can then do high level tasks. But I also think that paralegals can work closely with IT teams to help with adoption, where you’re thinking of adoption and processes and expertise that many paralegals have. I think they’ll play a huge role with adoption where they’ll help legal teams understand how to incorporate legal technology into their processes. And so whilst they’re not doing mundane tasks anymore because of introduction of AI technology, they can actually do high level tasks, more strategic work, more client facing work in their roles.

Jamie Sullivan:

Excellent. And I put that down in my notes. They are process driven and they keep things moving. It’s a really great point. Everybody’s worried, is AI going to take my place? Is a technology going to take my place? So very well thought out. Now we’re going to do the same note for lawyers. How do you feel their role is evolving in the age of AI and automation, and do you see an opportunity for them to develop any new skills? I mean, clearly you don’t have a crystal ball into the future, but what are some of those maybe key competencies or skills that might be in demand in the future with lawyers?

Ranti Okunoren:

I think as lawyers similar to paralegals with AI technology, we can do more high level tasks. There’s more strategic work than we can do. So we’re doing less of mundane, regular, mainstream work and we’re doing more strategic work where we’re able to step back and look at the big pictures and think more strategically in support of our clients. The other thing I think is also an ethical requirement for us as lawyers is really understanding the technology and how to use the technology. I attended a CLE just last week, and I listened to a really fantastic panel about legal ethics and ai, and it is our little duty, our ethical duty to understand the use of these technologies and how to use them, especially in supporting our clients. And so for lawyers, I think learning, being serial learners and understanding, putting in effort to understand the technology and how to use it and to improve efficiency is going to be something that all of us would have to do and get better and better at it. So I think you don’t have to start with big steps, just baby steps, understanding first of all, what are the tools available and how do you use them, and then how can you incorporate them into your daily work, how easy to save time for your clients. And so I think for us as lawyers, there’s so many ways we can incorporate that and comply with our ethical responsibilities while at the same time be more efficient to benefit our businesses and our clients.

Jamie Sullivan:

Well, I think what you’re talking about translates into my last question. Where, what advice would you give to young lawyers and paralegals who are just starting out in their careers, particularly in terms of making strategic early career moves that can really set them up for long-term success in the legal field? What are your thoughts?

Ranti Okunoren:

I think keeping an open mind is going to be key. I remember when I was finishing at SMU, I thought I was going to be a litigator. I was sure I was going to be a litigator. Then I got out of, my first job was transactional and I loved it. And so I think keeping an open mind, building skills, being a serial learner is going to be the top three things you want to think about as you are getting out into the workplace. The other thing I like to tell people is building relationships is invaluable, not just at the beginning of your career, but all throughout your career. Networking, helping people and keeping in touch with your people in your network is going to pay dividends in the long run. And the last thing I always tell people is just be kind. Be good to people because people will remember.

I remember I went for a CLE last week, the same CLEI just referenced, and someone came up to me after I was in the panel, she came up to me after the panel, she said, do you remember me? And she had been an intern with our legal office and with my parent employer, and she just was talking about how she just appreciated the support I gave her at the time to just be kind to people because people will remember. And this was, I think it was eight years ago that I last saw her. And so it’s a small community. It’s a small legal community. So definitely k, your skills built up, keep your network and be kind.

Jamie Sullivan:

I love that it all can come full circle. It is a small community, as you said, and I appreciate you sharing that really special moment in that individual’s journey as well as yours.

Ranti Okunoren:

Right. Thank you.

Jamie Sullivan:

Well, and on that note, we’ve come to the end of our program. My guest today has been Ranti Okunoren, principal Corporate Counsel at Microsoft rti. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really value your insight and everything that we chatted about. But before we close, how can our audience contact you directly?

Ranti Okunoren:

I’m on LinkedIn. I can be reached R-A-N-T-I, my first name, last name, O-K-U-N-O-R-E-N. I can find me on LinkedIn and I’ll be happy to connect.

Jamie Sullivan:

Excellent. Well, thank you once again.

Ranti Okunoren:

Thank you, Jamy.

Jamie Sullivan:

Yes, absolutely. And you know what? I know our listeners will fully enjoy listening back and you might see them connecting with you as well. For our listeners, you can reach me at Jamy JAMY dot Sullivan at Robert Half dot com. And special thanks to you, the listener. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to rate us on your favorite podcast platform and follow Robert Half and the Legal Talk Network on X and Facebook. Also, be sure to visit Robert Half dot com for more insights and resources. Join us again for the next edition of The Legal Report from Robert Half right here on the Legal Talk Network as we dive into key trends shaping the legal field and legal careers. Until next time, be well.

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