Council legal workloads rising while job satisfaction remains high: Legal Department of the Future survey

Nine in 10 heads of legal predict that their legal department’s workload is set to increase in the foreseeable future, with more than half believing the amount of work will increase "significantly", research from Local Government Lawyer has revealed.

Details: 01.Aug.2025

The findings come in the latest Legal Department of the Future survey, which gathered responses from 83 heads of legal and more than 350 local government legal professionals covering recruitment, rising work load, technology usage, and home working.

According to the survey, 92% of heads of legal expect their legal workload to increase over the next 12 months, with 56% anticipating a “significant” rise.

Notably, not a single respondent predicted a decrease in demand.

The survey of local government legal professionals, which covered staff of all levels from trainees to principal lawyers, meanwhile showed that job satisfaction is high, with 84% recommending local government law as a career.

The research also found that 82% would recommend their own department to work, and average job satisfaction averaged out at 70%.

Legal professionals also rated job security highly at 7.4 out of 10, up from 6.7 in 2019, when the last Legal Department of the Future survey was carried out.

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Elsewhere, just over half (58%) of heads of legal said it is "quite difficult" to retain good lawyers.

On recruitment, 44% of heads of legal also predicted a moderate increase in hiring legal officers, paralegals and assistants. Senior roles, including qualified lawyers, are set to experience a moderate increase in hiring numbers, the responses suggested.

In response, departments are sending more work to private practice and increasing permanent recruitment, with 58% of respondents implementing those two strategies.

However, around a third of departments (30%) report that their budget for external legal work is set to decrease, while 18% said it would increase. The remainder meanwhile predicted their budget would stay the same.

On technology, just 5% of the legal departments are using software that employs Artificial Intelligence (AI), while 18% plan to implement it "soon" and 61% expect to implement it "at some point in the future".

The vast majority of heads of legal (94%) believe that legal technology could improve productivity, however, budgetary problems were cited as the main barrier for adopting technological solutions.

Broken down by technology, the survey found that most (90%) council legal departments are using some kind of legal research tool and the majority (59%) are using document management software.

Just over a third (37%) are using document automation tools and 30% reported using workflow mapping software.

The full results can be read here.

Adam Carey