Norie Campbell, chief legal officer and company secretary at Thomson Reuters, discusses effective leadership, how AI is transforming legal processes, and how in-house teams can move beyond efficiency metrics to demonstrate business value
How should general counsel adapt when the operating environment is changing faster than the legal operating model?
Regulatory complexity is up. Business speed is up. The expectation that legal will be at the table (not after the decision, but during it) has been firmly established. And yet, headcount hasn’t kept pace with any of it. For years, the only answer to that gap was simply to work harder. In 2026, that is not a viable answer anymore.
What has changed is technology – and it just keeps getting better at taking work off our desks. Think: intake and triage; contract review; compliance monitoring; matter management. It is the work done that consumes time without requiring judgement, or the routine automatically handled so my team members can focus on the parts that do require judgement. That is the shift I want to talk about.
Most legal departments have started somewhere with artificial intelligence, whether it be pilots, tools, or early proof points. That is where we started too. It is a necessary step. But to move to the viable answer we must move with intention into true transformation. That intention is what launched our General Counsel’s Office (GCO) 2030 initiative to envision what a corporate legal function could look like by 2030, and map how to get there.
What does this look like in practice? How are you moving from AI experimentation to operational transformation?
At Thomson Reuters, our general counsel’s office operates as “customer zero” for our own AI products. That means we’re not experimenting in theory: we’re using these tools in real workflows, on real matters. It is the best way to understand what they unlock and, more importantly, what they don’t.
One example that really resonates – I call it “don’t pay for advice twice”. In any legal department, the same questions resurface. In our Customer Zero Lab, we are piloting a use case for advice for antitrust. Why? Antitrust issues cut across almost every lawyer’s portfolio, but the advice often lives in someone’s inbox or in the memory of whoever handled it last. We’ve been pulling all that guidance together using AI, making prior advice accessible to the whole team, the moment they need it. The result isn’t just efficiency gains; it is more confident lawyers, more consistent advice, better risk mitigation and better service to the business.
A second major work effort for Customer Zero Lab is an automated workflow for contract mark-up. We started with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) for the same reasons. There is a high volume and many of our lawyers work on NDAs, so the goal was to make it easy for the team. With our newly automated workflow, the first time the NDA appears to the lawyer for review it arrives already redlined against our internal policy. The lawyer sees it ready for their judgement, not their preparation. They’re not searching for precedents, changing formatting or revisiting standard positions. That groundwork is done. I think about that as giving back the hours that were never really “legal work” in the first place.
How can legal teams choose tools that help them embrace innovation without compromising governance and risk management?
Lawyers are trained risk managers who take pride in the trust that is put in their work. They will only use tools they, in turn, can trust. Before my team commits to any tool, I need to be confident of at least three things: is it secure; is it producing reliable outputs; and is my technology provider genuinely invested in our success over the long term — not just the sale?
The lawyer must be able to meet their professional duties through the tools they use. That is table stakes.
How can legal teams move beyond efficiency metrics to demonstrate business value?
One of the things I am most committed to right now is changing how legal departments talk about their own impact. For too long, the only metrics we have adopted are those that are designed to diminish the function: reduce spend, reduce headcount. Efficiency is important but it is only part of the story. Thomson Reuters Institute has created a terrific framework for the general counsel’s office across four dimensions of accountability: efficient, effective, protect and enable.
In our GCO, we have been attending masterclasses in metrics setting, designed to break the paradigm of diminishing metrics and set those that truly tell the story of the value delivery of the team. Take one example: more than half my team supports go-to-market activity, assisting our sales teams in effectively documenting our relationships with customers. We are expanding our metrics to capture how our work shapes our customers’ business with Thomson Reuters: how quickly, how easily, how confidently. That is a business impact story. So, we’re measuring customer experience, speed to market and risk profile. The metrics of a partner, not a department.
What advice would you give general counsel leading their teams through this transformation?
Get confident on the basics first. You’re not going to commit (nor should you!) without really understanding the fundamentals of what you’re deploying. Once you have that, walk the talk. Use the tools yourself, visibly. Champion the people on your team who are pushing furthest. And be prepared for experiments that don’t work. People must know they’re allowed to try.
The most rewarding challenge ahead is to inspire and guide your senior leadership team. I worry less about new lawyers that use AI intuitively and are ready to see the problem differently. It is experienced leaders, people who built real expertise using a very different set of tools, who face the steeper adjustment. Helping them navigate that transition and come out the other side confident and genuinely excited about the future might be the most important part of the CLO role right now.
The “more for less” mandate was never sustainable. But the answer will not be achieved through simple automation alone: it is a different operating model entirely, one where legal is present earlier, transforming with intention and measuring itself against outcomes that align with the business. For GCs and CLOs, there has never been a better time to achieve their mandate across the elements of efficient, effective, protect and enable and to provide metrics and measures that prove the full value of their team.
