Today’s CLO sits at a crossroads: an intersection between the known routines of the past and the company’s expectations for legal services and solutions as they will be defined in the future. That intersection is busy, loud, and fast paced, and it’s populated with mission-critical challenges and opportunities: but it doesn’t offer much guidance on which direction to go or how to define your strategy and priorities. Ours is a profession that is used to looking back for instruction about where to go next, but the past provides little direction for us to address the fundamental disruptions we are experiencing today. The choices we face are unclear, and subject to novel and conflicting pressures and tensions.

No time has ever presented so many challenges to legal leaders all at once: whether to build or cut, whether to change course or consolidate, whether to embrace new models or abide in what’s proven trustworthy. Adding to the confusion are new challenges in both client service expectations, as well as changing global business trends, and emerging innovations that present both opportunities and risks that we have no experience or training to address. And, of course, the undercurrent of daily BAU work continues apace and even accelerates.