The AI Dividend Tension: 36% of GCs Expect to Increase Outside Counsel Spend

Thomson Reuters' 2026 State of the Corporate Law Department Report and CLOC's 2026 State of the Industry Report present a two-sided picture of client demand. Thomson Reuters found 36% of GCs expect to increase overall outside counsel spend over the next year, with only 20% expecting to decrease it — driven by rising legal complexity, regulatory volume, and cross-border exposure. CLOC's report shows the same demand from the legal ops angle: only 37% of departments expected outside counsel spend to increase (down from 58% the prior year), with only 32% expecting attorney headcount to increase. The gap between rising demand and flat budgets is the core in-house pressure. For BD teams, the implication is that the clients most likely to increase spend are those facing genuine complexity growth — not those managing routine volume. Practice areas covering regulatory, geopolitical, and AI-adjacent matters have a materially different client demand signal than commodity legal work.