In our live conversation last week, Leadership Strategist and former Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, Alexia Maas, explored how legal leaders can steer meaningful transformation in an era of relentless change, AI disruption, and mounting regulatory complexity. The discussion ranged from strategy and simplification to AI, client value, rankings, and the next generation of legal leaders, with additional commentary from guest contributor Ron.

The leadership challenge: complexity, pace and AI

Maas described how, over the past decade, the role of the general counsel and chief legal officer has expanded to engulf large parts of the C-suite agenda. Scope keeps growing, while resources rarely keep up. Even with a flourishing legal tech market, many teams still feel under-resourced and overwhelmed.

On top of this, the regulatory environment continues to “grow arms and legs”, and AI now adds yet another layer of complexity. For Maas, legal leaders are uniquely placed to help their organisations navigate this – but only if they first simplify, rather than attempt to “do more with less”. The goal is to achieve more by deliberately doing less.

Strategy before speed

A recurring theme was the danger of confusing activity with progress. Too many transformations start as project plans: a list of initiatives, a roadmap, lots of execution – but without answering the fundamental questions of why change is needed and where it should lead.

Maas urged leaders to:

• Treat transformation as a strategic direction, not a checklist.
• Slow down at the outset to clarify the problem, define the longer-term vision, and agree where the organisation will and will not play.
• Recognise that strategy is about trade-offs and choices, not an ever-expanding action plan.

People, she argued, do not necessarily resist change itself; they resist chaos, ambiguity and poorly executed change. When leaders skip the strategic work and rush into implementation, they create noise, not momentum.

Simplicity as a leadership superpower

For Maas, the heart of modern legal leadership is simplification. In a world of constant transformation – personal, team, functional and organisational – there is never just one “big change” to manage. Leaders, therefore need to:

• Remove work rather than endlessly add to the to-do list.
• Focus energy on the handful of initiatives that truly move the needle.
• Be explicit about what the team will not do.

This often means challenging long-standing habits: legacy projects, internal processes that add little value, and “vanity” work such as rankings. Gannon and Maas discussed firms spending millions on directory placements and marketing content, even though many in-house lawyers no longer see rankings as decisive. Maas argued that those resources are better directed towards genuine relationships with general counsel and becoming an extension of the in-house team.

Simplification is not about lowering ambition, she stressed, but about channelling effort into what really matters – for clients, for the business and for the wellbeing of the team.

Redesigning work in the age of AI

The conversation turned repeatedly to AI and its implications for legal work and billing models. Maas cautioned against seeing technology as the driver of transformation. Instead, leaders must redesign decision-making, governance and workflows around these tools, recognising that human judgement remains central.

Key points included:

• AI can dramatically increase speed, but there is value in speed – clients will pay for faster, better outcomes when they trust the underlying judgement.
• The shift from billable hours to value-based thinking is inevitable as AI shortens tasks. Firms should focus on the value lawyers bring – experience, wisdom, and the ability to navigate nuance – rather than the minutes recorded.
• Technology is not yet as capable as some marketing suggests. Human expertise is essential to frame questions, stress-test outputs, and ensure quality.

Maas and attendee Ron Given also reflected on how AI could inadvertently hollow out future leaders if it replaces the “hard learning” that comes from drafting, negotiation and lived experience. The tools may generate technically impressive clauses, but they cannot yet teach judgement.

Growing the next generation of legal leaders

Maas emphasised that leadership is partly innate courage, but largely shaped through continuous learning. Today’s senior lawyers must consciously cultivate the next generation, rather than outsourcing development to training courses or AI tools.

Her suggestions included:

• Create psychological safety so junior lawyers feel able to ask questions, admit uncertainty and learn in the open.
• Model curiosity and a “continuing student” mindset at all levels – partners included.
• Invest time in mentoring and reverse mentoring, recognising that each generation brings different strengths.
• Share real-world stories of when contracts, clauses or strategies failed, and what was learnt as a result (for example, Maas’s experience of force majeure provisions during the Icelandic volcanic ash crisis).

For Maas, “doing as I do” is not enough; leaders also need to explain why they act as they do, so younger lawyers can develop their own judgement rather than simply following templates.

What this means for legal leaders

The conversation closed with a call for legal leaders to see themselves as stewards of transformation, not just participants in it:

• Accept that change is continuous; there is no “end state”.
• Anchor every transformation in a clear strategy and a compelling “why”.
• Simplify ruthlessly to create capacity – for the business, for clients, and for leaders’ own lives.
• Use AI to amplify wisdom, not replace it.
• Build teams where learning, curiosity, and shared leadership are signs of strength, not weakness.

Ultimately, Maas argued, successful transformation is not only measured by whether a project is delivered. It is measured by whether people feel better, more focused and more capable on the other side – and whether they choose to stay and grow with the organisation.