However, the shift—attributed mainly to pressure on general counsel to reduce their costs—is not uniformly spread across all areas of legal spend, according to a Thomson Reuters report, ‘2025 State of the UK legal market’. Increased spend is expected on regulatory advice by 31% of corporates, on employment law advice by 10%, and on banking and finance by 12%.
Conversely, 5% of UK corporates expect to reduce their external spend on litigation and disputes.
Both general counsel (64%) and law firms (58%) expect more value-based billing in the next five years and less hourly billing. Four out of ten in-house lawyers also expressed excitement about generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).
John Shatwell, head of legal professionals Europe at Thomson Reuters, said: ‘Lawyers and clients alike are keenly aware that new GenAI tools will shift costs and increase productivity.’
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